Goodbye Guyana

This will be our last post from Guyana, so here are some highlights of our year, and our goodbyes.

Goodbye Georgetown

We will miss living in Georgetown, with its colourful street markets, crazy minibus drivers and beautiful wooden buildings. We have shopped most weeks at Bourda Market, and have got to know some of the friendly stallholders. If Halina doesn't get there, they all ask where "auntie" is - everyone in Guyana is an honorary cousin or another relative.  It will be strange not cycling down to Bourda for our pineapples and small sweet fig or apple bananas.

Bourda Market

We will also miss the lovely wooden buildings around Georgetown, and hope that these won't all be replaced by the elaborate concrete confections that are becoming so popular here.

Cycling in Georgetown has been an adventure. You never know when you may meet cows, goats, sheep, donkeys or horses.

You also have to watch out for speeding minibuses that can screech to a stop at any time for a passenger. You need to mind out for pedestrians - there are no pavements - and try to avoid the many potholes. 

There are also an array of other kinds of vehicles to avoid. Timber has its own specialist transport - there are lots of these long vehicles outside builder's merchants, waiting to deliver your planks and posts. 

Still, the views are lovely! Cycling in Bristol will seem quite tame after this. 


We will also miss the wonderful festivals and celebrations.Mashramani is the big all day carnival parade complete with massive crowds, thunderous sound systems and much drinking - to celebrate independence.

It seems that everyone in Guyana is there "mashin' with pride", and some of the floats are truly spectacular.




Another colourful festival is Emancipation Day, where Afro-Guyanese dress up and celebrate the end of slavery.

Goodbye to friends and colleagues

We have met and worked with lots of lovely people and will miss them when we leave. We said farewell to Janice recently. 

Here she is performing the VSO signature karaoke of "Delilah" with Drew to the great amusement of Shine and Genalin, our Filipino friends. This was at the 'Nightcap' restaurant which is in part of the old Russian Embassy.



And here she is again at her leaving party.



She was also one of the brave souls who cycled, here with Steve at the Walter Rodney Memorial in Georgetown.

Halina will miss all of her work colleagues, though will be glad to finish work for a while 
and have a rest.


Goodbye Caribbean islands...


Guyana is aligned with the Caribbean, and is part of the trade alliance Caricom. Trinidad is a short hop away, and there are regular flights from Guyana to all the Caribbean islands. As well as Barbados, we managed a trip to Tobago...

Goat racing

Kindle on the beach

Pigeon Point

and saw a little of South America on a trip to Suriname...

Cycling in the Peperpot National Park

Partaking of the local brew!

Paramaribo is much more relaxed than Georgetown - hardly any razor wire!  We hired bikes and went across the river to tour the old plantations.  Unfortunately it rained, we got lost and cycled much further than we intended, but we did see troops of monkeys in the park and this chap:

Goodbye to Guyana's Hinterland
We finally managed to visit Guyana's Region 1 in the North, bordering Venezuela.  The main attraction of Moruca is the voyage there.  You start off early on the bus from Georgetown to Parika (and phone Troy the boatman when you're leaving G'Town); then catch a speedboat across the 20 mile wide mouth of the mighty Essequibo River (3rd longest in South America) to Supenaam; then take a shared car along the Atlantic coast to Charity on the Pomeroon river.  

Refuelling on the Pomeroon

The stelling at Charity

Troy meets you at Charity and, along with a boatload of other passengers and a bewildering array of luggage and cargo, you're off down the Pomeroon, pausing only to refuel from a shack by the river.

Mangroves at the mouth of the Pomeroon

You leave the Pomeroon and you're out on to the Atlantic! 
Suddenly the boat dives into a gap in the mangroves and on to the Moruca river.  You zoom through the mangroves until you suddenly are in the savannah. The boat swoops around the innumerable river bends until finally arriving at Moruca.


It rained nearly the whole time we were in Moruca but we managed to get out and about.  Taking cover when the worst of the rainstorms were lashing down.








The bridge at Moruca at dawn on our return (it wasn't raining!) - another entry in the "Welcome to..."
archive.


On the return we were able to enjoy the boat ride through the Savannah, and saw a flock of Scarlet Ibis over the Atlantic.








Goodbye to the Rupunini
Our final trip was to Lethem in the south of Guyana on the Brazilian border, in the great Rupununi savanah .

Steve, Eddie, his apprentice, Elizabeth, Anouk, Joe, Joy and Behi

We stayed with Eddie and Behi, two long term volunteers.  Eddie runs woodwork training sessions for Amerindians and other locals.  Here we are visiting his workshop with Elizabeth (Canadian volunteer), Anouk (Dutch volunteer), Joe (her boyfriend), and Joy (Kenyan volunteer).

Guyana has only two (legal) border crossings in the whole country - one to Suriname across the Correntyne River, and one in Letham across the Takutu River into Brazil. Steve fulfilled one of his objectives of setting foot in Brazil by crossing the Takatu River bridge.

Halina on the bridge

View from the bridge

We went to visit an Amerindian  village near Letham - Moco Moco - where the Chinese had built a hydro-electric station.  Sadly, the pipeline bringing the water down from the mountain was not securely anchored and collapsed (shades of Zorba the Greek).  


The mighty turbines still sit in the decaying station.
You can climb up the steep concrete steps by the side of the pipe but they don't go all the way to the top and some severe scrambling is required to go all the way. 


Here's Sylvino (the guide), Samson (a VSO volunteer from Uganda) and Elizabeth at the bottom.

We went to see the waterfalls, but heavy rains had washed away the bridge...
















...so we had to wade across on a submerged wall.  

The rocks were extremely slippery after the morning rains so dignity had to give way to safety.  Keith and Sylvino, the two guides, were very helpful. 


We reached the falls and had an exciting swim in the rushing waters.

The trip was rounded off nicely by fresh coconut water and guava, picked from the guides' farm next to the road.















We managed to visit Boa Vista in Brazil taking the luxury air-conditioned coach from the border along the beautifully smooth highway the Brazilians have built.

 Boa Vista is not a tourist destination! But we had a very good lunch at a "weigh the plate" place, tried some guava ice-cream and bought some supplies from the supermarket - including Brazilian sausage - yum!

















We are now packing our souvenirs, and having our own leaving do. We will miss Guyana but are looking forward to meeting up with friends and relatives when we return to the UK. See you all soon!