A Very Smelly City

We departed Curaçao late in the evening, after a great few days there. As we mentioned previously, one of our main reasons for visiting was to use it as a stop off point between Colombia and Guyana, thus avoiding Venezuela. We found there was a cheap daily flight from Curaçao to Georgetown, the Guyanese capital, with InselAir.

Georgetown, viewed from the air

What we didn't realise when we booked this flight, was how notoriously bad InselAir is. As it is one of the only carriers offering short hops around the Caribbean and the north coast of South America, it has a bit of a monopoly. It seems this means it can run its flights whenever it wants, and the scheduled times mostly bore no resemblance to the actual departures!  Our flight was meant to leave at 9:30 pm, the last of the evening from Curaçao. It actually went at 11:10 pm, from a different departure gate. The time and departure was announced suddenly - up till then we'd heard nothing about it. We were quite fortunate it seems, as three other InselAir flights scheduled to leave before ours had not even arrived when we were boarding. Art, our host in Curaçao, told us the InselAir flights are always like this!

St George's Cathedral, in Georgetown

Anyway, we eventually arrived safely in Georgetown at 1am. We had been a little worried that our taxi pick up would not be there, or the driver would be an axe-murderer (safety is quite an issue in Georgetown, especially late at night). However, all went smoothly. Other than the fact that the airport is not in fact in Georgetown but out in the jungle nearly an hour's drive away... hence it was full of moths. BIG ones. Like, the biggest moths I've ever seen, all at once. It was a complete nightmare for me, and when we got in the taxi and there was one inside, I nearly had a heart attack! Luckily, once in the city, moth sizes / numbers became a lot more manageable.

Interior of St George's Cathedral

Guyana is probably the least well known and the least travelled country in all of South America. This little nation, with a population of only 750,000 people, used to be a British colony and only became independent in 1966. The British influence is evident in several respects: the official language is English (it's the only country on the continent that speaks English as its first language), they drive on the left hand side of the road, they are passionate about cricket, and they are fond of tea (in teapots). Oh, and the local beer, Banks Beer, first brewed while Guyana was still a British colony, is probably the best national lager we've had in South America. The country is also very multicultural - another legacy of the British, who brought slaves over from Africa and indentured labourers from India. The largest ethnic groups today are East Indian and African. It is the poorest country in South America, behind Bolivia and Paraguay, and the local currency is the Guyanese dollar, of which there are about 300 to a pound. It's quite entertaining when you hear that your dinner will be 1000 dollars! Given that it is so poor, it seems strange how expensive it is - just a few days here will severely dent a backpacker's budget, we found out.

The City Hall in Georgetown

When we arrived in Georgetown itself, the first thing that hit us was the smell... not in a good way! The city has open sewers, is very dirty, and all water channels / rivers are literally black. Everywhere stinks of poo. However, we got used to this fairly quickly! Georgetown also has a reputation for being unsafe, as I mentioned - there is a high incidence of petty crime and certain areas are definite no-go zones for tourists. We were a little nervous at first to just walk around on our own, but our host said it would be fine, so we spent a lot of time just strolling round the city absorbing the atmosphere. We had no problems at all; in fact. on the contrary, people were mostly pretty friendly and curious to see white faces. While Georgetown has quite a gritty feel to it, we enjoyed it, as it is just so completely different to anywhere else in South America. It was great seeing Asian shops everywhere, hearing English spoken (albeit in a Caribbean accent we often couldn't understand!), watching cricket with locals, and hearing Indian-influenced styles of music.

