The Road From Kotoka
- Jun 5
- 30 min read
True pilots stories from the back of beyond
Robert Rice with Daughter Genevieve in Lethem, Guyana - 2000
Over twenty years ago, an organization called “Remote Area Medical” asked if I would participate with the creation of a new air medical service in the Rupununi region of southern Guyana. As a couple, my wife, Jennifer and I had prayed earnestly about what direction our lives should be taking. The answer came from a small organization called “Wings of Hope” located in Chesterfield, Missouri. They were looking for a volunteer pilot to help them with several foreign aviation missions they were supporting - one of them was Remote Area Medical, whose director, Stan Brock, had lived in Guyana during the 50’s and early 60’s, having moved there when he was 15.
He worked on the largest cattle ranch in South America (30,000 head) called the Dadinowa Ranch, in the southern Rupununi district of that country.
Ultimately, he managed the ranch. His crew, primarily Amerindians, would round-up cattle every year and drive them 300 miles north to the capitol of Georgetown. The losses along the way were very expensive. In an effort to reduce losses and improve efficiency, Stan built an abattoir (slaughterhouse) near the Dadinowa, where the beef could be processed and then flown, via DC3, to Georgetown for domestic consumption and export. Stan knew the country like nobody else and he knew the people too.
Our destination in the Rupununi, Lethem, had one main road running through town, where a few simple stores were located. There were perhaps a hundred houses scattered around the community in a completely haphazard way, following the few sparse streets that wound aimlessly in a jigsaw fashion inside the town’s boundaries; perhaps 1 mile north and south and one-half mile east. The western edge of town was defined by the Tacatu River. On the other side of the Tacatu lay Brazil. During the “dry” season, that river could be crossed on foot, almost. A fair amount of commerce went on over that slow river most days. Brazil produced a lot of food, livestock and other goods that were in demand on the Guyana side. The airstrip in Lethem was left-over from the cold war. It was at least 4,000’ long and 150’ wide, paved with what they called macadam and was built as a back-up, emergency airstrip for military aircraft (Not sure whose because Guyana sure didn’t have anything that big).
Stan had arranged to rent a small one-bedroom house in what could loosely be classified as a “residential” part of Lethem. The houses in Lethem were primarily cement or cinder block, with clay or tile roofs. Most had a very small ground-level porch near the front door. Nobody had screens and the windows commonly were louvered so that the wind and dust, which blew hard all night long, could be controlled. The house was empty. It was one of our volunteer duties to find furniture. I remember Stan saying, in his authentic British accent: “Robert, whatever you do, don’t buy that hideous plastic patio furniture! Have someone to make a table and chairs from wood”
It was a short, dusty walk from the village center, where the few small stores where, to our house. The 1 mile walk could have been direct, except that a fence was erected around the entire airstrip, which was as large in area as the entire town. One had to walk around the perimeter of that airstrip fence - or just along roads that wound generally around it and generally in the direction of our house. All-in-all it was easier to just take the jeep. The “Remote Area Medical” Suzuki Jeep was tiny and the starter didn’t work - so we had to push start it. More than once, Jennifer had to give me a shove to start my down-hill roll before I popped the clutch and started it up.
Although there was a simple water system in the town that ran through plastic pipes buried just below the surface. The electricity, and therefore the water supply, frequently did not work and we often had to get our water from a well we shared with neighbors.
To say we operated on a shoe-string budget would be a serious understatement. We didn’t have enough money for a proper amount of food. Jennifer was breast feeding our 4-month-old daughter, Genevieve and I could tell that we were ALL getting skinny, except perhaps for Genevieve. Our budget was very, very thin. I recalled something that Stan had told me when we started this trip, he said “Robert, you should try to find a way to make yourself useful, some endeavor that is needed and profitable.” In his proper British accent. “Be resourceful.” He said. I didn’t think too much of it at the time, but I wondered what he was thinking of.
