Exploring Georgetown

In the water at Splashmins!!

On Saturday we went to Splashmins Resort (an Eco-Adventure park), in Linden (Soesdyke Highway) which is about a 45 minute drive from the apartment. The park is created from the swamplands of the Madewini Basin, through which flows the Madewini stream.

I think we managed to bring the weather with us and typically on our first day off.....it rained! But as Girlguides we persevered and made it via the very nice air conditioned bus to the resort! Annie, one of the GOLD team here in Guyana, decided to come along with us to show us around.

As you can see there was very little time before we all jumped in! Annie spent most of her time chilling, and on her blackberry unlike us crazy UK girls!

Eventually the sun came out, and it started to feel a bit more like Guyana than the UK (albeit an extremely warm UK!!). In the afternoon we went on the peddle boats (even managed to get Annie on one - twice as well!)

Nikki & Annie on the peddle boat.

All in all, it was a fun relaxing day. We got to see a bit of Guyanan culture and see where the locals hang out on weekends.

UK GOLD GUYANA Team & GOLD GUYANA Team (well just Annie for now!)

On Sunday, a group of us (Hannah, Elizabeth and myself) visited Annie's Church (St Sidwells), to take part in the morning service. It was very different from anything I had experienced before, coming from a very relaxed christian upbringing/church. We sat with Annie and her mother, and watched Annie play the steel drums during the service. We were also greeted as visitors to the Church during the notices section of the service and were asked to sign the Visitors Book.


After church, we met up with Claire, Sara & Nikki and went to the Botanical Gardens & Zoo.

Hot & tired after the Zoo

Outside of the botanical gardens

The Botanical Gardens was a beautiful place once you got past the rubbish that was dumped everywhere but the bins. It was extremely hot, due to all the rain the previous day, and we have some very interesting tanlines! The zoo had a selection of animals that are from Guyana and South America. We saw Blue & Yellow Macaws, Caimens, Turtles, Harpy Eagles, Anacondas, Pumas, Jaguars, Capuchin Monkeys and finally Johnny the Giant Otter! There were even Manatees in the pond outside the Zoo, just chilling out in the sun.

On Monday, it was a very important day in Guyanese Culture - no it was not Yorkshire Day (thats only important to us welly wearing, ferret racing flat capped Yorkshire Tykes!), but Emancipation Day, which celebrates the abolition of slavery.

We met up with Erin, one of the 'Environment Team' (part of the GOLD project in Charity), and her cousin Ethan. We all went to the National Park, which is 2 short bus journeys away. At the National Park there were stalls set out to celebrate the African culture, this included food (we tried puree, cassava pone and other tit bits - very YUM), jewellery and other handcrafts. We then went into the main arena to watch the parade of nations, which included places like Mexico, that all form the Guyanese culture. We listened to steelpan band music, and danced along (much to many peoples amusement including our own).

Elizabeth and I, were even filmed on camera saying how much we loved Guyana and the celebrations - so watch out for us on TV!!

Enjoying the atmosphere in the stadium

Boogying on down (pizza making actions ????

In front of the main stage at National Park

The Parade of Nations

I hope you have enjoyed todays blog, it is part of my exploration section of my Queens Guide.

We are now off to Charity (north of the Essesequibo River) with the Environment Team, to carry out sessions on the environment with the Guides and the locals. We won't be able to update the blog until we get back - so don't worry!

Over and Out


Lizzy