Coast to Coast: Guyana's Plains from West to East

Our second trip to Georgetown began with a walk through town in the pleasant cool of the morning. Central Georgetown, and indeed almost all of the city, is flat and fairly small. There are lovely tree lined walkways in the centre of a few boulevards. So despite the lack of sidewalks on many streets, Georgetown is actually reasonably walkable.

We got to the Surinamese embassy at 08:00, half an hour before they opened. We had to pop next door to get our yellow fever vaccination certificates photocopied. We'd paid attention to everything on the embassy website (including the dress code! No shorts, no jandals amongst other things...) But it hadn't mentioned this one item.
The consular officer was all ready to give us both our tourist cards and send us on our way, but fortunately we'd really been paying attention and knew that Kiwis require an actual visa, so we spent a bit more time with him as Sarah filled out her application form. He was super friendly and excited about our visiting Suriname (and Guyana), and said he'd make sure Sarah's visa was all set and ready to be picked up by 13:00 that afternoon.

This left us a wee while to check out the immediate environs of the embassy. This included a produce market (fun and busy, complete with chana breakfast stop) plus the botanical gardens. The gardens weren't that spectacular in themselves, but as a pleasant public space in a town that really doesn't have many of them they were nice. Supposedly the zoo inside is a bit depressing. We saw a tapir inside from the distance, but somehow failed to find the manatee in the little most out front. How do you miss something as big as a manatee in such a pond that can't have been much more than 80sqm!?

Back at the embassy the consular officer gave us back Sarah's passport and wished us a pleasant journey to Suriname.  We had all afternoon to check out the sights of the sights of the city.

Probably the foremost of these is Saint George's cathedral. It's a vaguely neo-gothic structure.  It's also vaguely Tudor. It must be in pretty thin company there, as there can't be many buildings in the world that contain both black and white wood/stucco framing and flying buttresses. Beyond style, it's also unusual (I almost said unique, but that's clearly not true, as we visited another impressive wooden cathedral in Suriname yesterday) in that it's made almost entirely of wood.  As we often do when visiting churches, we had a lengthy sit in the cool, peaceful atmosphere before moving on to the bustling and chaotic Starbroek Market.

Stabroek is the beating heart of Georgetown. We'd visited it a couple of times before to catch minibuses outside, but this time we plunged right in to the heart. It was as busy as any Asian central market, and more labyrinthine than most, as the aisles were all very narrow.  It had a fun bustle to it, though this was also a touch unnerving, as it also is supposedly packed to the gills with pickpockets. But I guess having (literally) deep pockets and looking a little scruffy (speaking for myself here, not necessarily Sarah) have their benefits, as we saw/felt no sign of them.

The next morning I attempted what Sarah suspected would be a futile task: obtaining a refund for our unused steamer tickets from Bartica to Parika. The lady in the office said she couldn't give refunds and that we'd have to head to the head office of the Harbour and Transportation department. This was a pleasant walk up Main Street. Fortunately I was wearing long pants and shoes as, like the Surinamese embassy (and most government buildings and churches and even schools where parents come to collect their children) it had a dress code.

The process wasn't exactly efficient... I got sent to the proper branch, told to wait for the director, had him verbally approve my refund, had a clerk fill a form out (I'm charmed by the fact that many receipts in Guyana are handwritten and very verbose. To wit: "Refund of GYD1000 for two steamer tickets to Mr. Llewellyn Bardecki from Bartica to Parika on September 29, 2018. Passengers did not travel as the sailing was cancelled due to mechanical difficulties.") Then the form was signed and stamped by the director. We moved to a different branch where I sat and waited for another official to sign the form, then finally went to the cashier's window where the form was traded in for my refund of GYD1000 (USD5). Everyone was genuinely friendly, and I treated the whole thing as a cultural experience rather than a bureaucratic hassle, so I actually rather enjoyed it :-)

On the way home I took a quick detour through the edge of an industrial area (supposedly not the best idea in Georgetown, but it was busy and seemed fairly safe) to check out the towering, red and white painted 19th century lighthouse I'd admired from the air and the river.

