Phagwah and the Zoo

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Today is a Guyanese holiday called Phagwah, which is for celebrating the triumph of good over evil. Apparently they have quite a few holidays around here. They celebrate most every religious holiday, Canadian holidays, and British holidays. The only celebrating I’ve noticed due to Phagwah is that most people have this silver powder on them. Someone told us that they used to throw water on each other, but then everyone was walking around soaking wet so they started throwing powder instead. The powder is supposed to have some medicinal significance to ward off the colds of springtime.

Most of the hospital staff had the day off work so Dad and I decided to check out the zoo. The tickets cost $200 each, but I guess it was worth it. It was nicer than I expected. There were several species of birds, snakes, fish, big cats, and some unusual mammals. We toured the park by the zoo called Botanical Gardens. It’s set up kind of like Central Park and its zoo, only smaller. There were several groups playing cricket so we watched them for a little bit and tried to figure out the rules of the game. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at the Internet café since the Internet at the hotel is down. Since it was a nice day out and we still had some time before the sun set we decided to walk down to the sea wall. It stands about four feet in height and about three feet wide. We climbed up to get a view of the beach. I knew the water looked dirty from our balcony but I was not expecting what I saw at the beach. It was covered with trash, mostly plastic coke bottles. We didn’t even try to get out to the water because of how nasty the beach was. We walked down the sea wall a ways checking out the views and then headed back to the hotel. We had dinner, watched some TV, and called it a day.

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Photos

Harpy Eagle
Largest Eagle in the world

Tapir
Largest South American Mammal