Baganara Island
Friday, October 5th, 2012
Baganara Island
The day had been uncomfortably hot making it too easy just to flake out sweatily naked on my bunk with the fans stirring the torpid air. Normally there is a cooling thundershower in the afternoon but today the heat was unrelenting. When it became too much for me I would climb over the side of the boat and cool off in the river. The current runs so strongly that I need to keep a good hold on the rope ladder so as not to be swept away downstream. Earlier on, at daybreak, when it was still cool enough, I had rowed ashore with Sinbad and we spent about an hour on the small beach at one end of the island. The place is a bird sanctuary so I thought it wise to keep the cat on his leash. He was content enough to drag me around and scrabbled in the sand, clawed his way a short way up a few trees and then settled down in a grassy patch to enjoy the surroundings. I sat happily next to him watching the birds through my binoculars which, for once, I had remembered to bring along.
Four or five lapwings were pottering about at the far end of the small beach. They slowly approached us not seeming to be too concerned by our alien presence.
Baganara is a luxury ‘eco-tourism’ resort on an exquisite small island with sandy beaches and lots of birds. There is an airstrip allowing guests to be flown in. I was shown a very friendly welcome and encouraged to explore their nature trail. No charge for anchoring a short way off.
Motoring up the Essequibo River
I had motored up from Bartica with a rising tide, paying close attention to the waypoints I’d been given, with one eye always on the fishfinder. Even so, at one point I bounced off something solid. The riverbed is very irregular with undulating sandbars and occasional rocks. All impossible to see beneath the chocolatey water.
Monday, 1 October 2012
When the sun set this evening it left the river in total darkness. Earlier a small plane had taken off from the island which must have been carrying all the resort people back to Georgetown, as now it was completely blacked out. Obviously the last to leave had switched off the lights. I felt very alone on the river, surrounded by the jungle. I put some music on and cracked another Carib. And then the nearly full moon rose from behind the rainforest casting a friendly light on the water. How wonderful to be just where I was.
Following Bernhard in his rainforest
Yesterday I had visited Bernhard and Sharmilla who have carved out an idyllic living space in the rainforest a bit further up the Essequibo river. Their yacht resting at the end of their own wooden jetty after having carried them around the world. All the work of clearing a space for their house and vegetable garden has been done by themselves. One really needs to experience the festeringly humid heat and denseness of the forest to appreciate the effort that they must have put into it. Now the garden provides more than enough for their needs. Bernhard took me for a long walk to the limits of their 44 acre property, most of it still in its natural state. He has hacked a network of pathways through the profusion of trees, vines, ferns, palms, flowering shrubs and creepers but needs to walk them constantly to keep them cleared.
Creepy lianas
Trees often fall across the path, their shallow roots undermined by the underground nests of leaf-cutter ants. He walked ahead of me slashing away at intrusive creepers and thorny palms with his cutlass . Occasionally hacking away at bigger branches blocking the way. I was keeping a wary eye out for the snakes which I had been told were plentiful. Thankfully, the only living creatures that I saw were exquisite blue morpho butterflies and busy ants. Bernhard showed me his collection of orchids scattered about on trees in the garden, mostly gathered from the tops of fallen trees which he has had to clear from his paths.
Later, sitting on the wooden verandah that encircles their house, enjoying a taste of the local 5 year old rum and nibbling crispy banana and breadfruit chips as the sun sank lower over the water and frogs and cicadas set up a deafening evening racket, they told me stories about their animal visitors. Most scarily about snakes that came into the house despite it being on stilts, giant otters and capybaras, a black spider-monkey that had to be rescued from their dogs; ant-eaters, caimans, iguanas and gekkos. Insects, of course, are a constant presence. Maybe not everyone’s idea of paradise.
