Exploration Guyana: video
Director: Charles Montier | Producer: Charles Montier
Genre: Documentary | Produced In: 2011 | Story Teller’s Country: United Kingdom
Synopsis: Guyana is the size of Britain, with just two percent of the population. Its towns are clustered on the coast, so travel inland and there’s nothing but virgin tropical forest. A single road cuts through the jungle to reach the South and there are few airstrips, so the only way of exploring the interior is via its network of rivers. As a result, few people venture into the interior, leaving it unspoiled and pristine.
In February 2009, Charles Montier and two Patamona Indians set off into this wild environment, to attempt the very first descent of the Potaro River, from its source down to its mouth. Relying on old maps and their own wit, they would climb an untouched 2,000-meter Tepui, navigate their way through treacherous rapids, encounter mining camps and take on the mighty Kaieteur Falls, the world’s highest single drop waterfall. See the video below:
Here is the video: Exploration Guyana – 25.57 mins
http://www.cultureunplugged.com/play/6268/Exploration-Guyana
Comments
Enjoyed the journey along the Potaro River. Thanks for sharing.
Wonderful production of the beauties of Guyana. Magnificent.
I hate when Europeans and others state that it is the first time that the interior or certain rivers of Guyana were explored. Some of us who grew up there had the fortune to go into the jungle regions with the local Amerindian tribes. My family although they resided in Georgetown would spend the July and August holidays going up to Bartica and driving in Jeeps or trucks through the rough terrain into Potaro. We would then build rafts of bamboo or timber logs and we would casually float down the Potaro River. Yes the rapids and rocks were a big challenge as we navigated our way down the river. In rough spots we hung close to the river banks and would cast ropes onto a tree and pull ourselves up on to dry land. I remember taking a full month camping and rafting down the river. The Keiture falls area was the most beautiful. Again we pulled ourselves up on land and made the climb. There is a spot we called “OH God” usually you were tired just about when you got to that little cliff. In the dry season it was easier to manage.
Picking frogs out of the bromiliads and counting how many you caught for the day was a child’s delight. Finding a big black hairy spider was another treat. Monkeys, parrots, macaws and other small animals including snakes were even a better treat. Ant eaters were a rare find. Sloths hanging in trees were a sight to help motivate lazy people. You know those who only have CAN”T in their vocab. My father would say “There hanging in a tree is a lazy bones sloth just like his lazy Bothers with two feet”. With this kind of remark we would move faster and get the camp site up and running at top speed. The Pakarima mountains were mountains that was a delight to climb. When you reached the summit, you could only imagine God’s face of wonderment at what He created. Swimming in the Mazzaruni River at Horrorabo the Island surrounded by the Caiuni and the Mazzaruni rivers were the cleanest and most delightful swim of all. We would get bamboo polls and leave Horrorabo and swim across to the banks of Yankee island. I rest my case non of these new age explorers can say that they were the first to explore the jungle. We had no cameras to document anything. I have sketches and lovely stories that I wrote to share with my class mates when I returned to Georgetown to go back to school.
Let’s just say this is the first video recorded of this journey. At least it affords most of us (who have never done this) the opportunity to ‘travel’ up and down river with the team. Well done, guys!
Good job! Would love to see more exploratory films of the beautiful interior of Guyana. Thank you.