My flights were all medical in nature. Some were real emergency medevac flights and others consisted of transporting supplies or doctor teams to do clinics in even more remote villages. Frequently, I transported patients or supplies to the clinic in the small village of Aishalton on the other side of the Kanuku mountains. They had a clinic that was supplied and supported by Remote Area Medical and the Guyana Georgetown Rotary club. That clinic got a fair amount of visits from volunteers and so we were frequently there, either with patients or volunteers. Sometimes I would just fly in equipment or supplies. The head nurse, who essentially ran the clinic, was “Sister Poon”. That is the name I was given and what everybody called her. Because of her modest dress and manner, I made the assumption that she was a nun. One day as I was preparing to fly back to my home base in Lethem, she took me aside and said, “Robert, while you’re in Lethem please talk to Mr. Humphries. He runs a small store on the north side of town. When you return here, he will give you frozen chicken - that we need badly here. Please bring it back with you.” Later, back at our home base in Lethem, I found Mr. Humphries - a kindly old man who ran a very small shop selling little nick-knacks and some frozen items. I said to him, “Mr. Humphries, Sister Poon asked me to talk to you about frozen chicken”. Before I even go into the whole story about Sister Poon and the needs in Aishalton, Mr. Humphries knew what I was going to ask. He immediately said “yes, yes, I have the frozen chicken here. My son brings it over from Brazil. I have 50 lbs. For Sister Poon.” Fifty Pounds! I exclaimed! “Yes, I have made arrangements for my son to bring it to you on the airstrip before your go.”. Fifty Pounds! Wow! They must really need this in Aishalton, I thought to myself. I’ll be doing a great service to the Clinic there and the nuns working in the clinic. They will be SO happy to have all this chicken!
So the weeks went by and I periodically would bring shipments of frozen chicken (and sometimes large trays of eggs) with me to Aishalton. The people there were always so very happy to see me arrive.
One day, I was scheduled to transport an American volunteer nurse from Aishalton back to Lethem for her eventual flight back to the U.S. After landing in Aishalton, she helped unload the frozen chicken, handing it off to someone tasked with taking it to the Clinic, or so I thought. “You know, she said”, moving closer to me so she could speak softly, “Sister poon is not using this food in the clinic.” The shocked look on my face must have surprised her because she stepped back briefly “What!” I shouted. She pressed her finger to her lips and looked around, then quietly said “She sells it at her store here in the village”. “She has a store here!” I was completely shocked. Why would a nun be running a store and selling clinic supplies! (to be fair, Sister Poon never said it was for the clinic). On the flight to Lethem we spoke a bit more. The volunteer stayed with us in the RAM house for a couple of days and explained, while there, that Sister Poon was not a nun. That title: “Sister” was just what Guyanese head-nurses are called. With that news I felt like I had lost a little of my innocence. Everything I thought was goodness and light was now darkness and deceit. This will, by no means, be the last time my blissful ignorance will be shattered with the realities of life in the 3rd world.
After the nurse had left Lethem and I was scheduled for another flight to Aishalton, I went down to talk to Mr. Humphries. “Mr. Humphries”, I said, “You and I are going to do some business together. I’ll buy your chicken for $1.50 (three-hundred Guyanese dollars) a pound on consignment.” The next flight included 50 lbs of frozen chicken and three full trays of eggs, worth five cents each. When I landed in Aishalton, I opened the cargo door and made a general announcement to the crowd always gathered in the middle of the airstrip: “People of Aishalton!” I said in my loud, authoritative pilot voice, “Whoever would like to purchase frozen chicken and eggs may do so now, here, from me. Two dollars a pound!”. There was a noticeable and loud, almost visceral movement with large numbers of people all rushing in my direction from the periphery of the airstrip. At first I wasn’t sure what was going on. Were they revolting because of my audacity, daring to subvert the authority of Sister Poon, whom they revered like a saint? Were they going to try to rush into the plane and steel the merchandise? For a short moment I wasn’t sure, until three women quickly shoved Guyanese dollars in my face and crowded in close to get their order of poultry before I ran out - which didn’t take long. Guys were RUNNING back to their houses to get money and running all the way back to buy a frozen chicken or a half-dozen eggs, though many people complained that my egg prices were WAY too high. I could not get it out of the plane fast enough! I could not make change so I used eggs as change rated at ten-cents each.
In fifteen minutes all the chicken and eggs were gone and my pocket was full of money. I had found my “useful and profitable endeavor” that Stan Brock encouraged me to find and now I could afford to buy food!
Weeks later, back in Lethem, I was resting in my hammock on our front veranda-porch-area when a small group of Amerindian men, all about 5’ tall and looking pretty ragged, walked into Lethem from the bush (or so it seemed) and made their way to our house. They walked toward us from the east side of the house - not from the road - and approached me. “Are you the pilot?” they asked.. (not only was I the ONLY pilot in the entire region, I was the only American in Lethem). “Yes” I said. The leader of the group began: “We are from Katoka and need your help finding a lost man.” The Amerindians here speak English as a trade language, but at home these ones speak Makushi, so English is not their real native language. They also don’t ask questions in the same way as Americans, for sure. Most questions are blunt and without much embellishment.