That afternoon while Sarah waited at home I went out to look at and take some photos of Georgetown's historical buildings. I really like the city's architecture in general. Lots of whitewashed wood, louvered windows and houses on stilts. Similar materials and construction techniques were used for the institutional buildings, but with lots more decorative flourishes applied, making many of them very striking (and pretty in their inevitable slow, tropical decay).

As the day cooled we decided to head back up to the ocean beach, but were sidetracked when we heard cricket commentary on a PA system a couple of blocks away. We took a quick look at the beach then went to investigate.
As it turned out it was the national Amerindian Heritage Month sports competition! We paid the small entry fee and had a fun afternoon watching the cricket (hard running fielders chasing a catch at Long Off beware, as the archery range began only 5 or 10 metres beyond the boundary!)
On the next ground over the women's matches were being contested. You could almost imagine that they were being played in Australia, as all of the bowlers delivered underarm!

We had a few beers and some Amerindian food (disappointing [both for taste and, as I explained last entry, because mine was made with Brazilian Tapir, which I later learned was an IUCN threatened species] empanadas) and delicious, spicy fish Tuma Pot and cassava bread.

We walked home shortly after sunset, fairly satisfied with our time in Georgetown.

The next morning we retraced our steps back to Parika and arrived with plenty of morning left to have a wander around the busy, once a week market.  Even in instances like this where there's nothing terribly exciting for sale, I just love the energy and people watching opportunities of a market.
We had a typical Guyanese breakfast including a big glass of Mauby, a very sweet, lightly fermented drink flavoured with vanilla-ish tree bark and spices.

Unlike last time in Parika we were headed not up the Essequibo but across it. The 2 hour ferry trip was relaxing, shady and breezy. On the west bank of the Essequibo we had little trouble finding a share taxi to our destination of Charity, the last town west on Guyana's Caribbean coast that is reachable by road.
The scenery along the way was different than what we'd seen elsewhere in the country. This region was the rice bowl of Guyana (indeed, of the Caribbean, with exports headed all over the islands and even to Europe). It was harvest time and the tracked combines were out in the fields, and farmers were stirring long low piles of still husked rice on the roadside to dry out and act as seed for the next year's crop.
The houses that lined most of the 100-odd km of road were mostly concrete, quite well maintained and prosperous looking. There was plenty of fairly new machinery, and most of regular string of small to medium sized rice mills set back from the road also looked fairly modern. Clearly rice farming is good business in Guyana.
At the end of the road came Charity. Three almost identical hotels, a spread out residential district, one mostly unused new-looking four storey building (with an elevator!), a huge number of unoccupied shops and market stalls and the Pomeroon River. That was pretty much Charity.
We picked one of the hotels at the driver's recommendation and resigned ourselves to (once again) trying to sleep with pounding music from the bar/nightclub one floor below.
The night actually turned out to be pretty pleasant. We had dinner at a restaurant next door (mmm... Pepperpot) and met Lydia, a young Guyanese-Canadian who was working on a project designed to increase productivity and commercial opportunities for Amerindian farmers living down river towards the mouth of the Pomeroon.
We talked about our respective experiences in Guyana. Safety in Georgetown: she generally felt safe and saw crime in the city as being generally opportunistic and avoidable with a little bit of common sense, though some of her white Canadian co-volunteers didn't feel nearly as comfortable.
Differences between Canada and Guayana: She thought that perhaps THE biggest difference was how forward and (in Latin America you'd call it macho) Guyanese men were. "If a guy talked to me in Canada like that..." pause, "it just wouldn't happen! Men in Canada wouldn't dare talk to you like that!" Sarah generally agreed with Lydia's frustrations, noting that at least in Guyana they'd stop if I was around, unlike some other places we've visited.
And we also heard a bit about her frustrations with her project. How it was a struggle to get farmers using new techniques, even ones from other indigenous communities that clearly improved safety, increased crop yields and were more sustainable. And how even when similar projects had succeeded in the short term the effects rarely lasted more than a year or two.
We eventually said a pleasant goodnight and went back home to bed where, to our absolutely delighted surprise, the music stopped by around 22:00, allowing us a good sleep before market day the next morning.

