Post 115: The road to Georgetown, Guyana (Boa Vista/Bonfim/Lethem/The Interior)

Fellow adventurers,

The last 3 days have been spent traveling almost one thousand miles, from the shores of the Amazon in Manaus to the Guyana's capital city, Georgetown; our last stop on the continent. It was not an easy ride, but we have finally made it.

Our journey here began where our last post left off. After departing the boat in Manaus, we cabbed it across the Amazonian metropolis to the local bus terminal and bought tickets for the next bus to Boa Vista in the northernmost state of Brazil, Roraima. The only highway in this region, number 174, connects Manaus with the southernmost border of Venezuela. The ride itself was through lush tropical land, spotted with many cow pastures and an occasional small town. The bus stopped frequently, giving us ample time to stretch our legs and grab a snack or two. Oddly enough, upon our arrival in Boa Vista, we were a short 100 miles from where we had began our journey some four months ago in Canaima National Park. We arrived late, and the bus station was closed, so we wandered down the street until we found a suitable hotel and called it a night.

The next morning, I awoke early and purchased our tickets to the border town of Bonfim. The ride was easy enough, through grassy savanna land. Again the road was spotted with settlements and cow pastures, there doesn't seem to be much else out here. At the border, we were met by cab drivers offering rides to Georgetown, and obliged one who gave us a free ride over the border to the town of Lethem. After the Brazilian border, we crammed into a cab with a few others and made our way to the Guyanese side. As we crossed into Guyanese territory, the road split in two lanes and looped one over the other to make the correction for the roads of this tiny former British colony. We were amused and reminded of our time in Jamaica, navigating its similarly backwards roads and driving alignment.

Immigration on the other side was simple, and finally in English! Though the tongue they speak here is very hard to understand as it is heavily accented in the Caribbean styling of the West Indies. In Lethem, we relaxed at a restaurant slash bar slash quasi bus stop until the minibus was fully packed, supplied and ready to go. Our companion travelers were all Brasilieros, making there way to Georgetown for some reason or another, one even carried along a small puppy. We did not feel completely separated from our time in Brazil, everyone on the border seemingly speaks Portuguese and there are many signs are in both languages far into the interior of Guyana.

The ride for me was very uncomfortable to say the least. I had the pleasure of being crammed in the far back of the bus with three other skinny men who all fit into a seat meant for three average sized people. June was lucky to have a full single seat to herself, a pleasure no one else aboard had. During the first evening, I did my best to ignore this and watch the countryside pass by. Until the sun set, we rode through more savanna land filled with giant termite piles, some as tall as 7 feet, which dotted the landscape. The dirt road was rough and complete with many small primitive bridges crossing over little streams and embankments. After the sun set, we could see tons of stars above and the land filled with thousands of lighting bugs appearing to almost mimic the night sky. We enjoyed dinner at a small roadside canteen before our final stop of the day at a small alcove for hammocks right off the road. $1000 Guyanese dollars ($5 usd) bought us the use of two hammocks for the next 6 hours before we started down the road again. Overnight the temperature dropped drastically and we both became pretty cold. Our salvation was the use of one of our sleeping bags as a blanket and joining together in one hammock.

At 4 AM we awoke and all crammed by into the mini-bus yet again. The further we made it into The Interior (as it is called), the worse and worse the road became. Our driver swerved in and out to avoid the hundreds of massive potholes that dotted the road for hour upon hour. My head would occasional smack the side of the window when I was not paying enough attention. Another danger were deep pits of mud we would sometimes encounter, our fear was that the bus would not be able to navigate them and we would be stuck out here in the middle of no where. To add insult to injury, we were stopped every 50 kilometers for a police passport check. There we would all have to file out of the van and into a tiny municipal police station where a badly uniformed officer would thumb through our passports for who knows what. This happened at least eight times along the way. After one of these many checks, we had one of the most exciting times of the morning crossing a river via a ferry boat as we were leaving Iwok Rama Forest. After we crossed, we enjoyed some curried Chicken and coffee for breakfast. At another stop we had a chance to see some Scarlet Macaws and Parrots, along with a captive monkey while we waited.

The site outside of the jungle were very scant to be had. This is the only road through the interior, and is very sparsely populated. Not until we came to the town of mining town of Linden (formerly McKenzie), 100 kilometers outside of Georgetown did the road finally become paved. From there, we soared through tiny villages with funny English names like "Friendship", "Pearl". "Supply" and more until we reached the capital, Georgetown, our final stop.  We arrived covered in a residue of the red dirt that made up the roads; we were filthy, tired and hungry.  We settled into a small guest house and ate Chinese food for dinner, which tastes better here than it does at home.  Today we'll see some of the city.

Gavin y June