Our plans to get aboard a minibus for the journey north first thing in the morning didn't quite work out. There were only two running that morning. One was full and the driver of the second quoted us what sounded like a suspiciously high price (USD25 each) for the 101km trip up to Mabura. As it turned out, this is pretty much what everyone pays. But we'd missed the only buses of the day.
We sat and waited for more traffic to appear. Finally one of the hourly ferry crossings had a northbound motorbike and a truck. We'd met the guy on the motorbike in Annai and he introduced us to the two guys in the truck, who said they'd be happy to let us ride in the back up to Mabura.
We climbed into the tarp-covered, dark, steel-floored, slightly petrol smelling (the spare fuel cans were about the only other things in there) back.
I'm not sure if the road from the Essequibo to Mabura was any worse than that from Lethem to Mabura. I suspect it wasn't. But either way, we proceeded to have one of the most uncomfortable road journeys of my life (which is saying something).
It wasn't precisely teeth-rattling. But it was jostling, banging, bumping, tossing to and fro, bum-hurting-then-numbing and very loud, with the constant clattering and banging of the truck bed and fittings. This went on for about four hours, with two short stops on the way. At least it didn't get hot and the ventilation and light situation improved once the truck got moving.
It was all I could do to give the drivers some money when we got to Mabura. It had been a supremely unpleasant ride, but they HAD been nice enough to take us with them.
Mabura was a fun little crossroads village. There was a restaurant, a shop, a bar and a police station. And stretching up the road from the police station, a long row of clapboard houses that looked like they were eighty or a hundred years old. This all gave the place the feeling of being a real frontier town. In between the cities of Linden and Georgetown to the north, and the wild interior to the south and west.
We'd arrived from the south and it wasn't yet time for the cities, so west to the mining town of Mahdia was our direction. Just as we were finishing our lunch (sticky, sweet, spicy slow cooked beef pepperpot for me, stewed pumpkin for Sarah) we were hurried up to a waiting minivan that was about to leave for Mahdia and had just enough room to squeeze the two of us in.
The road was notably worse, and involved a ferry crossing back over the Essequibo, but it was a mere 80km from Mabura, so we arrived at the sports ground/government district just before sunset.
Just as Mabura seemed the prototypical frontier outpost, Mahdia was a perfect little wilderness mining town.
The outskirts were more of the clapboard houses, some bare wood and some painted pastel colours in amongst lush jungle vegetation. Then there were the few concrete fortresses of the town's wealthiest residents. And on the main street shops selling petrol and mining supplies or buying gold. Plus of course the saloons. Or at least the Guyanese equivalent of them. Rum shops and night clubs with signs our front saying things like, "no rum inside club. No fighting. No ganja smoking." And a constantly changing mix of reggae, hip-hop and 80s Latin and pop music blaring out into the streets. Mahdia had a lively, exciting feel to it for such a small town and I took to it almost immediately.
We happened to have been dropped off near the police station, and there were officers sitting around so we popped in to say hi and ask for recommendations on good inexpensive places to stay. They suggested what sounded like the Raja hotel. We'd actually misheard, but asking for directions to the Raja still got us to our destination, Roger Hinds' hotel.
Roger was obviously a big fan of Barrack Obama, as there was a big mural plus multiple photos of him all over the place, including one that was (I think?) Photoshopped to show the two of them having lunch together. I met Roger when I went down the street to change some money and do some shopping at the Roger Hinds' supermarket.
Roger was obviously a big deal in Mahdia, but he was super friendly and welcoming, and we had a grand time chatting. He even got one of the staff to pick me out one of the locally grown mangoes I'd been admiring, on the house.
We struggled a bit to sleep that night. So far we'd found that sleeping indoors in Guyana was almost always far too hot and stuffy, and the nights outdoor in our hammocks had been considerably more comfortable. But eventually we drifted off, lulled to sleep by a Jean Claude van Damme movie on the TV.
The next morning was cool and bright when I popped downstairs to meet Johnny, the boatman we'd been chatting with over the phone about the next stage of our journey. Our different accents had made telephone conversation a little tricky, but in person we had no such problems and we quickly made plans to head down to Pamela Landing on the Potaro River the next morning for a four hour boat trip upstream.
The rest of the day was spent having a good look around (relatively small) Mahdia.
We had some absolutely fabulous Chana (seasoned chick peas) with sour pickle for breakfast and sat and sipped our coffees as the town started gearing up for another day in the mines, on the road or just trying to stay cool while tending shop.
I also walked back to the edge of town, past the rough but pretty shacks on the outskirts, to the Mahdia airstrip. Following the boat trip, the next leg of our journey would be by air, so I wanted to check out the logistics of that as well.
Once the air had cooled, we walked almost every metre of paved street in town (which, except for a few crumbling bits of Lethem's main strip was the first pavement we'd seen in over a week in Guyana). Mahdia continued to be a pleasant surprise, with just about everyone waving us over for a brief friendly chat or calling out a greeting (including memorably, one of the many Rastafarian dudes in town complimenting me on how my hair was starting to look a bit like his!)
We did a bit more grocery shopping, procuring food for six or so days, which was the final step to get us fully ready for the morning's departure. We were (you may not be surprised to learn, given all of the logistical issues I've mentioned in passing) setting out on what we expected to be a bit of an adventure: an independent overland journey to Guyana's tourism crown jewel, Kaieteur Falls.
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