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28 October

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28 Oct, fly to Ogle, for Cara Lodge

Decided against Anteater trip, in order to go looking for otters again with Ash, who kindly encouraged me to go. We saw one briefly, but mostly birds, including a golden hawk, which Ash was pleased to see, and I was pleased actually to have pointed out to him. Digital cameras aren't very good for fleeting shots.

Why aren't cameras incorporated into binoculars now? It would be easy to make three optics, and probably fairly easy to make an SLR of some sort on one side.

Back for breakfast, snooze, and weigh-in for the flight at noon.

Apparently, this day's anteater had a baby on its back. Awww.

Down to bid farewell to Sappho, final petting and a quick swim (wade). She's so cute! She came up to the compound, which was good. A quick snack lunch, then off to the airstrip to wait for the plane. I took a picture of the airstrip's Karamambu direction-sign; discussed why Karanambu has an airstrip (apparently, the government wanted to make Kbu the Rupununi admin centre, until Dianne offered to show them which bits of the area didn't flood, and they had second thoughts.

Plane arrives, taking me back to Ogle. Plan to sprawl on the bed with the A/C on, watching bad Guyana TV.

Guyana TV - seems to be a mixture of rebroadcast stuff from NewYork cable and local stuff, and both the local adverts and the censorship takes a few seconds to kick in, so you get brief bits of American adverts and bits of films they don't want you to see. Heh. Some of the shows just cut off half way through, in favour of a local show. Very odd. Also, the adverts often give you the number for a company - even a national chain - and instead of saying 'Call our customer relations on 2398', they give the person's name, which struck me as quaint.

  1. I want to reinforce my personal stricture: A/C or don't go; heat rash is no fun.
  2. Need to take some sort of leggings, because trousers rub in the humidity.
  3. Need looser PJs; the cotton ones were uncomfortable because they sorta didn't stretch.

Overall - Nobody's tried to rip me off; I feel kinda guilty for having thought some of the folks in town would, when they've been very decent to me, and I feel a bit like I've betrayed them:

It was mainly communication: my never having made a trip like this before. Although the equipment list Wilderness Explorers sent me was better than nothing, there were things I simply didn't need at Karanambu Ranch - the waterbottle and the raincoat in particular (although I'm sure either or both would be useful for other trips, so that's understandable. I should have written and asked Mel.)

The hotel didn't know that the Guyana Government's 'departure tax' could be paid in Guy$, USD, or GBP. Those were rip-offs, but that's what governments are for.

1400 flight, 3 hours pre-departure = 1100 the airport.

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This page last changed Sat Dec 25 00:36:01 2004