Monthly Archives: May 2012

The air is as still as the stagnant water lying on the marsh beyond the old wooden farmhouse. In the late afternoon sunshine the silence is momentarily broken by the snapping of beaks, while an occasional, clumsy landing stirs up a pile of dust from the sleepy farmyard.

Trust me to visit Guyana’s famous waterfall on one of the busiest days on record.

The Islander aircraft that brought me to Kaieteur National Park from Georgetown only carries eight passengers. But as I scramble inelegantly out of the plane onto the dusty airstrip, I can hear the drone of a second tiny aircraft approaching. Two planes in a day: total gridlock, by Guyana’s standards.

It is my heavily anglicised pronunciation of ‘cerveza‘ that gives the game away. But while I had not expected to be able to conceal the obvious truth – that I am not from around these parts – for long, the barman’s response throws me nonetheless.

Greg picks a leaf from the ti tree. But it’s not the oil so beloved by beauticians that he’s interested in. “You see how dense the branches are?” he asks. “The Wadjuk people used them for fishing – up to 70 people would co-ordinate, create a wall of branches and march forward until the mullet were herded into the shore.”

I’ve been to the top of the Empire State Building, crossed the glass floor in Toronto’s CN Tower and bungeed from the 134m Nevis in New Zealand. So why am I baulking so badly, and breathing so deeply, in the tiny capsule carrying me up the spire of St. Michael’s Church?