From the Museum of Anthropology our next stop is the downtown area which is just a short hop away on the map. However the traffic is quite snarled here with many trucks coming in with containers from the port. As such the going is really slow as we pass historic building after historic building. We go round the Saint George Cathedral and try to find parking but there is no hope. In the end as we approach the National Museum we align with the guide to just climb out and enter the museum while he looks for a place to park. And after parking he will come to pick us up from the museum.
The entrance to the museum is free however there are quite a few rules that seem weird to us that are explained in depth as we enter. However finally we are in and it is time to explore this museum which is mostly focused on the natural history of Guyana. There are lots of dioramas of birds and mammals and it is actually quite informative prior to our journey into the jungle.
There are not a lot of other visitors, maybe because there is no AC which makes its interior unusual hot for a museum. The only exception is the famous Giant Sloth reproduction in a separate room, this one has AC at full blast and as such is a refuge for quite a few of the museum employees. The Sloth is really impressive and it is worth visiting the museum even just to see the Giant Sloth and to get an idea about the giants that roamed these lands.
On the ground floor there are also some exhibits about a major fire that burned through Georgetown and another one about the most expensive stamp ever, the British Guiana One Cent Stamp sold for close to ten million dollars recently. And about now our guide finally arrives, finding a parking space was more difficult than expected it seems.
In fact it was so difficult that he proposes for us to walk to the lunch spot as he parked nearby. This is ok for us as that means we will walk more on the streets of Georgetown and understand more about the culture. Maybe we can even buy some souvenirs from the stalls nearby. We enter a few and there are some interesting items and after some browsing we find a beautiful quetzal miniature that we buy in anticipation of seeing one the next day.
Next we continue along the road towards the St George Cathedral. While there is a lot of chaos on the streets after India this doesn’t impress us that much. In fact it is quite interesting to compare especially given that the majority of people here are Guyanan-Indians.
We then pass the Saint George Cathedral, an Anglican cathedral made of timber and being reported to be the largest wooden structure in the world. Unfortunately it cannot be visited, our guide says that some tourists were loud and that led to the ban but we think it is more likely something that locals did given that there aren’t really enough tourists here to annoy the bishop significantly. Either way this means we can only admire it from the outside before we take a side trail between canals to our lunch spot.
The lunch spot is quite popular and we order some local specialties that are reasonably good and then it is time to continue on, the Botanical Garden is next.
