Jet boat takes flight down waterfalls

March 14, 2012:  I left the dredge today in a jet boat that was more like a fighter plane morphed with a stunt boat.  Since the stickers on the window said “Jet Boat” I figured it was powered by a jet engine.  So I asked like a moron if there was a jet engine in the boat.  The man I asked responded with a big smile and said “no.”  Okay…then the sticker on the window was inaccurate – I should have slammed a lawsuit on them false advertisement, but instead I smiled back and felt that maybe I should keep some of my questions to myself or learn to reword them when in doubt.  Even though there was no jet engine, what ever it was, it was huge, getting all 20 of us up to the speeds it did with ease. 

The pilot sat in the center of the boat with the throttle control in his left hand resembling those of a fighter jet and his side stick that rested in his right hand with a red button conveniently on the top of it.  Perhaps it was for the fixed guns on the roof than I happened to miss, to detour any not-so-smart pirates.  I already asked one moronic question…I didn’t want to make it two.

I always seem to do pre-sinking, pre-flipping, pre-crashing and pre-everything planning.  It is just what I do and today was no different.  While doing my pre-sinking planning I noted that were no lifejackets in sight.  It wouldn’t have been a good situation if we were to hit something that might have forced us to jump ship.  So I was relieved that after we hit a large UUO (Unidentified Underwater Object) that only the skin of the passengers eyelids opened and it wasn’t the skin of the boat.

At one spot in the river after doing a sharp turn, the pilot put on the afterburners as the engines did a deep hum and we took flight down these waterfalls.  Since the water level on the river is currently high, I was told that today was easy by a frequent flyer.  When the water level is low, he said that the people are told to move to the front of the boat to balance it out for the 8 +/- foot drop.

I am so thankful to have been in that van accident 2 weeks ago.  If it never happened, I would have arrived in Georgetown later in the afternoon on March, 1^st missing one of my greatest unexpected adventures!

Life on a Brazilian River Dredge

 March 14, 2012:  Ten amazing days ago, when I was suppose to leave with the Bedford returning to Georgetown, I instead accepted an invitation to stay with 4 Brazilians living on a river dredge in Issano, who are on a quest to find gold.  With this said, my plan of omitting Portuguese out of my mind until I get back to the Amazon River had to be reworked, since all individuals on the dredge; spoke, thought and dreamt Portuguese. 

Though the dredge was inoperable during my stay, they did anticipate it will be functional in another week so that they can leave the riverbank, to go fishing for gold.  For 24 hours a day it will operate, stirring up the soil below as it is sucked up through a long 10 ton metal straw, where the yellow powder is separated and the rest is released back into the water.  In a way I am glad it wasn’t working when I was there, letting me overload my senses of sight, hearing and touch while on the river without the machinery contaminating it.  Where we were, also gave me a nice opportunity to observe an Indian family, who pulled up along the riverbank on a canoe then set up a makeshift home for a few days before eventually moving somewhere farther along the river.

Since I grew up outside the “Motor City” not a mining town, I didn’t know anything about mining when I arrived on the dredge.  I did what little I could to help the Brazilians such as teach them English, translate, provide them with many laughs and gave them an extra set of hands when needed.  It took me 14,400 minutes to come to the realization that I should cross gold prospector off my list of possible future careers if I want to make it to the age of 40, as dodging serious injury seemed to be a daily event for me - not recalling when in my adult life I have become such a magnet for large metal objects wanting to smash into me.

A short walk away was downtown, Issano.  It was a living ghost town with 1 police station, 1 school, 1 gas depot, 1 medical clinic, 1 store and 2 kiosks.  I was told that back in the 1980’s it was a booming town, but now…it has slowed down considerably.  The town itself only houses a handful of Indians, with the majority of 500 +/- Indians living upstream in communities along the river.

It is supposedly common in these areas to be addressed by names that were not given at birth.  I myself was given two different names along the way.  “White Boy,” was what I was called by the truck drivers and for those on the dredge it was, “Gringo.”  It was no problem for to call someone “German” or “Alligator” but I myself had a difficult time with names such as “Blacky” or “Fat Man.”  I guess it takes some getting used to.

Meeting a local man who is an independent prospector, he invited me to go with him on a boat up the river to meet his friends that work for small and also big mining operators who pull the golden power from the land.  I have been to plenty of mines in my lifetime but most of them are underground where it is hard to see the damage that is hidden by a blanket of untouched soil.  The type of mining I saw today floored me because I it was so easy to see the open bleeding wounds mining has done to such a beautiful region of the Amazon.  It is not just what it does to the land that is disturbing, it is what it does to the people who caught this disease called “gold fever,” leaving there families for months at a time in hoping to strike it rich.  In their search for the golden powder, a quite a few of them found more than that…they found malaria and even worse, dengue fever in the process.

With Malaria being the leading cause of death in Guyana, the first few days I was being a good paranoid North American boy doing what I was told by the brains at the CDC (Center for Disease Control).  So I would wear a long sleeve shirt, pants, socks and shoes in addition to coating my skin with a nice shower of 40% DEET every few hours - when almost everyone else wore nothing but shorts and sandals.  Then I thought…enough.  I was still careful but no longer did I wear my long sleeve shirt in insane temperatures, nor did I wear my shoes, due to getting tired fighting off the thief hiding in the mud who tried to steal them every time I took a step off the dredge.

