THE annual Pakaraiamas Mountain Safari (PMS), involving 4×4 vehicles, ATVs and motorcycles, has been going since 2003 and is getting bigger each year.
Despite the toughness and dangers of the trip, once they started,  some Safarians, as they call themselves, just can’t stop. It’s like being bitten by a bug. So testosterone aside, since some of them are females, what is it that propels these Safarians to brave the hardships and the dangers of the PMS when they could just stay home and watch TV or do some other safe and mundane activity?
Chronicle hit up on two Safarians to find out why, memorable experiences included.
Cecil Beharry, a third timer on the Safari:
Where From: Jamaican, but Guyanese by birth:
“In Jamaica, I rebuild automobile power steerings. Any opportunity to get a chance to get into the interior, whether by foot, off road, boat, I wouldn’t miss that. But since you are speaking about the Safari, it is really the challenge you know, a challenge of technology versus nature and for us to accomplish it, nature has to be very kind to us because if the rain comes gushing down you might have to abandon it or change the route or so. My opinion of the whole thing is that Guyana is the last frontier in our part of the world . As long as the roads are rugged and the villages are remote, it would always hold an attraction for me. Whenever they pave the road I wouldn’t be driving Safari anymore, I would lose all interest; and if the road where we are going to were paved, I wouldn’t be so keen on going either.
The most exciting part of one safari was the last one in 2010. When we left Karasabai, some of the group were returning to Georgetown and some were going to Lethem. I wanted to go to Lethem. I got a ride on an ATV driven by Senor Bell, the Chairman of Region 8.
When we left Karasabai the weather was dry; but before we could have reached Lethem road, the showers opened up and in no time at all we were in a major flash flood.
The water covered the wheels of the ATV but the vehicle kept going, I was sitting at the back, Senor Bell riding.
I thought the ATV was going to conk out, I thought the ATV was going to get submerged, I thought the ATV would hit a rock and topple over; but Senor Bell kept driving and in the end we made it out of that heavily flooded place.
It was the skill of Senor Bell on the ATV and he shouting instructions to me, like lean to your left, lean to your right…hey, not so far, for over an hour, soaked to the bone but grateful that the machine had not failed us.”
But me, I was born in Guyana and have been going in the bush since high school. I used to be a tour guide, I used to be a vaquero at Pirara Ranch, I used to do mining at Monkey Mountain, I went with the geological survey people in Piruni. Now my children all grown up; they are all adults so I’m just picking up back again.
Edward Luke/Guyanese:
“This is my third time. This hinterland makes me keep coming back; just to see this country, just to see the indigenous people, see what we got right at we door mouth and we ent taking advantage of it. Last year I had to pull a Dodge Ram up the mountains. It slowed up the Safari and that vehicle had a problem from the beginning: the guy didn’t tell us that the 4×4 wasn’t working. When we reached a certain point in the mountains, we couldn’t have left him there, we had to take him with us.
Sometimes drivers could be a major problem.
The year before we had some newcomers going across a bridge, and in the rain, the vehicle slipped of the bridge and we had to fish him out because you can cannot leave anybody behind because some of those places are not places you can easily get out of.
Some drivers when they see a mountain and they gotta go up that mountain, they are gonna turn back. They can’t handle it. Who are they going to turn back with? There was a guy who told me he is a bad man driving in town, and after he climbed the first mountain, he came out of the vehicle and he was scared and he was trembling like a leaf in a strong breeze. We had to now get another man to put him back in his vehicle and drive with him for a while so as to bed him in until he could regain his composure. But Safari, we don’t want it to get too comfortable. It is a Safari. If you get a straight road to drive, you fall to sleep; but if you got a ditch to fall into, or a mountain to run down back, and possibly topple over, or run over the edge of a precipice, you are fully aware; total concentration; mental overdrive. More fun that way.” (END)