Guyana

By Lee | December 26th, 2007 | 5 Comments »

I arrived early this morning on Boxing Day in steamy Guyana. My friend Johnny who I met a few years ago in the Philippines is a Canadian Guyanese (I think that’s how it would be said) and he picked me up from the airport and gave me the quick royal tour of the capital of Georgetown-lovely town let me tell you, haha. It has a crumbling Caribbean vibe and a lot of laid back energy but at any second you can sense that something crazy is going to happen. Georgetown is known to be one of the most dangerous cities in South America and a lot of people do carry guns. But as with anywhere else, just stay out of places you shouldn’t be and you’ll be fine.

My original plan was to head up to the site of the Jonestown mass suicide from the late 70’s that was speaheaded by noted sociopath Jim Jones and received global attention when 900+ people partook in a mass suicide by drinking some type of “Kool Aid”. However, there have apparently been torrential downpours the past few days and there have been several landslides en route to the site of Jonestown so it would not be very feasible to go there with my time schedule. In truth there isn’t much to see there anyway except for some grass and a rusty old bucket that allegedly kept the Kool Aid-so I quickly got over that and decided to instead charter a plane to Kaieteur Falls in the Amazon Jungle.

What a site it was after my short flight on a 3 seat single engine flying deathtrap with a very questionable pilot. But hey, we made it and back and what a nice change from Georgetown and a refreshing memory of why I love to travel to the remote ends of the Earth. There were no tourists and I basically had my own personal awesome waterfall at the top of the Amazon in the middle of some of the densest jungle you can imagine. It reminded me of Angel falls in Venezuela for locale except it was much more powerful but not quite as high. The weather in the jungle was perfect for viewing as well, the clouds were high up so the view wasn’t spoiled.

Unfortunately for me, as a result of my lack of sleep on my flight down to Guyana, I left my camera in my backpack that I left with my friend so I didn’t even get to take any pictures of the falls and there are no radio shacks down there. But just Google Kaieteur Falls and you’ll see what I mean-beautiful stuff.

Anyway, I just checked into my hotel back in Georgetown (a Le Meridien that looks like a silo and certainly doesn’t do the chain justice) and I need to jump in the pool and sample some of the famous local brew ‘Banks Beer’ they make down here before I head to bed early as I am exhausted. I have a 3:30am wake up call to head overland into Suriname with two river ferry crossings and I am sure unending shakedown attempts at the borders.

Check back with me tomorrow and I will return your emails as soon as I get a chance, most likely not until tomorrow though. Sorry and thanks.