Guyana – Some background, the Flight, the city of Georgetown

Why Guyana? I can’t tell you how many times have I been asked this question but I know it has been more than twice. Most people when asked where Guyana is located confuse it with Ghana and say “Africa.” The people that do recognize Guyana will immediately think “Jonestown” the site of the 1978, 909 person mass murder/suicide by drinking cyanide-laced Flavor Aid where the “Drinking the Kool-Aid” expression emerged.

Guyana is a small South American country about 5 degrees north of the equator on the north coast. It is a little smaller than the state of Idaho with 1/2 the people (~800,000) and is mostly dense rainforest. It is a former British territory achieving independence in 1966 and forming a Republic (constitutional government) in 1970. It is the second poorest country in South America but has recently found oil deposits off-shore that could catapult it to be the richest with $5 billion in oil revenue annually by 2025.

I picked Guyana because it is relatively untouched by tourism. It has almost non-existent and failing infrastructure and has jungles that have never seen humans. It has the highest single drop (741 foot high) waterfall in the world. This would be the focal point of the trip. A benefit was also to experience Guyana before the influx of billions of dollars and see a pristine Kaieteur Falls via an overland hike, expedition upriver through the jungle and a ~5-mile hike up Kaituer mountain through the jungle. Other factors included a cheap, ~$500, non-stop flight from JFK. I wanted to ensure that all our vacation wasn’t spent in airports and airplanes.

So on Friday, Feb 14, Nathan and I drove to New York to catch our flight. The flights from Boston had excessive layovers at JFK so that driving down afforded us more time in Massachusetts allowing Nathan to go tho school for a half-day. Unfortunately, that didn’t quite work out since Nathan wasn’t feeling well on Thursday and we scheduled a doctor’s appointment Friday morning, just in case he needed antibiotics.

We arrived at JFK around 4 p.m., had an uneventful flight and landed in Georgetown around 12:30 a.m. We caught a taxi to our hotel from there, an hour trip north, from the remotely located airport. The taxi driver sped towards the city on a dimly lit two-lane road, passing cars every chance he got. This main road in Guyana is around 20 feet wide and paved. Fringing the roads are sand shoulders peppered with refuse, small houses and parked cars. along the way, there were various people on dimly lit streets in bars or walking. It was surprising to see. There were many warnings about not going out after dark (7 p.m.). By 2:30 a.m. we were at our hotel. It was locked but our hotel porter, Ali (Hamid Ali), was there to greet us. He was expecting us and quickly got us settled in our room.

After a seemingly short siesta, Nathan and I woke and hit the city. The city of Georgetown consists of dusty paved streets with mostly wooden decayed buildings. The sides of the streets are bordered with concrete ditches filled with putrid-smelling water filled with plants, fish, tadpoles, and garbage. The garbage is everywhere. I have never been to a city as dirty as Georgetown. Over the next few hours, Nathan and I walked the streets. There was a parade of school children in honor of Republic Day, celebrating 50 years of Guyana’s independence. Everyone was costumed. It was quite elaborate.

We continued to the Parks Commission in the National Park to register our visit to Kaieteur Falls. As we walked we could feel the sun beating down on us. It was hot. We reached the office only to find they were closed. I should have anticipated this. On the walk back we snapped photos of these little birds walking on top of the lilypads. See if you can find them.

There was an interesting Hindu temple we snapped a photo of as well.

When we got back to the hotel after a few hours of walking around it was clear that we forgot the sunscreen and we were severely burned. Nathan’s neck was on fire and my face as red as the devil. However, our next order of business was to figure out how to catch a bus to Mahdia, the waypoint before Pamela Landing the “port” to the jungle falls.

We picked our hotel based on its location to Stabroek Market. This is the largest outdoor market in Guyana. It was a few blocks away. After liberally applying sunscreen, we made our way to the market. At the market, there were buses everywhere. Bus 44, bus 42, bus 94, etc. These “mini-busses” as they were called are actually mini-vans with manual transmissions and enhanced suspensions, likely for no other reason than the driving conditions of the roads. We were looking for bus 72. Next to each bus was a “bus barker” that tried to generate business for that particular bus. BTW, bus barker is my term, not the Guyanese. As well navigated the buses we were told by a bus barker at the market that bus 72 left at 5:30 a.m. on a street a couple of blocks away.

We verified the location of the bus stop and headed back to the hotel to get out of the sun. That evening we went to a Brazilian barbeque restaurant. Nathan loved it!

We walked back to our hotel, a few blocks away, in the dark around 7 p.m. Being close to the equator sun up/sundown is almost exactly 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. It was kind of scary as it really did not seem to be safe being out at dark. Tomorrow’s walk to the bus stop in the wee hours of the morning should be interesting.