For geographical reference, our base in Lethem is nearly 300 miles south of Georgetown, the coastal capital of Guyana (1st Map). Katoka was a small Makushi village about 35 miles north-east of Lethem on the northern drainage of the Kanuku Mountains (2nd Map).
The village of Katoka is located on a slight rise in the otherwise flat plain of the savannah north of the Kaukus (mountains). The Rupununi River runs completely through the entire Kanuku mountain range from north to south (see the squiggly red line) which gives you a rough idea of how old this geology is (it is very, very old). For a river to go entirely through a 4000’ mountain range, it has to be really, really old.
During the “dry” season, the landscape looks much like the map, however, during the rainy season, the rivers all over southern Guyana rise (as does the Amazon to the west) and the low-lying savannah becomes an enormous jigsaw puzzle of swamp, wetlands, meandering streams and new rivers ALL infested with piranha and caiman (really big ones). I have fished in the Rupununi as a guest of the village of Karanambo, hosted by the distinguished British benefactor, Dianne McTurk. I can tell you, from personal observation, the river is FULL of Caimen (up to 12’ long) and large, hungry Piranha.
This was the wet season and the leader of this group explained that a man, a friend of a family in the area, was unfamiliar with the routes between villages and got lost traveling from one outpost or farm to another. The leader said “lost” but really the environment in that area turns you and maneuvers you and then traps you via hundred square miles of serpentine flowing river water, swamps, impassable jungle and rain so intense that it’ll drive you nuts. If you don’t know exactly where you are in that mess, then you are definitely LOST.
The leader asked me if we had some equipment we could use to find a person. I asked “what kind of equipment are you talking about?” and he went on to say in a very cryptic, round-about fashion, the “kind of equipment that lets you see people in the dark”. Now I was confused. “I don’t have anything that ‘sees’ in the dark” I said, “and I can’t fly at night”. Why do you want to look in the dark? I asked.
He just sort of gazed at me for a minute before talking - typical of Amerindians. “We have come close to finding him”, he said, “but he runs”. I asked “how do you know you were close?” and he said “we can see his tracks and sometimes we see him but he keeps getting away”. Now I was more confused. “You found him and he runs away?”, I repeated. The leader nods. How long has he been lost? The leader looks back at his group as if to ask and then mutters something in Makushi - “about three weeks” he says. Then he asks, “can you help us look for him with the plane now?”, apparently giving up on the high-tech angle. I said, sure, we can help. Then I posited, “I think the man might be bush crazy since he has been lost for so long. I think he is a little crazy and afraid because he has been lost so long and you scare him, then he runs away.” The leader just looked at the ground. I said, “you should try to sneak up on him quietly, maybe when he is sleeping, then catch him.”
I asked the man if he could give me a couple of guys that I could take in the plane, to use as look-outs. He picked a couple of guys who stepped forward as volunteers and said he was going to send the others back to the area to continue the search. Jennifer (and baby Genna) came with us in the plane as we made a grid pattern over the man’s destination village of Kotoka and the area to the south and east for about 2 or 3 hours. We didn’t see anything but swirling water, swamps and jungle. Running low on fuel, I decided to head home. Weeks later I received news that the man was eventually caught - only because he was too sick to run away from the searchers. He had been in the bush for more than 40 days.
Fast Forward 8 years:
After we finished our Guyana volunteer work in August 2001, an American by the name of Terrance Trapnel took over. Jennifer and I returned to the U.S. and then formed our own Mission Aviation non-profit charity called: Great Commission Air http://www.GreatCommissionAir.org
We moved our flight operations to the Ixcan (ishkan) region of Guatemala, a very remote Mayan area just 8 miles south of the Mexican border. After many years of hard work and hundreds of medevac and mission support flights - and one very serious aircraft accident in 2009, we returned to the states to recover and regroup. While in the US, our friend in Guyana, Terrance, called to ask if we could come and cover (fly) for him while he took some time off to get married. I was not otherwise occupied, so I agreed. By that time, my son, Robert (Beto), who had been born in Guatemala was about 5 years old. Genevieve (my 4-month-old in the previous story) was now eight! We returned to Lethem, Guyana and found that not much had changed. I began flying the RAM U-206 to the same villages, which were all very familiar and seemed to be stuck in time. The house was different but the old Suzuki Jeep, which had been almost new during our first stint, was still there and in really bad shape. The flights were about the same; ferrying patients from villages to the clinic in Aishalton or to Georgetown (in more serious cases). There was the occasional medical clinic, where a group of doctors and/or nurses were transported to remote villages to work with the Amerindians. One particular “clinic” flight, which would require me to take a group to the village of Kotuka, bothered me a bit since I had not been to the airstrip in Kotuka in years and did not know the condition. I decided it would be prudent to fly alone and land in Kotuka before taking a heavy load of Guyanese doctors and nurses - just to check the airstrip condition.
