A jungle monastery. Since 1988 there’s been a Benedictine monastery on the banks of the Mazaruni (Guyana), on Mora Camp. Inside, it's furnished mostly with books, and a few simple pieces wrought from hardwood. Not a cent has been wasted in the pursuit of pleasure. Along the hall, there's a row of cowls, and, around each window, a fringe of crusted lace. A few years back, the brothers used to rent out rooms (not any more, I hear). I was their first guest for months, and had a cell in the eaves. ‘We rise at 6,’ they said, ‘Matins at 6.15.’
It wasn’t long before I was part of the clockwork of monastery life. The brothers lived their life to a split-second horarium of prayer and chanting. Loosing off canticles into this vast expanse of light and silvery water must have felt like addressing heaven itself. I still have a recording I made of the chanting monks. It was a gorgeous, sepulchral sound. By day, it seemed to blend in with the reedy hum of crickets, and, by night, with the chorus of frogs. After a while, I almost forgot it was the music of the 13th century, filtered through the tropics.