IHANA.COM big trip - diary - September 2002

At lunchtime we finally left Linden for Georgetown to meet Shane, a Canadian who toured around the whole of South America in the time we took to do Venezuela. He did it in a Toyota Starlet bought in Caracas and used one map. As he couldn't get into the Guyanas in the Starlet he left it to be sold in Caracas and popped over in a plane to have a look around. Despite his wearing white socks and sandals he was a nice guy with plenty of stories to tell of his journey down from Canada.

On the way to meet him we first had an enforced meeting with the police who wanted to see our permission to drive and insurance document. They didn't even ask about our passport stamps! Despite (or because of?) the huge amounts of verbal abuse we gave him he decided to impound the landy until we produced these papers. It was 3pm, we were supposed to be meeting Shane and the relevant offices for the paperwork were about to close. As luck would have it, a police patrol car checked in and we squeezed in the back between two cops wearing bullet proof vests with their rifles sticking through the windows. They were well friendly and worried about two 'whiteys' in Georgetown and gave us their phone numbers to call in case we had problems.

We zoomed the short distance into the city and took to the backstreets, using the klaxon to push through the traffic and arrive at the licensing office at closing time. The cops told the guard to open the gate and the clerk sorted us out with a scrap of paper with 'permission to drive' printed on the top. Then we jumped into a taxi and got to the insurance company office where we managed to persuade them to give us the cheapest possible insurance cover note. We got back to the police station with Shane in tow and got the landy back, the policeman not too fussed about the abuse we gave him earlier, waved us on our way.

Shane and his trusty map

Standard public transport

Standard timber transport

A chinese on Sheriff Street saw to our food needs and the local Banks beer soon had us feeling good. We searched unsuccessfully for some prostitute-free nightlife and ended up sitting outside a bar with a drug dealer called Boogie Man, his minder and a couple of minging hoes who luckily seemed more keen on Shane. B managed to get chatting to a wicked one but you "can't make a hoe a housewife" (as Dr Dre says) so he gave up.

Buildings in Georgetown, City Hall

High Court

Cathedral (tallest wooden building in the world, apparently)

Engineers Department

We ended up staying out until 4am, getting back to Linden in thick fog at 6am after a snooze by the roadside, to find Allicock just about getting up for work and his wife worried about us the whole night. After a sleep we met Shane who came down in a loony bus to meet our new friends. He'd managed to pull a hoe on the way down in the bus and they'd decided to return to Georgetown together later the same night. This was our last night in Linden, it was Wednesday so just blokes and prostitutes are about, not very wicked. We ended up in Foxes bar where the hoes took turns to sing live. It was the most dreadful singing we'd ever heard.