Henry in Guyana

Probably the nicest place I have been to in Guyana is Saddle Mountain ranch in the South Rupununi. I went just before Christmas and had a great time, so as Rodeo was coming up just down the road in Lethem, a friend and I decided to go for 4 nights to the ranch before Rodeo. Both of us are leaving in the next couple of weeks so it was a good final holiday.

We began by getting on the Intraserv bus from Jerry's bar at around 9pm, for around a 13 hour trip overnight to Lethem. In fact it seemed to be a popular bus as I met 8 different people that I already knew travelling at the same time! A constant reminder of the small size of Guyana's population. The road to Linden, maybe an hour or two from Georgetown, is paved, followed by red dirt road which is maintained to some degree but pretty bumpy. Anyway on the road to Linden the windscreen broke and had a massive hole in it. It was already breezy in the bus but things really got going. I was wondering how the journey might turn out (could they really drive all that way with half a windscreen?) when we stopped alongside a bus coming back to Georgetown and swapped.

Suprisingly, everything went well, all our bags ended up in the right bus, and as far as I can gather all the people too. I felt a bit sorry for those who had probably been on a good working bus for 12 hours then having to change over, delay their journey, get in an extremely blowy bus and were very nearly home. As a little extra entertainment, the bus broke down at the final immigration point so we had to get a taxi into Lethem proper.


Onto the ranch; as with last time the house was fantastic, and it was quite refreshing not to have proper power or internet, but we had enough of the basics (beds, proper bathroom) to be comfortable. This time I had a horse called Thunder, who really loved to run fast. This was a little frightening for me as I never quite graduated beyond holding on for dear life but it was great fun. One afternoon we went off to round up cattle which was good, I did this last time but I got left behind so never managed to do much rounding up. This time however, with Thunder taking me around, it was really fun. There's something about herding cattle, particularly racing off after one that decided to break loose.

Later that day we had a go at calf roping - apparently an event at rodeo where a man and a woman team up, the man has to rope a calf and hold it still enough for the woman to take a ribbon off its tail. Whilst my lasso-ing wasn't so hot, I think we could have held our own, maybe. Fortunately the event didn't take place at Rodeo so I wasn't tested.

Three pigs (I believe) had given birth to 24 piglets in the past few days which were very cute. Despite not being a fan of cuteness sites I have gone so far as to post a video of some piglets nibbling my foot:



They were quite funny with their little oinks and ran away whenever they were chased. However if their mum was around they calmed down a bit which is why they got so close to me.

As always the food was excellent with three big meals a day which are absolutely what is needed when out riding and enjoying a little rum in the evening. I hope I will return someday.