I pulled up at the landing where pickups minivans and I had gathered ready to get on the ferry. The semi trucks were lined up separately ready to reverse onto the barge. I asked a van driver what was happening explaining this was my first time doing this. “You never been on this road before?” He asked incredulous.
Stephen drives the road twice a week in his minivan with stops for meals, overnight stops where passengers hang hammocks and so forth. I talked to another van driver who can leave Georgetown at four in the morning he said, arriving in Lethem before dark. It took us two long days to drive 275 miles of dirt. 
Here’s how it works. The ferry runs from 6am to 6pm making the ten minute run across the Essequibo River as often as people need it. In our direction of travel it’s free so you just park and wait.
They load just one semi per trip and that backs down first then the small fry, us that is, also board going in reverse. I was lined up second on Stephen’s say so and I was shitting bricks. This whole operation just looked bogus to me. Look how deep the water is around the calves of the bus passengers. I had to back my van through that. 
I need not have worried. GANNET2 took it like champ. But we got no photos sitting up and freaking out in our seats.
The next minivan backed on after us and I sat there just relieved it had been so scary yet so easy. We are learning a lot about our capabilities and GANNET2’s capacity to take on tough roads. I was parked next to Stephen on the barge and we chatted. He’s in the Infantry reserves and every month goes out for training to prepare for a potential invasion by Venezuela which is claiming the land north of this river source of oil located just offshore ten years ago. Venezuela has huge reserves and a failing economy so claiming Guyana is the obvious way to distract hungry Venezuelans. So Stephen prepares to go to war. His conversation with the deckhand was gibberish to me. No English I learned was spoken like that. 
After the ferry experience we decided no stopping for dinner, just more driving until dark so we wanted to make the most of the next couple of hours. 
Photos won’t reveal the true awfulness of the section to Mabura, 50 miles of washed out road but just use your imagination. I was on edge during this section and I was wishing this wretched drive was over. 
Layne leaned out of her window and spoke cheerfully to the birders. They said nothing but their guide as though in apology said “They’re French” and we drove on. I guess they aren’t talkative. Layne hasn’t met a traveler of any kind in a long while and she likes company.
I told you Guyana is a birder’s paradise. We kept driving. 
The sun was starting to go down and we had nowhere to spend the night. The sides of the road were lined with soft dirt pushed aside and there was nowhere to pull off the road. We pressed on hoping a spot marked on iOverlander might work but we doubted we’d get there before dark. When things look bad something generally works out and a perfect overnight stop showed up 15 minutes before dusk.
It was an old bridge alongside the new cement version. The approach road was a perfect spot to spend the night. In the morning we had 30 hard miles to get to the Mabura Police Checkpoint.
Finally the approach to Mabura.
The Mabura Police checkpoint is 200 miles from Lethem and 75 miles from Linden and in a few months should be the beginning or the end of the asphalt.
The first police car we had seen. Aside from these checkpoints there hadn’t been a huge police presence on the roads of Guyana.
A couple of men came running up motioning to open the window. No one at the police station had warned me but these were customs inspectors who also wanted to check out temporary import permit and to photograph the van. No uniforms, no signs…I was barely inclined to stop for them!
Back to driving and the end was in sight. I knew they had paved at least 25 or thirty miles out of Linden with a Caribbean development bank loan and some grant money from Britain and twelve million of their own oil dollars Guyana had raised 190 million dollars to get some paving done. They are hoping Brazil will chip in to get the rest done as they want to use this as an export corridor. Meanwhile the road is still crap. 
How many passengers can you squeeze into a minivan?
We picked up a few gallons here but the whole country seems like cash economy as we have yet to see credit card use. And there is no PayPal in Guyana either as we discovered when we bought car insurance online. The agent had to use his personal pay pal account in Britain. Go figure. Falls is a fuel brand we discovered later. 
An imaginatively named village as it’s 58 miles from the town of Linden.
