Wild Coast by John Gimlette

Author:John Gimlette
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780307596659
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2011-06-21T10:00:00+00:00

New Amsterdam still felt like an outpost at the end of a war. Although it was supposed to be the biggest city in eastern Guyana, it had all the exuberance of a temporary camp. Bars were booming, and so were shops selling shovels and lanterns and rolls of barbed wire. I have a lasting impression of lives lived outside; people dancing, canoodling and boiling up fish. All this was done with a certain intensity, as though all that mattered was now. I remember thinking how odd it was to drink this urgently, and to live every day like one last party. It was different at night. Then, there was no lighting or drama, and all the frogs squealed like incoming shells.

Somewhere in among this human furniture an old Victorian town was quietly picking itself apart. It had a bell-tower, a street called The Strand and – like Georgetown – a large pink store called Fogarty’s. But the pavements had crumbled away, and nothing had been painted for years. Grog-shops had wild apocalyptic names such as Destiny’s Guinness Bar or Diner’s End. Then there was Good over Evil, the barber, and an electrical supplier called EVIL EYE. I couldn’t decide whether, as a town, it was sad or mad or somewhere in between. This was the place to come and buy a bag of dried-up alligators or a hand-powered sewing machine. It felt like a long-lost African colony on the brink of antiquity. Every street ended in some sort of trench or catastrophe. Donkeys ran wild, and the police had an entire garden full of rotting cars, like a patrol made of turf.

Even my hotel felt like a relic from an earlier age. The Hotel Aster was built like a clipper, and had hardwood decks and a thick cream hull. Inside, it was so dark and cramped that I had to wriggle my way to my room. Like all good ships of its age, there was no unnecessary luxury. My cabin was lime-green and contained only a washstand and an old iron cot. Mr Kertzious, the pilot, had said this was the cheapest hotel in town and had brought me to the door. It also happened to be run by his sister, Maylene. She, however, wasn’t always there, and at night the only other person around was a hefty ruminant known as ‘The Fat Girl’. But when Maylene did reappear, she was always pleasingly Victorian. She was prim and dainty, and wore a colourless frock and lace-up shoes. ‘You’re kindly welcome, sir,’ she’d say, as though the last hundred years hadn’t really happened.

But of all New Amsterdam’s oldness, nothing was more conspicuous than its hospital. It was all painted yellow and green, and was three storeys high and two blocks long. When it was built, in 1881, it must have been one of the grandest hospitals in South America. Amid the grandeur I could see clapboard, frets, frills, crystal lights, balconies, demilune windows, rooftop pagodas and an enormous wrought-iron staircase cascading down the front.

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