The 1763 Monument, in Revolution Square

We explored the city over 2 days. There aren't many attractions, but the huge wooden cathedral, St George's, was quite impressive. It is apparently the largest wooden church in the world - the locals are quite proud of this! We also visited the City Hall, another colonial wooden structure, decaying somewhat but still very nice; the National Library; and the National Museum. The museum's main exhibition was about Guyana's big festival here, Mashramani, which takes place in February every year to commemorate the anniversary of the country becoming a republic. The photos and costumes on display, and the excitement of local people when discussing this, suggested this country does have one thing in common with the rest of the continent - it loves its carnival! Another day, we walked over to Revolution Square, where there is an interesting African themed memorial to a slave revolt that took place here in 1763. Passing the Botanical Gardens and Zoo en route here we randomly saw two beautiful macaws flying right overhead, reminding us just how close to the jungle Georgetown really is.

Old fashioned adverts lining Georgetown's sea wall...

They even had a Marmite advert!

We had planned to go straight from Georgetown over the border to Suriname. Suriname is the only country for which we need a visa - well, a 'tourist card' for us as UK citizens. The process of applying for this was a little complicated. First we had to go to the Surinamese embassy, which was cunningly concealed in a posh residential area of Georgetown. We spent a while walking around looking for it, and eventually located it with the help of some locals. The security guard at the embassy asked us, did we have a photocopy of our passport photo pages? Forewarned about this, we said yes. Did we have a photocopy of our Guyana entry stamp page? Erm, no. Did we have 35 US dollars each? Erm no, but we had $25, which was what it had cost last week. The lady packed us off to change some more Guyanese dollars into USD, and get the other photocopy. We later found out the charge for the tourist card had gone up only 2 days ago - doh!

Aerial view of the jungle near Kaieteur Falls

When we returned to the embassy with all we needed, the security lady finally let us into the office itself. The lady at the desk there told us we'd need to leave our passports and come and pick them up again that afternoon. We couldn't do that, we said, as we had a tour booked that afternoon. We asked if we could come back the following morning instead (Friday). Well, the office MIGHT be closed, she said, as there MIGHT be a national holiday. Could she find out, we asked. No, no-one knew, apparently. There were some local elections happening and the embassy staff didn't yet know if they'd be working or not! We grew steadily more frustrated as we knew the embassy would definitely be shut at the weekend. Eventually we pestered her enough that she managed to get our tourist cards issued straight away! Not sure why you normally have to wait until the afternoon...

At Kaieteur Falls

The reason we couldn't go back to the embassy that afternoon was that we had booked ourselves on a trip to Kaieteur Falls, perhaps Guyana's most spectacular natural attraction. The majority of the country is pristine jungle (well, with the odd gold mine), and the Kaieteur waterfall is deep in the interior, hidden in the rainforest. The only option for getting there, other than a 5 day hike, is a short flight in a small 12 seater plane. It was an expensive tour, but 100% worth it! We flew for an hour over a sea of trees, seeing nothing but this huge expanse of green for miles and miles, interrupted only by the muddy brown rivers snaking their way across the country. As we neared our landing point, the pilot made a big turn, and we had our first sight of the Kaieteur Falls. Wow!

The beautiful Kaieteur Falls

We landed at an airstrip literally in the middle of the jungle, and had 2 hours on a guided walk that took us to three different viewpoints of the falls. It has to be one of the most spectacular in the world, not just for its size (the highest single drop waterfall in the world) but for its stunning setting. The waterfall drops from a rocky outcrop, and all around is rainforest. The power of the water was incredible, even though our guide told us it was currently only about 60% full due to the recent dry weather. In the mist around the falls we could see rainbows. I'm so glad we made it here, as it was really something special. We didn't want to leave, and wished the other tourists who accompanied us on the flight would stop taking photos occasionally so we could just gaze in peace for longer!

Rainbows in the mist

While there is doubtless plenty more to see and do in Guyana, chiefly jungle-based adventures, we are trying to push on through these three little countries at the top of the continent. The prices here are high, and we still have a lot more to squeeze in before we return home in June. So for now, it's goodbye Guyana, as we head on to Suriname (a gruelling 12 hour bus-boat-bus-bus journey, more on that next entry!)

View down the valley from the bottom of the falls