December 16-18 2006
Day 444-446
Most people in Georgetown go to the High Court every day.
My only reason for going to Georgetown was to get a visa to enter Suriname. I got into town on a Friday night, however, so I'd have to stay a few days until the embassy opened. In the meantime, I checked out St. George's Cathedral, which is supposedly the biggest wooden building in the world, the Starbroek Market, where you can buy anything legal or otherwise, and the multitude of old English wooden buildings that are scattered throughout the city. One highlight was going to two new movies for 50 cents, but I was a bit disappointed that I missed out on seeing the new Bond movie by only a few days.
The guidebooks didn't lie: it's a dangerous place, and I was sick of it after a few days. Walking around in the day was fairly safe, but the constant shouts of "Hey white boy" started to bother me after awhile. I guess that since they don't get many tourists here, the people have no idea how to treat them. I can imagine their surprise in a couple months when thousands of Australians storm the streets for the Cricket World Cup. A lot of people are nice, but the majority just shout at each other and drink and smoke weed all the time. There are almost no police around, and the atmosphere is completely different than the interior of the country. It's too bad that the few tourists who do go to Guyana usually only go to Georgetown because hitchhiking around the interior was a real highlight for me. I felt that I was taking my chances with every day I stayed in town, so I was happy when my visa was processed quickly as soon as the new week started, and I made plans to enter Suriname first thing in the morning.
The photo album for this entry is here.
