Tallest in the World

Well today was a little different, in that we were all tired of laying block and pouring concrete. So we took an excursion day to day to the Kaieteur National Park to see some falls that are claimed to be the longest single drop of river water in the world. But before we did that, we took a few stops on the way.

First stop was to the beach to have worship. As our friend Barbara pointed out, the term beach in Guyana has kind of a different meeting than we usually picture in our minds. I have included a photograph of the beach where you can see all of the garbage and trash that has washed up on the beach. The water is brown. We were told that the reason for the brown water was all of the silty rivers that flow into the ocean along the South American coast. I am guessing this is probably true in part. But seeing all the garbage and trash upon the shore makes me think that there was something more to the brown water than just silt!

Next, we took about 45 minutes to do a little souvenir shopping. Nothing struck me as being a must-have, but others came back with some pretty nice treasures.

We waited for our bus in front of an old church that was being restored.  We decided to go in and take a look.  Turns out this is supposed to be the tallest wooding building in the world!  At 147 feet tall from the ground to the top of the steeple, it was quite impressive, and you had to respect the engineering knowledge that had to be used to construct the building  out of wood nearly 125 years ago!

Next up was the zoo. I have included a couple pictures of the animals we saw. As you can see, the zoo does not look like the San Diego Zoo. However, they really had a wide variety of animals that I had never seen, and I think we all enjoyed our time there looking at these very unusual animals.

Flying this bird looked like an owl, but we were reassured that it was a hawk.  Never seemed to have a grin on his face  . . .

These guys were pretty noisy

This guy had sort of a bad attitude.  I saw him try to take a nip of Tressie . . . but, that dang wire fence . . 

We traveled to one of local airports that specializes in tours to the Kaieteur National Park in Guyana. As far as I can tell the only real access for tourists is to fly into this park that has a very short runway carved out of the jungle. We piled into a couple of 12 passenger Cessna aircraft that are designed for these kinds of flights. Our flight was just under an hour and we got to see the transition from the fairly flat terrain were were located in Georgetown to the incredibly beautiful and mountainous terrain near the park. Just as we are getting ready to land our pilot makes a right-hand turn a left-hand bank turn in front of the falls to give us a nice birds eye view to see what is in store for us. The view is absolutely magnificent. This river runs through incredibly dense jungle and empties over the falls for a drop of 741 feet, bounces on some rocks, and then drops another hundred feet to the pool at the bottom.

A pretty tight squeeze to get thirteen passengers on this plan . . Maddy sat in the co-pilots seat!

Our pilot does a great job of dropping us in this little tiny runway and there we find a little veranda building that serves as the park headquarters. Cold drinks and snacks were offered, and readily taken- especially the cold drinks! After a little time to get things together, both a park ranger, and a member of the tribe of indigenous people took us for a short walk to our first vista point. Unlike America, there is no safety guardrails for people to hang on to look over the edge  -  there is just simply… The edge! This may not make for the safest situation, but the unobstructed view was absolutely amazing!

Five times taller than Niagara Falls, this was an impressive sight!

We stayed there for about 10 or 12 minutes just looking at the incredible site. Then we moved on to the second vista point. And because it is even closer to the falls it was in a more spectacular views than the first. Both the view of the falls, and the river gorge downstream are just amazing. There used to be a third stop where you go right out to the edge of the falls and look down. However a couple years ago two girls committed suicide by jumping off that vista point to their death below. Since that time, that part of the tour has not been available to day trek visitors like us. Many of us were disappointed that we could not get that view, but it was understandable why they were taking the precautions.

I  wonder how many other natural wonders are hidden out there in some dense jungle. 
We love the opportunity to visit this wonderful beauty.

A short trek back to the ranger station, another cold drink of water, and we were ready to get on the plane and fly back to Georgetown.

These falls are one of the most breathtaking sites in the world, and yet because of their location very few people get to see them. I think we all count it a real blessing that we have had this opportunity to see one of the great natural wonders on the face of the earth.

Washington was a great guide.

We got back to the hotel about an hour before dinner. Our hotel prepared a very nice meal for us, and we finished up the evening with worship presented by Tressie.

Looking down river from the falls, The gorge was nearly as impressive as the falls!

We have had a wonderful day of rest, and I think we are all ready to hit the work site tomorrow with renewed energy. And we are hoping to convert the renewed energy into significant progress! Meanwhile Shana and Kaitlin are working on plans for the church service, which we are expected to provide! It may not be the quality of their used to, but will give it our best shot!