Guyana – The Day at Kaieteur Falls
The next day we relaxed for a bit in the morning. It was overcast, raining and Nathan wasn’t feeling well. It seems he had the thing I had yesterday…the peanut butter. I was back to full strength today as I swore off the peanut butter. When the weather cleared up we ventured around taking lots of great pictures. The falls were incredible and the view of the river valley below was breathtaking.
The three must-see things at Kaieteur are the Cock-of-the-rock, the Giant Tank Bromilades, and the Golden Frog as they are unique to the area. We had already seen the bird so we went on a quest to find the frog. These frogs are tiny and live their entire lives inside the Giant Tank Bomiliades. We found one but he was too fast for a picture. He was more light yellow than gold as well. We did snap some photos of some other cool flora and fauna though.
Along the way, we saw some tour groups. It seems Kaieteur National Park gets around 7,300 visitors a year with less than 250 hikers. The overland hikers that are not on a tour are even fewer and are not tracked exclusively. I know there were at least 2 this month. The non-tour hikers have their food, belongings, etc flown in so they typically only hike with a day pack. Once to the top, they will overnight in KNP and then will fly back.
We were lucky to meet a solo hiker, Amilcar, from Brazil that came up the trail today that intends to hike down tomorrow. That makes 3 for this month! If we cannot get a flight tomorrow we will go with him. He has booked Jeff and Godfrey for a return trip so they will be meeting him below.
That night Simon offered us some food. There is no canteen, restaurant or any other kind of food facilities here. Nathan had grown tired of our staple of Cliff Bars and PB&J sandwiches and we were now very suspicious of the peanut butter. We accepted his offer and he dropped off five chicken bullion cubes, two onions, a carrot, two peppers and a bag of dry lo-mein noodles. We made some really tasty soup and went to bed with happy tummies.