Georgetown - Annai - Lethem - Surama- Annai - Georgetown! Finally Discovering the real Guyana!!

From Georgetown to Annai

Bump, bump, It all started three Mondays ago at 5 am when Timothy, Diane, Marieke, Sonja and myself met at Rima’s door, loaded the 4x4 with our staff and headed south to Annai!! Everything was okay until Linden, 2 hours in a nice paved road with no traffic, some sleep and we finally stopped there for breakfast (thanks god as I was starving).

Then the pavement of the road disappeared and the bumps started…I never saw something similar…there were these deep holes everywhere so we were bump bumping all the time…It took us 7 hours bump bumping to our lunch stop and from here we crossed the Essequibo in an old phantom where we put our 4x4! Really cool!!! (I really enjoyed taking a phantom for my very first time not so much the second one but I’ll tell you about it later…).

And from the river on, the road was better, not with so many bumps and we got into the middle of the jungle!! Pufff…it’s very difficult to describe, I’ll just put a picture and you tell me but I felt We, with our 4x4 were invading the nature, we were the only “strange” element there..

At some point after passing Ivokrama protected park it’s amazing how radical the landscape changes as we left the green jungle behind and we met the Rupunnuni Brown Savanah…spectacular!!!

My first night in a hammock

Cool also that we were so close to our Oasis where we spent the first night!! And yes….this was also such an experience!!!

Instead of booking a room I rented a hammock, and this was My first night sleeping out in a hammock!!! Ole, ole, ole!!!

I need to say it’s really comfortable but one has to be prepared for it, and here in Guyana you need to be aware of…

You need to set up a hammock mosquito net (yes, I Know before coming here I did not know about mosquito nets and now it’s becoming something essential), I did not have one by then and the wild & hungry mosquitos first kept eating me the whole night

If you sleep in the nature everything is very romantic but keep in mind that you are not the only one and maybe some species are not sleeping during the night, as the fucking donkey that was next to me that was screaming something I did not understand (does anyone speak donkeys? Do you know what’s the meaning of IIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH IIIIIIIIIIIAHH IAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH?? It still comes sometimes to my mind at night as nightmares…) so be smart about where to put your hammock!

Finally I fall sleep late at night and did not rest so much but the whole experience as you can imagine was something I won’t forget so easily!

PS: I bought my own Hammock + Mosquito net in Lethem!! I can’t wait to hold it in my place in Waramadong…

Visit to Lethem and Boavista & Manau (in mind)...

Next morning, breakfast and bump bumping again….we were in our way to Lethem!!! We drove on the savannah for 3 hours and even took one high hiker… bump bump……..bump bump……. I don’t know how he managed to stay in the back with such a strong sun heating him and a crazy driver on the car! We finally arrived to Lethem by lunch time and of course went to one of the Brazilian restaurants to eat. Lethem is nice, not so quiet as Annai, I think around 3000 people, but with the powerful Tanuku mountains not too far in the landscape and with the rodeo, that happens to be in March/April, and the guayanese/Brazilians cowboys as the main attraction. It’s really populated by Brazilians fake stores of clothes that are very cheap, and as Boavista is only 3 hrs away by road many of them come for shopping. I’ve been told that is the best option to go to Brazil from Guyana so at some point I want to go to Manau (12hrs from Boavista) and have a boat trip into the Amazon. (Jenny, have you been there? Where were you? I will need your tips about Brazil!)

We let Sonja getting installed in her new huge home with her new young friends! We’ll miss you, see you soon! :’(

Surama: Amerindian Heritage + Dark birthday party

Surama is the most beautiful Amerindian village that I’ve seen so far. Is in the Annai district in the North Rupunnuni, has around 300 inhabitants and it’s 12 miles away from the main, and unique, road lost between the mountains. We went there to see the Amerindian heritage that is an annual celebration in all Amerindian villages where they have competitions of their main daily activities, like gridding cassava, Bow and arrow, working the cotton, traditional dances and of course the masculine and female “paywary “ drinking competition. For those alcoholics who feel adventurous enough, this one made out of cassava that Amerindians drink all the time. I don’t anything against it but fuck, is really strong, they drink it warm and it tastes really bad, saying this of course I was drinking paywary for the whole afternoon! :p

After a home made delicious fish curry with Emily, at sweet Amerindian woman who kindly hosted us in her place for the night, with her daughter and son we felt brave enough and decided to join the birthday party that was going on in the village. So, here we go, Marieke & myself with our torches and impregnated in Soo (mosquito repellent) in the middle of the jungle trying to avoid the mud, afraid of meeting snakes in our way and following the music so we could find the birthday party! Thanks we met some villagers in the way we could made it…

So we arrived to the party!! I need to say is one of the most original birthday parties I attended, they had this huge speakers with a mix table and the music really loud (that’s why we could hear from the other side of the village) and a computer. The rest was in the dark to avoid mosquitoes & insects coming… Everyone was there, from the grandfather to the 4 years old girl dancing in the dance floor, (yes, yes, there was one). Of course we were invited to drink more paywary, the only thing you could drink, and some people introduced themselves in the dark… It was an interesting party but we were tired and felt somehow out of place (we did not even know the who’s birthday was, how old he/she was becoming or brought any present..) so after an hour or so when we had enough we decided to come back to Emily’s place and guess what happened!! Yes, you are right! We got lost in the dark not even 300 meters out of the birthday place!! However, thanks to a villager that saw us and came in our help we finally made it! Is definitely the coolest place I’ve been so far, thanks Emily and hope I can come back soon!

