I'm a fancy rum girl!

I'm a girl who prefers amoretto sours to basically any other drink, so I wasn't sure what to expect from the tour of the El Dorado rum factory.  Copious street billboards told me it was the 'best rum in the world' so I had to check it out.

The distillary says it has tours but that mostly means that when people come, the head 

chemist/brand ambassador/head taster walks you around for a few hours.  This guy, Carl, just desperately wanted to share his love for rum with us.  We walked through the distillery (which smelled pretty disgusting) and learned about yeast and fermentation.  He answered all my annoying questions like "what happens if a bird poops in the open vat as it distills?"

We then checked out the warehouse "Are there ever any fires in here?  Would it blow up?"

And lastly we got to the tasting part!  I now know the difference between 5 year, 12 year, and 15 year El Dorado rum.  Five year is what we drink in bars, 12 year is "full" and to me is therefore nasty, and 15 year is "smooth" which to me is delicious.  We tried the single malt made in the wood stills and I wasn't too into it.  Sadly, he didn't let us taste the 25 year but that's probably because there are only four bottles available right now in Guyana and they cost $200 bucks each.  The best part by far was the creme liqueur.  Mmmm... new obsession.

"You are now entering a hard hat area-- but only if you're Laura or Shaan, no one else should wear a hard hat"

Mmm. delicious vats of yeast.

Open tanks of rum, ready to be bird-pooped in.

Shaan, a hard hat, and a wooden still.

Carl explaining how lucky we are that they are cleaning the wooden still for the first time in 20 years so we get to see the inside.

The warehouse.

Tasting time...

Mmmm...

ho hum...

yummy deliciousness

Bartica

Last day in Guyana so we went down to Bartica, largely just to ride the speed boat there. However an unintended highlight was that we could sing to Soca songs the whole carride to Parika before we jumped on the boat.  

We played that time-honored game of "how many people can you fit in a small boat".  The driver was basically sitting in my lap...

Bartica is the sight of the most delicious thing I've eaten in Guyana-  Vegetable cook-up with pumpkin:

Too bad I'm not three people and couldn't finish this whole thing...

Bartica is also the sight of the worst toilet I've ever had to use to date (worse than Amanda's in Fes and the bug colony in Chiang Mai).  I didn't take a picture to spare you and am weirdly reluctant to describe it in case any of you (read: Dave and Supna) would never forgive me.

Friday night

We had legendary plans for my last Friday night in Guyana (and my first one not spent on a bus).  I think we pretty successfully hit most of the major spots but left a little so there's something fresh if I return.

Dip Lime- First to the bougie diplomat happy hour for some chatting and group mobilizing. 

Windy's- Next to Windy's because they have the only 2 for 1 happy hour in Guyana... except we missed it.  Instead food, Banks, and kareoke.

UCCW (or some other combination of letters).  This was the club for a workers union and consisted of old local people dancing to a live band playing oldies.  It was awesome and I got to dance with a 60 year old, overweight Guyanese man and observe the seasoned dance moves of old Guyanese ladies in very tight clothing.

Buddy's- This place is ridiculous.  It's four stories: a club, a pool hall, a gym, and Chinese

 restaurant.  I never made it out of the club part.

Shaan's Apartment- Relaxing and eating Reese's Whipps, which are basically Reese's that taste bad because the delicious dense peanut butter part is replaced with light fluffy brown 'whip'.  However, it wouldn't be the end to a night in Georgetown without eating Reese's Whipps... AKA the only thing in Shaan's refridgerator.

Kareoke

Why is kareoke the most fun thing to do anywhere in the world?
Also, why do I look so ridiculous doing it?
These things I may never know...


So it's Friday night and there is a packed itinerary of places we're going one of which includes a kareoke bar for which I am told last night was a "warm up".

Most importantly I have enlisted Sonja (pictured) to teach me how to do the Guyanese Whine. I'd put a link but the only youtube video was of an animated hippo in a sumo outfit doing it... so not really authentic.

Should be epic.

Favorite Soca Songs

Soca music is sort of fantastic. Here are my favorite songs:

Biting Insects

Lyrical excerpt:
if you live in the country
it aint easy
soon as you take off your clothes
and your body exposed
feeling nice and sexy
the biting start immediately

too much biting insects
biting insects
too much biting insects
biting insects

Listen

Uneasy

Lyrical Excerpt:
something strange is happening to me
I've been watching it recently
took my time to dress this morning
everything was neatly fitting
but now you are here next to me
clothes fitting uncomfortably
I feel uneasy in me pants
I feel uneasy in me pants

Listen

Museums

So it was my first full day in Georgetown (weird) and I did a little sniffing around. After sleeping absurdly late (this is vacation!) and taking a lovely scrape-off-all-the-sunblock-and-bug-spray shower I hit the road.

First stop was the Anthropology Museum. I was the only person there aside from a few guards. It was interesting but gave you a very unsatisfying amount of information-- like photographs of people with no dates, locations, or description of what is going on and lots of labels like "this piece of wood is used for [insert Amerindian word that you don't know]."

Then I started walking. I went through one of the markets (the one that is supposed to be safer for white girls walking solo) which was interesting. Didn't stop to buy anything because the layer of staring men was a little too thick. It was so ridiculously hot. I managed to make it to my destination but am not sure I'd do it again when a taxi costs a buck fifty.

The Catallani house is basically a big mansion with artwork in it. 80% of the paintings were by the same guy, Philip Moore. Again I was the only person in the museum and a guard followed me through each room. Not the most relaxed viewing experience but interesting none-the-less. They insisted that I sign the guest book which makes sense since there were no more than two visitors listed for each day.

The low volume at the museums perplexes me since they were both free and shaded. What else could you want?

Orindiuk Falls

Second stop on the waterfall journey was Orindiuk Falls which is a sequence of smaller falls where you can frollick in the water. Despite every class on infectious disease I've taken and my obsessive knowledge of helminths I got in the water. The midday sun was excruciating and it was so refreshing.

















Eat your heart out Sports Illustrated (normal-sized women, full-coverage) Swimsuit Edition













Brazil was just on the other side of the river! I was really tempted to try to swim across just so I could touch Brazil and come back, but it wasn't allowed :(