So 20 hours after setting off from Georgetown we had arrived in Lethem for Rodeo weekend. Lethem is probably my favorite part of Guyana. It is so beautiful and open, all wide savannas and dark green mountains. The earth is not sandy like it is here on the coast but a rich terra cotta colored clay. We stayed on the secondary school compound with another PC volunteer named Antoine, who is in the group before mine. We all strung up our hammocks and got ready to go out. Only 4 of the 7 of us wanted to go out to the bar where the Rodeo pageant/talent show was being held, seeing as though we just got off a 20 hour bus ride. I'm not sure where I found the energy after getting literally no sleep but for some reason a cold beer and a cowboy talent show sounded like the perfect plan :)
June, Chelsea, Meghan and myself, as well as Antoine and Dan, another volunteer, all piled into cars in the pouring rain and headed for the Takutu hotel and bar where the pageant was supposed to be held. Of course, when we got there we discovered it had been canceled because of the rain but we managed to console ourselves with a few beers and some cowboy-people watching. Fun Rodeo fact #1: All the Guyanese cowboys wear the same thing: jeans, boots, a hat, and a navy blue plaid shit. All the Brazilian cowboy where the same thing too: boots, hat, jeans, and a black shirt. We stayed until around 11:30, at which point we were pretty much asleep on our feet. I wish I could say that I finally got a well deserved good nights sleep but, since my hammock was by the window which didn't shut all the way and it was still pouring, I slept fitfully in my poncho wrapped in a towel.
The next day we woke up early and went over to Brazil for the morning. The border town of Bonfim is small and quaint and infinitely more developed than most of Guyana, even though its still relatively poor. We drove around for a quick tour, walked around for a little, and bought some delicious Brazilian beer. After Brazil, we headed over to Rodeo for the afternoon. Rodeo was awesome. There were stands with crafts and games, food stalls selling grilled wild meat and cassava and plenty Brazilian beer and a Brazilian rum drink called a caiparinia. And, of course, they were playing American country music. We walked around, did some shopping, and got some meat and cassava and a caiparinia for lunch. The rodeo events were in the afternoon: bucking bronco riding and bull riding. Both of these were hilarious and fun and we all sat in the stands, screaming and cheering for the riders while drinking a lot of caiparinias. I have some funny videos of a few of the riders, including one where the bull charged the fence we were standing behind and you can see my camera go all crazy as we all try to back away and another where the bull suddenly just stopped bucking and wanted to sit down. It was such a fun afternoon and we stayed until it got dark. Later that night we came back to the Rodeo grounds where there was now a huge dance party going on. We danced and drank Brazilian beer until almost 2 in the morning.
On Sunday we were up early again for the trip out to Moco Moco falls, which is about 30 minutes from Lethem. The bus took us out to the falls where we got to hike and swim for a bit. It was so beautiful and peaceful. Moco Moco falls is in stages, not a straight drop. So theres a little bit of the falls, then a pool to swim in, then more falls, then another pool, and so on and so forth all the way down the mountain. It was so much fun to hike up the falls and swim in the various pools. We spent all afternoon there and then spent the evening at Antoine's relaxing and playing cards until the bus picked us up at 10pm for the trip back home.
The trip back to Georgetown was less eventful than the trip to Lethem, it only took us 17 hours (I got a window seat this time around, which was very exciting) and we only got stuck a few times, but never as bad as when we were going. We got lost when we first started out, for about a hour and a half, but surprisingly that didn't make us lose anytime. We got back to Georgetown at around 5pm and I was home by 8pm. I had ever been so happy to be back at my apartment.
Overall, it was an amazing and memorable weekend full of good times, good food and good friends. There wasn't one moment when I wasn't smiling or laughing or having fun. I would do the whole thing over again in a heartbeat. Below is a link to just some of the 400 pictures I took over the weekend. Videos will be posted soon. Enjoy!!
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Lethem Rodeo Roadtrip: Part One
This past Easter weekend was, without a doubt, one of the most memorable of my almost 25 years. It was one of those weekends that 10, 20, 30 years from now I will look back on as one of the best times of my Peace Corps experience. This past weekend, from Thursday night until Monday night, myself and 10 other volunteers traveled to the village of Lethem, Guyana for their annual Rodeo celebration that is held every year on Easter weekend. It was nothing short of a crazy adventure.
