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.
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