Henry in Guyana

Rodeo was everything I expected - a fairly relaxed schedule of events followed by a big party. As I was staying at the Bushmasters house, we had a couple of vehicles whose roofs were perfect viewing points for the Rodeo ground which was a few minutes' drive out of Lethem. There were a number of events, including bull riding, saddleback bronco, bareback bronco, horseracing, melon eating, cassava eating, and tug of war. The eating competitions were particularly funny with some entertaining commentary (at one point the commentator decided to name one of the larger female competitors as "big, strong and voluptuous" and referred to her as that for the rest of the event). The tug of war was visitors vs home which was an entertaining way of watching a lot of white people get beaten by the Rupununi contingent. I was sadly on the men's visitors team which lost.


The bull riding got quite exciting, as a couple of times once the rider fell the bull decided to go for the crowd. Given that the fences were less than sturdy a couple got broken but fortunately no bulls actually made it into the packed crowd of sweaty people.


Naturally the evening activities were quite raucous, I think some people didn't even make it to bed for a few days. On the Friday night before Rodeo there was a pageant at the Takatu hotel in Lethem where I competed in the karaoke competition with a rendition of Elvis' Can't Help Falling in Love but sadly was not the victor, or even in the top three. The following two nights were at the Rodeo ground and with such a mix of people from abroad, the coast and the Rupununi was a particularly lively affair.

There was also food everywhere - a whole section of stalls selling meat on a stick - beef, chicken and pork, as well as paçoc which is farine (like cous-cous, made from from cassava) mixed with dried meat and onions - very tasty. Having said that, it's a bit like eating raw cous-cous, so if you eat too much and then drink a lot of water (or worse) you end up feeling extremely full.


Once good times were had by all, it was time to head home. Despite losing my ticket, and not having enough money to buy another one, we managed to get on a bus (as I still had a booking) and head back to Georgetown. The bus left at around 11 but the fun wasn't quite over as the bumps on the road meant a number of things fell on me from the luggage racks above, including a torch and deodorant can to the face and a constant shower of cassava bread crumbs from whichever person decided to stow those things up there. As well as this, we were travelling in convoy with another bus, which had some problem and broke down. Apparently we were legally obliged to stay together, so at one stop had to wait 3 hours for a part to arrive. Nevertheless, some travellers decided to buy some vodka and invite me in so we passed the time with some entertainment.

The road to Lethem isn't a very good one; only very hardy vehicles can make it and at one point apparently it is 8 hours between petrol stations. If you get stuck in the bush, you're really stuck; I don't think the AA will rescue you. Needless to say, we made it back home for 3am the following morning and had had a great final week experiencing Guyana's interior.

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.