Flying On Home

The airport at a little village in Iwokrama Reserve is one of the nicest I've been in. There is no Starbuck's, and there are no moving walkways.

It is a little hot in the gate, though.
The jetway is hot, too, and there are animals around.
We lifted up over the steaming forest and said good-bye to Iwokrama Lodge, here far below.
It is truly surrounded by forest--a tiny clearing in the vast, vast jungle. No wonder the birds are so amazing.

Flying into Georgetown, we saw the cane fields where sugar is grown, and much of it is turned into the amazing rum for which Guyana is famous.
One of the planes at the airport had a giant anteater on its tail. Yeah!
After a night in air-conditioned comfort at the Pegasus Hotel in Georgetown, we took a red-eye to Trinidad, and then to Miami.

Morning thunderheads.
Trawlers, scraping up sediment along with the shellfish they are after.
Mangrove islets.
Flying into Port Aux Prince, Trinidad. I'd love to bird there someday.
I don't know what I'm seeing here, but I was absolutely agog at the beauty spread beneath our jet--the colors and patterns of this marbled jewel of a planet.
Every moment on this wonderful trip, I felt blessed to be there, no matter how hot and uncomfortable it was. To be able to see and experience such things, and then come home and share them with you, is a great gift.
I hope you have enjoyed our trip to Guyana, and more than that, I hope some of you reading this will one day visit this emerald jewel, this last, unbelievably pristine and rich bastion of Amazonian diversity.
Time to come home now. Many heartfelt thanks to the Guyana Sustainable Tourism Initiative, US AID, which funded the trip, and to Judy Karwacki of Small Planet Consulting, for taking a chance on inviting a highly excitable Science Chimp along. It's my hope that these posts on Guyana will live on the Web for a long time, and give a taste of its wonders to Google searchers for years to come.