Savannah
on Kate in Guyana (Guyana), 30/Mar/2010 00:52, 34 days ago
First day of my holiday. We travelled overnight from 9 pm to 9 am. The first excitement was that the windscreen blew out - it was pretty dramatic, but it was actually a temporary windscreen which was plastic. We drove along for quite a time with a howling gale coming through the front of the bus, but then we were transferred to another bus in the middle of nowhere. In fact a howling gale is quite a relief because it is so hot, even at night. After that we kept getting out every hour or so, either at a truck stop for cups of tea and loos, or because it was a police check point or customs. All the time it was dark we were travelling through the jungle, but there was a full moon, so you could watch the trees go by. I thought they would be massive trees, but it was mainly small trees with just the occasional giant. The road deteriorated into a dust road for most of the journey, which was dire in parts, with the bus barely managing 10 miles an hour, but other places was fairly smooth. Eventually it got light, and we had a ferry across a river which was a great dawn experience. Shortly afterwards we emerged from the jungle into the savannah which was quite a relief.The lodge where we are staying is pretty luxurious, lovely food. In fact they had a volunteer from Canada who is doing a critique of food service in local tourist sites staying today, so we probably had even better food than usual! They have a little swimming pool, and quite an extensive kitchen garden, beautifully set out with raised beds just like a proper organic place. They try to be self sufficient in food as it is in the middle of nowhere.In late afternoon we had a guide to take us on a nature trail, which was climbing up a hill nearby, so that was great as we could see right across the savannah. He was playing bird calls on his mobile phone which attracted some birds in. I suppose that is cheating, but is apparently quite a common way of making sure tourists do actually see something.Tomorrow (6 am) we are off on quite a long but flat walk to a place where you are more or less guaranteed to see a coq of the rock, which is Guyana´s national bird. The day after (5.30 am) we are going to do a river trip by dug out canoe. There are cayman and giant river otters.Sorry to make you all jealous...Cheers Kate