Our AirBNB in Georgetown was very cute and comfy
We went to check Lauras eyes, always says a lot about a place how hospitals work!
Here pretty efficient and sympathetic, although a private hospital.
Indian food in South America
Cigarettes from Cuba, rum cake from Jamaica and rum from Guyana
Stabroek, the minibus station in Georgetown
City Hall of Georgetown, a very impressive building
Indian temple
The central city mall seems from the sixties
On the way to Mahdia
Lau fell on the red steep dirt road and we had to clean the wound for days,
before it started bettering, the ass still hurts her a week later…
From Madhia we headed by boat to Tukeit, upriver around two water falls
Overnight in Tukeit, mosquito net is supposed to keep us safe principally from the bloodsucking bat
Thanks to Toni, the miner, we could stay at his place and didn’t had to go back home the same day we arrived at the Kaieteur Park, because of someone who spontaneously cancelled our reservation in the only guesthouse without telling us… Tony thinks it is wasting time not producing children, as much as you can with as many wives as possible. The more, the better. Well who am I to judge, it only shows once again that it’s all a question of the view point. While I obviously already wasted a lot of time he is up to his fourth wife and his 13 child. And as he started with 14, he will have next year his 40 year anniversary in producing children. Congratulations are in order 😉
Lauras first outhouse (no sin mucho cantaletas ;)…)
From Kaieteur we got lucky to get two seat on a plane back to Georgetown with a stop over at Orinduik falls.
It was a bumpy landing on the unpaved ‚dirt strip‘
On the flight to Orinduik the Amazon stops at one point abruptly and the steppe begins
Some passenger in the plane and here ‚devil claw‘ – category ‚absurdum‘
Bartica from above
G-Town from above
Back in civilization – we enjoyed the hotel room with all the amenities a lot!
Wow, where to start? Ok, so Guyana is that little country east of Venezuela and is considered to still be part of the Caribbean. There were actually five Guyanas: Spanish Guyana – now part of Venezuela, British Guyana – now just called Guayana, Dutch Guyana – now Suriname, French Guyana – still going by that name and Portuguese Guayana – now part of Brazil. So far we only stayed in the Capital Georgetown in Guyana for almost a week now. We needed that time to acclimatizes. It’s a very humid climate, not that hot really with around 30 degrees year round. I guess we are pretty lucky to be here in the driest time of the year! It’s nonstop sweating. No matter how many showers you take, it’s a question of minutes to be all sticky again – and this with only sitting in the house. It’s one of the more diverse places I’ve been in my life. One of my first thoughts was that if you don’t have the money or the time to go to India, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean: Come here! That it really is not one of the island in the Caribbean I will possibly only believe, when we drove far enough into the interior of the country, one of the most biodiverse parts of the Amazon (they say).
There are 35-40% Indio Guyanas originally from India, definätly from India (how the Afro Guyanese pronounce definitely here). Then a third Afro Guayanas, lots with dread locks and this heavy Jamaican energy, I could swear they are Jamaicans. The blacks in general here are very relaxed, more like I now them from Benin – these two type of blacks definätly don’t share the same blood line! Then there are the Indo Guyanas, (or the Amerindians, los indiginas) the ones who Colombus by accident called Indios. You have loads of Chinese, Cubans, Venezolanos and some Jamaicans and a little from all over the Caribbean as well as Brazilians. Then you have all kind of religions: All kind of Christians, Muslims, Hindis and Animalism. With that mix obviously comes a diverse food culture. The pepperpot which historically has to be cooking 24-7 and you just add more meat all the time, like a stew. You have all type of curry roti, all kind of indian food really, patties from the English, Chinese food, and I guess a lot more, which we hadn’t really time to experience. A lot of the time we cook ourselves to save some money.
Yesterday we went out to a Fish Shop. A food truck which sells fish and a bar on the other side of the road with a DJ who plays ‘english Reggeaton’. That what you do here on a Friday night, when you’re black. No ‘Indians’ here. Neither of the two kinds of Indians. You stand around and drink, some people do their rounds in cars and bikes to represent. Show off and enjoy the attention. It’s wild, their bikes are hellishly noisy and they do have some of the really fast ones! It’s criminal! And no one cares, cause it’s just normal! Them missing some teeth, men and women, and they just don’t care – which for me is always a sign of a high level of poorness. Out of this perspective it’s definätly very unregulated: It’s Caribbean!
