visiting the villages of Essequibo

the docks of Parika

A fellow Guyanese lawyer generously gave me an opportunity to accompany her while she left the capital city of Georgetown to work in Region 2, the Pomeroon-Supenaam area along the Essequibo coast.

My day started before 6AM in the picturesque village of Eccles, which is on the outskirts of Georgetown in a neighbourhood that had the idyllic neighbourly feel of a North American subdivision.

We then set off in her pickup truck on the long journey through Region 3 district of Essequibo Islands-West Demerara, on the bridge over the Demerara River with its clanking metal plates and through the many villages along the way.

Demerara Bridge

Demerara River

Eventually we arrived in the township of Parika. Even though my colleague described it as an outpost that was too small to be a town, it was impressively busy with dozens and dozens of vendor stalls along the roads selling pretty much anything you might need - fruit, DVDs, plaintain chips, clothes, hammocks, and cold drinks. It's known for its Sunday markets, but even on a Wednesday it was bustling, due to the fact that it is a port hub for both land and river transportation.

bringing in the fruit

We ourselves were there to take a water taxi through the Essequibo Islands. We were allowed to park at the Parika Police Station (I imagine because of my colleague's good relations with the police and not because the Parika police let city folks use their lot for free parking) and did a little bit of shopping at the market stalls. Sadly there was no honey available, which this area is well known for, because of production problems due to the weather, but it was nice to be greeted by a number of locals on the street who all seemed to know my colleague.  It was a refreshing breath of fresh air to be away from hectic Georgetown in this friendly port, where robbery rates are much lower and nobody was catcalling me (but again, maybe it was thanks to my respected colleague accompanying me).

slogan on the side of one of the water taxis - pretty good life motto!

Eventually, we made our way to the water taxis and loaded into the boat. Usually you have to wait until the boat is full before they leave, and sometimes that can be a very long time if there aren't a lot of folks looking to cross the river, but luckily at this time of day (about 7:30AM, I think?), there were many commuters taking the trip, so we were able to take off shortly.  Some folks were with their kids, some businessmen had their briefcases, and I saw one man stepping off the dock with two crates filled with live chirping yellow chicks.

It was a lovely boat ride through the Essequibo Islands. The local Guyanese refer to the water taxis as as speed boats, but my colleague explained that they aren't really speed boats in the sense of some of the monstrous roaring ego machines you see at cottages on the lakes of North America, but they are boats with motors and we were still zipping through the water at a fun pace.

There are over three hundred islands on the Essequibo river, some uninhabited and some inhabited with even farms. This region reminded me somewhat of the Thousand Islands in the St Lawrence River in Ontario. There were so many huge islands everywhere! The scenery was absolutely breathtaking.  Despite the fast clip of the boat, I felt myself relaxing into a peaceful tranquility.

 

Court is sometimes held in the communities on the islands too, and the lawyers and magistrates travel to the various communities in the region, much like the circuit courts held in community halls and high school gyms in Nunavut.  They may not have to deal with propellor plane issues
due to cold weather conditions like Arctic lawyers do, but transport in these parts of Guyana is not always easy. My colleague explained to me that once after court had ended, there were no more water taxis and she had to find her own way back. She waited and waited until a farmer offered to let her hitch a ride on his boat - as long as she was okay with sharing the ride with his herd of goats and sheep. What else could you do? So she got on the boat, wearing her suit and carrying her briefcase. Luckily, the sheep and goats were used to the boat ride and sat calmly through the boat ride.

(For a somewhat similar story about the adventures of lawyers trying to make their way home from remote regions, read Senator Dennis Paterson's account of being a legal aid lawyer in Nunavut/Northwest Territories in the early days, quoted in an article that I wrote for the Polar Barrister - page 8!) 

Although enjoyable, the boat ride took longer than I initially thought it would, because the Essequibo River is much wider than I thought it would be. Once we got off the docks, we stopped off at a snack stand, where I got an aloe juice (as an Asian, I'm thrilled to report they sell these everywhere!) and a delicious snack made from cassava, which is a root and is also apparently listed as one of the world's most dangerous foods because if you do it wrong it can produce cyanide. But it was soooo yummy. Maybe the danger makes it delicious.

Welcome to the Pomeroon-Supenaam Region

snack stand full of tasty goodies

Then, as if our journey wasn't lengthy or adventurous enough, we were approached rather enthusiastically by a number of taxi drivers shouting various destinations. Again, these shared taxis generally do not leave until their cabs are filled with the maximum number of passengers so sometimes it involves waiting for quite a while.  But eventually we found sufficient passengers to leave and made our way through the long winding roads through the villages, weaving past hitch hikers on the side of the road and donkeys crossing. Like a true Canadian, I took a bunch of photos of coconut trees.

