The Great Guyana Escape Plan

I've been trying to put off going to Brazil for Carnival, especially Rio. Because I'm supposed to have so much fun there, in a kind of self fulfilling prophecy way, I'm sure I won't. Still that's where all my options seem to take me.

So, I'm now booked on a truck trip. It gives me a date and a place to aim for, it's not long (3 weeks), takes me down the East Coast of South America and ejects me from Portuguese speaking Brazil. (Spanish confuses me enough!) And it starts in Rio just after Carnival. I figure transportation into Rio may be difficult during Carnival and if I'm arriving so close to it, I really ought to make the extra effort and see what the fuss is all about! The truck trip people (Dragoman Overland) have a deal with a hotel who can put me up for 5 carnival nights before the main trip leaves.

The Escape Plan :: Rio de Janeiro for 16 Feb 07 - I leave tomorrow.

I see Ian at the meat-on-a-stick restaurant and oooo... gossip! A shop that's only a 5 min walk from my place got held up on Saturday night. 3 Brazilians, 2 with pump action shotguns walked in and robbed it. A shopper got gagged and tied up and the female owner started to give them gyp. Well, she did until they beat her some and thrust a shotgun in her mouth. Police think the bandits are still in Lethem being holed up by some collaborator and that one of them is wanted in Brazil for 3 separate murders! Ulp!

It turns out that Shaun and Clay are part of the Hawaii researchers and I'm invited over to their pad for a few beers in the evening. I drag Ian and Sarah over because I don't know where they live. En-route we buy beers (the Babe-tastic Polar Pilsen) from the meat on a stick place - special promotion for the week, ½ price at $100 GYD each, that's 25p! The conversation that evening quickly turns to gossip, local murders and connected people. This Lethem is an interesting place. Sarah leaves early, taking the car and leaving Ian stranded. He doesn't care, he's inebriated and having a whale of a time discussing if 15/20 foot Caiman and 30 foot Anacondas can physically exist (as the locals claim) given their sheer size. Other topics include undiscovered Wai-Wai tribes, little people and why we British hate the Americans and despise the French. I listen with awe, this man is cool! As per usual, I know nothing, I keep quiet. By the end of the evening it seems I've enamoured the researchers with my silent personality and should I return I have a place to sling my hammock (if Ian's house still hasn't been built by then!). When the beer runs out, Ian heads back to mine, grabs my hammock and sleeping bag and sleeps in the hotel garden! I have my usual drunken chat with Phantom - this time about Brazilian airlines.

Posted by Steve Eynon