This hardly seemed necessary, as it took a while for market day to get going. As a trade hub for all of the communities up and down the Pomeroon and all points west on the coast to the Venezuelan border, I guess many of the market-goers and vendors had a fair bit of travel before they reached town.
Nevertheless, by 09:30 it was in full swing and the busy streets hardly seemed to belong to the same dusty, almost deserted town we'd seen the previous day. We had breakfast at the market, then a couple of juices at the Original Juice Centre (Sarah had passionfruit, while I decided to give Fruit Punch a try. Too often code for "random red sugary stuff," this fruit punch was delicious with lots f guava, a bit of banana and clearly several other contributors that I couldn't identify).

We'd decided to catch the 13:00 ferry back to Parika. Our departure at 10:30 was a mixed blessing. We missed out on the liveliest part of market day, which  focuses on beer, rum and the hotel bars. But we also missed out on the rowdiest, loudest part of market day, which focuses on beer, rum and the hotel bars. Apparently there was a bit of a dispute between the hotels and the local magistrate's court a couple of blocks away, who had decreed that music couldn't be played until the once-a-week court sessions were complete so as no to disrupt them (yes, the music was that loud).

The return journey put us back at Stabroek around 16:30. It was getting a bit late, but frankly we felt like we'd had about enough of the city and decided to carry on east towards our next destination, the border with Suriname.

There were no minibuses left headed to the border town, but we found one going about halfway to Rossignol on the Berbice River.  It was only about 95km, so with the recklessly fast driving of most Guyanese minibus drivers we'd be there just shortly after sunset, right?
Wrong. The traffic getting out of town was bad and the coastal road east of G'Town was a bit narrower and rougher than that to the west. When it was 18:45 and fully dark and we still weren't there I began to get (only slightly) nervous.
We didn't know if there would be anywhere to stay in Rossignol and had been hoping to get across the river to the larger town of Nieuw Amsterdam. Well, absolute worst case we could go to the police station and ask to hang our hammocks up outside.

As it turned out we had no reason to worry. When we got near and our bus driver asked where we wanted to be dropped off we told him we were looking for a place to spend the night.  He neatly dropped us next to a local minibus heading up the road and across the bridge to Nieuw Amsterdam.  That driver in turn helpfully dropped us between what he said were the two best cheap hotels in town. All through Guyana, we'd been pleasantly surprised by taxi and minibus drivers. They seemed to stick scrupulously to the government regulated fares for their routes, varying from them only in occasionally offering a small discount. And they were almost always helpful and knowledgeable as well.

We spent a restful, if slightly expensive night in Nieuw Amsterdam. Guyana is not a cheap place to travel. Food and drink aren't bad, but outside of the interior where you can often find a place to hang up a hammock for next to nothing, accommodation often costs NZD50-60 per night for a basic double room. And ground transportation isn't cheap either, with the ~300km bus ride from Linden to Lethem costing around NZD110 per person (though it is, admittedly, pretty hard on the vehicles). More than once I'd wondered how the Guyanese, whose wages aren't particularly high, managed the elevated prices for even local, non-imported goods.

All that said, Guayana was still a wonderfully pretty and welcoming place to travel. We got more evidence of this the following morning when, after a couple hours drive we arrived in the border town of Skeldon. People in the market were immensely helpful, changing small amounts of US currency to Guyanese dollars, recommending breakfast spots and offering to call us a taxi to the border.
Michael our taxi drive exemplified the welcoming spirit of the people we'd met. "Aw man, you should've come here a few days ago! I could've taken you to the beach, we could've gone to my house for some real Indian food with my family... But I'm glad you've had such a good time in Guyana.  Here's the ferry dock now. Yeah, getting a bus on the other side will be no problem. Just 50 Suriname dollars.  Just go in through that entrance to buy your tickets and do the customs stuff. Have a good trip!"

