A river runs through the interior of Guyana

Trail through the Iwokrama Forest

The canopy walkway in the Iwokrama Forest

The canopy walkway in the Iwokrama Forest

The road through the Iwokrama Forest

Tall tree overlooking the savanna

Tall tree overlooking the savanna

The flatlands of the Guyana savanna

Panoramic view of the savannah

River crossing near the field station

Bus being loaded onto the ferry at the Kurupakari crossing

Thatched roof cabins at the Iwokrama Field Station

Thatched roof cabins at the Iwokrama Field Station

Boats for navigating the river

A view of Turtle Mountain from the river

Traveling through the flooded Iwokrama Forest during the rainy season

Traveling through the flooded Iwokrama Forest during the rainy season

A native man´s catch for the day

The view of the forest canopy from the top of Turtle Mountain

Panoramic view from the top of Turtle Mountain

The view of the forest canopy from the top of Turtle Mountain

Dusk over the jungle

Plaque from the field station

A native man grills some bush meat

Reflections of the forest on the river

The treetops protruding from the river at dusk

A crane dredging up a sunken boat so that the ferry could cross the river

The red dirt road into Guyana from the border with Brazil

The paved road across the border into Brazil

The paved road ends after the bridge at the Brazil - Guyana border

Annai, Guyana

The Savannah and the Rainforest

July 5, 2008

When I was a child

I caught a fleeting glimpse

Out of the corner of my eye

I turned to look but it was gone

I cannot put my finger on it now

The child is grown

The dream is gone

I have become comfortably numb

- Pink Floyd

To get to Guyana from Manaus you have to take a 12 hour bus ride to Boa Vista and then another bus to Bonfim, the Brazilian town on the border. The bus drops you off at the Policia Federal where you can get an exit stamp. Brazil paid for the construction of a new bridge that spans the river separating Guyana and Brazil, the bridge, however, is closed to vehicular traffic and only facilitates the crossing of pedestrians, motorcycles, and bicycles. The well-paved road from Brazil continues to the Guyana side of the border where the road simply ends and a red dirt track extends the rest of the way to somewhere short of Georgetown where I assume that the pavement resumes. Moneychangers operate on the edge of the bridge and taxis wait to take you into Lethem, the first village that is a few kilometers away.

Once in Guyana immigration affairs are done at the police station by perhaps the rudest immigration officer I have encountered in all of South America who was barking orders at people constantly. In Guyana they issue you a visa for the exact amount of time that you specify that you will be in Guyana rather than a fixed term one or three months visa. I requested two weeks of time since I didn´t want to get stuck and somehow end up overstaying my visa. He asked me to show proof of financial solvency for my stay in Guyana and even though I had shown him some money and two credit cards, he didn´t think I had enough. More or less in front of everyone I was forced to dig out some of the US dollars that I had hidden in backpack as a reserve. This seemed to satisfy him and after he admonished me for displaying the money in front of everyone, like he had requested, he stamped my passport allowing me to stay for two weeks in Guyana.

Guyana itself was like another world, certainly not like anywhere else I had been in South America. Not only was the language entirely different but the customs and culture were as well. It reminded more of the Bahamas than anywhere else. For starters, most of the people I saw were much darker skinned and some of them spoke very good English, while others spoke a Caribbean style dialect that was very difficult to understand and was drastically different from any standard English. The driving was of course all done on the left hand side of the road, because Guyana was a former British colony. Guyana was just as expensive as Brazil, but strangely enough, their largest monetary bill was 1000 Guyana dollars, essentially a $5 US bill, requiring everyone to carry around huge wads of money because credit cards are basically worthless at this end of the country. The sheer isolation of Lethem despite its proximity to a very disparate and alien Brazil really gave it the feel of a place at the end of the line, this coupled with its unique linguistic system also made it feel like a place that time had simply forgotten.

The next matter was figuring out how to make arrangements for visiting the Iwokrama forest. I had been forced to take the midnight bus from Boa Vista because the earlier ones were full and I had arrived at about 4pm. There was nowhere to make a phone call because the public phones require you to use phone cards that were sold out in the stores in Lethem so I had to borrow someone’s cell phone to make the call. Lethem is so isolated from the rest of Guyana, and the world, that the cell phone calls from Lethem are actually routed to the US Virgin Islands before bouncing back to Georgetown.