Genna (left) and brother Beto (Right) with Friends in Guayana
Aft
After driving the beater jeep to the airstrip and preparing the plane (a similarly worn Cessna U-206) I flew the short 35 miles to Kotuka. Before landing I made a low pass and determined that the airstrip was flat, clean and free of obstacles. I then made a climbing turn and came back around to land, which was completely normal and easy. The gravel covered strip was as flat as a pancake and I came to a rolling stop about half-way down the length of the strip without any problems. As I began my taxi turn in order to return to the beginning of the strip, the nose of the plane suddenly dropped with a loud crash and the rudder pedals jabbed my feet. I quickly cut the engine and shut off the fuel. This was bad, really bad. The propeller hitting the ground would have meant the END of the engine. I opened the door and stepped out into the intense Guyana sun, taking it all in.
The nose of the plane was practically sitting on the surface of the ground with the nose wheel completely collapsed and bent backwards underneath. There was no apparent reason for it - the ground under and around the plane was perfectly hard and flat. The tire wasn’t even flat. Fortunately the propeller hadn’t contacted the ground, but only by inches. Had that happened, it would have been massively expensive as the engine would probably have been ruined and those cost more than a replacement Cessna 172.
There was nobody within sight and the village itself was some distance from the airstrip, so far away that it was not really visible. Fortunately, my friend Terrance had stowed one of those new-fangled satellite phones under the seat in case of an emergency. I pulled the phone out and turned it on - entered the code and waited for a signal. A recorded message came on: “We are sorry, but your account balance is ZERO. You can not make calls from this phone, good bye.”. I thought, there must be some mistake! I tried again, again the same message. A third time and the same results! What to do.
The plane was equipped with an HF radio, required to communicate with ATC during the long flights up to the capital (300 miles north). If the atmospheric conditions were good, I could sometimes get hold of the air traffic controllers in Georgetown from the ground using the HF. I got back in the plane and powered up the radio - tuned in the frequency for Georgetown Air Traffic Control and gave it a shot “Georgetown Radio” “Georgetown Radio”, “November Six Hotel Quebec - how do you copy”. A few moments later a reply! “Six Hotel Quebec, Georgetown Radio, go ahead”. “Georgetown, six hotel quebec in Kotuka with damaged aircraft. Can you contact Terrance Trapnel with Remote Area Medical for me?”. Georgetown replied: “Damaged Aircraft! Are there any injuries? What is your location!”. Me: “Georgetown, no injuries, I am in Kotuka village in Region 9, the plane is disabled, can you contact Terrance Trapnel and let him know I will need to be evacuated”. Georgetown: “Evacuated! Are you injured? What are your coordinates! We will call Terrance for you, please report your conditions and coordinates!”. The controller in Georgetown was obviously over-excited but this may have been the ONLY call like this he had ever gotten. I gave the controller my coordinates and re-assured him that I was OK but the airplane was damaged and would need some repairs. The controller calmed down and went to work getting terrance on the phone. Fortunately for me, Terrance had decided to take his honeymoon IN GEORGETOWN (Guyana of all places). He was well known to the aviation community including this controller, so he was relatively easy to get hold of. I described the nature of the damage to the controller who described it to Terrance who in turn informed the controller that there was no way to get me out of there that day for sure - maybe not for a while. He was going to check with some “friends”.
When we arrived in Guayan to relieve Terrance, and after getting a quick transitional cross-training, settled into our temporary house, we met Terrance’s fiance. She was a sweet Indian girl from the coast. She and Terrance invited us to their wedding, to be held in just two days. As the blessed day arrived, we could tell it was going to be an extremely eclectic affair. My wife Jennifer as well as the kids and I all attended the wedding, during which the wife was presented, drawn to the outdoor venue in the back of a wooden cart being drawn by a cow. The Hindu priest said the vows in Hindi for “her” family and the local pastor repeated Christian vows for Terrance and his entourage. Later that evening, the reception was, well, really weird. It was held in a dark (but torch lit) and dusty soccer field behind the Tacatu Hotel (the only hotel in Lethem) - Attended by a mix of odd people - Amerindians, Guyanese, Brazilian illegals, a few Dutch and American misfits (all friends of Terrance). We were seated in plastic chairs around plastic tables behind the hotel and were told the entertainment would be a local popular singer, the son of the proprietor. Presently, the music was queued up and the volume rose, then out from the back of the hotel strode the singer, microphone in hand dancing across the patio into the crowd, wearing a skin-tight, sequined cocktail dress - fit only for the most flaming transvestite!