 

The communities had names that sounded like some European settlers were either trying to write poetry or crack jokes with names like The Jib, Fear Not, Devonshire Castle, Windsor Castle, Hampton Court. These were small communities too, often only one road long, with the entire Pomeroon-Supenaam region having a population of less than 50,000.

We finally arrived in Charity, where my colleague had a court matter. It had taken several hours to arrive here. I was amazed that some lawyers make this long trek on a regular (sometimes weekly) basis.

Charity post office

Pomeroon River

My colleague joked about how in Britain, there is the term ABC which stands for "Another Bloody Castle", but in Guyana, the term is ABR: Another Bloody River. There are so many of them! I could never get tired of them though. Charity is the last township where the paved road ends at the Pomeroon River. From there, if you wanted to, you could take a boat up the river until it meets the Atlantic Ocean and then cross over to Venezuela, one of the only ways to do it.

Everyone in Charity seemed to know my colleague as well, and I had the privilege of attending a session at the magistrate's court, where I observed a landlord-tenant matter relating to rice assessment. Rice is a big industry here.

 

 After the court session ended, we hitched a ride to Anna Regina with one of the members of the court, so we all piled into the pickup truck and got off at the magistrates court in Anna Regina, where I got to observe the tail end of a drug prosecution matter.  The courthouse has a bit of a problem with pigeons hanging out in the rafters, but I very much enjoyed my visit. Overall it has been a pleasure for me to interact with the judiciary and legal bar of Guyana who have overwhelmed me with their hospitality.

Anna Regina police station and magistrates court

In the afternoon, we stopped at a roadside restaurant called Caribbean Heat for lunch to enjoy some delicious curry and dhal and some GT beer.  They also had a cat who became my new best friend after I fed it a piece of meat. Then it was time to face the long journey back to Georgetown

In Suddie

Orchids growing outside

We stopped at an orchid place where I saw orchids growing in the outdoors for the first time in my life, hugging an old mango tree.

On the way back, the water taxi took a lot longer to fill, but eventually passengers straggled in. The return boat ride was a lot more bumpy and wet, but I still managed to nod off during the ride. It had been a long exciting excursion and now I was ready for a nap.

On the road back to Georgetown - gridlock, of course

A Portland Vacation: Day 2

(Continuing our Portland Oregon adventures from yesterday)

Monday morning. While the residents of Portland were sipping their fresh organic roasted coffees to get ready to bike to work, I was nursing the aftermath of a late night out enjoying Portland's nightlife.

Luckily Portland has a solution for rough mornings.

Brunch!

Portland has epic brunches. People get into heated arguments about which place serves the best brunches, and googling "Best brunch in Portland" will make your eyes hurt.  It is an expected practice that you will wait an hour in line outside before you get seated. And no, they won't take reservations.

Portland is famous for its brunch scene, so much so that Portlandia did a full episode on brunch (here is a shortened versions with all the asides cut out).  Luckily we didn't have to wait over an hour for a spot, because it was a Monday morning and, as I mentioned, most respectable people go to work.

But we were on vacation.  We hit up Besaw's, a place recommended by a friend from an earlier night (I don't actually remember whose friend, because she wasn't mine as I did not know her - we were a few drinks in - but she was certainly someone's friend, I'm sure). It was delicious, and once again I was tempted to order every thing off the menu. Why oh why don't I have multiple stomachs?

Hair of the dog: more mimosas

After our delicious we wandered through the Northwest District, which had a lot of lovely shops and restaurants. This also seems to be the neighbourhood where Simpsons creator and Portland native Matt Groening drew the inspiration for many of his Simpsons characters, as the streets has names like Flanders, Kierney, Lovejoy, Quimby. Pretty neat, really. If I become the writer for something famous, I doubt I'll be giving my characters the names of the streets in my neighbourhood, because here the developers seem to have just randomly smashed together nature-ish nouns: Flower Tree, Apple Creek, Autumnfield, Cerdar Roc, River Tree...Nope.

this public art is so Portland.

This pet grooming salon is also so Portland.

We stopped at Blue Star Doughnuts, which rumour has it has doughnuts just as delicious as Voodoo Doughnuts, but zero lines.

NO LINE. DELICIOUS DOUGHNUTS.

We passed by a shop with the curious name "Mary Jane's House of Glass". I wondered if the shop belonged to some little old lady selling stained glass who had no idea how much this store name sounds like it should be a head shop, especially if it said House of Grass. As I stood there, pondering this, the store clerk poked his head out the door and waved us in.

"Come on in, guys," he said. "We've got a lot of stuff in here, all handmade by independent artists."

