Going home Friday

The road was closed for nearly two months during the rainy season. Now that it is opened it is time for me to conclude my business here in Georgetown...do such things as eat my last ice cream, have a last drink of ice water (with ice), take a hot shower, watch television and spend time on the Internet.

The plan at this point is to take the Big Bus to Annai, spend a day or two in Kwatamang while we catch up my horse, hire a guide and head south down the "old road"...the route over which they used to drive cattle from the South Rupununi to the coast. If all goes well I will meet Clare in Lethem on the 16th of October when she comes up from Brazil.

After that I will hire another guide and head into the deep south...I hope to get to Sand Creek, Aishelton, Maruranau, Shulinab, Dadanawa and Saddle Mountain Ranch. With a bit of luck, I'll be back in Lethem in mid-November when Clare comes home from Brazil, having completed her two month walk-about in Boa Vista.

I plan to travel without my laptop...I should be able to post infrequent blogs from some of the villages that have Internet access...but, for the most part I will be unreachable. When I've completed my journey, I promise to blog my experiences horse back exploring the Rupununi.

I Got My Visa!!!

Today I returned from the Immigration Department with a brand new visa stamped in my passport. I can now roam freely through Guyana until August 2011....yeeessssss!!!!

Our Homesite

When Clare returned to Kwatamang Village, it was with the intent to build a home for herself and her two sons. After perusing much of the village, she settled on a site about a mile or so north of the main village. The site is atop one of the highest places in the village. From here we look north to the Pakarimas, east to Mt. Markapan, south to the Kanuku Mountains and south and west across the savanna to Brazil and the South Pakarimas. Here are the four views we will enjoy:

North to the Pakarimas



East toward Mt. Markapan



South to the Kanuku Mountains



South and West across the savanna to Brazil and the South Pakarimas

Our nearest neighbor is nearly half a mile away...it is incredibly quiet here...so quiet you can almost here the stars twinkle.

When the Fish Man Comes

On any day and assortment of salesmen may come into the village...Oscar the Brazoman known locally as "Sexy panties" selling, you guessed it, sexy panties. Others sell wares, fruits, vegetables....and fish. On this day, a man selling fresh fish came by the house. He had some wonderful looking Tiger Fish...a white fleshed fish that is excellent eating. The first thing that has to be completed is negotiating the price...then the all important weighing of the fish...this is a critical part of the negotiation and it requires everyone in the area be involved.

Weighing the Fish

Once the fish has been weighed it is time to take your prize home and start cooking.

Clare and Her Newly Acquired Fish

Technorati Tags: Fish, Clare

Roger

Ever since I arrived in the North Rupununi I've wanted a horse. A horse is a great way to get around the Rupununi. While they may be slower than a motorbike, a horse offers many advantages to the motorbike...they don't require gas, they will go places a motorbike can't and best of all...when it gets dark and you can't see, the horse will find his way home. At a nice easy trot they will cover twice as much ground as a man can walk, get your eye-level up a few more feet so you can see over the grass and brush...and offer real good companionship...great listeners, don't tend to talk too much.

So...I started on a prolonged search for the right horse....but, immediately ran into a problem. There is no such thing as a BIG horse (something in the 15+ hands size)..."if you want a big horse you will have to go to Brazil". So, I scoured the Rupununi, went to Bon Fin and Normandie...found one really nice horse. Unfortunately, like most of the big horses in Brazil, he was a race horse...al he wanted to do was run!!!

Then last December Capitach came riding up to my cabin with a fairly large grey stallion...pretty much what I was looking for...10 years old, had always been on the savanna, good trot, nice east canter...not inclined to gallop. So I bought him, had him castrated...and he immediately took off for a four months hiatus running with a pack of geldings down on the savanna below Aranaputa. In April we caught him and brought him back to Kwatamang.

Since then he has proved to be a great horse. He is great on the savanna...will not...WILL NOT go into a wet soft spot where there is a danger of getting mired. Works well moving other horses and cattle...and best of all he is great with the kids. Douglas (Clare's oldest son)  rides him bareback just about everyday.

 
In the photo I am holding Chamron...Clare's nephew who was born with severe handicaps. He loves to ride Roger...and it is interesting, when I have Chamron up, Roger is extremely docile...he walks slower, picks his way carefully and is a true gentleman. So now, I have my savanna transportation...Roger!!
Technorati Tags: Roger, horse, Chamron

Ubuntu comes to Crashwater

Terrence Brasche, the headmaster at Crashwater Primary School is a good friend. Recently, he said that he was having problems with his computer crashing and wondered if I might be able to help him.

Now, it is important that you get the whole picture here. Terrence cannot simply call someone to come help him, nor can he have a technician come to the school...you see, Crashwater is a Macusi village situated on the northerly bank of the Rupununi River 15 or so miles downriver from Kwatamang Landing. During the dry season you can get there by walking some 3 hours, take an ox cart...that will take half an hour off your travel time, but pound the daylights out of your kidneys or you can "catch a drop" on a trusty Honda 125 for a hair raising 45 minute ride across the Hiowa savanna, take a boat across the river then walk a mile or so to the village center. During the rainy season, your trip is much easier...just catch a boat heading there and an hour or so later you are in Crashwater.

Now that you have arrived, you still have some challenges. You hope that the sun has shown for enough time to recharge the batteries that power the computer...hope that no one has been using the computer, discharging the batteries and that the fine job of Rupununi wiring will not short out and kill the computer entirely.