Today we went for the Stabroek Market, their bus terminal. I asked for the bus to Mahdia – ‘you see the big tree there, turn to the left.’ We did that and asked there, which started a chain reaction that people wanted to give me their phone number. After three people gave me there number the other 20 people there also wanted to be part of it and everything got very emotional, not to say out of hand – all started shouting at me to write down their number and the drunkest one started following me and shouting at me that his boss also has a car and that it’s definätly the best choice. Laura got pretty uncomfortable, because I guess she never encountered that kind of behavior and her alarm bells went off. It reminded me a lot of places like Indonesia where they physically try to get you into their bus, so I did not interpret it as a threat, but it was definätly unpleasant!
Rhondell explained to me that here you don’t say Yeahman, here you say Yeahbuddy! And if someone leaves you don’t say ‘walk good’ like in Jamaica, you say ‘walk in the corner’ (like for stay safe!). We will try to do so! It’s not a place I’d walked the corners in the night even tough it doesn’t seem very dangerous. But no reason to find out!
In two days we will start the adventure, venturing into the interior and try to make it to Kaieteur falls on our own. Officially there is only a trip by plane where after two hours they horde you back to the plane back to Georgetown or a four day organized tour with lots of walking and a very silly price of around 700 USD per person. After searching the internet for a day I found a solution from a guy which explains step by step how to do it. So it’s not as adventurous as we did in the old days, but I guess enough for Laura to process. And also with age you get more cautious, so also for me enough adventurous. I mean it’s a loooong time ago, when I last bought some water purifying tablets! I’m very exited. There is still hardly any information in the internet about Guyana and this in 2019. This is definätly still a very untouristy place. Although this waterfall, as everyone says, is absolutely super spectacular from what I was reading.
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update arriving in Madhia
This morning the alarm woke us up at 5.45. At 6.30 we took a taxi and our very reduced luggage and headed to the Starbroek market. There we were looking for the minibus 72 to Mahdia. Arrived, there were about ten minibuses 72 to Mahdia. The drivers and their bus boys tried to rip us into pieces, so fierce they were fighting for passengers. While everyone was physically trying to tear me into their minibus, Laura out of shock walked the other way, into safety. I chose the guy who was the least pushy and we then waited three hours for the bus to leave. This way we had at least the chance to watch while every other traveller faced the same fate. And things seemed a lot less scary after a few times – at the end Laura was actually laughing at the show.
The bus was supposed to leave at eight but finally left at something after ten. The bus ride was supposed to take 5 to 6 hours but it was in the end more like 8. In comparison of what I read the road was only relatively wild. And the driver only drove relatively crazy (Laura in the passenger seat had another impression: That the guy was a madman and had this crazy eyes like the sea lion that bit me, with the difference of having a steering wheel to his disposal) We shared the minibus with two Venezolanas who seemed to be coming here as (practicing?) prostitutes. The other guy was Guyanese and transported 45 gallons of Diesel, which he supposedly can sell here with a profit of 3000 Guyanese dollars for each gallon (4 usd / liter). From Madhia they fly it over the mountain to Brazil.
We arrived at around six and the guys I called for the following boat trip the next day were already waiting for us (there are two waterfalls in the way, so the aluminium boat has to be carried manually each time. It’s expensive. They wanted 400 USD, but we are going to pay 200 USD – still not cheap! Well and they hope they will bring us back for another 200 USD. We hope to find a plane up there at Kaieteur Falls which brings us down to the border of Brazil from where we plan to head back up and stay at some ecolodge. But that is still far away. First we will take this boat ride to Tukeit. Stay there the night and then walk up all the way to Kaieteur falls national park and stay there a few days. We mainly handled the situation with the two brothers David and George, Johnny was drunk out of his mind.
