When you look down below at the lush, mossy green rocks from
the top of Kaieteur Falls, two sentiments come to mind; one is that you would
never want to fall down so far and the other is incredibly humbling. You just sit there entranced, in awe, by the
beauty and the power of nature. I put
Kaieteur on my list of places to see as soon as I knew I was going to Guyana
for Peace Corps. It is the biggest attraction,
a sort of “must see” spot; Guyana doesn’t have too many of them. It was also something I would eventually tick
off my bucket list. Suddenly, I found myself
looking down at those mossy green rocks.
I feel as if this has been a trend lately, many of my “far off” plans
have been put into place and I find myself suddenly standing in the midst of
them trying to remember to breathe. October
went by incredibly quick. It was jam
packed with Cancer Awareness events, a few awesome parties, a Kaieteur trek,
planning for future Camp GLOWs and Bros, as well as holding a film screening
for International Day of the Girl. Not
to mention all the normal stuff that tends to happen. We have a new set of students, we had sports
day, we carved watermelons for Halloween, and I managed to find things to say
for an hour long TV talk.
I realize that Kaieteur is one of my last interior trips I
will take as a person living in Guyana.
My trips to the hinterland regions have been some of my favorite
experiences. It’s weird to think in a
few short months, going on a trek might just mean going to the supermarket in a
bit of rain or snow instead of hopping on a speed boat or tiny plane and seeing
toucans or vast mountain ranges covered with broccoli like foliage. Before I delve into a downward spiral of
preemptive nostalgia, let me tell you how Kaieteur easily made it to the top of
my most memorable moments in Guyana.
A group of 7 of us decided to make the overland trip to
Kaieteur Falls. It consists of an 8 hour bus ride to Mahdia, which basically
means you can move your legs and arms about an inch and crane your neck to
catch a little breeze that might be flowing through the bus. Once you reach Mahdia, you stay at a hotel
there. We stayed at this really swanky
one called Roger Hinds. We also decided
that all 7 of us would stay in one room (hey we had hammocks!) but the staff at
the hotel wasn’t too keen once they got word of our idea. We literally had to beg them to let us stay
in the room and even told them we would string our hammocks outside if they had
a place. I think they felt a bit bad and
told us not to break the beds in the room,
which was a really odd request. We ate
some AMAZING Brazilian food and cuddled up 4 to a bed to catch some rest. The next morning we caught a ride to Pamela
landing to catch our boat to Amatouk Island.
It was only a 20 minute boat ride, but it meant we had the whole day on
a very remote island with a beautiful waterfall. The island was absolutely serene and it was
ours to explore. The house that was
there was basic but had all the essentials we needed for our time there. We
swam almost the whole day, maneuvered up and down rocks, ate ramen, nasty
Vienna sausages, and other goodies over an open fire, and settled into our
hammocks for a good night’s rest. We did
almost accidentally blow up the house due to a faulty gas burner, but all ended
well. It was so relaxing just to be out
in nature, I could start to hear myself think again. 
The next morning we caught some of the sunrise and drank
warm coffee out on the porch. It is a rare
feeling to be cold in Guyana, so I savored the contrast of warm coffee against
the chilly breeze. Our boat captain’s
wife Shirley told us we should see the Brazilian dredge which was operating
close to where we were. It is used for
mining gold. We hopped aboard and
watched how they caught tiny flecks of gold in these mats. It didn’t seem as tough as mining, but it
looked like a lot of hard work and patience.
The cook on the dredge was extremely nice although she didn’t speak any
English. I spoke to her in a mix of
Spanish and was able to practice some Portuguese I have been learning. She showed us how she cooked, told us how
often she goes to see her family, and even gave us some Brazilian coffee for
the road!
After touring the dredge, we packed up our things and headed
out across the island to the other side of the river. From there we took a boat up the Kaieteur
National Park. Once we reached the park,
we had to get out of the boat and carry it up to another part of the
river.
Mountains towered over us as our
boat sped along and we were all anxious to see the real Kaieteur in
person. We met our guide a bit late at
the Kaieteur trailhead. He alerted us
that he sighted several very poisonous laborious (Viper) snakes on the
trail. 
I of course was hiking in Chacos,
so I stood no chance against snakes, or the other angry soldier ants or tarantulas
we saw along the way. If you ever go
jungle trekking, wear boots! I did walk
with a snake stick just in case, but we were fortunate not to run into any live
ones. Our guide somewhat sprinted up the
trail and I was thankful I do a fair amount of running here in Guyana. Some parts were just straight up on slippery
rocks, so it was a good work out. We all
were sweating and panting once we reached the top. 
The views and the fauna were unreal! I felt like I had transported to a page of a
Dr. Suess book. We spent a lot of time
checking out the different viewpoints and taking a ton of pictures. At dusk, we scrubbed away the sweat and dirt
from our hike as we bathed in the cool waters right above the falls.
We also watched as a flock of birds called swifts
dive straight down into the falls. Every
evening they gather in large numbers and look like they are preforming in an
airshow. They fly up very high and then
dive bomb down into the falls and you never really see them again. Apparently, they nest in the cliffs of the
falls and that is just their evening routine to go home.
At the guest house
where we were staying, we scored some left over chow mein and cooked our own
feast. We played dominos with some other
people staying there and danced a little faja.
In the morning we explored a little more and got ready to catch our
plane home. While we were waiting at the
airstrip, a bunch of other tour groups came through and had a buffet lunch
right in front of us. I asked our guide
if he knew the others guides and could tell them to sneak us the left overs if
they didn’t eat it all. Eventually, we
were ushered over and did some severe damage on the left over food. I think we actually scared the tourists
because we were a bit embarrassing in the way we chowed down on all their left
over food. They asked with a bit of
hesitation, “Where are you from again?
Exactly how long have you been in Guyana?” After doing AmeriCorps and Peace Corps, free
food is always a jackpot. Hopefully my
ravenous food scavenging will dwindle at some point in life, maybe?
Content with our adventure and full of delicious food we
boarded our small bush plane to take us back to Georgetown. The pilot steered the aircraft towards the
river so we could get a good view of the falls. As I was looking out, I realized the plane
was flowing right along with the river, nearing closer and closer to the large single
drop. It was the best view you could get
of Kaieteur. We went with more speed,
nearing to the end and our pilot free fell the plane so that we mimicked the
rushing water cascading down below. We
all screamed and clapped with utter excitement.
It was AMAZING! It was a
wonderful end to our adventure and we really couldn’t have asked for a better
experience.
I know I am going to miss my weekend adventures as well as my
misadventures here. I’m glad I waited
until now to go to Kaieteur. I think I
appreciated it much more than if I had gone earlier. Living here I have learned to appreciate the
process of doing things much more. The
process can be frustrating, but I have improved my approach to things, it has made
me find different types of solutions, and if all else fails, let go of things
and see what happens. An 8 hour bus ride
now seems like nothing, sleeping 4 people in a bed is standard, making time to
gaff with everyone along the way is a must, and of course every once in a while
it’s okay to just free fall. As I get
ready to transition to a new part of my life, I’m sure there will be a lot of
free falling. There are going to be a
lot of new, exciting adventures and I am thankful for the ones I have had here
in Guyana that have shown me to sit back, relax, and really enjoy the ride.