What an appropriate and friendly farewell from a friendly and beautiful country!

Guyana River Life

Georgetown gave us a very warm greeting. Nina, one of our fellow passengers on the flight from Kaieteur had been showing her visiting family around and very kindly offered us a ride to our guesthouse.
We happily accepted. There were heaps of taxis around, but nonetheless having a reliable, friendly ride was most welcome as G'Town has a pretty terrible reputation for street crime (right up there with Rio and Sao Paulo, which, given our experiences in those two cities suggests that it probably isn't really that bad after all...)
Anyhow, as a result of this reputation and our unfamiliarity with the city, all we dared to do was go across the street to a nightclubby looking place for dinner. I was kind of expecting it to be mediocre and expensive, but the fish curry was tasty and rich and the crab and calaloo (dark green leaf vegetable) soup was spicy and delicious, complete with very occasional tiny bits of crab shell.
Our connection with the nightclub continued as their music blared throughout the neighbourhood late into the night. There's something about the Guyanese and really loud music. Just about anywhere you go you're likely to find a big speaker stack blasting out the tunes. Fortunately I rather like the music they usually play, which includes lots of covers (and originals) of 60s through 80s soul music, 80s pop and the occasional Latin tune. And of course the ubiquitous reggae/dub. Being in Guyana has genuinely given me a new appreciation for non-Bob Marley reggae (though Bob shows up pretty regularly of course).

The next morning we were obliged to change accommodation as the Rima guesthouse had a big tour arriving. An American woman named Jennifer was in the same boat, so we agreed to share a room at the pricier (but air conditioned and fridge-having) Sleep Inn.
Jennifer had done a research project in Guyana during university and was back to  visit some of the friends she'd made down in the Rupununi. She was set to leave at the ridiculous hour of 04:40 for her flight the next morning. We meanwhile were planning an only slightly more sensible wake-up in order to get to the town of Charity for market day.
Between this and the fact that, being Sunday, the city was all but empty (and as a result not safe to walk around, depending on who you ask), we still managed to have a bit of a fun afternoon and evening.
We started by going out and looking for lunch and an ATM (most everyone in Guyana had so far been okay with accepting payments in USD, but it was simpler and slightly better value to use GYD). We found lunch from one of the common street restaurants, which consist of little more than a folding table with some pots and trays of food plus a big stack of takeaway containers. Chicken curry and roti for lunch! We found the ATM just down from our lunch spot by following along the busier streets (as it turned out this was the one the lady at our guesthouse said we oughtn't to go to as the neighbourhood would be "very lonely," but there seemed o be enough foot traffic around).

After a bit of a cooling rest in the aircon we walked up to the sea wall. Georgetown is actually a metre or two below sea level. So the undramatic structure is actually very important to the well being of the city. All of this is hardly a surprise, as the town was originally settled by the Dutch!
The seawall is supposedly a popular spot on a Sunday afternoon, but obviously we were a bit early, as there weren't a ton of people around and the portable bars, games of chance, bouncy castles and trampolines were still getting set up for the day.
We headed back towards home before it really got going as we were keen to find a fun spot to watch the finals of the Caribbean Premier League cricket that was being contested by the Guyana and Trinbago that evening.

We'd scoped out a spot on our way out and sure enough it was full of cricket fans when we got there. We had to squeeze in on a few plastic chairs that spilled out beyond the confines of the bar and into the street. There was a big table of Trinidadian fans at the next table over, but there was also an entertaining match (for a while at least) and lots of Banks (the local lager) and Guinness to go around, so everyone had a jolly time.
Unfortunately by the time there were about 10 overs left, it had started to rain in Trinidad (and it was already pretty clear that Guyana weren't going to win) so when we learned that the delay was going to be at least two hours after the rain stopped we decided to pack it in.