Binna Hill: Relaxing afternoon, early dinner, movie and our fights with the invaders!

Binna Hill is the place where the headquarters of the NRDDB (North Rupunnuni District Development Board) (It took me a whole month to memorize the letters), which is one of the four local partners that are included in the EU project that I’ll be working in my staying in Guyana. It’s in Annai, a small village in the middle of the Rupunnuni Savanah where time slows down, it ideal for you spending your afternoon just chilling, relaxing, maybe reading and lying in a hammock without losing track of the beautiful landscape view and refuging in the shadow of one of the heaviest versions of the sun I ever met that introduces amazing sunsets followed by the absolute darkness.

I stayed there for the weekend in a beautiful small “local” apartment where electricity/running water/toilet were not part of the deal but where hospitality/kindness/friendship was offered since we arrived. We had one of the quietest Saturdays I can remember and after our early chicken curry for dinner (around 6pm) end up watching one of the 300 movies I got in my external hard drive, stopping every ten minutes to fight cockroaches, jumping flies and even frogs (now it’s funny but then it was a mix between scary and hilarious) :p

Time to say goodbye to Marieke, I’m sure you’ll enjoy here! Write from time to time and see you in GT!

From Annai to Georgetown: A trip without end!!

So after making sure my girls were settling okay it was time to go back to Georgetown so the 5 of us (Timothy (my boss remember also known as the mad driver, Charlotte (an adventurous Australian volunteer who came to spend the we in Reg 9), Ivor (Chief of the NRDDB that was going to GT to meet some people), Mike (Annai’s toshao) and myself got into the 4x4 again and started our journey. We left around 11am on Sunday thinking about reaching there in the late afternoon, maybe even on time for dinner….how naive we were… a long and unpredictable trip was waiting for us…

It all started to get wrong when we passed the ivokrama rainforest and we reached the phantom to cross the Essequibo. The only boat able to carry vehicles was broken in 2 pieces and don’t ask me how, but each one was in a different side of the river!

When you get your trainings to prepare to volunteer they always tell you two things that are basic: Be patient and be prepared, mentally and physically, to wait, so lucky us we had Charlotte’s scrabble with us therefore no problem at all!! We were supposed to wait for 2/3 hours so we played a long scrabble game where Ivor beat us without any clemency!

Then we went to see how things were going at the river and found out that they already had both parts in the same side but still were trying to join them in the water. Okay now time to read, thanks to Sophie (merci madame :p) I had my book (another thing you have to carry always with you when volunteering) with me “a brave new world” so went back to the car and dedicated myself to the pleasure of reading an interesting and engaging book…

And time flies when you are reading…that quick that it was around 5pm already so decided to go back to the river and check it out! Surprise!! Guess what? After several attempts they could not join both parts of the boat in the water so they had to take them out of the water and try to join them there.

Now the question was…It gets dark around 6-6.30, will they be able to fix it before it’s too dark or we’ll have to spend the night there??

To be honest I was not very positive by then…As everyone knows, one sees things differently with a empty stomach so we did not have anything to eat in the whole day, so while Charlotte and Timothy waited in this side of the river with the car, I took a small boat and went with Ivor and Mike to the other side to find somewhere where we could have dinner and wait for them. Another guy joined us in the way so we end up eating chicken curry (it was the only thing available plus obviously the menu at the road’s restaurants here is not so wide, you got chicken/fish curry, pepperpot (rice with vegs)…) at a portuguesse small bar. Shame on me I did not take the book with me!! Creolist was the conversation language at my table and my level is not that good yet, there was a loud tv showing the same musical videos from a dvd again and again, some guys getting drunk at the other side of the bar and that was it! And time flies so we finished our meals, and had one round of beers, another one, ….., and it was 10pm and the bar was going to close!! By then mosquitoes were the owner of the place beating everyone, after 4 beers in our bodies and so many hours awake (here you get up around 6am everyday) our conversation was reduced to one or two words crossed from time to time, the other group of guys were completely drunk and we were fucking tired! Time to pay and go to the side of the river to check what was going on.. Upsss!! Sergio!! You don’t have enough money to pay your beers?? Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!!! I was supposed to build trust with this people and I ended up asking them for money to pay my beers!! (Mamá no me riñas que ya les dí el dinero unos días más tarde)

After that unfortunate episode, on our way to the river, lucky us, we were picked up by Timothy and Charlotte with the 4x4!! They finally made it!! They fixed the boat!!! Gooood!!! We did not have to sleep in the car!! But the bad news were that It was around 11pm and we still had between 6 or 7 hrs of bump bumping in the dark!! Pufff….I was sitting between Ivor and Mike on the back and their sizes, their snores and the bumps up and down I could not sleep at all!! It was 5.30 am when we arrived to Georgetown totally exhausted! Thanks Xerez to open your door and let me stay at your place at that time in the morning. What a trip, no??