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By Fiona Van Kampen

Having unexpectedly been given a chance to spend a long weekend in Guyana, I was lucky enough to come across Roraima, a travel company whose CEO invited me to stay in one of the company's two hotels. After an amazing jungle trip, organised by Roraima (see Part 1), I decided to have an early night at Roraima Residence Inn, the pleasant boutique hotel where I stayed during the trip.

Before going to bed, though, I spoke to Roraima's travel agents, who were working at the company's on-site agency. In the less than 24 hours I had between being notified about the trip and stepping on the plane, I hadn't had much chance to research, but looking online and speaking to some Guyanese colleagues, one thing was clear: the famous Kaieteur waterfall, in the middle of the jungle and the highest single-drop fall in the world, was the place to be!

UNFORTUNATELY, Roraima, which organises this trip with one of its own aircraft, did not have the trip available this weekend. Meena, one of Roraima's travel agents, was on a mission from the moment I arrived in the hotel, to find me a tour. She phoned every single tour company in Georgetown, with the same result every time: all tours were fully booked. She told me she would start calling around again from 6:00 the following morning.

By 8:00am, we still had no luck on the tour. Meena continued her round of calls while I had a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon. It soon became clear that the only chance to go on the tour that day was to physically wait at the airport to see if any of the passengers failed to show up.

NOT WANTING TO spend half a day out of my short trip at the airport, I decided to take a taxi into Georgetown. A lady from Air Services, which organised a Kaieteur trip, said she would call me if anyone failed to show up, so I could rush back to the airport. When I was wondering how she would reach me, the taxi driver, a friendly guy called Sherwin, had a solution: I should carry his mobile phone with me while I was in Georgetown. This would be safer for me, anyway, he said.

I was completely amazed by the fact that this taxi driver, who had never met me before, would just let me take his mobile phone, a Samsung smartphone. When I paid him for the trip, he even tried to give me change; something that made me more appreciative and, of course, I let him keep the change as a tip.

SHERWIN HAD DROPPED me off in the centre of Georgetown, having left me with a number of his other phone, in case of emergencies, and a general direction of where to go. Georgetown is a cultural melting pot, not just through the various cultural groups that make up the population of Guyana, but also through its buildings; a mixture of colonial style buildings and wooden Caribbean style structures.

What is most impressive is the number of old wooden buildings that are still in existence. The best example of this is St. George's Cathedral, the tallest wooden building in the world, which, despite being made of wood, has a similar feel of grandeur and impact as the large cathedrals one encounters in Europe; especially on the inside, where the shiny old oak pews, the stained glass and the beautiful effigies give you the feeling that you are in one of the world's truly magnificent places of worship.

LATE ON A SATURDAY morning, the cathedral was deserted. It was a special feeling having that enormous place to myself. I spent a moment reflecting on my gratitude for having the opportunity to travel to this amazing place, before I continued my sightseeing in Georgetown.

Due to Sherwin's directions, I had no trouble finding the next place on my itinerary: Stabroek Market, the biggest market in Guyana. It was a place that I had received mixed reviews about: interesting and beautiful, but also dangerous for visitors as it was a hotspot for robberies. I had been advised not to wear any jewellery, and to leave my camera at home.

Now I rarely go anywhere without my camera, especially not whilst travelling, so I decided to take the risk. I entered the first section of the market, full of fresh fruit and vegetables. I was soon surrounded by the most beautiful colours of a wide variety of fresh, healthy produce, and people soon came up to me to show their wares. I tried some pineapple, which was served peeled and cut in a small bag. It was delicious! The sweet smell of fresh fruit will surely remind me of this place in times to come!

THE FISH SECTION was also interesting. Here, people gave me some suspicious looks and, with half an eye on my camera, asked me what I was doing there. I explained to them that I was writing an article about Guyana, and had brought my camera to take pictures. This sparked people's interests. Many of them had never seen a digital camera before, and one man even asked if I was going to "wash" the photographs, referring to the dark room process used with old rolls of film. People took great delight in being able to see the pictures on the small screen of my camera, and after the first few photographs were taken, they started asking me to come to other stalls to take more photographs.

