Over the Rivers

We’ve taken the road to Nickerie a number of times but, this time the anticipation is running high…this time the final destination is Guyana. We will overnite at our favorite Nickerie hotel…you know… the one with…very small rooms…bitch bitch bitch…free inter-net, air conditioning, hot showers and a complimentary breakfast… $23.00 USD. So who’s bitching?

When we get to Nickerie we meet up with Hesdys friend Rocky…Rocky is an International rice trader, doing business in both Suriname and Guyana …he’s an out there kinda of guy and it seems like everybody on both sides of the border know who he is. And his wife….beautiful... but more important...she makes a mean Duck Massala with roti.

(I’ll explain roti another day).

We’re up pretty early on Wednesday morning and dive down to the waters edge… I don’t know what I was expecting but, it sure wasn’t what I got. We climbed up on the dyke wall that keeps Nickerie dry during heavy seas ( Nickerie is about 3 meters below sea level)…it was low tide so we climbed down the rocks on the other side…half away down this big guy grabs my bag a starts off to the waters edge where colorfully painted boats with outboard motors bob up and down in the shallow water. “Hey where ya going with my bag” I yell after him…he doesn’t pay me any attention …he drops the bag in the boat and races back to me….”hup hup” he says…What hup hup” I ask…”Hup hup”...as he turns his back to me …oh I get it…so I jump up on his back and out we go… knee deep into the water… to be deposited in the boat…giving the term…”let’s get a porter” a whole new meaning… and… not exactly a picture post card moment you would want to send back home …big old white guy on a black mans back. It was worse on the return trip. Had to be 50 guys trying to grab me and my bag… at one point I thought I’d be in the drink…I guess it was that $2.50SRD tip I gave on the way out…$0.838 USD. I know…I’m one of the last big spenders.
The day was gray and there was a slight drizzle…we're on the Corantijn River about a 10K run from the ocean. Strong winds put 3 foot swells on the river. Our water taxi held 12 paying passengers…
powered by a 75 horsepower Johnson & Johnson engine… which conked out about 100 yards off shore. Another canoe ( that's what they are) with a motor on it came out and towed us back…with the payout of another $2.50 SRD me and my luggage were in another boat… We were off… again… the brackish water spraying up over the gunnels and splashing against my face. …yes it’s me Lord Stanley… We keep dry by holding a large plastic sheet up in front of us. 45 minutes later we were in Springland, Guyana. Here there’s a pier….at least that’s what they call it…to me it was a couple planks that reached out into the river…8 inches wide, wet and slippery…I liked the Suriname system much better. Once on solid ground Rocky call me over and introduced me to George…”Hi George I’m Bob”…”Hello Bob”… “ Rocky, where do we pass through customs” I ask…”you just did”…he replies….”George?”…”Yep, George, he’s the chief Immigration Officer here in Guyana” Rocky informed me… Damm… I wanted a Guyana stamp in my Passport… As we get out on to the street I notice a guy with a fist fall of money and I quickly figured out that he was the foreign exchange booth…I give him a 20US and he counts out 9000 nicely engraved bills…I never did find out what they call them…I just made believe they were real dollars and that I was rich…the Guyana IICA office sent a car to pick us up and as we moved quickly down the road trying to make our ferry connection that would take us across the Mahaicony River…I made another quick observation…the driving challenge in Guyana is to go as fast as you can without hitting a cow, horse, pig, goat or dog... that just walk casually along side and the middle of the road. I had to scratch my head…there are houses side by side along the entire road with big empty fields behind them…I had to ask…”how do they know who’s cow is who’s and couldn’t they put them in the fields with a fence???” Nobody answered the question…they just gave me a look. We got to the ferry just in time…at least that's what I thought… only to find out that Rocky called ahead…the boat left 10 minutes late…and we were…last on first off. …five and half hours after we left Nickerie we finally arrived in Georgetown. I’m not going to try to give you a city tour. You can do that on line…I’ll just say…. Georgetown is to Paramaribo… what San Francisco is to Bakersfield. (call a friend in California, but they may not know…not many people go to Bakersfield ). The best thing about Guyana is… I could read all the signs and speak the local tongue. And …Yep… we did some business…visited an export packing station and then took another exciting boat ride across the much bigger Essequibo River…holding up plastic sheets… and then a taxi ride from hell to the Amerindian village called “Mainstay” . The community of Mainstay has a lot to brag about…really…a 5 star lodge on a beautiful lake…Ok ..it’s only a 3 star lodge in Lake Tahoe …but hey guys …this is Guyana. They have great pineapples... that taste almost as good as the ones that grow in Powakka… and a processing plant where they pack…Pineapples…daaa… and Hearts of Palm…bet you didn’t know this… the tree that gives us Hearts of Palm is the same tree that gives us the Acai berry.( if you don’t know what Acai is …go to Whole Foods) All their products are shipped to France. No we are not in French Guyana …we are in the Guyana… where you don’t drink the Cool Aide… Oh…one other thing…all their products are organic. Well that’s enough business and enough about Guyana. I’m outa hear…Oh the trip back …same adventure... but in reverse…I love being carried to shore…me BIGGYMUN… Tan Bun