The proprietor’s son was actually a fairly good singer and spent several hours serenading us with favorites from the 80’s, especially Boy George hits. The rum flowed, people danced, and drank, and danced, and drank! I have a vague recollection of someone there, who at one time I had thought was a staid, if alcoholic, dutch woman, the wife of a well known local, (also alcoholic), give a “lap-dance” to a man who was seated near me but facing away. As she entertained him, she smiled at me and waved. It was a mind-bending experience (like many I have had in Guyana). I could blame some of those experiences on the psychoactive ingredients of the anti-malarial drugs, or perhaps the odd fungus that grew in some of the local peanuts - but no, it was just a really weird place..
Back on the airstrip in Kotuka; Terrance assured me that he would help as much as he could but could not do too much, pre-occupied as he was with his new wife. I told him I would try to find a way to get home and connect with him later regarding a plan to fix the aircraft. Just then a couple of Makushi Amerindians walked across the length of the airstrip from the east and approached me. I explained that the plane was damaged (which was obvious) but that I needed to move it off of the airstrip so that another plane could come in and land (though at this point that was just wishful thinking). One of the guys took off on a run back to the village and returned after a while jogging behind an older man on a bicycle. The older man introduced himself as the toshao (touchow) or chief of the village. I explained what had happened and the call to Georgetown and the fact that I didn’t really have a way to get back to my home in Lethem, etc.. Then I asked him if he could help me get the plane off the runway. He said that he had a couple of old tires that we could put under the plane and with a few words spoken to the younger men (in Makushi) his guys ran off to get them. They men return quickly with two old tires which we placed off the edge of the airstrip and with the help of about six or eight strong villagers we lifted and dragged that very heavy aircraft over to the edge of the airstrip and propped the fuselage of the plane on the tires such the the nose-gear sort of hung limply. A very good start. Then I asked the toshao, “Do you know a way I can get back to Lethem?” He looked at the ground for a minute, then at me and hesitated, before saying, “it would take weeks to get there in a canoe”. That statement shocked me as I had just flown from Lethem in about 20 minutes! I could probably walk in a few days. “Canoe! I said, with a big smile on my face, that sounds like an adventure!”. Then he shifted a bit and said “but, maybe if we can get to the other side of the river” (the Rupununi, yes, the same one that is full of Caiman and piranha) some distance beyond, there is a road. If we can get to that road then maybe we can find a truck.” “If we find a truck, maybe they will be going that way and maybe you can pay them to take you to Lethem!”. Wonderful I thought, a weeks long canoe adventure (which I had no intention of really taking) or a miles long slog through the jungle to a road that might maybe have a truck that might maybe take me to Lethem - if only I had money to pay for it! Great!
I asked “How long do you think it would take to get to that road you're talking about? And how much do you think it would cost to pay someone to take me to Lethem?”. He thought very long and looked at the ground for a long time and said, well, I think, if we found a truck, it would cost about $200 to pay someone to take you to Lethem”. “Can you ride a bike?”, he asked.
