The Guyana-Madeira connection - 4
Guyana (or British Guiana) has long been familiar with the wine of Madeira, long before the arrival of the Madeiran immigrants. Because it is fortified, it doesn't go off, and it isn't damaged by heat. For that reason, it was the tipple of empire-builders.
The Guyana-Madeira connection - 3
Although the Madeiran immigrants of the 1830s came to Guyana to work in the fields, the venture was not a success. They readily succumbed to the heat and to disease (and ended up being fed by the 'Africans'). In a relatively short time, they moved into trade, and became the colony’s shopkeepers. By 1851, ½ of British Guiana's shops were Portuguese.
The Guyana-Madeira connection - 2
Arriving in Georgetown, the early Madeiran immigrants of 1835 cannot have experienced a greater contrast with the land they'd left behind. Whereas the sugar fields of Guyana are hot, low and flat, the Madeiran landscape is unimaginably precipitous. The island forms part of a volcano that sits, twice as high as the French Alps, on the Atlantic Ocean floor.
The Guyana-Madeira connection - 1
In 1835, a year after the abolition of slavery in British Guiana, the colonial authorities began to import the first indentured labourers, a shipload of 430 starving Portuguese from the famine-ravaged island of Madeira. Despite the warnings of the Governor of Madeira that they’d be branded like slaves, a total of 31,0000 Madeirans left for BG.
Great bars of the world
The weirdness of homestay or B&B
A lost city of gold?
This may not look much but, to hydrologists, its heaven. It's a watershed, deep in the Rupununi Savannah (Guyana). From here, the water runs off to join the tributaries of Essequibo in one direction, and the Amazon in the other. During the wet season, these two mighty river basins are linked by floodwaters, and the eastern Guianas become – if not exactly an island – completely encircled by water.
A town in a time warp.
Every now and then, I come across a town with a wonderful antique feel. Take New Amsterdam, in Guyana. Even my hotel felt like a relic from an earlier age. The Hotel Aster was built like a clipper, and had hardwood decks and a thick cream hull. Inside, it was so dark and cramped that I had to wriggle my way to my room.
A palace made of leaves.
This is Karanambo, deep in the interior of Guyana. It's been home to the McTurk family since 1922. Back then, the Rupununi was still an odd place to settle. It took as long to get to Georgetown as it took for Townies to get to London. There was no doctor, no government, and still a handful of tribes who’d shower you in arrows. But Tiny McTurk didn’t seem to mind.
Some strange sports, around the world
Hardship has been a great innovator, forcing humans to make sport out of whatever they have.
The Afghans play a form of polo-cum-rugby with a dead sheep; in Stawell (Australia), I remember an annual running race (the 'Stawell Gift') where the prize was a pig; in rural England there are violent games with big 'wheels' of cheese and sides of bacon.