Up at 5ish and we turned on BBC news but even with the intermittent satellite signal we were still unsure of the time and so phoned the operator and she confirmed it was Trinidad time (4hours behind UK) where did the extra half an hour come from? Must be Caribbean airlines time! Two mugs of tea,with water heated in the coffee maker, later and feeling human we got up and went to breakfast. After our 0815 briefing we were collected and taken to Ogle airstrip for our 1030 flight to Annai air strip. The important stop en route was the Scotia bank ATM to get Guyanese dollars for the trip. ($200 to the US$). The check in involved weighing checked in baggage which was within limits and pleasing that all our efforts paid off to lighten the load even though the driver said - are you sure you have enough stuff for 2 weeks - we smiled and said of course. We then stood on the scales with our hand luggage - for the final data to be taken....phew as with binos and camera my hand luggage was a good 6kg- no excess bagge to pay but even with my hand luggage I weighed less that a rather large man on the same flight. Also being checked in was a rather large television and 2 car seats. We took off with a full load of passengers but sadly for the owner the 2 car seats could not make this flight and would have to wait! The flight took about 90 minutes most was above the clouds; after crossing the lowlands with their rice paddies we went over endless pristine rainforest which only changed to open patches of grassland as we came into land at Annai. We were right by Rock View lodge - our lunch stop- and we're greeted by the owner Colin. A man in his 60s with hair tied back in a pony tail and a very clear home counties British accent albeit he had been living in South America for most of his working life and was now a Guyanese national. From construction and building,one project being the Brazil Guyana highway, he was now,in part, responsible for opening up the interior of Guyana to tourism and built Rock View Lodge and Atta Rainforest Lodge, our next destination, from scratch - and a great job he has done to. We learn he has 7 children- 2 living in the UK, 2 in the education and at least 2 working with him in the business. We learn he has even hosted Prince Charles - in around 2000, indeed we saw the BBQ where he had to nerve rackingly BBQ for 100 guests! After lunch the newest joiner to the business, his 17 year old son, drove us to Atta lodge and explained that his dad had lost his first wife to malaria, and had lived with his second wife in Brazil with their 4 children for many years but they divorced when she didn't want to move to Guyana. Consequently he met his mum, an Amerindian, and the rest, as they say, is history!
An hour or so's drive to Atta -after first going through farmland, where we saw buff necked ibis and a savannah hawk we headed onto a very straight road through pristine rainforest. We left the Annai land and entered, via manned gates, the Iwokrama reserve arriving at Atta Rainforest lodge 20-30 mins later.
A great welcome and briefing from Leon the guide. We heard the red howler monkeys but couldn't see them despite looking. A family from Ecuador arrived - a birthday treat for their mum who was retracing her Guyanese roots as they plotted their route to French Guyana where she had also lived. Late afternoon we headed out to the roadway with Amanda the trainee guide to see what we could see....a tropical king bird, a fly catcher, a yellow headed vulture soaring over head, two very noisy red caracaras, a plumbeous kite a yellow footed turtle rustling in the bushes, a toucan, two red and green macaws - he waited while she lay eggs then they flew off together and my animal of the day long nosed river bats lining a dead trunk and looking like African k*** thorn rather than animals! We know the Jaguar is around as we saw his paw print!
We returned for a welcome coldish shower,dinner and an early night.