Although we spent less than two weeks in Guyana, it made a very deep and lasting impression. I would like to share my impressions of this wild and only partially tamed place. It is the true third world, with all its wonders and trials. The utter beauty of its wildness, the colors, smells, sights and sounds were gifts that I will never forget nor fail to appreciate in our easier, tamer world.
The absolute black of the rainforest night begins to fade to day. The screeches and grunts of insects and frogs give way to the softer, fuller songs of the birds. The tropical screech-owl cries once more, lifts heavy wings and flies deep into the forest. A small yellow tongue of flame still gutters in the glass of the kerosene lamp that was hung in our hut last evening. Dawn and dusk near the equator do not linger. Night becomes day within minutes.
The noise of dawn suddenly increases through the camp as a flock of little chachalacas courses through the camp. The turkey-like birds flap and jump from treetop to treetop, making an unearthly squawking ruckus. They move away toward Pokerero Creek and other birds songs emerge. Mel's old windup alarm clock, two cabins away, gives the official clanking notice of day. Early morning is fresh and cool. Last night's rain shines on our open porch. Mist rises from Pokerero Creek, just visible, shimmering in the dawn light at the bottom of the sand incline below Timberhead Rainforest Resort. Orange-winged parrots fly over, two by two, heading for their day's work of finding and eating fruits in the top of the green canopy. Their metallic screeches ricochet through camp. The captive scarlet macaw, crippled years ago by a bullet in his wing, bobs his head and screeches back from the kitchen porch where he eats sliced pineapple and mango.
This is the first week of a birding trip deep into the rainforest of Guyana. Our small group of birders assembled at JFK Airport in New York City following months of planning and anticipation. After arriving in Georgetown, the capitol of Guyana, we traveled by van and then by boat down the Demerera River, then up one of its many tributaries. As the purple-throated fruit crow flies, we are about twenty miles from Georgetown. It couldn't feel more remote.
Our raised wood huts comprise a camp built and run by the Arawak Indians who live in a small village a few miles down the creek. Palm-thatched roofs shield us from the tropical sun and the brief heavy rains that often come in the afternoon. The huts are roomy and airy, with big windows on all sides that have shutters but no screens. (A lesson quickly learned in the tropics is that at night it is wise to close the shutters before turning up the lamp. Light attracts many flying insects, including commonly named flying cockroaches and tiger moths, which appear larger than hummingbirds in the shadowy light. The only effective way to remove them is to wait until they land and then grab them in your fist and toss them out the window.)
A large bed with soft linens sits in the center of each room, generously swathed in mosquito netting. Bathrooms are modern with sinks, toilets, and spacious walk-in showers. As I open the door to the bathroom this particular morning, the flock of resident tiny beige-furred bats is just settling on the wooden roof beams above me after their night's flight. A delicate slate-colored frog sporting ruffled toes flutters away from his perch behind the toilet paper roll.
The sky is pure, pale blue, covered intermittently with towering purple-gray clouds and wavy flat clouds that look like lavender pen strokes above the rainforest. Metallic green, dull green, acid green, rich northern forest green are all tossed together in a wild mix around us. Tall, lanky cecropia trees, palms of every size, and fig trees with ambling, twisted limbs share the camp with us. White sand is under our feet, punctuated with bright eruptions of pink and green caladiums, a leafy tropical plant. Blue-gray tanagers, the color of the sky at dawn, are a common camp bird. Silver-beaked tanagers, red-black as smoldering coal with beaks that look like silver neon, fuss and argue in the fig above the kitchen. Great kiskadees, with their bright yellow breasts and masked faces, occupy every post perch and proclaim kis-kil-dee throughout the day.
After a generous breakfast of boiled eggs, ham roll-ups, fish salad (very salty but good), local buns, watermelon and good, strong coffee, we take the trail through the rainforest toward the Arawak village. We walk along the edge of the forest where the land begins to slope to the creek. Wild, white lilies nod in the slight breeze. They look like snowdrifts in another land. Across the creek, a tan-green grass savannah stretches for two miles until the rainforest again absorbs it. A yellow-headed vulture, much like our turkey vulture, but with a bald head the color of egg yolk, tilts and circles above the savannah. Our guide points out a black-collared hawk perched on a snag next to the creek. Heat waves, magnified by our binoculars, cause the hawk to dance gently in our lenses. We can just make out his lovely rufous breast, whitish head and broad black collar.
Rainforest walking can become hypnotic: a brown-shirted back bobbing ahead of me on the trail, the heat, the buzz of bugs, the remote screech of birds in the high canopy, the rhythmic bump of binoculars and pack. A muted beep comes from Mel's backpack. It's probably some of his camera equipment. He doesn't hear it, or perhaps doesn't mind it.
Mike stops suddenly and raises his hand. I march into John's back and we all look up. Red howler monkeys, he whispers, pointing to the rainforest beyond the savannah. A faint but deep pulsating, booming roar floats to us on the humid air. We gaze across the heat-hazed savannah to the treetops on the other side, and imagine the big, bearded russet monkeys gathered there. We strain to hear them. Of all the forest cries heard so far, this is the sound of wildness that makes the others seem less important. It makes hackles rise. It goes directly to some primitive place in the brain that used to hear sounds like this in the forest. The cries fade as the faint wind changes direction, then intensifies - are they coming this way? They're far on the other side of the savannah and are shy of humans, but they still cause a frisson of fear in some forgotten spot. We are reminded that here in the rainforest, we, too, are just vulnerable mammals.
Stay tuned for the next chapter ~ soon to follow
This article was originally published in Bird Watcher's Digest, July-August 2000.
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