From top to bottom ( i hope they aren’t really that small like thumbnails in the post)
1. A temple with a large boa statue on top
2. The pink banners just went up while I was here, for breast cancer awareness month
3. McGuyanaver moment – the outlets were loose and my mobile phone battery charger wouldn’t stay in, so the band aid worked at first, but needed reinforcement from the water bottle
4. Cars on the beach and people in the sediment-laden waters
5. Waves in the brown water, brown as far as you can see
6. Little fish, maybe mudskippers, playing in the water movement close to shore (2 beady eyes on top of their head out of the water, and they skipped along the surface)
7. View from the entrance to the rather wide and brown Demerara River
8. Yeah, i think that circuit breaker panel looks to code
Guyana: more misc notes
Random notes:
– longest floating bridge
– heavy traffic at 2pm already, getting out of town
– big cricket stadium
– mosque with a volleyball net in the yard!
– some houses on stilts
– most of G/Town is actually below sea level, hence the big seawall along the Atlantic coast in town
– 270mL bottles of beer. Local brand is Banks, definitely drinkable
– Canadian School of Arts and Science about half way tithe airport
– I did see a handful of people swimming in the muddy water today
– on Sundays, the seawall is packed with people
Guyana: bananas from the market
Guyana: bake and salt fish
Traditional breakfast here, this dish (yep, that’s the name of it) has puffy bread and, you guessed, salty fish pieces mixed with some veggies.
G$650/US$3.25 at a cafe – I think it’s G$300/US1.50 on a street shack.
Enjoyable but won’t be rushing out to have it again…felt more like lunch than breakfast to me.
Guyana: misc flora
Guyana: no Kaieteur Falls for you!
Went to the local Ogle Airport wth the tour company, but the last 3 passengers arrived 5 minutes after the cutoff (island time!). The trip would have cost US$170 for a one hour flight each way including 2 flybys of the falls, and 2 hours on the ground with lunch (apparently there is not much jungle canopy there).
At this open air airport, small planes (13 pax) fly sightseeing tours, and supply runs into the jungle. And yes, they do weigh passengers in addition to cargo.
Got a little free car tour out of it – there were some nice new houses near that airport!
I don’t feel like this miss will touch my pantheon of travel misses/skips: Taj Mahal, Abu Simbel and hot air balloon over the Serengeti.
Don’t know just what to do with myself… And it feels like I’m waiting… waiting for Godot.
Lunch I guess… tasty Crab and calaloo soup and an iced latte (G$1500/US$7.50 for both).
And yes, Oasis Cafe is now fixing their A/C (it didn’t stop other people this morning as the joint was hopping) and Wi-Fi did connect this time.
Guyana: map
Try as I might, google won’t let me update my map using my phone.
For a limited map (especially for those of you still wondering where Guyana is) see my map
Guyana: standby tour, breakfast ordering language barrier
So I can only get standby for today’s trip to Kaieteur Falls.. I guess I should have booked in advance, but was worried about the weather (which, despite 90% rain prediction, has not happened).
I ended up at the same breakfast resto as yesterday, because the other one I stumbled had no A/C (or problems with it) and Wi-Fi wasn’t connecting.
As a bonus, I found the other LP resto for tonight – a coal pot!
This is my G$1600/US$8 omelette, plus a G$600/US$3 cappuccino.
That red container is not ketchup, but a spicy pepper sauce you see everywhere here.
This place (called Coffee Bean) has the ultra low talking cashier:
Me: an omelette place
Her: would you like _____ with that?
Me: no salt, thanks
Her: no, do you want _____ ?
Me: oh yes, hot sauce please
Her: no, _________ – wheat or white
Me: ah, no toast thanks
Both of these places are dark with minimal windows – no outdoor seating here in this heat!
Come to think of it, there were no establishments near the promenade either, so G/Town has almost no real water view,.
Guyana: they aren’t *that* short
This washroom door handle is just above my knee…
On the flight here from Panama, I said the flight attendant in biz that it looked pretty empty in back, to which replied “no, it’s pretty full, they’re just short.” (he was Panamanian, since Copa is based there; and he was right)
Speaking of biz I finally received my last upgrade for tomorrow, oh happy days
Add Suriname to the list
Of left-side driving countries.
I’m not sure why the Dutch did this… But in St Croix, USVI (formerly Dutch) they drive on the left side too, albeit in that case with normally-on-the-right-side vehicles, which is extra weird and unsafe.