Before setting our alarm for a foolishly early time, Sarah and I had come up with an alternate plan for the next few days that didn't involve waking up at stupid o'clock, so we said goodbye to Jennifer and got to have a good night's rest.

The next morning we headed down to the central Starbroek Market to catch a bus across the 2km floating Demerara River Bridge and along the coastal road to the west.  About an hour's drive brought us to Parika on the Essequibo River. No bridges here; the Essequibo is about 15km across near its mouth.
In any case we weren't headed across, but up the river. A speedboat with about 25 seats and two 200HP engines would carry us about 50km to the town of Bartica.  On the way down we steamed through a big thunderstorm that forced us to batten down the hatches. Or more accurately, roll down the sturdy plastic rain covers. These worked well to keep us dry, but made it very hot and steamy in the boat, so it was a relief to all the passengers when it calmed and we could once again watch the forest zip past.

Bartica calls itself "the gateway to the interior," and is the first (or last) stop for many gold and diamond miners as they head south. We expected it to be a lot like Mahdia, which was fine, as we'd quite liked its energy and "wild west" feel.  Bartica had a bit of this, but it was more of a lived-in town. Bigger, but less intense than Mahdia had been.

And there wasn't really all that much to do in Bartica. We could have taken a (doubtless fun and interesting) tour upriver, but that would have involved chartering a whole boat, which was beyond our budget.
So instead we walked around the town and sat at the beachside park where the annual Bartica regatta was focussed.  Apparently the regatta started in 1947 when a foreign sailor who'd been boasting about the speed of his onboard motorboat was challenged by a local captain, and has since grown into the highlight of the Bartica calendar.

Also on the waterfront was a black granite memorial to the twelve people killed when a gang of escaped convicts attacked and pillaged the town for one terrible hour on the night of February 17, 2008. They departed by boat and within six months had all been killed or captured by the Guyanese police and military. It was shocking that something like this could have happened so recently in an otherwise happy little town.

We also spent more than a little time sitting on the balcony at the D Factor Guesthouse, as two out of our three afternoons in town featured really spectacular thunderstorms, including lightning strikes where the light and sound happen simultaneously and the thunder isn't a rumble or even a clap, but an earsplitting crack that makes you jump out of your seat.

The final highlight of Bartica was a culinary one. We'd seen a food cart on our first night advertising "International Plantain and Cheese, Out Da Pan and In Yo Hand."  How could we not give it a try when we found them open on night two? It was great! Vaguely like a Guyanese poutine. Deep fried plantain sticks topped with a two-egg omelette and grated cheese. And a healthy dose of pepper sauce of course! We got a large to share that night, then went back and got a large and a small between us the next evening.

I suppose this is as good a time as any to talk a bit about Guyanese food more generally. It takes influences from Indian, African, European and even a bit of Chinese. With this in mind you'd expect it to be deliciously diverse. You'd be half right. We really enjoyed almost all of the food we ate in Guyana, but it did become a bit same-y after a while.
Breakfast was almost always Chana (spiced cooked chick peas... during our stay Sarah and I ran a personal contest to determine the best chana in Guyana) with some roti or Pholurie (kind of like cassava flour doughnuts).  There were also pre-made burgers of various sorts available, but we tended to avoid these. Dinner was a bit more diverse. It was usually fried chicken/fish and chips, curry and rice or "cook up" which is effectively spiced boiled rice with some legumes and whatever else is lying around.   And lunch was usually a choice of the breakfast or dinner foods and/or various fried snacks (e.g. Scotch egg, corndog type things or battered deep fried eggplant [very yummy!])
The Chinese food we found was pretty uninspiring, fried rice or chow mein and that was about it (doubly disappointing since a lot of Guyana's Chinese immigrants originally came from Sichuan province).
The fruit was good, but not quite AS good or varied as I'd hoped.  Though the juices we tried (despite almost invariably being sweetened) were very tasty and refreshing.
One uniquely Guyanese dish that I tried and really liked was Pepper Pot, a savoury, spicy-sweet slow cooked meat dish. Oh, and I ate a tapir empanada at an Amerindian heritage event. It was sort of like dry, slightly sweet venison.  (I just realized today that all tapir species are classified as Vulnerable on the IUCN list, so boo to me for working against their conservation by eating one :-( )
So overall we quite liked the food in Guyana (the ubiquity of fish was helpful for pescatarian Sarah). I'd rate it in the top three South American countries to eat in, especially if your visit is relatively short.
Anyhow we spent three nights in Bartica largely because doing so would allow us to take the slower (but much cheaper and presumably more relaxing and scenic) government steamer back to Parika instead of a private speedboat.
We got to the dock early and were told to wait to buy our tickets and board, which we did happily enough.
We continued to wait happily when our 12:00 departure time came and went.  And we were still waiting at 13:00. A bit less happily so at 14:00. And still less happily when around 15:30 we were told that due to engine troubles the boat wouldn't be going until 06:00 the next morning at the earliest.
We'd already made plans to arrange our documentation for Suriname on the following day (Friday). The embassy was only open on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. We had plans out of Georgetown for Monday, so if we weren't back in town by that evening we'd be delaying getting our visas by five days.

