I woke up to the sound of no rain. That was a good start. I packed my bike and was off by about 7:00am. I had 450kms and 3 days to do it. There is a river crossing in the middle somewhere, and I couldn’t find any current info on it. I had also heard that the first 50kms is now paved. That sounds good. I got to the edge of town and it was a dirt road. Maybe the 50kms of bitumen is at the other end. But soon I came across a beautiful, paved road, One of the nicest on my trip so far. Lots of nice jungle and a grey but dry sky. I made good time and then came across lots of muddy wheel tracks on the other side of the road and I knew that meant that the bitumen was about to end. But fortunately for me they are still doing a lot of roadworks and for the next 30kms or so there was bitumen on at least one side of the road and I took full advantage of it. I had done 80kms already in just over an hour and only had 370kms to go.

Lots of roadworks, side tracks, new bridges being built and lots of trucks. The rain was holding off but the road was pretty wet and in places very slippery. It wasn’t boggy but as long as I went slow I was able to get through the tricky bits.

I made it to the first stop where I heard that you could get fuel. I hadn’t used much but topped up anyway and was able to have a feed as well. I was constantly looking at the grey sky. I continued on a bit further and then came across a small village where there was a checkpoint where you had to produce your paperwork before continuing on. There was an accommodation place and a supermarket. If I had known this place even existed I would have stayed here the night instead of in Linden. The food looked good but I had already eaten. It’s so hard to get reliable info. I’d now done 124kms and was going well. Only 336kms to go. And then the rain started.

It didn’t last long and so I didn’t put on my rain gear and then suddenly it was beautiful blue skies. A definite sign that I should stop and put all my wet weather gear on. 20 minutes later it went dark but I got dressed appropriately just in time. I must admit that it was the Amazon jungle experience that I had been looking for. Dense jungle, not many people, a hard ride. I saw a couple of monkeys and another thing ran across the road in the rain. I have no idea what it was. And then it bucketed down. I just had to stop and wait 15 minutes for it to pass. Sections of the road became rivers, but in my mind, I had benchmarked the road in eastern Bolivia, where I had been caught in a terrible storm (on a much worse road and basically no traffic) as the most difficult road that I could ride on and still survive. So this one was okay.

Lots of people ask me if I felt safe travelling alone. I guess it never occurred to me at the time but if I had an accident and ran off the road then it could be months before they found me. Similar, if someone ran me off the road and robbed me. They’d only have to drag me a few metres deeper into the jungle and I’d never be found.

I continued on. Despite the rain the road wasn’t too bad. Still lots of slippery sections but I had either become a better rider and had better technique or I was just lucky as I rocked in to the small village on the Essequibo River where I had to take the Kurupukari Pontoon Ferry. It was about 3:00pm. This was the halfway point of the trip. The ferry was loading on the other side of the river so I rode over to a small shop and had a coke. It was raining and everything was soaked. Except me in my good waterproof gear and all the gear on my bike inside my great Mosko Moto paniers. I got talking to the lady (in Spanish) and she suggested I stopped there for the night. I really just wanted to push on.

The river was flowing well and it was only a couple of hundred metres wide. You could see the ferry on the other side. It was just waiting to get a few more vehicles before it came back. The longer it took the more I thought I should take to safe option and stay the night here and cross over early tomorrow. It was the safe thing to do and I should really take that into account. The lady said that once I crossed the river it would be a long ride to the next place where I could find somewhere to stay and that I would be riding in dense jungle where it gets dark a lot earlier than sunset. And it was still raining.

She didn’t have any accommodation but said I could set my tent up in the corner of her small outdoor area and there was a toilet I could use. I made the smart decision to stop and asked if I could buy a meal and a beer. She really only had shop fare but then appeared with a nice deep fried thing with ham and cheese in it. It was delicious. Turns out it was meant for her but she decided that she was getting too fat and so she gave it to me and cooked herself something healthier. We ended up spending a couple of hours chatting. She told me about her cheating husband and how he would also be sleeping outside next to me in a hammock. It soon got dark and my head was about to explode with Spanish overload and so I set up my tent between the disgraced husbands hammock, cleaned my teeth and crawled into my little home and laid in the darkness thinking of my host’s life and digesting all the gossip from this tiny riverside village.