“Two-hundred dollars!? I blurted out - (that was nearly all the money we had)”. “I think so”, he said earnestly. “If you can ride a bike, I’ll take you to my wife’s house and we’ll have some toki”. “I can ride a bike” I said, and he sent one of the young men off to get me a bike. In fifteen minutes or so the chief and I were on our bikes, riding down the gentle slope that led away from the airstrip, in the direction of “his wife’s house”. The ground was mostly fine sand, almost beach sand, but firm. We were moving along at a good clip, downhill, going quite fast. I tried to apply brakes but found that there weren’t any brakes on my bike and I began to pass the chief! He smiled at me as I went zooming by and I think he may have said something like “you should slow down…” not sure about that but I would have it only I could have. The sandy slope gradually leveled off (thankfully) and blended into palm forest and a jungle path which we followed for perhaps a mile. I could tell we were getting closer to the river. Eventually we came to a thatched hut with an outside cooking fire and covered eating area. The chief spoke with his “wife” in Makush and she quickly came out with a plastic pitcher of toke (cool aid). We sat and drank toki and the chief asked me, “do you think you could pay $200 if we find a truck?”. I said “yes, but I would have to get home first and that was about all the money I had at home!” He said, “Ok, I’m going to take my baby with us and we can go see my other wife and my son-in-law, if you follow me”. He put the baby on his handle-bars and off we went, through the jungle, with his first wife and son following on bikes also. Now we were a procession, the chief with his baby on the handle-bars, me, his son, his first wife, all riding bikes on a well worth path through sparse jungle. Soon we came to his 2nd wife’s house and he had a short conversation with her, after which she and her son got on bikes and followed along. Now it was the Chief and his baby, me, the first wife and her son, the 2nd wife and her son and soon there were others running along or riding bikes with us. Before long we came to the banks of the Rupununi River. Not as big here as it is up north near the village of Karanambo, but still about thirty feet wide. We all got off our bikes, and the chief stood next to the river. The entire crowd gathered as if to hear a speech from the chief. We all looked at him as if to wait for instructions. He stood next to me and removed his shirt. I removed my shirt. He smiled and motioned to the canoe that was completely submerged under an overhanging tree. A chain from it to the tree had a lock on it. He cleared his throat and said, as though making an announcement, “it is illegal to remove a canoe that is locked to a tree!… Fortunately, I am the one that made that law and so I can make an exception!”. With that, he unhooked the lock - which had not been latched and removed the chain from the boat. I have noticed that, while there are many locks on gates and doors here in Guyana, most of the locks are never latched (because nobody has the keys). He then began to move the submerged canoe backward, heavy as it was, about a foot or two. Then forward, with much effort as it was not only made of heavy wood (a tree trunk) but also full of water. I watched closely, trying to figure out what he was doing. Then he did it again, first back, then forward, very slowly, but each time a little water lurched from the pointed back or the pointed front, just a bit. After a few more repetitions, I began to see that water was slowly lurching OUT of the boat but not back INTO the boat. Eventually he had virtually lurched all the water out of the canoe just by pushing it back and forth! The chief looked at me and his eyes grew large as a huge smile formed on his face and he pointed at my bare, white, chest. I said “what!?”, and he said “Kabowras!”. I looked down at myself and, to my horror I found I was completely covered with Kaborwra (Kaborah) flies! I first encountered this “vile creature” during my original time eight years earlier. The Kaborwra fly is a hideous little creature no bigger than a gnat, but, like so many other things in Guyana, they are a force of nature. They are common near streams and rivers. They don’t bite, so much as inject poison and then suck it out through a blister that forms on your skin. It doesn’t hurt much when they do it, but, they leave a tiny red dot that forms into a blister (about the size of a button or dime) and itch like you would not believe! Of course, you can’t scratch it because if you do, the resulting staph infection will be much worse than the amazingly intense itch you will have to suffer with for a week or so.
The crowd of women, children and men burst into laughter! This is one of the unattractive characteristics of the Amerindian, that is the habit of laughing when something really bad is going to happen (or is happening). For some reason the Kabowras don’t bother the Amerindians, only white people!
The chief pulled the canoe over and asked me to get in, which I did with great relief as I had originally thought we were going to swim across. Along with the first son, we paddled over to the other side of the river. The bank on the far side was very steep and muddy, but we managed to scramble up without falling back into the river. As we crested the bank on the other side, the first son was busy ferrying all the rest of the entourage over to our side of the river, which I found very odd.
As the group congregated in the jungle on this side of the stream the chief looked at me and says, look, what is that! Pointing to a crudely constructed shelter with a thatched roof - “It looks like a TRUCK!” I looked over where he was pointing and had to adjust my brain’s frame of reference. It was one of those times where you know you think you’re seeing something that is real but your brain is telling you it should not be real (at least in that context). There, not twenty yards away, in the thick of the jungle, under a thatched benob of sorts, was a brand new shiny black Toyota Land Cruiser pick-up truck.
I looked at the truck then I looked at the chief and then I looked at the truck and the chief says, “I think I have the key”.
