The Road And Ferry Out

 Before I continue the story I shall apologize for posting so inconsistently. I noticed  Andrew’s spot on comment about exhaustion and there is truth in that. Power outages, weak cell signals and a lack of my own energy to put up Starlink never mind compose a bunch of words has been part of the problem but also Layne has been rather ill a fact I haven’t written about,  but now we are in Paramaribo in a comfortable apartment…

…with strong WiFi, a hot shower, and a pool, 

…and with an appointment to see a doctor I can stop stressing and get back to telling the story of our travels. Layne did not feel well in Lethem but she got progressively worse and I was frantic to get out of Guyana where nothing seems to work right. Suriname has its quirks right enough but it is a much better place to rest and recuperate. Not posting daily is always on my mind but it was just too much recently. I trust you understand. Back to the road:

Getting  out of Guyana looked incredibly difficult on paper. We couldn’t find a comfortable pet friendly apartment, Layne was as weak as a kitten and we had paperwork to do. I was overwhelmed  but slowly everything came together. Tuesday the power went out which could have been worse as a breeze picked up and blew through the open door keeping us cool. We plugged Starlink into GANNET2 and set about doing the necessary papers.  We also got word Rusty’s exit permit would be ready on Wednesday for pick up. So I said to Layne “let’s just leave Wednesday” and she was up for that.  I texted our insurance agent to buy 60 days of coverage for Suriname at US$75 and we could pick that up Wednesday. Things were coming together. We still had to apply for Suriname e-visas, make a customs declaration online each and do the same to exit Guyana. This stuff is crazy making  especially as it is just way to collect fees. It costs $50 to enter Suriname but I needed a multiple entry visa so I can fly to Europe in a couple weeks, and that costs $75. Rusty’s import and export papers, both done at once cost $125.  All totally pointless but it’s what you do to travel.

We went downtown Wednesday midday after a sleepless horrible night Tuesday as the power went out and we opened the doors to let mosquitoes in with the only slightly cool night air. I met the man who had expedited our car insurance Adrian Barrow:

He was a consultant based in London traveling the world who got bored and decided to slow down and come to live in Guyana and join the insurance brokerage his father  founded 56 years ago in Georgetown. He has a wife and daughter, can leave the office if he feels like it, shares an office with his mother whom he adores  and promised me a taste of his extensive rum collection when I come by again. He is another Guyanese who confounds the image of a backwater country full of insular resentment.   I could easily be friends with Adrian. 

Then there was David the patriarch of the family where we had found refuge in the air conditioned room. We sat out Tuesday evening and Layne propped herself up with water while I had fish and chips with a spicy Guyananese sauce washed down with bottle after ice cold bottle ( in a power outage no less) of Banks beer, the local brew. 

David has a trucking business delivering all over but he drives frequently to Lethem and Boa Vista in Brazil where he is building contacts as he’s convinced Brazil will get the road paved soon as they really want to get access to the harbor at Georgetown  and Davis sees lots of money in it for a trucking company like his. And wouldn’t you know it his wife had a stroke a month ago and died in a matter of days. They had known each other since she was 12. She loved to travel and david has photos of her in New York and Trinidad and so forth. Layne was ill and I started to get panicked inside as David told his story of 34 years of marriage. Another really nice guy in Guyana. You can see my ambivalence? 

I felt like there was too much left undone after a week in Guyana but we had to get Layne somewhere more sophisticated for a check up. So we drove for the ferry after we had all our papers assembled. Layne stretched out on the bed, her favorite position since Lethem. She clearly wasn’t well and I was worried. 

You can see the Dutch history of the early years of British Guyana in place names like the neighborhood sign above. 

Traffic was heavy as we took the coast road south with more than 100 miles to the ferry landing. But first we had to stop on Agriculture Road in Mon Repos neighborhood. 

The Ministry of Agriculture Quarantine Division yielded Rusty’s export permit which we would have to show to the dockmaster as we boarded the ferry to Suriname 

I knew already there would be some driving after dark but I wanted to drive as far as we could get before daylight faded. So we drove.

The road along the coast was never actually in sight of the sea but it passed through an endless line of suburban sprawl. That didn’t help us maintain a high average speed, nor did the endless construction and the stop start traffic. 

Venezuela claims Essequibo region and its oil. Guyana believes otherwise and is ready to fight. 

