One More Guyana Memory

One of the early days at Timberhead Camp our guide took us on a walk along a forest trail to a wide stream.  There was barely a bird in the canopy; Guyana had had a drought the year we were there and maybe that's why there weren't as many birds as usual.  The stream was just at the edge of the jungle where grass savannah took over.  We saw birds, but nothing new.  The black nunbird was still a treat. After a few hours of rather unproductive birding, we were expecting the motor boat to come and ferry us back to camp.  There was no cell service to call and check on arrangements, of course.  After waiting well over an hour past the time the boat was due, the guide and two birders decided to retrace footsteps through the forest and send the boat back for us.  It was restful and relatively cool near the stream, plus there was a white-fronted emerald hummingbird hawking insects over the water.  I decided to stay with the other two birders in our group.

Verna, one of the women workers at Timberhead, finally appeared around the bend, but she was paddling a wooden boat called the Ermentrude.  There was no motor.  Evidently that's why the boat hadn't appeared earlier.  And there was only one set of thin, long oars that Verna was using.  The three of us stepped carefully into the boat and sat.  We had, literally, three inches of freeboard.  Didn't seem like much in a wide, deep tidal stream, but at this point, we were committed.
Verna gamely paddled us against the outgoing tide but we weren't making very much progress.  Oh, for another set of oars!  We came to the main stream which was much wider and flowing much faster.  Verna was struggling at this point, and I was worried that we could capsize.  I'm a good swimmer but I really didn't want to get my binoculars wet, and I wasn't sure how well the two older guys could do in the water.  And there are the leaches...  Up ahead I could see a small clearing.  I asked Verna if she would let me off there, take the guys back then come back for me.  She agreed.  She said that the landing was called The Point and that she would return.
We did almost capsize getting into shore close enough for me to jump.  The stream here did not gradually deepen - it just dropped off.  I jumped, the boat tottered dangerously, taking on a few inches of water, but Verna was able to steady it and proceed into the wide and outgoing tide.   I just hoped I'd see someone again - it was very, very quiet after the boat disappeared around the bend.  Just the wind playing through the long grass that grew in a long, unbroken field up to the edge of the jungle.

I sat on a wooden slat balanced on two wood stumps and looked for birds, animals, anything.  This seemed like one deserted place.   But after ten or so minutes, I heard rustling in the grass behind me.  I wasn't really frightened (I tried not the think of the howler monkeys) but I truly did want to know what was making the noise.  Finally, five small, giggling brown faces popped out of the grass.  Children from who knows where had somehow discovered me.  They were incredibly shy and wouldn't come closer than about five feet.  I asked about birds - pajaros, pajaritos, aves - in Spanish, but they couldn't make out what I was saying or why this white senora was sitting all alone on the dock.   One brave, smiling girl handed me a bouquet of pastel wild flowers and grasses that she had hurriedly gathered.  

Time was passing and it was hot.  There was no shade on this exposed, muddy edge of the stream and I  began to wonder if they could actually forget me.  But of course not - the other birders would remind them.  Wouldn't they?  Just about then, Wendy, another worker from Timberhead, came putting around the bend in a boat with a working engine.   She had a rapid conversation with the kids and helped me into the boat.  I asked her to say thank you for the flowers and that I liked talking with them.  Wendy smiled and spoke again to the kids.  They all waved and called to us as we made our diesel-fumed way back up the stream.  Wendy said that there is a small, primitive village just inside the jungle's edge where the children lived.  The only access to the village is from this tidal stream, then a walk through the tall, swaying grass.

We returned to Timberhead boat dock in the late afternoon.  Shadows were long. I made my way straight to the drinks cupboard in the main lodge and fixed a stiff rum and coke with lots of ice.  I sat in the hammock on the deck with the soft wind blowing away the mosquitoes, reflected at leisure on the day's adventure and admired the bouquet that I had put in water.