Trip to Lethem - Easter
on Kate in Guyana (Guyana), 07/Apr/2010 17:41, 34 days ago
I'm back at work now, but this is about the trip to Lethem at the end of last week.After the luxury at Rock View, Lethem is a bit of a shock. It's quite a rough place in many ways - the roads are dust roads and full of grit, so sandals were a bad idea, I just ended up with loads of blisters. We stayed with a couple of volunteers who had a big house where we were made very welcome. I cooked a meal for a crowd one evening, and realised how restricted the food options are there - I managed pancakes with bits of this and that, so it worked out ok.We did a long walk over to Bon Fim which is in Brazil - there is a brand new bridge so that was quite exciting, and nice to see the river far below. Bon Fim was a bit of a disappointment, as we never really found the main part, it was early afternoon and everyone was on hammock duty.Friday we tried to get a trip out to some waterfalls in the mountains nearby, but it seemed that everyone was busy with getting ready for the rodeo, so we could not arrange it. We walked over to an amerindian village instead which again was deserted, being Good Friday- everyone was off to church.We walked over to the rodeo site on Friday and found a good ice cream stall - but things didn't start until the evening with a beauty pageant. So Saturday was the big day, with bull riding and bucking bronco. They had a stand with seating, and the whole thing was pretty well organised without big gaps. The events were a spectacle, with the bulls keeping the upper hand. Some of them were quite wild, trying to jump up and over the fencing, so that was a bit more exciting than expected.The trip back was a bit of a nightmare 13 hours on a dirt road, pouring rain and a coach with no windscreen wipers - it was really great to get back onto tarmac for the last couple of hours. We did see some unexpected wildlife - a tortoise crossing the road, and lots of big 18 inch lizards.