Rainy days in the rainforest

[Cathy]We have just spent 4 nights at Adel's rainforest resort on the Pomeroon River north-west of Georgetown. It usually takes around 3 hours to get there - 45 minutes in a taxi, 35 minutes in an open speedboat acros the Essequibo river, weaving between several of its large islands, another 40 minutes in a taxi along the coast, and finally another 35 minutes in a speedboat down the Pomeroon. It took us a lot longer as the first taxi journey involved stopping at an ATM to get money and the last boat journey ws delayed, as the resort wanted to pick up three other tourists who arrived a lot later! So it was nearer 7 hours in the end - and the Essequibo river trip was very hairy, wet and windy, with nothing but a tarpaulin to pull over your head to protect you - so much for looking for interesting birds!

[s] The Esquibo is about 23 miles wide at its mouth and there are 350 islands in the estuary. The rivers here are big - the Pomeroon is about the width of the Thames at London Bridge.

[C]The resort was lovely when we got there - 3 linked wooden houses on stilts, simple rooms with bathroom and a cold shower and mosquito nets on the beds - entirely essential as we soon found out. Its only functionning source of electricity was solar panels, and as it had rained a lot that day we had to sit in semi-darkness and use lights as little as possible. Because of all the rain we found we got very muddy exploring the grounds next day. It is a 60 acre fruit farm, and we saw the citrus, guava, mango and avocado trees, but had to jump narrow drainage trenches between the rows, which were very full and squishy, or balance on narrow planks to cross the wider ones! We got very muddy. There was supposed to be a "nature trail" round the perimeter, but it was overgrown and impassable. So between the flooding that was already affecting it when we arrived and the continuous rain until the last day of our stay we were very much confined to barracks. Luckily very comfortable and attractive ones, and the gardens around the house were full of interesting birds.I saw around 60 species during our stay despite the downpours. the birds had to eat, so couldn't stay hidden all day. the most charming were a pair of Trumpeters (I kid you not: see http://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2009/10/04/the-grey-winged-trumpeter/ for more information) which spent the day patrolling the grounds keeping the dogs in order, but flew across the river to roost in the trees at night.
The food was good and I'm sure I put on weight eating three cooked meals a day and having such little exercise. We were looked after by a family of Amerindians from the Arawok tribe. Agnes the matriarch was in charge of everything (the Guyanese-American owner whos grandmother was born on the estate visits from time to time). Agnes' son and grandson, sister and niece in law do all the work of looking after guests and keeping the place gleaming. Others are employed to tend the crops and grounds, but it has all got very neglected, so many of the tress are smothered with vines. Ther were other guests to chat to - a Dutch couple of our age, with their daughter who is here with VSO, and later a Guyanese family. We visited Wakapoa, the village where Agnes' family lives by boat in pouring rain, getting very cold and wet. It was very interesting to see the school and the health centre which serves the extended village with houses scattered all over the waterways and savannah, dependent on samll dugout canoes, or speedboats if well off to use these facilities. We spent a lot of time on the verandahs staring out at the rain and looking for birds, but finally got a chande to go up the narrow creek with a slow speedboat and dift downstream without an engine to watch the birds. And that day it barely rained!

We are now back in Georgetown, which we found was so badly flooded while we were away that they abandoned their national independence Day parade. all seems fine now. We are off to Kaieteur Falls early tomorrow morining for 2 nights.