“Get in” he says. The first son and I get in front, with the chief at the wheel and the entire entourage gets in the back. There is no road, just a trail. I ask the chief “how far to the road?” and he says “oh, just a few miles”. “We made this little road ourselves”. He motions in front of the truck, which to me just looks like jungle but there is a barely discernible trail, maybe two trails, that lead through the thick, green, completely consuming jungle foliage. After some time the trail opened up a bit and became a two-track as we slowly maneuvered our way through streams and mud holes. The chief points into the tree above and I look up to see a slab of wood with writing on it in charcoal, it says “water crossing”, I looked at the chief and he smiled. “we made that” he said, with a grin on his face. A little way farther on another sign, written in charcoal on a slab, “bump”, it says (I kid you not), then another sign that said something like, “curve”, I forget what, then another, I look in disbelief, says “don’t do drugs”. I turned to the chief and looked him in the eye, “that was funny” I said, and he laughed and hugged the steering wheel as it bounced along the rough jungle road. I looked again, studied his face a bit and said “Hey, I know you from somewhere”. He looked back and said, “yes, we know each other”. Then it came to me, eight years ago, you were the guy. You were the guy that came out of the bush and asked me to help you find the lost man! That was you! “You were the guy that came and asked us to help you find the LOST MAN!”
He looked back and calmly said “yes, that was me.”.
We drove on through the jungle for another hour or so. Finally I asked, “so, are you still going to charge me $200”. He grinned really big, looked back at me and said “YES!”.
Several hours later we finally arrived in Lethem. Jennifer and my children (Robert and Genevieve) were waiting for me, worried as I was gone so long. I asked Jennifer if she had the cash that we had stashed away. Money we needed to use to buy food while we were in Guyana. Some of which would be required to LEAVE Guyana as they had a $25 exit tax (payable in cash). With tears in her eyes, she brought the cash to me and I handed it over to the Chief, whose family he had already distributed over the town and who were busy shopping for all sorts of necessities. At the time, it was a dramatic and emotional situation, perhaps even unfair to my wife, who had largely gone without luxuries, even necessities, for a very long time. I knew, however, that what seemed like a big loss to us was really just one more milestone in our lives - a time we would remember for the rest of our lives and small potatoes in the bigger picture.
The next few days were filled with challenges; How would we get back to Kotoka, how would we repair the aircraft, how would we move it back to a place where it could be repaired properly. Those kinds of challenges were part of living in a sparse country where technology just did not work in a normal way.
You make due, you improvise, you compromise and you adapt.
Terrance got hold of the Seventh Day Adventist Missionary Pilot up in the north part of the country. I had rubbed shoulders with them from time to time and knew their names but hadn’t needed their help - until now. They had a Cessna 172 and were mechanics, I could fix planes but these guys were REAL mechanics. They agreed to fly down and pick me up to see what could be done with the plane in Kotuka. Meanwhile, I rummaged through the junk pile of airplane parts that littered the storage room in the house we were using. I found cables, nuts, bolts, tires, worn out turnbuckles and control rod ends, things that would surely be thrown away in the states, but here, nothing was discarded. This was the same in all remote aviation operations. The most insignificant and worn out parts that normally would not be kept or considered, were saved, “just-in-case”.
Bob Roberts (love that name) was the Seventh-Day-Adventist pilot. When Bob arrived in Lethem, we gathered a few odd parts we thought might be useful, then flew the short 35 miles to Kotuka in their 172. They had tools (which I lacked) and we were able to begin work in the broken U206, off the side of the airstrip, right away. The tires under the fuselage propped the nose of the plane up in a very convenient manner, allowing us to remove the fairings and sheet metal that hid the source of the damage.
As covers were removed, the head of a bolt, then the broken bolt itself, fell from inside the nose cone of the plane. A diagonal brace that extends from the nose wheel strut, back to the firewall and was in turn bolted laterally into a casting on the firewall, had simply come apart. It didn’t break, but the bolt that held the end of the diagonal brace to the casting (on the firewall) had simply come apart - that is, the head broke off. After thousands of landings on rough airstrips over decades, the force of the bumps on every airstrip was transferred into that bolt (and the casting it traversed). As Bob handed me the pieces of the bolt, memories of something a Guatemalan pilot once warned me of - he was a privateer, we called them Cobaneros, as they flew into the mountain town of Coban in Guatemala. That Guatemalan pilot, Canello - We called him the flying cat because I had a photo of him standing next to one of his many aircraft wrecks in the mountains of Guatemala, smiling wildly, leaning against the wreckage of a plane. On the nose of the wreck was the name of the plane: El Gato Boladore (The Flying Cat). Years ago, back in Guatemala, as I was unloading a medical patient from OUR U-206, he pointed at my nose gear and said, in Spanish, “you must check that bolt”. The blank look in my face at the time must have impressed him as the acme of stupidity as he walked over to me, put his hand on that bolt and said “you must check this bolt”! At the time I presumed that no Cobanero, who flew piles of junk until they crashed, had any idea what good aircraft maintenance consisted of. I was wrong.