We went eating here in Madhia in a Brazilian place, fried fish but still had all the bones! All that fish stuff always confuses me. It was very good, with french fries, rice and pasta as sides. We talked to the people there: Many Venezulanos with very heavy stories: A guy lost his eight month old kid and his mother due to hunger (we will never know if we can believe the story, or if he just wanted to get some money). He himself was down to 35 Kilograms and now got back to 40 kg with a height of about 1.65 meters. He works as technician 14 hours a day, 30 day a month and gains 300 USD. He also seemed gay, which actually is illegal here (like in Jamaica) and you can get a lifetime sentence (update: seems to be the law, but not practiced. Like the death sentence…) The other girl had to leave her eight year old daughter behind to find a solution to make some money. Many come here and use whatever they have to offer, often their bodies…. And then there are the miners here: Two people so far thought I’m Brazilian and that means being miner here. And then there are we – the tourists. Our plan? We want to see the waterfall! What a weird fucked up world really. I’m sorry for this heavy fates people have here. But I’m too old to feel bad about it, I just listen and accept the truth in which we are living.
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update arriving in Tukeit
Johnny the soldier and his son David were there even an hour early to greet us, when we went for breakfast. First I didn’t want any of the cooked food who looked at least from yesterday, but then I tried it anyways and the chicken curry was actually ‘finger licking’ good, like they used to say in the Bahamas all the time. When we came back we left right away with the taxi (paying 8T instead of 12T which David proposed: 3T per person). His brother George didn’t tag along in the end, David said he doesn’t feel good, although I just watched him heavily working the axe. I guess it’s because we ‘only’ paid the 40T.
Arrived at Pamela Landing (yes many villages have funny names, another one is Happyness), they went to search for the little light weight aluminium boat in the jungle where supposedly his brother hid it – with no luck. I don’t really believe them, that it is even their boat. Finally we took the bigger one. Which turned out to be a bigger problem when we had to carry it around the Amatuk waterfall. They hired a black skinny guy and I tried to help too. Heavy fucking shit. My head, with which I tried to carry it partly of the way has now a bump and also my shoulder hurts badly. My neck is in no better condition. But we managed it, well actually they didn’t need me so much – the black skinny dude was strong as an ox and did part of the way all by himself, carrying the front of the boat. It was uphill and then through the jungle over a distance of maybe 200 to 300 meters. Black people are physically definätly the supreme race!
The next waterfall, the Waratuk falls was less of a problem, we walked and they pulled the boat against the stream upwards. We arrived at something after two where the park ranger Lincoln already awaited us with bad news: Some women – the vice president of them National Parks – cancelled our reservation and gave our beds to some friends. Welcome to Guyana is all that comes to mind… They said we could head up, see the falls and have to turn back down the same day. I said no way and after some talking the woman said we can use the tent if we need to. Ok the tent, whatever that means! At least a way to stay some longer…
We dragged the bed from the Tukeit guest house out in the open area, were there is only a roof with no walls and where the heat is bearable. We should use the mosquito net, to not get bitten by the bats and night (which seemed to happen to the last tourist who slept out here. It’s one specific species who actually are real vampires, they bite you, enter some liquid to make the blood run and then enjoy the meal. You wake up the next day all bloody – well I guess in the case you have a good night sleep. Update: Tony said they also bite through the mosquito net, as happened to his son) – and better don’t go wandering about at night – no peeing for 12 hours (oh my god no peeing!?), before we then walk up the ‘oh my god mountain’. Well, we have a rabies vaccination, but still – it surely is an unpleasant thing to experience.
