Started my trip in the town of Lethem, next to the Brazilian border. The town was hot, dusty and surprisingly wet since dry season had already arrived. Dry season meant the rain only came in short, hard onslaughts but these would leave the main dirt roads looking like mini lakes. A few hours later things would dry out pretty quickly meaning that the humidity in this place was stifling. Got a surprise when I saw test match cricket being played on the telly which, in hindsight, wasn't too much of a surprise really, seeing Guyana is part of the group of countries that form the West Indies cricket team. They spoke (a type of) English (a Scottish accent is easier to understand). All I needed was a VB and it would have felt like home. Spent the night there, usually in my air conditioned room (oh the humidity, especially when the sun was out), except for check out when I spent time with Kyle, the receptionist, in his reception area. It was an understatement to say Kyle's work area was a breeding ground for a swarm of ravenous mosquitoes. Repellent did the trick after those initial bites but Kyle was oblivious to it. In his eyes the bites didn't itch and malaria just gave you flu like symptoms, nothing to worry about. Not sure about that Kyle.
Lethem is separated from the capital, Georgetown, by a rough, bumpy dirt road that, at times, resembles more like a forest trail than the main road. It makes it's way through the jungle interior of Guyana and other than flying it is the only way to traverse the country. The total trip time in a minibus is around 20 hours with a 5 hour sleep in a hammock hotel along the way. It isn't the most pleasant of trips, especially if your minibus driver has a huge speaker set up under the rear seats and loves playing his music at deaf inducing volumes (or maybe that should read death inducing volumes). Music in my minibusses throughout Guyana was from the 70's and not the 70's I liked. Ah earplugs, never leave home without them. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself as I decided to break up the trip at a river crossing point and my first driver was a volume sensible type of guy who enjoyed his 70's music at a much lower level. So I stayed, for what turned out to be 3 days, at a place called Annie's restaurant in Kurupukari, next to the Essequibo River (the 3rd longest in Sth.America). Annie had been flown out a few days earlier on an emergency flight due to contracting both malaria and dengue fever at the same time (hear that Kyle!). Her son was running the show. This was a 3 house town in the middle of the jungle, not much to do, but the food was good enough, they gave me a hammock to use, I set up my mosquito net around it, and I then proceeded to spend 62 of the next 72 hours under that mosquito net. Crosswords and computer games were the name of the game. Jungle noises during the night were a bit unsettling, especially when there are no walls between you and the jungle. We had only 4 hours a day of electricity (tablet charging time) and no Internet at all, but there were a few interesting characters that would make appearances on their way along the road. I got into a groove staying there but when I left it was definitely time to go.
So I left Kurupukari, with the loud music driver, who also happened to be a part time mechanic which was handy since we had many stops for a problem with our steering. He liked calling me 'white boy' which he informed me later, after I got slightly miffed by the comments, was a term of endearment rather than being racist. Hmmmm. He turned out to be a quite a good guy and at the end I sat in the front and we talked a bit during those times he decided to let our ears readjust to the normal volumes of life. Made it to Georgetown which is full of old buildings and colorful characters although some may be painting life a little too hard. Crime is a big problem and quite a few times people in the streets would warn you about staying safe. The highlight here was a pond in a park, next to a running track, that had around 6 manatees, some up to 3 meters long, living within it. All you needed was a handful of grass to get these cute creatures to make an appearance and pop their heads out of the water. Nice for the camera (when it worked).