Today the Gods smile favorably on us...an easy ride in, the batteries are charged and the computer system is working fun...oops! it just crashed. "That's what it does all the time", exclaims Terrence. After numerous restarts, re-boots and realy bad words, it appears that there is something basically wrong with the system. I run every diagnostic check available...nothing works. Sooooooo...."Terrence, I'm going to suggest that we take Windows off and install Ubuntu". I tell him the risks, what he needs to do to back up, etc., etc. "OK, do it".

So, with a flick of a button, Crashwater left the world of Microsoft and Windows and joined the new world order of Linux and Ubuntu. I spoke with Terrence a few weeks later...everything was going fine.

The Odyssey of the New Stove

Clare and I decided that one of our first purchases should be a new stove. Now I know that seems like a reasonably easy thing to do...go to Wal-Mart, pick out the stove you want,pay for it with your credit card, have it delivered, make supper....yep, that's the way it's done in the good old USofA, but we are in the Rupununi and things work differently here.

First, you get up at 4:30am to bathe, fix breakfast and wait (hopefully) for Robbie or Trevor to come through the village picking up passengers. You ask, "What if they don't come?"...oh, you do the same thing the next day and hope they will come to pick up passengers. We were lucky, Robbie came through around 7am...usually he arrives around 6am.

Then you head down the the dusty, bumpy Linden-Lethem Road (the ONLY road that connect s the north and south ends of the country). Along the way we are treated to some of the most extraordinary scenery on the planet...open savannas extending to the horizon rimmed by mountains that run from the coast of Guyana deep into the heartland of Brazil. And occasionally we are treated to something a bit unusual....like a 4x4 that has just rolled over.

Now, remember I said this is not the US...because if it were, this scene would be covered with police and emergency vehicles...what did we find?...the two passengers who had survived the rollover. The driver? Nobody was sure. He had flagged down a vehicle was "going for help"...absolutely no concern about "leaving the scene of a accident".

So what did we do? Well, first, check the dip stick to be sure there is still oil in the engine...then fire it up. OK, the engine runs....oh, got some body parts that are rubbing against the tires?...just pull them out until there is clearance for the tires to turn....ah, that windshield is really beat up....ok, Dylan, you get in and kick it out. So out comes the smashed windshield.

Dylan got into the vehicle, fired up the engine and drove it onto the road. Now, what is going to happen...wellllll, the driver was last seen going north, but the closest town is Lethem, an hour or so south. You're not going to believe this...one of the passengers got behind the wheel and headed for Lethem...with NO windshield. He made it to Lethem about 4 hours later...we saw him.

Remember when yo went to Wal-Mart to buy your stove and you used your credit card??? Ain't no such thing as a credit card in Lethem...cash is King. Getting cash into the country is something of a goat roping. I typically wire money to myself...which in of itself is somewhat problematic. You see, if the Western Union agent is not open, I can't get my money....nooooo, there are no phones, so I can't call before I leave Kwatamang and travel two hours to see whether or not the agent is open...today it isn't.

In the meantime, we have gone to the store (not Wal-Mart, but similar...almost as many items from China) and negotiated for the stove...but we have no money...what to do? We'll stay overnight and see if it opens on Saturday...it didn't. So we travel back to Kwatamang...we spent $40 for transportation, $35 for a hotel and $40-$50 for meals...no stove.

So, the following week, we make the same journey...joy of joys, the Western Union agent is open...we collect our money, go to the store, retrieve our new stove, buy some goods, go to Debbie's Snackette, eat ice cream...then we load the new stove and head back to Kwatamang.


In the picture, you can see Clare with her new stove on the top of Robbie's mini-bus. Before it leaves Lethem for Kwatamang, the bus will have, in addition to the stove, several propane bottles, a couple hundred pounds of ice, 150 pounds of horse feed, God only knows how many cases of soda, provisions and 10 people....nothing moves in the Rupununi unless it is filled to the maximum.

Now we head for home...with stops along the way, we arrive in Kwatamang around 7pm....so, after two trips to Lethem our new stove sits proudly in our cabin where it has been baking bread, biscuits, cinnamon rolls and cakes at an astonishing rate.

Moving to Kwatamang

The relationship with Clare has grown and blossomed. In January she asked me to move in with her in Kwatamang Village. So, in late January, I gathered my meager possessions...books, a few clothes, a toolbox and tools, a horse saddle, 150 pounds of horse feed (no horse...he is still running free somewhere in the North Rupununi) and moved in with Clare and her 10 year-old son, Douglas.

Clare, Douglas and I live together in the 12 x 20 brick hut in the center of the picture. It has a dirt floor, a thatch roof and is very comfortable. Although we have no running water, no electricity...we live very comfortably. We use a pit latrine...we draw water from a dug well, carrying drinking water to our cabin, or bathing water to an outside bath house. Living in the tropics is totally different than living in Maine. We live outdoors, rarely going inside except to sleep in our hammocks and escape the rain...other than that we live outdoors.

The house to the left is where Clare's mother, father and youngest sister live. The brick building just to the right of our cabin is the kitchen. Nearly all the homes in the village have an external kitchen. The posts you see leaning against the trees will become the corner and mid-support posts for the new house that Clare and I are building.

...This is Clare working in the "kitchen area". The table and chairs were hand made by her uncle. The entire set, a table and four chairs made of some of the most exotic woods known, cost the equivalent of $125 USD.

And, we do have "modern conveniences". We have an automatic dish washer.

As soon as Douglas wakes up in the morning, he "automatically" grabs the wares, goes outside and washes them...then he fetches water for the cabin and fills buckets for the three of us to bathe...see, we really do have running water and modern conveniences.