I got through but only to find out that the office was closed for the day. There are minivans that make the 16 hour trip from Lethem to Georgetown every day but the bus only runs Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, as I later found out. I decided to take a minivan to Annai, near the southern edge of the Iwokrama Forest and in the midst of the savanna. I was crammed into the minivan with several locals and one guy from Suriname who was in Guyana illegally because when he crossed from Suriname into Brazil he never got an entrance stamp and therefore couldn´t get an exit stamp. Without a Brazilian exit stamp he couldn´t get an entrance stamp for Guyana. He had tried to bribe the immigration officer by slipping a $100 US bill into his passport when handing it over but that didn´t work and he was told to go back to Brazil. Instead he had decided to go to Georgetown and then take a bus to the border and slip across illegally, returning home as if he had never left. Amidst an otherwise uncomfortable and unmemorable ride one amazing thing caught my eye as we moved along the rutted out dirt road through the savanna. As I looked out into the pitch blackness encompassing the minivan on all sides I could see thousands of fireflies lighting up the darkness as if someone had placed a giant disco ball up in the sky, truly one of the more unique and unexpected sights that I had seen on my trip. Since we ended up leaving late, at around 10pm, we didn´t reach Annai until about 1am where I gladly got out of the minivan and strung up my hammock for the night in the little pavilion at a place called the Oasis.

The next morning I set about trying to figure out how to get to the Iwokrama Field Station and how to visit the canopy walkway, which were apparently at opposite ends of the forest. The canopy walkway was closer to Annai, about 40km away. At the fancy part of the lodge where I was essentially camping for $5 a night, there was an office and the woman there made some inquiries over the internet via instant messaging about accommodations at the Iwokrama Field Station and she told me that a man was coming down in a few hours with some guests and I could talk to him. About an hour and half later the Operations Manager of the Field Station showed up and he told me all about the rates and how I could arrange transportation. I managed to get a ride with him to the Canopy Walkway where he dropped me off on his way back to the Field Station.

The Canopy Walkway is series of metal trusses about 150 meters in total length suspended near the top of the forest canopy. It gives you a unique view of the forest that you don´t have from the ground. Unfortunately it was out of season so the trees weren´t bearing any fruit and there were fewer birds and other animals. I was still able to hear lots of birds and it was a nice enough experience to just be able to walk around amidst the treetops. My guide was from one of the indigenous tribes and very knowledgeable, he knew everything about the trees and all their medicinal and other uses, as well as hunting and how to live off the forest. He told me about some of the crazy animals that live in the forest such as a giant spider that builds massive webs to catch birds, and the arapaima, the largest freshwater fish in the world, growing up to ten feet long and weighing over 600 pounds.

To get back to Annai I had to try to hitch a ride with passing traffic, which is few and far between on this road. At the Canopy Walkway they have radio contact with an office near the ferry crossing where they monitor all traffic into and out of the forest. It is a good system where they keep track of everything and everyone that moves through the forest and if you take too long on the trip you are asked to account for the delays to make sure that you aren´t poaching or logging. In addition the road through the forest is closed every night for 12 hours at 6:30pm on one end and at 4:30pm on the other, further complicating things. So they radioed to find out if there was any passing traffic and it turns out that there was one vehicle on its way in about 30 minutes. With my guide on our way back through the jungle to the main road, we saw lots of toucans and other birds all flying up near the tops of the trees, and we heard many more while waiting for the vehicle to pass by. Finally the vehicle showed up and it was an ancient truck carrying a load of gasoline to Lethem. I hopped in and the truck lumbered off over the rough road back towards Annai. After about 30 minutes the truck started to overheat, no surprise really since the truck was so old. We got some water from a nearby river and cooled off the truck before it allowed us to return to Annai.

I had worked out that I could take the bus to the Field Station on Thursday night/Friday morning when it would roll through Annai at around 2am, stopping until 3:30am to arrive just when the road opened at 4:30am before finally arriving at the ferry crossing around 6am. I could then spend the whole day and night at the Field Station before catching a bus or minivan back to Lethem on Saturday morning. It would have been nice to stay longer but it was quite expensive and in the rainy season the number of things that you can do are rather limited as most of the hiking trails are submerged. So I hopped on the bus at 2:30am when it arrived and we made it to the ferry crossing at around 6am where I was picked up in a motorboat and taken downriver to the Field Station.