We felt too awkward to say no, so we went in. Turns out there was no oblivious little old lady named Mary Jane. It was a head shop, full of display cases of beautiful, handcrafted and hand painted blown glass bongs. Artisanal and locally made. It was like being at an art museum. But of marijuana paraphernalia. Probably the most impressive, almost classy head shop I've ever been to.

But, like, I wasn't in the market for a collection of original beautifully handcrafted three foot bongs, so instead we politely chatted with the store clerk about the weather, our stay in Portland, with the owner inserting into the conversation for thirty seconds the fact that Portland will be legalizing pot very soon. All while I admired the artwork.  I sniffed a few incense sticks and considered buying a candle, and eventually left.

We kept walking east into the Pearl, Old Town, eventually crossing the Burnside Bridge into the southeast neighbourhoods of Portland.

The famous Powell's, one of the largest independent book stores in the world

..and a truly magical place of dreams

 

Interesting floating walkway over the river

After a while, we needed to find a cab to take back to the other side of the river. This proved more difficult than we expected however.  We stood patiently at the curb for a while, waiting to hail a cab, but no cabs passed by.

Finally, we saw one taxi van driving passed, and we waved at him frantically.  He saw us, and as we approached the van, he pressed the gas pedal and kept driving. We went back to the sidewalk, disappointed, and wondering how much longer we'd have to wait.



And then the taxi van reappeared behind us, which was weird. Also weird was the fact that he was now willing to pick us up. But we didn't care. We piled in, feeling tired from our long walk.



Looking back on this experience now, I have this theory that this wasn't actually a taxi. Maybe the guy stole a cab or borrowed his friends and was driving around. Or maybe this guy owned a delivery business with a business vehicle that just really looked like a taxi.



I walked up to the van door and tried to get in, but the driver had his bag on the seat and did not make any attempt to move it. I stood there, politely waiting for a while, but when nothing happened, I just moved to the back of the van. There was a row of seats there, but they weren't folded down, and I couldn't put them down. The driver again made no attempt to move. Shrugging, I crouched down in the trunk of the van, like an illegal migrant.

This should be fine, I reasoned to myself. The trip isn't very long and although I'm not wearing a seatbelt, I should be okay as long as the taxi doesn't get into an accident....



Just as I thought those words, the driver drove through a stop sign and an oncoming car swerved to avoid us. The driver slammed on the breaks and I lurched forward. The entire ride, the driver had not said a word. It was a near miss, thankfully, but maybe...maybe we should have walked.



Luckily we were on the other side of the bridge and had arrived at our next destination, the Portland Aerial Tram.

The Portland aerial tram is a cool cable-car tramway that gives its riders a gorgeous view of the entire city.  It's a form of public transit rather than a tourist thing, but oddly enough it doesn't seem to go anywhere that useful for most residents - it just connects one health centre to another hospital further up the mountain. But it's a fun thing for tourists to do, for only about $4 roundtrip. Too bad Portland doesn't have aerial trams everywhere, including across the river, so that nobody has to cab with sketchy drivers anymore.

The ride up the tram only took a couple of minutes, but the view was breathtaking. We could see the whole city and the surrounding forests. I especially loved the astonishing view of the mountains, including the gigantic Mount Hood and also Mount St. Helens, the still-active volcano that was one of the deadliest North American volcano eruptions in modern history. Why can’t Ottawa be set up with a series of fun aerial trams? Well, I suppose the lack of mountains might be one obstacle.

Mount St Helens

 Mount Hood

Closeup of Mount Hood

After admiring the view at the top for a bit, we took the tram back down to the bottom, because apparently you aren’t supposed to actually hang around a hospital like it’s a tourist destination.

We tried to catch a cab back to our end of town, but once again there were no taxis passing by. Which is probably a good thing, in case Sketchy Taxi Van came by again…

In the evening, we checked out the Departure restaurant, a rooftop restaurant at the top of the trendy hotel The Nines. The interior looked like a sleek airliner of the future. You know, the kind of airplane flights envisaged by 1950s sci-fi movies where the flight attendants are beautiful, the women are glamourous, the men wear suits, and the walls are either padded white or made of shiny glass? Not the real-life modern airplane flights where you get crammed in like sardines in uncomfortable seats surrounded by crying babies and they don’t serve you any food.

 

The Departure restaurant definitely served food. Delicious, delicious food, plates with interesting Asian (and often Korean) twists. We were seated next to somebody famous, one of the restaurateurs who has been featured on Anthony Bourdain’s TV shows, but like the polite Canadians we were, we didn’t make a big deal of it, and I won’t tell you who he was. Because I’m a polite Canadian, but also because I don’t actually know who he was.

(You can read about Day 3 here)