We washed our clothes, we cooked a meal and went to bed at seven – no electricity due to damaged solar panels. It was one of the no pillow night, or more accurately self made once – the ‘comfy style’… It got pretty cold at around two – when it started to rain heavily. Laura let me share here inners of her pillow – her travel jacket. Woke up in the morning at six – it is still raining heavy and the clothes we washed are all still wet (silly me – I washed both my pants – it’s gonna be an uncomfortable morning for sure – also walking up there carrying the extra weight of the wet clothes) and I’m also still freezing my ass of – well more the feet really. Lincoln, our park ranger and guide said we gonna leave at once as soon as the rain stops falling. Day three on our journey to the Kaieteur Falls. Today we should make it and have a possibly very wet tent and more wet clothes to looked forward to. I wanted Laura to have some adventure and yes I succeeded! Already looking forward to a real bed again and already am making plans to make the tent more comfortable – planning on collecting a lot of leaves and stuff – thinking of Mark – and his outdoor skills – could use em right now – try to put myself into his mind and will try to improvise! Also: We will probably stay in the region, take another boat another 1.5 hour upstream from Kaieteur Falls (another 175 US, and each night the guy has to wait another 50 US) to some Amerindian village where we’ll maybe stay a few days (hopefully they have beds!) and then wait till a plane has two seats available and takes us back to Georgetown (still not ready to call it G-Town – just not feeling that gangsta), back to Civilization (of sorts….). Can not overdo it with Lau for the moment, still loads more Amazonian travels to come. From Belén we will head to Manaus, then a week in Tefé and another then days around Leticia. And really even the frogs and wasps here creeping here out – for now – ‘muahahahaaa!’ She is truly a city girl – a real Rola! They have the saying too much fresh air makes them sick – oh and they are serious about it in Bogotá!
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The walk up was less dramatic than expected. I just sweated about a liter of water on the walk up, mainly because carrying five day worth of food. Lincoln said that we will forget everything about it once we see the Kaieteur – and yes, it’s true! A unique beauty! I guess you can say it was worth the long journey.
Then they told us that we can stay with Toni, who lives only 20 minutes away walking in Menzies Landing. An ex mining village, now more like a ghost town. Only two residents at the moment. Apart from Toni, there is an old Indian lady leaving two houses up, Granny who is the only one who sells beer (and some other stuff) in that whole area. Very basic, first time outhouse experience for Lau. And not so much biting bats anymore, more like deadly vipers now that mainly come out at night (especially poisonous the short ones of only a few centimeters, if we can believe Toni, cause Toni talks a lot)! Just watch where you step said Tony… And some fly-like wasps who have a stinger and also live in a nest outside the house (actually almost any animal seems to give you at least a big swelling, headache, fever and a few days of vomiting). Toni smashed the nest to show me what they look like and they were coming flying out – very angry about it, one almost got me. I now know where hunger games got their inspiration! We then went for a swim in the lake, very muddy water – we just made a short round and went out again. We asked then if it is really safe and Toni told us that there are Caymans inside, but which don’t attack humans. Ha! After the sea lion bite, i’m not so trustworthy anymore when people say this things never happen. Seems there is another river close by, where there is another species of Cayman with regular incident with humans! They say it’s a bigger breed. Well I guess we are only gonna wash ourselves outside the river for now. This side of the Amazonas is so far by far wilder than in Ecuador, especially the nights seem to belong here still to the animals.
The bed is a wooden plate with some five centimeters of foam on top and a very ugly blanket, we got another one to put on top and two pillows which don’t smell like you want them to (I put a shirts over each one to have a bit more of a pleasant night. The heat is hardly bearable here in the wooden houses without no fan. At least we got a mosquito net and feel a bit sheltered. We planned to stay here four more nights, but after the first night we will spend one more day here tomorrow to see the fall for a whole day and then possibly cut the stay down to two nights – if there is a flight back on Saturday. Laura was very brave and I think there is no more need to go further into the wilderness for now. We got the idea! And we both are quiet sissys really. So yeah – good on us and please god give us back a bit more civilization – not that Georgetown is the most civilized place in the world, but it for sure will feel like it!
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We are sitting here in the visitor arrival center. It’s Sunday and finally we got two seats on a plane out of this table mountain. The last four nights were very long – and without a lot of sleep. First hours of the night very hot, then after two or three o clock freezing cold. And going outside to pee at night with the danger of stepping on one of them vipers; each time we waited till our bladder was close to bursting… We are in a good mood, with the hope to really leave today. Not leaving yesterday wasn’t so bad after all. We went further up from the falls, where we did some nude bathing and clean us properly and encountered another beautiful spot of this park. The water was clean, so no cayman water, just some little fishes that bite you pretty good in the ass.
Another plane then the one we were planning on taking arrived with three free seats and the possibility to make another stopover at the Orinduik falls, just at the border with Brazil, before heading back to Georgetown. Two hours of bathing at another very nice little waterfall. The price is normally 300 USD per person, we got it down to 150 USD and hopped on after only six hours of waiting. Guyana airlines is also way more reliable then this other regional flight from ASL (air service limited – limited indeed!), which in the last 1,5 years had four plane crashes, when we believe the information from Samuel, which I do. Things are still not very much regulated here.
