Hot News - February 2005 (Febr. 5, 2005)
- On October 18th, 2004, we celebrated our 20th anniversary "on the road" in
- St. Martin/St. Maarten in the Caribbean, after having driven through 150 countries.
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- Since December 28, 2004, we are back in Guyana, the small country at the Northeast
corner of
South America. Our LandCruiser followed from the Netherland Antilles by sea with the - American SeaboardMarine and the Dutch EWL on a free transport on January 17, 2005, exactly
- on the day when the big rains arrived and Guyana has seen the worst floods in history. Schools,
- businesses, supermarkets and government offices closed its doors. So did the customs. Still
- today huge areas remain under water.
Understandably, the priorities of the government were to get relief to the suffering people, - therefore the release of our car had to wait. Suddenly we had a real big problem so that we
- were taking already into consideration to forward our container somewhere. But it wasn’t only
- the country’s emergency situation, but also its huge bureaucracy started to announce itself. As we
- crossed the border two years ago at the small settlement of Lethem entering Guyana from Brazil,
- the procedure was completely uncomplicated and smooth. But here in Georgetown - coming by
- sea – firstly a bond has to be placed. How much this will be is going to be evaluated only after
- the inspection of our car, we were told. As bonds are usually very high and only reimbursable
- after the car has left the country again, we never have taken that chance. Who guarantees us that
- we were to see the money ever again? Therefore we placed already on January 14 a request to
- wave the guaranty, but were able to contact the responsible customs commissioner only on
- January 25. Would it be a Yes or a No? We were quite nervous, as his reply would decide about
- our immediate future! Luckily it was a Yes - what a huge relief! The next headaches started on
- February 1, when the customs authorities said that we will have to pay duty on all our ‘personal
- belongings’, i.e. actually the whole content of our car. In the meantime, we write February 5 and
- we are still not one step further. We still do not know if and for what we will have to pay duty,
- and when we finally will be able to get our LandCruiser released. The current record of four days
- of customs’ bureaucracy in the Dominican Republic will definitively be beaten.
After the release, the local Toyota distributor "Beharry Automotive" will fix the rear differential - and the water pump before we will proceed to Boa Vista in Northern Brazil. We are already very
- excited to drive through Guyana's virgin Iwokrama rainforest again and hope that this time we
- won’t see only the traces of jaguar's around our camp, but to glimpse a real one. And afterwards,
- the Rupununi Savannah - the land of the Amerindian people - is awaiting us!
On February 13, we will receive a new laptop from Miami and thus will be able to catch up with - our outstanding emails since the crash on Christmas Eve. Please keep being patient and sorry
- again for not getting back to you yet.
- Please visit BBC Caribbean's Website and read our story of 31.7.04
- Are you interested into the LandCruiser History, prepared by Toyota Motor Sales USA?
- (after some loading-time please klick "IN LEGEND" and afterwards "HAIR TO MAGELLAN"
- - and you will see that we already belong to it too!)
Reports
SOUTH AMERICA:
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External links in German only to www.ernstmaissen.ch:
Guyana (Dec. 2002 - Febr. 2003)
Suriname-French Guiana (March - May 2003)