STABROEK MARKET is divided into sections, with each section selling different items. At the entrance of the market, a few Rastafarians were hanging around. They were highly suspicious of me initially, their eyes following me around, so I decided to approach them. They asked me what I was doing in the market, and once again I told my story. When one of them asked where I was from, I told them I had come from St. Maarten.

Immediately, their demeanour changed. They wanted to know if I was from the Dutch or the French side, and if I lived in Philipsburg. It turned out a few of the men had relatives in St. Maarten. One of the men told the others, "She okay, she from s'Maatin." He also said if I ran into any trouble, I should come back to him, and he would help me out. They said any time I was back in Guyana, I should come visit them in the market, which I gladly promised.

AFTER I HAD SPENT a good few hours in the market, it was time to have some lunch. I bought some food and a drink in one of the street stalls; but here was an interesting dilemma: I couldn't find a place anywhere to sit down quietly and eat my food! No benches or parks. Everywhere I looked were shops and lots and lots of people; this was after all the last Saturday before Christmas, and people had shopping to do!

A block away from the market, I found a small but beautiful church, St. Andrew's Kirk. It was an oasis of calm in the bustling city! I sat down for half an hour to enjoy my lunch, whilst using Sherwin's phone to check some more tour operators for a tour to Kaieteur. Still no luck!

After lunch, I had a few more stops at some very impressive buildings. First there was the parliament building; a statuesque colonial building with canons outside, completed in 1834 as the result of a design competition.

THERE WAS ALSO the City Hall, which is the landmark everyone uses to give direction. "See that wooden building with the Guyanese flag...If you turn left there..." The hall was built in a similar style to the cathedral, built all in wood. Although it was beautiful, it had a high "haunted house" feel, and I felt it would have been a great set for a ghost movie.

There was also an impressive lighthouse by the side of the Atlantic Ocean that Georgetown borders on; a 103-foot high structure which has a gallery at the top that can be reached with 183 steps.

OTHER PLACES OF interest are the red colonial house which was the residence of popular premier Cheddi Jagan; the "Umana Yana," a meeting place in a round traditionally built structure made by the Wai Wai tribe, one of Guyana's nine indigenous tribes, and the beautiful High Court. Visitors interested in architecture will never be bored in Georgetown!

Georgetown, like St. Maarten, is served by small mini buses, which will take you anywhere around town for around US $0.40. Despite this convenient way of travelling, I preferred to walk, as this way, I could see and experience more, like the open air tattoo parlour where the tattooist was proud to show me his work and allowed me to take pictures.

AT THE SMALL market I discovered, were two little girls of around four and six years old, who insisted on showing me the market and having me take photographs of them, squealing with delight every time I showed them a picture on the screen of my camera. My walk took me all the way back to the botanical gardens and the zoo. Here was the park I had been looking for to eat my lunch! The botanical gardens offered the opportunity to have a relaxing walk around on a late afternoon, in a beautiful, well maintained green garden.

Next to the botanical garden is a small zoo. Now I am not a fan of zoos; I prefer to see animals in the wild. However, this particular zoo had a number of animals which were rescued; for instance, the two cougars, or pumas as they are called in Guyana, which were found as babies, emaciated, ill and covered in wounds and parasites. Having been nursed back to health, it became clear the young pumas could not survive in the wild. They certainly looked content and well looked after in the zoo, which also houses the Harpy Eagle, an enormous and beautiful creature with claws the size of my hands.

THE ZOO WAS within walking distance from Roraima Residence Inn and, as the kitchen was closed for a function; I walked to the row of fast food outlets five minutes from the hotel. When I returned, Meena, who had been trying all day to find a tour to Kaieteur for the next day, still didn't have any news. I decided that the following day, I would try my luck at the airport to see if I could get a tour to Kaieteur. Once again, I fell into bed happy but exhausted after a busy day! Join me next week in Part 3 of my Guyana story, to see how I managed to get to the Kaieteur Waterfall!

Insel Air has flights from St. Maarten to Georgetown, via Curaçao, twice a week on Thursday and Sunday afternoon, and back on Monday and Friday morning. Tickets currently start at NAf. 601 for a return trip as a special deal. For more information, visit www.fly-Insel Air.com.

Roraima is available to take care of all your travel needs, including all tours, accommodations and flights within Guyana. For more information, visit www.roraimaairways.com