The landscape changed dramatically on this 20 minutes flight – we left the dense jungle and ended up in something like a savannah. Laura just wanted to express her un-easyness about the uneven dirt road which was supposed to be the airstrip – when I got made aware that we landed by a very unpleasant noise of the wheels touching the ground which felt like the brakes were on and the ABS was activated. The pilot only afterwards announced that we maybe got a little scared about the landing, but that there was no need to! Two hours of bathing at Orinduik and then another 1 hour 17 minutes flight back to Georgetown over endless jungle which is supposed to be the rim of the Amazon. Well if the rim is already so wild, I can’t wait to get into heart of this breathing lungs of our world. But first: let’s get a nice hotel for a night, order some pizza and burger and enjoy the advancements of the modern world, like cold water thanks to a fridge, tv, lights, air conditioning, which comes as a result of the awesome invention of electricity, and shower, a flushing toilet and a sink thanks to running water. Not to mention a comfy bed with a pillow that not stinks like some 1001 miners already sweated their dirty dreams into it before us… Hell yeah, I got what I wanted – a little adventure which filled us with a lot of memories, which will take some time to digest – a few itches and scratches here and there but nothing serious. We dodged all them poisonous animals, survived the crazy Afro Guyanese bus drivers without accidents and without tinnitus, and didn’t get harmed by any of them untamed Amerindian Guyanese miners. Now the only thing left to do here before leaving Guyana is to get a bit more in contact with the third major ethnic group here: the Indian Guyanese.
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update: Mahaica river boat trip
To see the national bird we organized a boat trip on the Mahaica river. The guy asked me what time. I said like nine in the morning would be nice. He said to see the birds it would be more like at six. So what time is pick up then, I wanted to know. At five. Silly birds, why are they most active in this ungodly hour! Ok, we got up at 4.20 and got picked up by a mother and her daughter in the middle of the night. But on the bright side: Two Indians. I could finally connect a bit and get a feeling for the biggest ethnic group in Guyana. They are the easiest for me to connect with. Well, she didn’t drive any more reasonable than the black mini bus driver to Madhia – but we survived – again. Arrived an hour later at six an Indian guy by the name of Ramesh, a rice farmer, took us on his boat around the river for a few hours. We finally saw many of them national birds, which some say is a mix with a dinosaur – but really it’s just an unkempt turkey with red eyes. Not that it’s not a spectacular bird! When we got back, his wife offered us a great breakfast with roti, fried eggs, steamed and then fried mackerel, vegetable chicken stew, plantain fries with some ketchup-garlic sauce and some fresh lemon grass tea. We sat and eat and talked for a long time. We saw the birds and we had a few hours with the Indian community, thank you very much!
El malecon- the seafront wall – the sea is brownish here,
not very Caribbean!
On the Mahaica river we not only spotted lots of birds,
also some funny looking fish
A Hoatzin mama (the national bird) in her nest
This pineapple shaped nest belongs to a very small bird.
The entrance is where the leaves of the pineapple would be,
no other bigger species can enter and rob his eggs this way –
spectacular architecture!
The city of Georgetown has this funny village like character
due to this wooden houses with aluminium (?) roofs. What the
city definätly misses are more trees to keep up with the boiling sun!
Tomorrow we have to pack up our things once again, then maybe visit the national museum and the lighthouse – or maybe just stay in the air conditioned room the whole day and save up some energy for the travel to come the next day, starting at 3AM in the morning – over the border to Suriname and all the way to Paramaribo, the capital. We already got us the travel card from the Suriname Embassy in advance to save us some possible hassle and are ready for some more uncomfortable, time consuming, but economic traveling. It’s hot and it’s humid, I haven’t sweated that much in ages…
The last supper, in the probably best Indian restaurant in Guyana. If you want you can eat spicy here in Guyana, truly painfully spicy, loving it! Danke Samuel für die gemeinsame Zeit und all die hilfreichen Tipps und Tricks, a new friend made even if we only had a few hours together.