« Caracas, Venezuela (2nd entry) | Main | Paramaribo, Suriname »
April 04, 2005
Georgetown, Guyana
So it's been 6 days and 3 countries since my last entry. the overnight bus from caracas to ciudad bolivar wasn't so bad, though the driver had the music cranked all night, which made it difficult to sleep. nothing new there.
i dismounted the bus in ciudad guyana at 6 in the morning, and half an hour later i was climbing into another bus for another 13 hour ride. the bus wrangler tried to stick me and an aussie/N.Z. couple on a rickety old bus, but i insisted that they find room on the larger, more comfortable, and supposedly air conditioned bus that had just rolled in. that bus ride was hot and thankfully blurry in my mind, as i drifted in and out of sleep between listening to music and reading. seated next to me was a brazilian man who was studying to be a priest of some sorts near Caracas. his spanish was alright, though it had many brazilian words mixed in. before long our conversation turned to religion, and he stared at me aghast that i didn't believe in christ or any god as a matter of fact. he asked if i was uncomfortable talking about this subject, and i said that i wasn't, just that i was tired and didn't feel much like having to explain myself. still, we chatted about my heathenism for a few minutes more before i turned the ipod back on.
this bus rolled into santa elena at dusk, and the aussie/N.Z. couple and i slumped off the bus, wasted tired. we made it to a cheap hotel after running into somebody's pet anteater on the street, and i must say that having it's long probiscus nose sniffing my crotch in my etheral exhausted state was pretty weird. i ate some cheap chinese food, and passed out.
the next morning, after questioning tons of people, i went running to the brazilian consulate to get my brazilian visa. there i learned that since brazilian citizens are charged some huge amount from the u.s. for an american travel visa, that turn about is fair play and they charge us 100 american dollars for a 5 year brazilian travel visa. now admittedly this is fair, and the rumored immigration meetings the brazilians and pretty much the rest of the world has to go through with rude american officials are probably aweful, but it bummed me out pretty bad to fork over 100 bucks to spend one night in Brazil. still, i'm sure i will be back within 5 years, and at least i won't have to deal with it then.
back at the hotel i chanced on meeting a swedish/south african couple that, on hearing that i was headed towards suriname, decided that they were heading that way as well. i was glad, because we were able to share the cost of a taxi from the border of Venezuela and Brazil into Boa Vista, the Brazilian city we would have to spend the night in. as soon as we crossed the border, the immigration officials spoke to me in Portuguese, and i felt confusion and excitement wash over me. as our pot-bellied brazilian taxi driver thundered south across the wide, darkening savannahs in the twilight, stormclouds on the far horizon lit up hundreds of miles of sky in lightning flashes. i gazed intently ahead, trying to imagine this enormous unknown country, as vast as my own, stretching nearly the entire length of south america. the lack of communication with the cab driver and with pretty much everyone else was an eye opening as to how easy i have it in spanish speaking countries, and of how perhaps there is a bit of adventure i miss in having to struggle with a language barrier as well as cultural ones. having said this, i am thankful as anything for the greater profundity of understanding i gain in los paises hispanohablantes.
our one night in Boa Vista, Brazil was uneventful. we got a cheap room and went out wandering, and found ourselves dining in a pizza parlor. the south african guy had the usual madness of south africans, and the swedish girl was happy and excited about everything. i asked the guy a lot of questions about how living through the end of apartheid was, and he spoke intimately about how it was and what has happened since. he was curious how close to afrikaans the dutch of suriname was, and looking forward to seeing tons of poisonous snakes.
the next morning we were up at dawn, and on a bus towards the Brazil/Guyana border by 7. it was probably one of the more interesting border crossings i have ever made, though the crossing from Israel to Jordan rates first because of the starkness of the desert and all of the automatic weapons carried on both sides of the barbed wire fences. his crossing was quite opposite, with the bus stopping for us to get stamped out of Brazil, and then carrying us only a few hundred meters more, to a muddy river. nonplussed, we jumped into a canoe, and the driver spoke, in thick caribbean english, telling me to "take offa ya backpack and sittown ova theah." he motored us across, and we climbed up the bank, and into what felt a little like back in time into the colonies.
the first house we came to doubled as a restaurant and the minibus station. we marched on into the "town" of Lethem to get our stamps and change money, and they caught a ride back to the restaurant to wait the rest of the day for the evening mini bus to Georgetown. this involved playing chess, reading, and swimming in the shallow river. twice i walked the 3 kilometers back into town to look for internet and have a look around, and walking past all the houses, i imagined life here in colonial days, the white colonists driving around in carriages and later in land rovers, the slaves and serfs toiling under the hot sun. it felt strange to see vestiges of those sad times, the large colonial houses with big verandas, the land rovers everywhere.
i found it very strange to have gone from spanish to portuguese to carib english in 3 long days. the english down here has such a different rhythm and vocabulary that i always have to ask people to repeat what they have said to me, often multiple times.
the minibus departed at 9:30 pm, chock full of Guyanas and Brazilians. i managed to get a window seat, and hunkered down for the 15 hour ride. i popped my second to last industrial strength sleeping pill, and intermittenly dozed between cracking my head against the roof of the bus as we trundled along the unpaved road. the red dirt stained the side of the bus and everyone inside, i discovered as we watched the sun rise, waiting on the south bank of the Essequibo river for the morning ferry to begin. the day began with fighting our way over downed trees in the road, and repeatedly being checked at security stations along the road towards Georgetown. turned out we had an illegal brazilian woman on the bus, who eventually got off to catch a cab with her brother and another guy. my delirium increased as the day wore on, until finally we reached Georgetown.
Georgetown has a bad reputation. everyone i have spoken with advises avoiding large swaths of the city, and never, ever walking anywhere at night. nearly all of the buildings are constructed of wood, and everything feels spread out, not urban at all. the first hotel i showed up at was closed, and feeling conspicious as hell, i hefted my large backpack and wandered off looking for another. walking past a deserted gas station, about 5 youths began yelling at me, "hey white guy, come here, come here. give me some money man, i need a drink." they looked someone menacing, and as the sun was quickly disappearing, i hurried on, turned the corner, and found a cheap but safe hotel. up the stairs, i asked the deskman about those guys by the gas pumps. "stay away from them, they trouble." i took cab to a chinese restaurant, got a take away, and then returned to my hotel, where i passed out.
this morning i awoke feeling much better, which stands to reason since i slept about 13 hours. i changed some money, and caught a taxi to the surinamese embassy. after filling out the paperwork and forking over 2 passport photos, i was assured i could return between 2 and 3 to get my visa. i caught a ride back to the hotel, dumped all but a few dollars, and went out exploring.
during the day this town doesn't have so much menace to it, but it's interesting to have people stare at me. they shout "hey white guy" a lot and try to sell me stuff, and i quickly realized i can't pretend not to understand their language when they come up begging. still, it has been a good morning, made more so by the readily available indian cuisine. i wandered through the huge stabroek market, which spans several square blocks, and then got a channa masala wrapped in some indian tortilla like bread. now i am off to the embassy to get my passport, and then i am gonna call a friend of a nice woman named jennifer who i met in Caracas, who with luck might show me around this evening. wednesday morning i leave at 4:30 am on the minibus to Suriname, to meet up with my father later that day. it's been a bit of hard bus travel to get here, but it's gonna be worth it to hang around in suriname and see the central suriname nature reserve with my pops.
Posted by bendan at April 4, 2005 10:13 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://drewish.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1318