From the Guyanese border post, my guide book claims that you can walk or take a taxi down to the river. It can be crossed by hiring a boat or wading and from the other side one can take a taxi to the bus terminal in the town Bonfim for $2.50 for further transport.
In reality, nothing of this is true. They have now built a brand new bridge over the river and I decided to walk it as it didn’t seem to be too far. After 30 minutes and a couple of kilometres walk I was across the river at the Brazilian customs.
In reality, nothing of this is true. They have now built a brand new bridge over the river and I decided to walk it as it didn’t seem to be too far. After 30 minutes and a couple of kilometres walk I was across the river at the Brazilian customs.
Now over to the $2.50 taxis. There were no taxis. And no buses. Maybe there would be taxis later but I was not sure. Everything in this f-ing book seems to be false so I decided to have a go at walking. How far can it be? For $2.50 you don’t get very far in a Brazilian taxi, I thought. For sure, it would be done in no time.
Sun was gazing and I walked and walked with all my luggage. After 30 minutes on a straight road along a flat landscape, it still didn’t look like there was any end to it. Alongside the road there was a telephone line with posts placed with a regular distance from each other. I measured the time to walk between two posts to 28 seconds and roughly estimated the walking time to be one minute per every second post. I tried to count the number of posts I could see along the road. It was the type of road that frequently features in American movies going through flat deserts and where you can’t see any curving at all until the road disappears at the horizon. The first ones were easy to count. Ten posts, five minutes. Then they started to become very close to each other and it was easy to lose count. Twenty posts, thirty posts. 15 minutes. Anything beyond was very small but it was obvious that there were many more until they merged with the horizon. I could see maybe 60 posts fairly clearly. I was tempted by taking a picture and zoom in with my camera but I didn’t. Instead I walked on for 30 minutes more and the road looked exactly the same. Maybe I could hail a taxi? I walked for a little bit more. One hour and twenty minutes. I estimated the total walked distance from the bus to be 9.2 km (including the bridge) using the average walking speed. At the same moment I was thinking about taxis I saw a vehicle turning left, maybe 10 posts ahead. Maybe there would be a sign there stating how much further it was. But it was even better. On the road forking off to the left there was a sign pointing towards Bonfim. The bus terminal was less than five minutes walk into that road, almost the first building in town.
Sun was gazing and I walked and walked with all my luggage. After 30 minutes on a straight road along a flat landscape, it still didn’t look like there was any end to it. Alongside the road there was a telephone line with posts placed with a regular distance from each other. I measured the time to walk between two posts to 28 seconds and roughly estimated the walking time to be one minute per every second post. I tried to count the number of posts I could see along the road. It was the type of road that frequently features in American movies going through flat deserts and where you can’t see any curving at all until the road disappears at the horizon. The first ones were easy to count. Ten posts, five minutes. Then they started to become very close to each other and it was easy to lose count. Twenty posts, thirty posts. 15 minutes. Anything beyond was very small but it was obvious that there were many more until they merged with the horizon. I could see maybe 60 posts fairly clearly. I was tempted by taking a picture and zoom in with my camera but I didn’t. Instead I walked on for 30 minutes more and the road looked exactly the same. Maybe I could hail a taxi? I walked for a little bit more. One hour and twenty minutes. I estimated the total walked distance from the bus to be 9.2 km (including the bridge) using the average walking speed. At the same moment I was thinking about taxis I saw a vehicle turning left, maybe 10 posts ahead. Maybe there would be a sign there stating how much further it was. But it was even better. On the road forking off to the left there was a sign pointing towards Bonfim. The bus terminal was less than five minutes walk into that road, almost the first building in town.
In the bus terminal I saw a couple of fellows from the bus who had opted for taking a taxi and obviously arrived much earlier. This is a small town and there are only five buses or something per day so we were all waiting for the 2:30 departure. The American guy, who I had exchanged a few words with earlier, recognised me and said hello.
-“Did you come by taxi?” he asked.
-“No, I walked”.
His response was hilarious and I still wish I had taken a picture of his face when he looked at my big backpack and chockingly replied:
-“YOU WALKED?!?”
Crazy stuff, isn’t it? When I get home, I will burn the book on the fire at one of our BBQ-nights. THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is truer than anything in the book.
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