The Trip to Iwokrama

Now the real journey started! From Ogle, we flew to the Annai Airstrip, the hub of the interior. After lunch at the Rock View Lodge at Annai, we headed off on the only North-South road from Georgetown to Brazil on our way to the Iwokrama River Lodge. Our chariot was a Bedford truck, an old British vehicle designed to carry very heavy weight and capable of extreme speeds of 10 mph! While the other much older members on the tour were disgruntled with the slow pace and bumpy ride, I loved it as it provided me the opportunity to photograph many birds including a black collared hawk, slate collared hawk, Amazon kingfisher, red throated caracara, Spix's guan, rufescent heron, gray heron, and a great white heron to name a few. I even managed to photograph one mammal, an agouti crossing the road while hoping to see an elusive jaguar.

We arrived at the Iwokrama River Lodge after dark so unfortunately did not have time to walk the trails to search for wildlife. This lodge is primarily a research center for scientists from all over the world to study the rainforest in depth. Most of the lodging was used for the researchers but there were about 8 cabins for tourists which were only recently built and quite comfortable. After dinner, we embarked on a night boat ride. There was not a lot of action but I did see a tree boa and a few small caiman before returning to the lodge. This was a certainly a long day and after a few beers decided to call it a night.