So. Another pricey speedboat back to Parika (though I'll say again that the trip on the speedboat actually was a lot of fun. And pretty well managed too, with set fares as well as passenger lists and pre-departure inspections to ensure that the boats weren't overloaded and that everyone was wearing their lifejackets).

We took a slightly different route back to Town (as the locals call Georgetown). Instead of driving back across the bridge we were dropped at the Vreed en Hoop Stelling (Stelling being the Guyanese name for a passenger boat pier) and took a speedboat back across the Demerara right to Stabroek market, where we'd started out journey a few days previously.

The light was fading as we headed back to the rima guesthouse, but we still had time to pick up a few bags of quick eats from vendors around the market to supplement the papaya we'd been gifted by the folks at our Bartica guesthouse.

The next few days would be when we got to do most of our getting to know Georgetown, so I think I'll stop here and save them for the next (and final Guyana) entry.

Big Waterfalls! Orange Birds! Tiny Golden Frogs!

The trip to Kaieteur started at 06:30 with us meeting our boatman Johnny and two of his mates on the street outside our hotel. It took a little while to fill the fuel tank for his boat and a further hour to drive down the (genuinely) bad road to the tiny riverside settlement of Pamela Landing.
A few minutes to get the 4m aluminium boat into the water, the outboard from the back of the car on to the boat and off we went up the Potaro River.

The trip started out with the Potaro smooth as glass, reflecting the blue sky and the jungle-clad flat-topped mountains along its length.
The banks were mostly forested, but occasionally a house or a small mining area would appear. Despite these small intrusions of civilization, the whole journey was wonderful. Most of the time we were surrounded by wilderness, with plenty of birds and occasionally huge blue morpho butterflies fluttering along the riversides. And higher up in the distance, the rugged cliffside  and flat summits of the Tepuys (just like Roraima across the very nearby Venezuelan border). We both agreed that it was definitely worth the ~$80 premium to approach the falls by river.
The river itself was wide, probably 200m across in parts, but the current was slow as was the boat's progress, so I wasn't too worried about getting to land sans-life-jacket if we did somehow end up in the water. What we'd do once we got there, completely surrounded by thick bush, was another question altogether though.

We made two stops on our four hour trip up the river. At each of these we (mostly Johnny and his two buddies) would take the motor off, pick all the bags out of the boat and carry it around a set of rapids.  At the first, longer, of these portages, Sarah and I didn't listen quite well enough to the directions and ended up hauling our bags and 20L of fuel to the further of the two upstream landings, about 3 times the distance we needed to!
After the second rapids, Waratuk, even the occasional houses and mining camps disappeared, as we'd officially entered Kaieteur National Park.