At some time in the night I heard the dogs barking and the Canadian woman that I had met a couple of times earlier rocked up and set up her hammock. I knew that she would be arriving as it had been spoken about that evening. She had no idea I was there. It seemed to rain all night.

The first ferry left at 6:00am. I waited until 5:30am to pack up and get ready. I didn’t want to make any noise and so I was a bit slow and I missed the ferry by 2 minutes. I knew it wouldn’t take long to cross as it was full and there were more vehicles waiting to cross and I could see over to the other side and there was enough cars waiting to come back. What I didn’t count on was that with all the rain the river was flowing quite fast and ferry docked awkwardly on the other side. This seemed to cause all sorts of problems. There were small boats pushing and winches and pulleys and whatever the problem was it took a couple of hours to get the ferry straight and unload the vehicles. It also took a while to reload it for the return trip. When it did come back, they did a few bandaid repairs to the loading ramp on the ferry and by about 10:00am I was on board hoping to get safely to the other side. I figured that as long as they can get somewhere close to the bank then I could ride the bike off at least. But I worried unduly. They weren’t going to make the same mistake again.

I had been told to get off first and go straight up the hill to the check point and register which was good advice and saved me waiting in the queue. The main traffic on this section of the road seemed to be little 2 wheel drive minivans. Loaded up with people and with luggage and supplies stacked high on the roof. They are the public transport between the two cities of Linden and Lethem. Cindy’s Bus Service. If I had known about this I could have gotten lots of good info about the road. They do it all the time. They really flogged it along the roads so I was always checking my mirror after I left the ferry. I was amazed they could even drive the road in some places. Apparently they do have occasions where it takes a lot longer to do the trip and they need to drag each other out or wait for the road building crew to assist them.

The road was much of the same but at least it wasn’t raining. I road on for the rest of the morning to the small town of Rupertee. I was so glad I had decided to stay the night on the river. Not only would the road have been difficult, but I would have arrived in this weird place and struggled to find somewhere to stay. Even in Daylight it was a hassle finding fuel and food.

The petrol station said he didn’t have fuel. And didn’t care. I think the guy was having a bad day. I tried a couple of other places with no luck and then found a kid who would sell me a couple of coke bottles of fuel. I’m sure I interrupted him from practising duelling banjo’s out back. We had a disagreement about the price. Not the cost but just his maths. I could almost write a whole blog on this one interaction. But in the end, I got more fuel than I wanted and he didn’t get the money it should have cost, despite me trying to force him to take it. It’s a pity he didn’t, as he could have used the extra money to do a few maths classes.

I had to back track about 5kms to find somewhere to get some lunch but it was nice. I did meet one lovely young woman who was a local and had just returned from a trip to Venezuela on her little scooter. She wanted to travel the whole world. She must be considered the town weirdo. The town (which I neglected to take any photos of) was spread out and disjointed and the roads were terrible but once I’d had lunch and got though to the other side, the terrain had totally changed. The mud was gone and the were dry rocky sections and no jungle. And fields and hills. And big bridges. And a bit more traffic. I was able to go a lot quicker on this section and made it in to the border town of Lethem, (Guyana/Brazil), well before dark. It was so nice to get off the section of road I had spent all year worrying about and know that I had survived and had a great experience. I had a ride around town but it was dull and full of Chinese shops selling all sorts of stuff. Turns out that all the people from Brazil cross over into Lethem to buy all their stuff because it’s much cheaper. I didn’t need any stuff and so I decided to cross the border that evening.

Leaving Guyana was easy. Getting into Brazil was also easy but took a bit longer even though I seemed to be the only person officially getting stamped in and out of the two countries. A quick google search and a two minute ride and I was at a nice little hotel. Tired but fulfilled.

KMS 41596