**GOING-GOING-GONE**

We are finally heading out, seriously. After two months of introductions, seminars, reports, more introductory meetings and other preparations we are ready to visit the sites and communities, we read and heard so much about but have not yet seen or experienced.   Not too sure what type of bat this is.  Village kids were playing with it The company car is deemed fit after a final check up by the mechanic (the roads will be bumpy and rough) and loaded with machetes, torch lights and other field trip necessities, we are ready to roll. We’ll visit the South of the Rupununi first for a variety of reasons. The most important one is that the later during the rainy season (May-September) you travel, the higher the chances will be you get stuck in the mud or be stopped by a swollen, un-crossable river. Before we leave our office in Lethem we, coincidentally, meet with Theodore, a gentle man from the remote village of Maruranau, one of the places we will...

The last couple of weeks have flown by and we just came to the realization that, when we post this blog, we have already been in Guyana for over seven weeks. As reported earlier, we are settling in nicely and we have now come to the point, where most basic necessities have been organized and we can start exploring the region in all seriousness. On the work side, we have been engaged in all sorts of meetings and seminars, which seem to be hard to avoid here. Although deemed necessary, we feel our work and expertise is more needed “in the field” so we are happy that we managed to create a travel plan for the next three weeks (April 25-May 15 roughly) which will bring us into the real Rupununi, its unspoiled nature, rivers, forests and wild savannahs, which are the main attraction of the region.   The rains also have started arriving, although the locals are reluctant to announce the official start of the rainy season. According to them, the season only starts May first and ...

  Although the similarities with zipcode 90210 are very remote, we have landed in Beverly Drive; not in Beverly Hills, CA but in Lethem, Guyana.   In a place the size of a few square miles, they have managed to find a house for us on (39) Beverly Drive….. to ensure that we do not get homesick. No; not 39 Beverly Drive.  It's the old Governor's residence in GT.  Now, the Prime Minister's home. Lethem has about 7,000 inhabitants now and has been growing rapidly over the last couple of years. It’s a border town and after the bridge to Brazil was finished four years ago (total population then 3,000) it has seen rapid, unbridled expansion and development.   Paddy fields seen from flight  Georgetown to Lethem, just out of Georgetown   The new, outer rings of the village are littered with ‘big-box’ super-stores (Savanah Inn, Chinese Superstore, Mr Chans….) where, in the weekends, Brazilians do their shopping. Brazil, officially, doe...

 Memories go back to  Tajikistan; here an Afghan trader at one of the border markets Our memories drift back to October 2010, Dushanbe, the Prospekt Medical Clinic at Rudaki Avenue, the boulevard that dissects the capital of Tajikistan......... .................As part of the VSO-CUSO in-country training programs, new arriving volunteers have to meet with the staff of an always private local hospital to understand, what living in a new environment means and what bacteria, viruses and rabid dogs are on the loose and will visit the ignorant new-comers (unfortunately with alarming frequency). In Dushanbe we meet with the (German) Herr Dr. Andreas Hencko, an interesting, quirky and fascinating character. The older volunteers, quite unceremoniously, refer to him as Dr. Death. In a mere 20 minutes he manages to scare the bejeezus out of us hardy volunteers, with stories about the use of un-boiled or untreated water (filter first, boil twice), meat bought at the local ...

Farewell California Your patience is now being rewarded!! We're back, with a vengeance..... the long delay has no excuses, save, we've been occupied with months of travel in India, from where we returned to California by way of Holland and Canada. So, here we are, back in what we regard as the most beautiful part of the world and our designated home (as far as we have one) - Southern California. Early March 2014, we are on our way to Guyana, South America, so there is much 'catching up' to do. Still in (Northern) California, here Bodega Bay We left you in India after our amazing trip along the West Coast of Australia.    But that was over a year ago. India left indelible memories. “You love it or hate it”, people say, and some friends and family even warned us that we would last just a few weeks.   We loved it and will return, no question about it. Such an amazing country, so many stories to tell. We suggest we do that later, when we can find the time from o...

Down Under – West Coast   - Second Instalment   Dedicated to my dearest friend, Adele Evans (Affleck), travel writer and broadcaster, who died suddenly in September last year.  Fly, Fly Fly, my friend....  yellow-tailed black cockatoo  So, for those uninitiated   in to the art of road travel in Aus, living out of a campervan for three weeks, the question is, where does one even BEGIN?   For me, the answer is a no-brainer – in the centre – my stomach!! Having decided to explore the rest of the West Coast by car/campervan rather than fly/drive, Jelte and I had begun researching what type of vehicle best suited our needs.    Looking back, we find we made one major mistake, which shall not be repeated again.   Instead of opting for a four-wheel-drive, we went with the ‘safer’ option of a standard van.   At the time, we did not realize it, but it was to hugely restrict where we could venture once we were in the grea...