It started at 8pm on Thursday night in Georgetown, where we met up with some other travelers at a Shell gas station to load onto the bus. Our bus sat 24 people in rows of four and the trip down to Lethem can take anywhere from 15 to 20 hours depending on the quality of the road. For the majority of the trip, probably about 90% of it, the road is unpaved, just packed dirt that is full of potholes, ditches, and, when it rains, turns into a nice thick mud. Needless to say, we received many warnings about the trip down, with everyone telling us it would be an experience we would never forget. But as we loaded onto the bus, we were all way to excited about the upcoming weekend to be nervous about the ride. I ended up sitting in the far back row of the bus in front of the suitcases (which kept pushing into me the whole ride, giving me some nice bruises up and down my spine), in the foldout seat in the aisle. This was ok with me for 2 reasons: 1. Everyone knows that back of the bus is the most fun and 2. I can never really sleep in moving vehicles anyways.
We started out on our journey, traveling from Georgetown to Linden, about an hour and a half away on the last paved road we would see for days. After Linden, we turned off onto the 1st section of the dirt road, which was very wide, enough for at least 3 vehicles to drive side by side, and had dense forest lining it on both sides. There were a lot of potholes and ditches and the bus was purposefully swerving all over the road to avoid them, while barreling down at 80 kilometers per hour. The full moon was so bright that, even though the only lights we had were the headlights of the bus, you could see everything so clearly. We were on this road until the tiny village of Maruba, where we stopped a a small rest area to use the bathrooms. You know you are in the Peace Corps when you stop to use the restroom and then can't stop talking about how nice the bathrooms were. These had an actual toilet and paper, which is the height of bathroom sophistication in Guyana. We were all very excited about those bathrooms. About 45 minutes later was the Maruba police checkpoint. I have no idea why this existed. True, this was the last point of civilization until the Essequibo River, which was about 6 hours away, but it wasn't like we were crossing international borders or anything. I decided that the reason for this checkpoint was because, if they didn't stop every vehicle on the road, the tiny Maruba police outpost would have absolutely nothing else to do.
After Maruba, the road changed drastically. It became more mud than dirt and it narrowed, so that only one vehicle could fit through at a time. The forest grew denser, thicker, and darker. It seemed to overtake the whole road and it went so high that it curved over top of the road and blocked the moon. Except for the bus headlight, it was literally pitch black. I don't think I've ever seen anything look that black or that dark, with no light from the stars or the moon. At this point it was around 12 or 1 am and, except for the driver, I was the only one awake, thanks to my inability to sleep while moving and the suitcases banging against my spine. So I sat there, bouncing around as we swerved and skidded in the mud, still trying to do 80 km per hour, thinking every thouht that is humanly possible. Some of them I thought twice. Around 4am the bus, attempting to get up a rather steep and muddy hill, got stuck for the 1st time. It tried a few times and keep sliding backwards.Finally the driver stopped and told everyone to get out and walk so that he could try to get up without all the weight. So we emptied the bus and, at 4am punch drunk on lack of adequate sleep, began walking. It was pitch black and we couldn't see anything. Not one thing. We were slipping and sliding on the mud, trying not to think about what lived in the dark forest that surrounded us. We went up the hill, rounded a corner, and waited for the bus to pick us up.
Around 8 am, still about an hour from the next sign of civilization, we hit a particularly muddy part of the road. As the bus was trying hard to get through the muck, we suddenly felt it lurch forward and then slide out of control. The next thing we know the bus is abruptly tilting to the left and we are sinking into the mud. The mud reached all the way up the windows. We all managed to climb out the drivers door up front and then stood in the mud as we watched a pickup truck that thankfully happened along pull our bus out of the mud and back onto the road.
An hour later, now half covered in mud, we reached the Essequibo river here which we crossed on a ferry. After the ferry is the Iwokrama Rainforest reserve park, which is a national reserve that is protected by the Guyanese government. The road through there is about 4 or 5 hours long so we stopped for a bathroom break at the gate. The only bathrooms there were some thoroughly used outhouses and I was the only one willing to use them without question. I'm sure it has something to do with using the outhouse at the lake house growing up, so I'd like to thank Gramps for helping me prepare for my Peace Corps experience :) Iwokrama was absolutely beautiful, just mile after mile of untouched rainforest. We made it through Iwokrama in about 4 and a half hours and as soon as we left it, the landscape changed again dramatically. The rainforest was replaced by endless open savannas, dotted with trees, and surrounded by lush green mountains. This was definitely my favorite part of the trip.
We made one more stop for a late lunch at an eco lodge resort about an hour outside of Iwokrama around 3pm. We continued on our journey towards Lethem, through the open fields and across dozens of small creeks on some less than trustworthy wooden bridges. Finally, at around 6 pm on Friday, 20 hours after we left Georgetown, we reached the village of Lethem on the Brazil-Guyana border. We were dirty and tired and sore but we made it in one piece and we were all more than ready for the weekend to begin.