The Berebice Bridge, a floating pontoon bridge similar to one I have driven near Seattle. It used to have a toll but on an effort to gain votes the President abolished the toll - and win re-election. 

It did get dark of course and I couldn’t take any pictures. 

I tried to stay close to cars in front but they always pulled ahead and I had to rely on my own eyes to spot cyclists, electric bikes, pedestrians and pot holes. 

I knew we had to get in line the night before to have any chance of making the first ferry of the day which in turn would get us to Paramaribo if not before dark at least close to. 

We had the apartment reserved and waiting for us but we had to sorbs one hot airless night aboard GANNET2 in line at the ferry landing and with Layne not feeling well. 

We were third in line when we arrived around seven pm. I asked about the protocol and they explained to me the ferry takes 22 cars on its first run and no trucks. However they give priority to cars who were here the day before so it would take about 18 of them to bump us. He put our chances of getting on the ten o’clock ferry at 90 percent.

It was a horrible night, hot restless and sleepless. But we did get on the ten o’clock ferry. We had all the papers we were ready. They even took our kitchen knives for safekeeping as they could be described as weapons. 

It was blistering hot as the sun came up and our batteries were dead from running the rooftops/c much of the night. I filed the engine some more to cool the interior and charge the batteries.  It was sweaty work waiting to  board. 

At seven the staff showed up and I got in line with the local travelers and presented my temporary import permit and my insurance card for Suriname. 

Eventually the ferry arrived and they opened the gates. 

Trucks and cars came off followed by foot passengers. It was about 10:30am. 

And then we had to back on. Not everyone found it easy but that stuff doesn’t bother me. 

And an hour later we drove out into Suriname where teas an hour later but we still have to drive on the left. 

The process was easy, 30 days from

Immigration and 30 days for GANNET2 at customs who also stalled Rusty’s export permit it from Guyana and we were done.

The sign above turned out to be ironic as we shall see in Paramaribo’s hospital. 

Up next: an afternoon’s drive through some lovely Surinam farmland to the capital. 

Guyana Mon Amour

A point to bear in mind is that everyone we’ve met in Guyana with the exception of our first unfortunate encounter has been very pleasant. So I’m forced to the conclusion that I like order and stability and predictability. I’ve said this about myself in regards to Chile, still my favorite South American country and I say it now about Guyana quite possibly my least favorite. 

I am hoping that when you read these words GANNET2 will be sailing smoothly through the mound of paperwork required to exit Guyana and enter Suriname (formerly Dutch Guiana) a country with half the population but we hope with a more agreeable atmosphere.

I think the fault lies in us in large measure, but this isn’t a culture that understands tourism or welcomes strangers with strange customs, it’s a country that views sleeping in the same room as your dog as a weird aberration, which makes finding hotel accommodation complicated  for Rusty’s parents for instance. 

For instance we made a reservation in Linden at a lovely pet friendly apartment. On learning that we had a dog the reservation evaporated. Another air b and b was only pet friendly on the listing. Becoming wiser we checked directly and of course Rusty was not welcome. One lovely spot we reserved sent us a message as we were racing darkness from Linden to say a plumbing disaster, not specified, meant the apartment was no longer available. So we were driving to Georgetown with nowhere to stay then Layne saw a restaurant and wondered if we might stay the night. 

They were a lovely young couple running a family business and when we asked for dinner and a place to park they freaked out. But they did have rooms with air conditioning  so we took one at $50 and it was good enough. 

They could not understand the concept of charging a nominal fee to park and sleep  so we dropped it. But they did reassure us it was safe  with a security guard next door and they both are armed with permitted handguns. That gave us pause: no wild camping in Guyana then! 

With a secure place to return to even if it was an hour out of Georgetown the capital we felt we could move around. Rusty was happy in the cool room so we left him behind for his own comfort but I will tell you we decided pretty much right away there was nothing for us in Guyana. Layne was adamant and I was not far behind. 

