31 May The impenetrable jungle

Just yesterday I checked how impenetrable this piece of the Amazon remained, at least for me, because it was the second time I was defeated. The first time was not so long ago, and I remember that I ended the adventure with a dubious-looking Rastafarian and his gun in my custody in the glove compartment of the car. I then decided to give up and return to Georgetown, to have a glass of El Dorado, the local rum, which was the official drink of the British Navy for many years. And of this, they knew a thing or two.

Yesterday's defeat was due to another accumulation of calmer circumstances, although the promise to my mother, who is back in bodywork and painting, that these days I was going to put aside this special talent I have for problems and think with my head and not with my guts, to avoid coming up with more geniuses, weighed heavily on all of them.

Especially since driving in the torrential rain along that red, murky, waterlogged runway, which disappeared into the Amazon, didn't seem like a good idea, especially when I had to catch a plane to Panama that very afternoon. Always in a hurry.

So although the body was asking us to continue along this route (I was with Richal, who had the same desire as me for adventure in the Amazon), we decided to return to the city of Linden until the storm abated and a viable alternative adventure appeared. And to see the mining museum of the city we had not got up at 4 o'clock in the morning, giving up the buffet breakfast at the hotel, which in my case means a lot to give up...

As it rained, I saw little to attract me in Linden, apart from a dilapidated market place, empty, lifeless, where two condemned cows roamed freely. There was also a small promenade by the Demarara River where the ramshackle remains of bauxite mines ended, which had known better glories when huge cargo ships approached, awakening the town from its slumber.

But I will always think of Linden as the place in Guyana where the road dies and the adventure is born, right there, on that road we tried to follow that led to Lethem, on the border with Brazil, a road that got lost in the jungle, with no more colour than a green so intense, so equal and so dark, that it gave the landscape a very dark air, at least in the rain. That road is a bloody temptation.

But as you can imagine, I am not writing this to post photos of the Linden Museum, because after a time of frustration and waiting, the sun timidly appeared, the rain gave us a truce and the star that always illuminates us showed us an alternative to that damned road: to try the river, in one of those barges that crossed it continuously from one bank to the other.

And not for nothing, but it was a real treat.

I am in Costa Rica, on my way back home, there is no rest for my mind, the jungle is still tormenting me, although I know that one day I will get to the end of that road and we will overcome it, but what hurts me the most is that I liked Richard's photos more than mine. What a pain in the ass

I'm definitely going to buy an iphone, I'm doing it for you.