It started at 8pm on Thursday night in Georgetown, where we met up with some other travelers at a Shell gas station to load onto the bus. Our bus sat 24 people in rows of four and the trip down to Lethem can take anywhere from 15 to 20 hours depending on the quality of the road. For the majority of the trip, probably about 90% of it, the road is unpaved, just packed dirt that is full of potholes, ditches, and, when it rains, turns into a nice thick mud. Needless to say, we received many warnings about the trip down, with everyone telling us it would be an experience we would never forget. But as we loaded onto the bus, we were all way to excited about the upcoming weekend to be nervous about the ride. I ended up sitting in the far back row of the bus in front of the suitcases (which kept pushing into me the whole ride, giving me some nice bruises up and down my spine), in the foldout seat in the aisle. This was ok with me for 2 reasons: 1. Everyone knows that back of the bus is the most fun and 2. I can never really sleep in moving vehicles anyways.
We started out on our journey, traveling from Georgetown to Linden, about an hour and a half away on the last paved road we would see for days. After Linden, we turned off onto the 1st section of the dirt road, which was very wide, enough for at least 3 vehicles to drive side by side, and had dense forest lining it on both sides. There were a lot of potholes and ditches and the bus was purposefully swerving all over the road to avoid them, while barreling down at 80 kilometers per hour. The full moon was so bright that, even though the only lights we had were the headlights of the bus, you could see everything so clearly. We were on this road until the tiny village of Maruba, where we stopped a a small rest area to use the bathrooms. You know you are in the Peace Corps when you stop to use the restroom and then can't stop talking about how nice the bathrooms were. These had an actual toilet and paper, which is the height of bathroom sophistication in Guyana. We were all very excited about those bathrooms. About 45 minutes later was the Maruba police checkpoint. I have no idea why this existed. True, this was the last point of civilization until the Essequibo River, which was about 6 hours away, but it wasn't like we were crossing international borders or anything. I decided that the reason for this checkpoint was because, if they didn't stop every vehicle on the road, the tiny Maruba police outpost would have absolutely nothing else to do.
After Maruba, the road changed drastically. It became more mud than dirt and it narrowed, so that only one vehicle could fit through at a time. The forest grew denser, thicker, and darker. It seemed to overtake the whole road and it went so high that it curved over top of the road and blocked the moon. Except for the bus headlight, it was literally pitch black. I don't think I've ever seen anything look that black or that dark, with no light from the stars or the moon. At this point it was around 12 or 1 am and, except for the driver, I was the only one awake, thanks to my inability to sleep while moving and the suitcases banging against my spine. So I sat there, bouncing around as we swerved and skidded in the mud, still trying to do 80 km per hour, thinking every thouht that is humanly possible. Some of them I thought twice. Around 4am the bus, attempting to get up a rather steep and muddy hill, got stuck for the 1st time. It tried a few times and keep sliding backwards.Finally the driver stopped and told everyone to get out and walk so that he could try to get up without all the weight. So we emptied the bus and, at 4am punch drunk on lack of adequate sleep, began walking. It was pitch black and we couldn't see anything. Not one thing. We were slipping and sliding on the mud, trying not to think about what lived in the dark forest that surrounded us. We went up the hill, rounded a corner, and waited for the bus to pick us up.
Around 8 am, still about an hour from the next sign of civilization, we hit a particularly muddy part of the road. As the bus was trying hard to get through the muck, we suddenly felt it lurch forward and then slide out of control. The next thing we know the bus is abruptly tilting to the left and we are sinking into the mud. The mud reached all the way up the windows. We all managed to climb out the drivers door up front and then stood in the mud as we watched a pickup truck that thankfully happened along pull our bus out of the mud and back onto the road.
An hour later, now half covered in mud, we reached the Essequibo river here which we crossed on a ferry. After the ferry is the Iwokrama Rainforest reserve park, which is a national reserve that is protected by the Guyanese government. The road through there is about 4 or 5 hours long so we stopped for a bathroom break at the gate. The only bathrooms there were some thoroughly used outhouses and I was the only one willing to use them without question. I'm sure it has something to do with using the outhouse at the lake house growing up, so I'd like to thank Gramps for helping me prepare for my Peace Corps experience :) Iwokrama was absolutely beautiful, just mile after mile of untouched rainforest. We made it through Iwokrama in about 4 and a half hours and as soon as we left it, the landscape changed again dramatically. The rainforest was replaced by endless open savannas, dotted with trees, and surrounded by lush green mountains. This was definitely my favorite part of the trip.
We made one more stop for a late lunch at an eco lodge resort about an hour outside of Iwokrama around 3pm. We continued on our journey towards Lethem, through the open fields and across dozens of small creeks on some less than trustworthy wooden bridges. Finally, at around 6 pm on Friday, 20 hours after we left Georgetown, we reached the village of Lethem on the Brazil-Guyana border. We were dirty and tired and sore but we made it in one piece and we were all more than ready for the weekend to begin.
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