Just spent three weeks in Guyana, mostly in the Kanuku Mountains region, in and around Nappi Village, which is near Lethem on the Guyana/Brazil border.
Here's a link to a poor google map, http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&h....566498&spn=1.002079,1.825104&z=10&iwloc=addr
Getting there requires a 15 hour overnight bus journey from Georgetown to Lethem, which in itself was quite eventful. The dirt road is incredibly bumpy and rutted, winding its way through small towns, a rickety ferry ride, then the interior rainforest and savannah, with several stops for police checks on your passport which seemed to be deliberately timed to stop you getting any sleep during the night. The bus got stuck in the mud and ruts several times, so we had to get off and push.
Below photos are the bus on the ferry across the Essequibo river at Iwokrama; the bus stuck in the mud; and how bad the ruts are on the road.
From Lethem, it's a 1 hour 4x4 drive through the savannah to Nappi Village, followed by a two hour walk to the village's Eco Lodge in the jungle at the foot of the Kanuka Mountains. We arrived in a tropical thunderstorm soaked to the skin. The lodge is quite basic, comprising three benabs, one contains the dining room and kitchen whilst the other two are bedrooms.
Below photos are the first view of the Kanuku mountains from Nappi Village; rest stop in the jungle on the walk along the ox cart path to the Eco Lodge; and arriving at the Lodge soaked.
After a night at the lodge, we set off into the mountains. We first did an eight day circuit through the jungle via Jordan falls and Panna falls, arriving back at the lodge; then a six day trek in and around Nappi creek.
The kit we carried was:
Packing
1 backpack of around 70 litres or more to put everything in (Osprey Atmos 65 in my case).
Several dry bags of varying sizes.
1 webbing belt
1 litre water bottle & metal mug & iodine drops for purification in pouch on belt.
1 camelbak of 2 or 3 litre capacity
Shelter
1 hammock with integrated mosquito net.
1 basha (rain tarp).
1 rope to hang everything on.
1 sleeping bag
1 small foam sheet as something dry to stand on when changing.
Clothing
1 set of wet clothes (shirt, trousers, underwear, socks)
1 set of dry clothes (shirt, trousers, underwear, socks)
Jungle boots
Sandals
A few spare clothes (t-shirt, underwear, socks)
1 travel towel
Survival Kit
Machete
Gutting knife
Fishing kit (basically hooks & line)
Compass
Whistle
Lighters & small bits of inner tube rubber to start fires
Amerindian-made leopard-wood bow and arrows (optional)
Miscellaneous Kit
Personal wash & toilet kit
Personal med kit
Head torch
Notebook & pencil
Candles
Camera
Food for eight days
Breakfast - Eight individual plastic bags of porridge oats mixed with dried milk and sugar.
Lunch - Eight packets of crackers, eight cheese triangles, eight snickers bars
Dinner - Eight packets of instant noodles, large bag of farine (local carbohydrate made from cassava), three cans of mixed vegetables, a can of tuna and two packets of dried soya.
Snacks - eight snack packets of biscuits, eight small packets of peanuts
Beverages - tea, coffee, sugar, dried milk, stock cubes
1 mess tin & 1 spoon
This provided about 1500 calories per day, but given the heat and humidity, I never really felt hungry, even on the most strenuous walking days. I weighed 70kg at the start, and 65kg at the end.
Group Kit (split between the seven of us)
Two pots, cooking spoon, two leatherman tools, one mini can opener
Group Med Kit
Fire basha
Extra saline IV fluid pack
Spare hammock to act a emergency stretcher
Group food - onions, garlic, salt, pepper, herbs, hot sauce, tomato puree, peanut butter
Long Rope
Sat phone
GPS
So the packs weighed anything up to 20kg.
First light is around 6am, and it gets dark around 6pm every day all year round. So the routine was to find a suitable camp near a water source at around 4pm. Put up the hammocks, get the fire going to boil water and cook gunk (mixed veg, tomato puree, onion, garlic plus either tuna or soya) , wash in the river, eat, socialize round the fire, sleep. Get up at 6am, get the fire going for hot water, eat porridge with tea/coffee, pack everything away, start walking again by 8am.
Theres no shortage of dead wood around in the rainforest, so fire making is fairly easy (if it hasnt been raining!), use a lighter on a bit of rubber or some locust gum (from a native tree) to get a flame, build a pyramid of small sticks and wood shavings round this, fan the flames if necessary, and gradually build up with bigger and bigger sticks.
When feeling particularly energetic (really just an excuse to go mad with the machetes), we made tables and benches out of sticks, y-shaped sticks for the support plus long straight sticks for the surfaces, tied together with vines. Palm leaves from the Kukrit tree served as roofing material.
Walking through the jungle is akin to one big obstacle course. Underfoot, you have slippery mud and rocks; roots that trip you up; holes you could break an ankle in; and armies of ants to avoid stepping on. To the side, you have dense undergrowth which may or may not host ticks that could get you if you brush against the foliage, plus trees with very sharp spikes to grab hold off when you lose your balance. Overhead you have hanging vines and branches that threaten to choke you or catch your pack plus spider webs in the face. The best strategy seemed to be to walk behind a taller person who would encounter all the overhead stuff first, but that risked whiplash from trailing branches! Basically, you couldn't trust your footing at all, so it was tiring having to be alert all the time.
But, this is made up for by the spectacular scenery, you can feel the primeval life of the forest around you whether walking in the day or cocooned in your hammock at night, through the surrounding sounds, smells and sights.