From Waratuk it was only about another 30 minutes to the landing at Tukeit. On the way we caught brief glimpses of Kaieteur, which still managed to look huge, despite being more than 5km away.  At Tukeit Johnny and the boys came ashore for a brief rest at the new park guesthouse (similar in appearance and comfort to the nicest of NZs Great Walks huts).  They pointed us to the start of the trail up to Kaieteur and we were both off, them back down the river, us up (way up) to the top of the falls.

The walk up was through pretty wild jungle, but the trail appeared well used and was easy to follow.  The walk wasn't terribly tough. I reckon that in terms of difficulty it'd be (just) in the bottom half of tramps I've done in NZ. Even the heat wasn't so bad, as the whole of the 300m hill climb was shaded by the tree canopy.  There wasn't tons of wildlife except for a few birds and insects, but the feeling of adventure and the pretty sidle below small cliffs covered in moss, tree roots and dripping water near the top made the three hour climb pass quickly enough, even with 15kg (about 6 of which was food for our stay) on my back and 11kg on Sarah's.

Up on the flat top of the plateau the forest opened up and gave us a single opportunity to lose our way, but you could still make out a bit of a trail and soon enough could see the radio antenna atop the park headquarters building.
The skies suddenly opened up for the final 10 minutes or so of our walk, so we arrived at the modern looking visitor centre soaking wet, but to a warm (if slightly surprised) greeting from the staff.
We sat and chatted with a few of the five staff while they radioed a couple of others to set up one of the bedrooms in the guesthouse.
We walked the 600m along the flat sand and rock path to the guesthouse. It was a little older than the one at Tukeit, and there was a bit of mould and rot around, but it was still a pretty nice place with beds, mosquito nets, (cold) showers, solar electricity and a full kitchen. Plus a nice porch to hang our hammocks on (this would become important) and very few mosquitoes.

We made our first visit to the falls later that afternoon, taking the short walk down to the Rainbow viewpoint. We sat there for probably 45 minutes. I had a big, open mouthed smile on my face for the whole time. Words don't do Kaieteur justice. The falls are 250m high, and unlike many tall waterfalls they are big as well as high. At their peak flow they are about 1/3 the volume of Niagara Falls, and are five times the height. They weren't at their biggest in the beginning of the dry season, but were still about 84m across a they tumbled down from the plateau into the forested gorge that carried the waters off into the distance.
As we sat, thousands and thousands of white collared swifts began flocking above us forming (as Sarah called them) galaxies as they prepared to dive down past the crest of the falls, swerve in behind and return to their nests for the evening.  By the time it was dark we still haven't had enough and were very happy with our plan to stay at Kaieteur for four to six nights.

Over the next few days we developed a bit of a routine.
Go out to see the wildlife in the morning. There wasn't tons of wildlife in the park, but a lot of what was there was pretty amazing: Guianean Cocks of the Rock in the middle of the forest. Flaming orange birds with crazy looking mohawk crests and conspicuous fluffy bottoms (unsurprisingly, Sarah loved these guys). Golden Rocket Frogs. Tiny frogs, about the size of a single finger joint, they have deadly neurotoxins on their skin and live their entire lives in the Giant Tank Bromeliads that, like the frogs, are endemic to the Kaieteur region.
And of course the swifts. Each morning we'd have a cup of tea or coffee at the top of the falls near sunrise as they emerged for the day. Then in the evening we'd return to the falls top and watch as great rivers of them detached from the galaxies swirling above and dove at amazing speed just over our heads down into the tumult.
And with the thousands of small birds, unsurprisingly, came predators. Several orange breasted falcons who would often buzz past us in the area of the Boyscout viewpoint.
After wildlife viewing we'd retire to reading (and/or writing) in our hammocks during the heat of the day only occasionally emerging for a midday visit to the falls or the visitor's centre to say hi to the staff.