If you have ever heard of the “third space” in urban planning Guyana has not. The idea is that the livability of an urban society is measured by the number of spaces to hang out that are neither home nor work. It’s more than simply having cafés or bars, the idea is to design places where people not only can, but want to congregate. Duval Street was one such before they took out the benches. Or for that matter any number of parks or public hangouts. Key West has lots; Georgetown has none that I could see. Except perhaps this median strip: 

We had to drive the coast road for a bit and because I had checked Google satellite view I was not disappointed. However if you had hoped or expected Georgetown to show off its Atlantic Coast… here’s what you get, for miles:

A cement wall with advertising hiding any mention of an ocean beach. On the other hand the government has expedited construction of the new bridge over the Demerara River, tall enough to accommodate ocean going freighters that we saw docked far inland at Linden:

But the bridge will also improve speedy access to the upscale neighborhood of Versailles across the river. I had figured that if the retired brigadier the honorable whatnot prime minister lived in Lethem that damned road would have been paved long since.

The fact is Guyana is soon to become a major oil exporter and one would like to imagine this shabby little backwater might become a new glistening Kuwait, not a fate many of us might enjoy but this is a country of stark unrelenting poverty. 

I call Guyana the half assed country. We look to upgrading the output of solar on our roof to the advantage of new technology as our 400 watts of old flexible panels put out ten amps an hour on a bright sunny day and we should get at least three times that. But Guyana, among the sunniest of places is plagued by constant power outages. This is a country that can’t operate an electrical grid for 800,000 people and their deployment of solar panels is modest at best. 

Traffic around the capital is awful. Most drivers are actually polite and patient, yielding to cross traffic and stopping for pedestrians in crosswalks. There are a few drivers who ride the shoulder, cut into line and so forth but they are a minority.  If it weren’t for the incessant road works and subsequent traffic jams driving could be quite pleasant at least on those short random strips  of finished repaving. 

The whole country seems to be permanently under construction which you’d think is good but there is no progress and lots of sand berms construction equipment and narrow lanes filled with traffic. No job ever seems to be ended with a finished product. Every replacing job is in progress. There are no sidewalks, no bike paths, rest areas, roadside parks or natural beauty. 

Door to door sales: 

Would you care to live in a subdivision called Glazier’s Lust? Me neither.

We walked into a Chinese restaurant to get some food to go. It cost us $32  for an order of ginger pork and beef with broccoli and one order of white rice. We had left overs for dinner but basic food isn’t cheap here. And they don’t take credit cards anywhere outside international hotels. 

For us the worst part of Guyana is the way people stare at us.  It may not be meant to be hostile but we wave back and they look away. It’s not Latin America where people often engage and express curiosity and talk to us. Here we enter that Chinese restaurant and silence falls over the room and all eyes swivel on us. It’s unnerving and makes us dream of Brazil where a cheerful good day brings smiles and struggles to communicate. Here it feels like we intrude. 

Not that people we have engaged with have been hostile and officials certainly have always been helpful. But meeting people on the streets never feels easy or natural. 

Guyana feels unknowable and un workable. We line up to leave the country at the ferry terminal. It’s a place where cars line up the night before as demand is high and there is but one slow ferry and a complicated paper trail to follow to board. Trucks sometimes spend  two nights parked waiting  for space to board. And yet there are no plans to increase ferry services and there are no facilities at the terminal, no shops no food sellers no nothing. In Mexico waiting would be a party. 

School children in formation barking out marching commands in British Army parade ground English. 

I find myself missing Latin America, cities with plazas, benches, old people mixing with young. I miss the ready smiles of Brazilians struggling to understand me, the lack of self consciousness. I am aware we have missed something here. 

I doubt we will come back. Layne is adamant but I’m always  ready to try again. Maybe after they have spread some oil wealth around. 

I keep seeing odd speed limit numbers until I realize 65kph is 40 miles per hour in old money. and 32kph is 20 mph. The past intersects the present in Guyana. 

I remember Bedford trucks from my childhood in England and here they still are:

Lucozade a healthful fizzy orange drink from my sugar infested childhood, and here it is:

Berbice Bridge, now toll free an election campaign promise fulfilled. 

The Atlantic Ocean:

The president has promised a beautification program for Georgetown in his next term. There is much to beautify. 

The Ministry of Agriculture, Quarentine Division in the Mon Repos neighborhood where you get your pet export papers.  Why are they even necessary? Lovely helpful people but pointless paper shuffling.

One day I’d like to come back maybe, and see a new refreshed Guyana full of oil  money distributed  to build a decent country for all. Maybe on some other planet in some other galaxy.