I stayed on the river dredge for the past 10 days, but needed to pry myself away today.  With the complete work crew arriving tomorrow, there would be an oversupply of hands and limited space.  Even though I didn’t understand a lot of what was being said during my stay, it was hard for me to leave today…I will miss all of them and their kindness.

Mud…lots and lots and lots of mud

March 5, 2012:  The journey to Issano that was suppose to take a total of 2 days from when I was picked up, took a unexpected 5 days to deliver the engine – not including the time it will take to return to Georgetown.  The driver told me that the last section of the road could be bad when I joined the team, but really, what is…bad?  “Bad” doesn’t really say much, with your only options being:  bad, okay, or good.  What I should have asked was, “On a scale 1 to 100…how much over 100 is it?”

Days of breaking down, getting stuck, breaking down, climbing hills with a winch from tree to tree and then breaking down again, became the norm. I figured out that taking photos would be better than me standing there and trying to help when all I was really doing was getting in their way, hence the 1000+ photos.

In the back of the Bedford, I did my best to brace myself during the ride.  I wrapped some webbing connected to the canopy’s frame around my one hand and with the other hand; I locked it around the canopy’s frame like a gymnast on the high bars as I prepared myself for the bumps, the out of control branches, the possibility to be squashed by the shifting cargo…and then of course, the unknown. 

Nobody intended be trapped in the jungle or to miss so many meals after we left the road stop while in route to Issano.  In a span of 56 hours, I had a smidgen of chicken served with pumpkin curry and rice, 9 crackers, 2 biscuits with a hint of jam, 1 coco-bun and 750ml of fluids.  I felt so weak at times I struggled to walk a straight line and even to do something as simple as take photos.   

If the Bedford didn’t have to make a delivery, I can’t see normal people, just deciding to just drive to Issano.  I don’t think I will ever have a better off-road experience than I did the past few days.  When we finally made it to the small town of Issano, I felt as if we were stuck in the jungle for months.  I would have paid any price for just water…and unlike a few days ago, I would have been happy to eat a fish head with 6 eyes, let alone two. 

Van flips in Rainforest…and I am 97.8% unscathed

March 1, 2012:  Hitchhiking from the side of the road at 3:30am in the Iwokrama Rainforest, I waited for an hour until I saw the 1^st set of lights come tearing down the road.  Getting a van to stop that was transporting people to Georgetown, I threw my backpack on the roof and off we went as if we were evacuating a town that is about to be nuked.

At a high rate of speed the driver would whip the wheel to the right and left in an attempt to dodge the large craters that speckled the road.  I scrambled for my seatbelt only to discover what I already knew…there was none.  Getting annoyed with the drivers need for speed, I held onto a metal crossbar in front of me and laid my head on the backpack on my lap, thinking that it was going to be a horribly long 10 hours.

Feeling the van pull rapidly to one side, I quickly looked up and a blurred headlight lit tree was all that my brain could processed before I felt the van going up on two wheels - hoping that it was just temporary and that all four tires were going to be shortly back on the road.   Tilting farther and farther in slow motion we crossed the plain of no return, flipping over on its side as we began to slide along the road.  Knowing that the road was narrow and surrounded by trees and ditches, my body clinched as I hoped not to hit or drop off or anything.  The slide seemed as if it lasted for minutes.

Once stopped, the musical choir of moans and the sound of a screaming engine filled the interior of the van.  All 11 of us eventually climbed out of the side windows that was now located on the roof, which proved to be quite difficult for those with broken bones.  Seven people sustained injuries, yet I was one of the fortunate ones to have just enjoyed flipping a van and walking away from it 97.8% injury free.

Today my backpack flew off the top of the van and took a tumble along the road, sustaining no damage – and Spirit Airlines can somehow manage to break my backpack in just one flight.  What do those union workers really do with the luggage?

Tossing all the pieces that fell off the van to the side of the road, we flipped the now crooked vehicle back over on its wheels.  After sending those injured needing medical attention in other vehicles going back in the direction we came from, we pilled our luggage in the now empty seats and continued on to Georgetown. 

Very little changed with our drivers…still driving as if dooms day is here but now in a van that had just flipped with a big air leak in the front tire.  I am not a mechanic, though I no longer thought the vehicle was safe…hoping that it was going to breakdown so there was no other option but switch vans.  Getting a flat rear tire my hopes partially came true.  With the sliding doors no longer working…we now needed to exit through the windows like Bo and Luke Duke from the American TV series, “The Dukes of Hazzard.”

When changing the tire, this was the perfect time to switch vehicles.  With two big trucks pulling up to see what was going on, I jumped ship and climbed in the back of the Bedford (a ex-military truck) transporting an engine.  I was later invited to travel with them to drop off an engine and some other mining equipment deep in the interior at a small gold mining town.  In less than a 2 minute’s time, I rewrote my travel plans and said, why not?  I have the time and this is my free ticket to see it all from the back of a Bedford.