Now, here in Kotoka, I examined the shaft of the bolt, without a head on it, and saw clearly that the beating it sustained over the years had etched a deep groove around the end where the casting and the bolt touched. The fact that the head simply “came off” and the bolt gradually, perhaps over a period of many months, worked its way OUT of the casting until the nose gear collapsed, was almost funny. “Well what-do-you-know I muttered under my breath, El Gato was right…”. After closer examination it was determined that the only real damage was a little bent sheet metal where the wheel hit the belly, along with broken linkages to the steering mechanism and the trim control for the elevator. If only we had another long bolt for that casting… Nothing like it was in our bag of parts. After a bit of thinking and some digging around I realized that this bolt was about the same size as the bolt used on the wheel half of the main landing gear. The wheel, being composed of two halves, had 5 bolts that went from one side to another, holding it together. When you’re in very remote areas like this with very limited resources, one begins to think in very creative (and resourceful) ways. Why, I thought, did you need 5 bolts for each wheel when most other wheels were held together with only 4! After extracting one of the 5 bolts from the right main wheel, and verifying that indeed, this was the right size bolt for the diagonal brace, we decided that, under the circumstances - that wheel would probably hold up with only 4 of the 5 bolts, for one flight under gentle use. After straightening the nose gear, re-centering the diagonal brace and securing it with the wheel bolt, the plane was beginning to look like it might fly again!
A couple of incidental issues remained, the fact that the nose steering was not working - but in fact it was centered and would not turn with rudder pedals was a bit of a concern. Fortunately, I had developed some skills in Guatemala that might be brought to bear in this case. Sometimes, when in Guatemala City, I would fill two 55 gallon drums with fuel, secured in the back of my U-206, along with several 5 gallon containers, to take to my home village where I had a small stock-pile for daily use. With all that weight in the back of the U-206, the nose wheel would nearly not touch the ground, in fact might not touch the ground and, when extended like that, automatically would lock in place pointing straight ahead. I had gotten pretty good at steering just with the rudder, under those conditions.
We loaded as much cargo and junk as we could way into the back of our damaged Kotoka U206 until the nose wheel was only lightly touching the ground, fully extended and locked into place, straight ahead. I hopped in and started the plane and practiced taxi operations without the benefit of the nose steering, just using engine power, elevator and rudder. It worked fairly well. Well enough, we decided that getting the plane back to Lethem could be accomplished with a little skill and luck. Then, we could have another commercial mechanic fly down from Georgetown to make more correct repairs in a more well developed environment, eventually. The take-off from Kotoka was uneventful, if not perfect and the flight was without any catastrophe. I lined up on the long runway at Lethem and ever so gently and gradually landed, being careful to steer with rudder only until it came to a stop. I managed to taxi it to our normal parking spot, shut it down and secured it, never to fly it again.
Having finished my part of my volunteer bargain, I secured the house, bit farewell to our friends and neighbors in Lethem, then flew home with my family on one of the infrequent commuter flights from Georgetown. I have not been back to Guayana, nor have I really talked to Terrance much since then. Not because of any animus but we just never had the opportunity to work together after that. I kind of miss the place, but its a hard place to like. My heart was still in the mountains of Guatemala, and we set our sights on returning there.
Notes:
Rupununi wetlands are an expansive network of ephemeral ponds, oxbow lakes, depression lakes, and creeks across vast savannas. Bordered by two main river drainages, the Takutu and Rupununi Rivers, the wetlands are intimately associated with the nearby forests, savannas, and indigenous people in the North Rupununi (Figure 1). These wetlands are an important site for migration and spawning of many aquatic taxa (including commercially and locally important fish species), and they harbor a tremendous amount of biodiversity including amphibians, reptiles, birds, plants, and fishes (Lowe-Mcconnell, 1964;Braun et al., 2007;de Souza et al., 2012;Cole et al., 2013). …
Katoka is northeast of Lethem, on the far side of the Kanuku Mountains, out toward the Rupununi River in the savannahs of Region 9. Its about 35 miles from Lethem and
Both Lethem and Katoka are in Upper Takutu–Upper Essequibo (Region 9); Lethem is the regional hub, Katoka is one of the inland Amerindian villages linked to it.
Wikipedia 3°33’21”N 59°17’48”W
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