As you may have figured out from the pictures I have posted, Magda and I took a trip to Bartica a few weekends ago. Overall, the trip was wonderful and Bartica is an absolutely beautiful place. It’s exactly as I pictured Guyana- lush greenery, a rolling landscape, warm tropical sunshine, afternoon thunderstorms…you get the picture.
In order to get to this little paradise, it takes a little bit of effort. One Friday after school we left our dustbowl of a town and headed into Georgetown. From there, we took a 50 minute minibus ride to the river port town of Parika. During this leg of the trip, we were stopped at a checkpoint by the police. Our driver’s license was expired, but he simply payed off the cops and we carried on our merry way driving through a string of small villages except that there were green fields of cows and palm trees in between. Arriving about 5pm, we had the pleasure of watching the sunset on the river, but also the worry of speed boating the last hour and some minutes to Bartica in the dark. Not having any other option, we waited until the boat filled up and pulled out of the dock at 6:15pm- the precise time of sunset. Lucky for us, because there was a very unusual swirl of pink clouds that melted into purple and then deeper purple clouds at dusk.
For a good while, we were able to follow along the coast as it turned black against the twilight sky. And then finally, darkness set in around us. In fact, a completely moonless night. At this point, we were hoping to see our driver whip out his night vision goggles, but of course not, we’re in Guyana! Heck, our boat doesn’t have a single light to guide the way. We navigated by starlight. Literally. In all my life, I have never ever seen stars like this. With the wind in our face and our necks craned backwards, Magda and I soaked in the night for all that it was worth. Using our combined yet limited astronomy knowledge, we spotted a few constellations- someone’s (Orion sounded good at the time) bow and arrow, the scales of Libra low on the horizon, an extremely bright star that could only be a planet, and best of all the milky way sprawled out across the sky in all its glory.
As the dim lights of Bartica came into sight about 2 kilometers away from shore, our boat ran out of gas. Mind you, we aren’t in a nice shiny speedboat, we’re in a wooden boat with 5 benches and at least 5 people to a bench. Even though I never made it past Brownies, being the well prepared Girl Scout that I am, I had a mini MagLight flashlight with me for reasons other than being stranded on a boat in the middle of the Essequibo River in Guyana. Go me. Immediately I dig it out of my book bag and call to the “captain” in the back of the boat, “I have a flashlight if you need to use it.” He was refueling by light of a passenger’s cell phone. He didn’t reply, but another passenger on the boat was like, “Wha? Huh?” Communication barrier. After turning it on and demonstrating, the captain and the passengers were like,” ohhhh, a torch!!” and probably thinking “dumb American word.” Needless to say, he took me up on my offer, but not to help illuminate the refueling process, but rather to guide us the to the dock. And that, my friends, is how we travel by speedboat in Guyana.
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