Guyana – More Georgetown
Today we slept in. I checked with the front desk to see if we could get on any tours. There was one but there was some time in a bus. I checked with Nathan but after the bus yesterday we both agreed it would be better to walk around today.
We decided to head up to where the museums were as well as the US embassy. We knew we were currently in a more depressed area of the city and might find a more well-groomed city north on the gulf coast near the landmarks, political buildings and “tourists” if they existed..
We started with St Georges Cathedral, which is billed as one of the tallest all wooden churches in the world. Unfortunately, it was under renovation when we visited and it was not as grand as we expected. We did see some of the first white faces since we had been here as we moved toward the coast.
As we continued uptown, we visited the national anthropology museum. It was a tiny house next to the presidential mansion. It had various artifacts of aboriginal peoples but nothing we had not seen in the museums we have visited in the past. I think we are spoiled by our US national museums and the funding they receive. You can see the presidential mansion behind Nathan below.
As we continued uptown we stopped by the lighthouse. It was pretty cool. As I told Nathan, most lighthouses I have visited have been closed to the public. This was a treat, if not a little scary climbing the steps and standing on the platform outside at the top. The view really gave you a good perspective of the third world nature of Guyana. There were no buildings higher than a few stories.
As is every day in Guyana, it was really hot. So we stopped by the Marriot for a drink. This was a beautiful building inside but somewhat plain-looking as shown above. Clearly, this is the place foreigners stayed. After the Marriot, we decided to walk along the seawall. Unfortunately, we were wrong about the cleanliness further uptown. The entire city is filthy. People throw their trash in the gutters, in the ocean, out their windows, everywhere ad anywhere.
The next day, our last day, we decided to visit the zoo. It was in rough shape and it was very sad to see these wild animals in these small cages: birds that had nowhere to fly, large cats with nowhere to run. They did look well taken care of but it still didn’t seem just.
The harpy eagle was magnificent.
After the zoo, we went back to the hotel. There wasn’t much left to do in Georgetown. So, although our flight wasn’t until a little after midnight we decided to hang out there for the rest of the day. For the next dozen or so hours, we waiting in the AC on benches in site the airport. The flight was on time and uneventful. Thus so ended our trip to Guyana.