We had some fun with them while we were at Kaieteur as well. One night we joined them playing cricket next to the airstrip. Another day one of them (Frankie) took us to the tiny settlement of Menzies Landing (1km by land, 4km by river from the top of the falls) where we had very expensive beers and a fun talk about life in Guyana and the park with Frankie and the shopkeeper.
One afternoon we played Monopoly with three of the wardens and two other staff who'd flown in from Georgetown to do an inspection.
And another day I made a quick return trip to Tukeit with the chief of the station, Washington. I helped him do an inventory and some minor maintenance at the Tukeit guesthouse. He took me out on a boat ride on the Potaro, then gave me a serious workout on the way back, climbing up the hill (with a much smaller pack than the first time, true) in almost exactly 1.5 hours. On the way up I stepped distressingly close to a Labarria (also known as a Fer de Lance or Lancehead), a very fast striking, very venomous snake. Though I only noticed when we were already past it.

For most of our time at Kaieteur it was just us, the staff and the occasional resident of Menzies or the further upstream village of Chenepau who came to visit. But in the middle of each day a few small planes would bring anywhere from 12 to 50 day trip visitors to the park. Aside from upkeep of the trails and buildings, this was the staff's biggest responsibility. One of them would walk each planeload of visitors around to two or three of the viewpoints, telling them a bit about the flora and fauna, geology and history of the region for a couple of hours. Then it was back to the visitor centre for a late lunch and back on the plan for the return flight to Georgetown.

I followed along with the tours a couple of times and they just highlighted how lucky we were to spend several nights at the falls. They had to be squired around by the guides for their whole visit, while we were free to roam. We could spend as long as we liked at each viewpoint, returning as often as we liked. And curiously, only overnight visitors are allowed to go right to the top of the falls standing next to, or even in, the river as it tumbles into space. Apparently a few suicides in quick succession led to daytrippers being banned from the area. Not that there weren't plenty of other spots from which a plunge would be definitively fatal. None of the viewpoints had guardrails, and all of them sat atop sheer cliffs that dropped straight down into the gorge. I was more or less okay standing near the edge (one day I even lay down and hung my head over the edge looking down at the base of the falls where the water positively exploded as it hit the pool at the bottom). But it made me nervous to see others close to the precipice.
And unlike the day visitors we got to see the falls in different weather and moods. On the afternoon of our fourth day and most of the fifth day and night it rained very heavily. In mere hours the river had swelled, the colour changing from a tanin-stained cola brown into a muddier sediment laden lighter brown and the crest of the falls wideni from 84m to about 106m.

One other thing that occupied us towards the end of our stay was trying to arrange our departure.
We'd inquired at Mahdia with one company, Air Services Limited, and they'd said they did "shuttles" (i.e. regular passenger and cargo flights) in the region four days a week. The park staff helped us call and book a flight on Friday. Then on Thursday afternoon we were told it was delayed until Sunday. Then Saturday morning we were told it would be delayed until Monday. Kaieteur was a great place to stay, but that would have been nine nights. Plus we were running low on food and, despite all the odds and ends left by others at the guesthouse, were getting tired of eating the same thing (variations on beans and rice plus crackers) day after day.
So when a Trans Guyana Airways tourist flight showed up on Saturday afternoon with two empty seats we jumped at the opportunity to climb aboard for the flight back to Georgetown. Even better, they only charged us USD84 each, 30 less than ASL would have. So big cheers for Trans Guyana, boos to Air Services Limited (the organisation, not the pilots, who were universally lovely chaps).
So it was that after seven slow days and nights at Kaieteur we found ourselves running back to the guesthouse, unslinging our hammocks and throwing everything into our packs, then running back to the airstrip with just one last quick visit to the falls and to the Cocks of the Rock in between.
We got one finally glorious view of Kaieteur as the plane climbed up above the gorge and the forest (I'll mention now, right at the end, that as Teur means falls in the local Amerindian language, saying Kaieteur Falls is redundant).
The flight back took us over kilometre after kilometre of "broccoli", as the giant rainforest trees appeared from 9500 feet.
This was broken by the occasional scar of a mine, or the red strip of a road or the wide brown stripes of the big Potaro or Demerara and even bigger Essequibo rivers.
And then after an hour, the wide expanse of the Caribbean sea and the lights of Georgetown.