Is it a case of the first documented and recorded video of a month of completing an expedition which started from the beginning of the Potaro river to its end. The Potaro river is a branch of the mighty Essequibo river and its here that the world’s highest single waterfall flows majestically to a 750 ft drop. It took one citizen from the former motherland,UK,.two Patamona Amerindians and a single light raft and 30 days to navigate those threcherous waterways and they were delighted in many ways while completing the journey to the Pakaraima mountain ranges. The video also shows the dangers and challenges of such an expedition but the indomitable spirit of Charles Montier and his 2 man team prevailed. Its time that our population also like the Kennedys begin to record their historic experiences of the rainforest. Many small expeditions can be planned for several areas of this unexplored terrrain and rainforest. Its jungle life and its the Amerindians who we seek help from as they are literally the owners of this vast expanse of land watered by the mighty Amazon! It makes us believe that we may lack entreprenarial spirit and it also projects that the 90% population that reside on the coastal regions and towns in Guyana have no possible intentions of relocating themselves to the hinterlands for want of material and other support. The film also showed a group of Brazilians with machinery digging for gold and diamonds. This is a part of an undetected inrush by both Brazilians and Venezuealians for our resources. It was sometime last year when killings were reported from this jungle terratn among the warring miners. The government has now moved in and are checking out the illegal miners. All this is happening while the debates in the parliament do not tell us ofd any plan to make the mining Industry the sole domain of the Guyanese people. It also projects the lack of local support for this Industry that has put in the coffers for the last financial year some $400 million $US. WHile the fight goes on in the Parliament whose job it is to motivate our younger people to trech into the interior and lay hold on a piece of the fabled Eldorado! Perhaps those Politicians need to do some serious reeducation of their constituents in order that a serious paradym shift can take place in the minds of our young population and the dream to inhabit, populate and become “pork knockers” in the terrain of Gold mining has now started. We know that these may not be the only valuable resources of our nation and the wealth of the region, but it spells disaster for Guyana if 50% of the Mining liscences go to non nationals! This video is an eye opener for many of us who are lovers of wild life, mountain climbers, expedition planners, rowing down the river in home made bamboo crafts for boats and dingies, filming the natural habitat of the numerous species of wild life and birds, insects, plants and rocks alike. This is the place to spend your August vacation and summer expeditions! I remember visiting the Jim Corbet National Park in region of Theri Garwal in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh India and stumbled on a book named “The wild life of British Guiana written by one Jim Corbett, an Englishman, explorer and lover of wild life and Parks. Much of our own history of a Plural society remains unwritten and people tend to focus and also the media of today on sensational issues and on Politics as this will sell newspapers. There must be some reasonable plan by some group of interested people who have the means to become entreprenarial in spirit and unleash this dream on the population so that while we are bringing out the Amerindians from their settlements to integrate them with the rest of Guyana on the coastal regions, we must take our coastal people to these very settlements and let them reside and live ther for a period of time if only for their experiences and the love of the hinterland. I can visualize no other way than by a Voluntary National Service Program for Guyana. Successive governments have failed its citizens by not opening up the hinterlands or parts of it to some form of Development with a plan to encourage inward migration. If we do not act now it may be too late when others will take over the said hinterlands. You may remember that the Venezuealians were laying claim to some 58,000 square miles. This is the entire Essequibo region in the Western Guyana. They even changed their maps to reflect such ownership! who has done something about this except to lodge a complaint in the UN since 1966.The writings are on the wall but who is reading into all these happenings and more important who is taking some action to achieve some thing Positive for Guyana, The Minister of Tourism has endorsed the trip as the first completed expedition from the start to the end of the Potaro river by Charles Montier and party!
Mr. Balkaran, You are so correct with the comments you made. Guyanese folks like the good things in life. They are not going into the jungle to get bitten by insects or camping out near a river when in the jungle areas of Guyana. We need to teach our people to see the beauty of their country and not just the over populated area of Georgetown and the surrounding country side. The North West area of Guyana is mountainous with large savannas and beautiful. The Venezuealians and the Brazilians will continue to cross the borders to seek the gold and diamonds that are so rightfully belongs to Guyana. Since our Government does not have a plan in place as to how to preserve our natural resources, the bordering countries will come and take what they want because they know there is no one stopping them from doing so. Pride in country should be taught in school. As you said, the children on their school holidays should be given the opportunity to visit the interior and learn about it. Guyana has a God given beauty that most countries wished they had. I have traveled to India, Africa, China, Japan and most of Europe and except for Belize and Hawaii have never seen such beauty in the flora and fauna of this planet we call home. So Guyanese who still live in Guyana, now is the time to explore your back yard. Don’t wait for others to do so. I have returned to Guyana several times and it is the country areas and the Interior that I love the best.