The complex looked really nice with thatched roof cabins and a big round central building serving as the eating and office area. I had a good breakfast with a Swedish man who was the only other guest staying there. Then I got to watch a short film on the Iwokrama Forest before talking with one of the workers there who helped me plan out some activities and told me about the Field Station.

I decided to go on a hike to Turtle Mountain that involved a short boat trip followed by hiking through the jungle to the top of the mountain where you have views over the forest canopy below. The high water level meant that the boat needed to navigate through the submerged trees to reach an alternate landing site where we found a local indigenous man who had just finished hunting and having caught an armadillo and two other jungle rodents he was preparing to smoke them. Apparently smoking is the ideal way to prepare armadillo meat. The trail through the thick jungle was hot and humid and hadn´t been used in quite some time as we came upon one section that had been blocked by a downed tree. We saw several really interesting birds, including one that apparently is really rare and hard to find. But in terms of other animals we saw none, only the tracks of a jaguar along the trail. After a while we eventually reached the top of the mountain and were afforded amazing and sweeping views of the jungle canopy and mountain escarpments off in the distance. From our perch on top of the mountain we could look down on flocks of parrots, macaws, and other birds and listen to the distant sounds of the howler monkeys establishing their territory.

In the evening the Swedish man and I set out for a night time boat trip to look for black caimans, which can grow to 20 feet in length, and other animals such as boa constrictors. Unfortunately after about 10 minutes into our boat trip it started to rain and there was lightning and thunder so we were forced to turn back. I spent the rest of the night relaxing because I had to get up early the next morning for another big day of traveling. In order to make it all the way to Venezuela I had to catch the minivan at 6:15am to Lethem.

At 6am they took me in the motorboat to the ferry crossing where I got a spot in a minivan bound for Lethem so that I would hopefully be able to get there in time to cross the border and catch the 12pm bus from Bonfim to Boa Vista so that I could then catch the 4pm bus to the Brazil-Venezuela border; otherwise I would be stuck in Boa Vista for the night. Right away the ferry was delayed because a small boat had sunk and was blocking the ferry’s path. A crane had to be brought onto the ferry to hoist the boat out of the water. Luckily the ferry was able to hold the weight of the crane and it pulled the boat out of the water, freeing our path. After crossing the river and registering at one side of the forest we sped across the badly potholed road that more closely resembled the surface of a military proving ground. Our driver was apparently intent on showcasing his driving skills as if this were a time trial for the Dakkar Rally. This was fine by me but despite all this we actually arrived in Lethem a little bit after 12pm, however, I still had time to catch the bus at 2pm.

I shared a taxi with a Brazilian woman who also wanted to head to Boa Vista and there was even talk about taking a shared taxi to get there sooner. She wanted to stop somewhere first so our taxi driver had to kick two people out of the cab and we headed off to where she wanted to stop. She asked the taxi driver to stop at a spot near the river where she was planning to cross the border illegally by boat. She tried to get me to come with her but I refused. The taxi driver was mad at her because of this and the people that she had him kick out of the cab and they had an argument in Portuguese. After she left, he informed me that he was in fact an undercover reporter doing a story about the Guyana-Brazil border. He was a proud native of Guyana and he continued to rant about how the Brazilians cross the border and cause all this trouble and then disappear back into Brazil. He said that a sizeable number of people that live in Brazil cross the border illegally to come and work in Guyana where they earn more money. He then went to the police station to report this illegal crossing matter and before we could finally continue on our way to the legitimate border crossing it was 12:45pm.

I finally made my way back across the bridge, got my passport stamped, and went to the bus terminal in Bonfim where I just barely managed to catch the bus that was leaving at 1:30pm, not 2pm, on my way to Boa Vista. I arrived in Boa Vista at about 3pm, plenty of time to catch the 4pm bus to Pacaraima on the Brazil-Venezuela border. Due to thunderstorms, rain, and other delays we didn´t reach Pacaraima until 8pm. The border was technically open until 10pm but the DIEX office, where you get the Venezuela entry stamp, closed at 6pm so despite all the distance I had come, I was forced to spend the night in Brazil, about a kilometer away from Venezuela. My brief detour and adventure into Guyana thus ended and I was back on my northern trajectory with only one country left to traverse, Venezuela.