Georgetown…my Caribbean Prison

April 17, 2012:  I just finished serving my time in Georgetown, my Caribbean prison.  Today I was given my release papers from the Ministry of Home Affairs permitting me to leave Guyana.  With the stamp not yet even dry in my passport, I booked a seat on a van leaving at 4:00am that is going to take me at ungodly speeds to Paramaribo, Suriname.  I am hoping to get the front seat so that if I die, it will be a quick death.  I might though exercise my vocal cords for once if the driver feels too much need for speed – doing it after I stamp out of Guyana and into Suriname, just in case the driver or the others believe the van is better going at warp speed and I am abandoned on the road for someone else to pick me up.

I feel that I might be still a bit traumatized from the van accident I was in last month.  Every van ride since, it has become a common thing for me to do a death grip on anything solid as we do sloppy weave jobs going in and out of traffic on the two-lane highways.  Speed limit signs and big billboards plastered on the road stating such things as, “Reduce the carnage, reduce your speed” doesn’t mean anything to the drivers if they can’t read.

Guyana has given me one of my best unplanned adventures when I was in the interior.  I will eventually forget about the paperwork mess I experienced trying to leave here, but from the van accident to the time I arrived in Georgetown, will be a highlight of my South American trip that will surely get better and better every time I tell it.  Before you know it, the van will not just have flipped, but rolled 5 times and the boat on the river will have jumped a 20 foot waterfall not a measly 8 foot falls.  Goodbye Guyana and hellooooooooooooooooo Suriname!