I could go on, if theres interest, but this may be too long already?
Here's a link to a poor google map, http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&h....566498&spn=1.002079,1.825104&z=10&iwloc=addr
Getting there requires a 15 hour overnight bus journey from Georgetown to Lethem, which in itself was quite eventful. The dirt road is incredibly bumpy and rutted, winding its way through small towns, a rickety ferry ride, then the interior rainforest and savannah, with several stops for police checks on your passport which seemed to be deliberately timed to stop you getting any sleep during the night. The bus got stuck in the mud and ruts several times, so we had to get off and push.
Below photos are the bus on the ferry across the Essequibo river at Iwokrama; the bus stuck in the mud; and how bad the ruts are on the road.
From Lethem, it's a 1 hour 4x4 drive through the savannah to Nappi Village, followed by a two hour walk to the village's Eco Lodge in the jungle at the foot of the Kanuka Mountains. We arrived in a tropical thunderstorm soaked to the skin. The lodge is quite basic, comprising three benabs, one contains the dining room and kitchen whilst the other two are bedrooms.
Below photos are the first view of the Kanuku mountains from Nappi Village; rest stop in the jungle on the walk along the ox cart path to the Eco Lodge; and arriving at the Lodge soaked.
After a night at the lodge, we set off into the mountains. We first did an eight day circuit through the jungle via Jordan falls and Panna falls, arriving back at the lodge; then a six day trek in and around Nappi creek.
The kit we carried was:
Packing
1 backpack of around 70 litres or more to put everything in (Osprey Atmos 65 in my case).
Several dry bags of varying sizes.
1 webbing belt
1 litre water bottle & metal mug & iodine drops for purification in pouch on belt.
1 camelbak of 2 or 3 litre capacity
Shelter
1 hammock with integrated mosquito net.
1 basha (rain tarp).
1 rope to hang everything on.
1 sleeping bag
1 small foam sheet as something dry to stand on when changing.
Clothing
1 set of wet clothes (shirt, trousers, underwear, socks)
1 set of dry clothes (shirt, trousers, underwear, socks)
Jungle boots
Sandals
A few spare clothes (t-shirt, underwear, socks)
1 travel towel
Survival Kit
Machete
Gutting knife
Fishing kit (basically hooks & line)
Compass
Whistle
Lighters & small bits of inner tube rubber to start fires
Amerindian-made leopard-wood bow and arrows (optional)
Miscellaneous Kit
Personal wash & toilet kit
Personal med kit
Head torch
Notebook & pencil
Candles
Camera
Food for eight days
Breakfast - Eight individual plastic bags of porridge oats mixed with dried milk and sugar.
Lunch - Eight packets of crackers, eight cheese triangles, eight snickers bars
Dinner - Eight packets of instant noodles, large bag of farine (local carbohydrate made from cassava), three cans of mixed vegetables, a can of tuna and two packets of dried soya.
Snacks - eight snack packets of biscuits, eight small packets of peanuts
Beverages - tea, coffee, sugar, dried milk, stock cubes
1 mess tin & 1 spoon
This provided about 1500 calories per day, but given the heat and humidity, I never really felt hungry, even on the most strenuous walking days. I weighed 70kg at the start, and 65kg at the end.
Group Kit (split between the seven of us)
Two pots, cooking spoon, two leatherman tools, one mini can opener
Group Med Kit
Fire basha
Extra saline IV fluid pack
Spare hammock to act a emergency stretcher
Group food - onions, garlic, salt, pepper, herbs, hot sauce, tomato puree, peanut butter
Long Rope
Sat phone
GPS
So the packs weighed anything up to 20kg.
First light is around 6am, and it gets dark around 6pm every day all year round. So the routine was to find a suitable camp near a water source at around 4pm. Put up the hammocks, get the fire going to boil water and cook gunk (mixed veg, tomato puree, onion, garlic plus either tuna or soya) , wash in the river, eat, socialize round the fire, sleep. Get up at 6am, get the fire going for hot water, eat porridge with tea/coffee, pack everything away, start walking again by 8am.
Theres no shortage of dead wood around in the rainforest, so fire making is fairly easy (if it hasnt been raining!), use a lighter on a bit of rubber or some locust gum (from a native tree) to get a flame, build a pyramid of small sticks and wood shavings round this, fan the flames if necessary, and gradually build up with bigger and bigger sticks.
When feeling particularly energetic (really just an excuse to go mad with the machetes), we made tables and benches out of sticks, y-shaped sticks for the support plus long straight sticks for the surfaces, tied together with vines. Palm leaves from the Kukrit tree served as roofing material.
Walking through the jungle is akin to one big obstacle course. Underfoot, you have slippery mud and rocks; roots that trip you up; holes you could break an ankle in; and armies of ants to avoid stepping on. To the side, you have dense undergrowth which may or may not host ticks that could get you if you brush against the foliage, plus trees with very sharp spikes to grab hold off when you lose your balance. Overhead you have hanging vines and branches that threaten to choke you or catch your pack plus spider webs in the face. The best strategy seemed to be to walk behind a taller person who would encounter all the overhead stuff first, but that risked whiplash from trailing branches! Basically, you couldn't trust your footing at all, so it was tiring having to be alert all the time.
But, this is made up for by the spectacular scenery, you can feel the primeval life of the forest around you whether walking in the day or cocooned in your hammock at night, through the surrounding sounds, smells and sights.
I could go on, if theres interest, but this may be too long already?
