JAN WEST­MAAS

The term or con­cept of three in one may have vary­ing in­ter­pre­ta­tions de­pend­ing on whether you are a philoso­pher, a Ro­man Catholic (the Holy Trin­i­ty) or a math­e­mati­cian. For the more ground­ed and down-to-earth, it may al­so re­fer to the drinker who will con­sume “three” in one shot, but more rel­e­vant­ly, it refers to the trav­eller who has ex­plored three sep­a­rate coun­tries or des­ti­na­tions con­sec­u­tive­ly.

This year, an­oth­er three-in-one ad­ven­ture, planned since Sep­tem­ber of 2025, was in the off­ing. The des­ti­na­tions were Brazil, the State of Ama­zonas (cap­i­tal Man­aus and Ro­raima cap­i­tal Boa Vista), Guyana (the Rupu­nuni Sa­van­nah on Guyana’s south­ern bor­der with Brazil) and Pana­ma, Co­pa Air­lines’ gate­way to the South Amer­i­can con­ti­nent. Not sur­pris­ing­ly, lovers of ad­ven­ture and ex­pe­ri­ences out of the or­di­nary grabbed at the op­por­tu­ni­ty. In no time, the tour sold out.

I was elat­ed for dif­fer­ent rea­sons. First, I would be vis­it­ing for the third time a city (Man­aus) where I have a spe­cial affin­i­ty. My ma­ter­nal grand­fa­ther, Mah­mud Khan, an Afghan who sailed on British ships in the ear­ly years of the 20th cen­tu­ry, had set­tled in this city be­fore be­ing in­vit­ed by a coun­try­man, Syed Ab­dul Az­iz, to come to Trinidad, where a small Is­lam­ic com­mu­ni­ty al­ready ex­ist­ed.

I al­so looked for­ward to spend­ing time with the group on Gero Mezqui­ta’s eco-lodge on a trib­u­tary of the Ama­zon. When I first met Gero in 2003, he was a youth­ful guide who was prob­a­bly dream­ing of own­ing his own Ama­zon lodge at some point. Twen­ty-three years af­ter, he and his youth­ful and at­trac­tive wife, Kel­ly, are the proud own­ers of one.

My third mo­ti­va­tion was the prospect of touch­ing the soil of the Rupu­nuni Sa­van­nah where my fa­ther worked as a Ra­dio Op­er­a­tor with the British Guiana- Brazil Bound­ary Com­mis­sion, 1929-1939. In the book, The Matu­ru­ki Trail, writ­ten by the Head of the Bound­ary Com­mis­sion, Colonel Arthur Hud­son M.B.E and edit­ed by Ma­jor Gen­er­al (rtd) Joseph Singh, spe­cial men­tion was made of my fa­ther, Vi­vian Owen West­maas and the role he and fel­low ra­dio op­er­a­tors played in the de­mar­ca­tion of the 1,606-kilo­me­tre bound­ary that sep­a­rat­ed both coun­tries.

Fi­nal­ly, the idea of vis­it­ing Lethem, in the Up­per Taku­tu-Up­per Es­se­qui­bo Re­gion 9, where the po­lice sta­tion was at­tacked in 1969 by cat­tle-ranch­ing rebels, dubbed Sa­van­nah aris­to­crats by then Prime Min­is­ter Forbes Burn­ham, cap­tured my imag­i­na­tion. I hoped that dur­ing our brief vis­it to Lethem, some 56 years af­ter the event, I would get more to the root of the sto­ry which came to be known as the Rupu­nuni Re­bel­lion. In the at­tack, which was even­tu­al­ly put down, five po­lice of­fi­cers, in­clud­ing an in­spec­tor and a sergeant, were killed.

Un­like for­mer times, when I trav­elled with groups to Man­aus from Cara­cas or Puer­to La Cruz in Venezuela, tak­ing the long but pic­turesque and riv­et­ing land route by coach across the high plains of the Gran Sa­bana with tepuys (table­top moun­tains in­clud­ing Mount Ro­raima) and wa­ter­falls aplen­ty, I opt­ed on this oc­ca­sion to fly to Pana­ma (two hours, 45 min­utes ) and then con­nect to Man­aus (four hours) by Co­pa Air­lines.

A cur­so­ry glance at the ge­og­ra­phy of the re­gion shows that a land route to Man­aus via Guyana is al­so pos­si­ble, but I wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole. Flights from Trinidad to George­town are read­i­ly avail­able, as are flights on small planes (not fea­si­ble with groups of our size) from George­town to Lethem. George­town to Lethem by land is al­so pos­si­ble, but un­til the paving of the Mabu­ra Hill to Lethem sec­tion of the road is com­plet­ed (325 kilo­me­tres), this is an op­tion on­ly for the su­per ad­ven­tur­ous or eco­log­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed small groups or in­di­vid­u­als with lots of time to spare.

As is the norm in the Au­gust high sea­son, the huge­ly mod­ern Toc­u­men In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in Pana­ma was packed to the brim. We were in­tran­sit and had at least four hours to spare be­fore em­bark­ing on our flight to Man­aus at 09.38 p.m.

We fi­nal­ly ar­rived at the Ed­uar­do Gomes In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in Man­aus at the un­earth­ly hour of 2.30 am. Thank­ful­ly, as cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go, we were al­lowed to en­ter Brazil as tourists for six months and, even bet­ter, did not have to fill out be­fore hand an on­line im­mi­gra­tion form.

Man­aus lies smack in the heart of the Ama­zon rain­for­est on the banks of the Rio Ne­gro. A few kilo­me­tres down­riv­er, the Rio Ne­gro meets the Rio Solimoes to form the mighty Ama­zon Riv­er. Man­aus, along with its out­skirts, is home to close to three mil­lion peo­ple and is re­put­ed to be the first city in Brazil to have trams and elec­tric light­ing.

With no ma­jor high­way to link this city to oth­er ma­jor cities in Brazil, trav­ellers can get there eas­i­ly by air. To get to Man­aus from Belém on the At­lantic, the flight lasts two hours. If you choose to do the trip by riv­er boat or fer­ry- a dis­tance of at least 1,500 kilo­me­tres or more- it will take you four or five days. From Man­aus to Iq­ui­tos in Pe­ru via speed­boat will take you three days.

In­deed, Brazil is huge. It’s the 5th largest coun­try in the world in area and com­pris­es 26 states and one fed­er­al dis­trict (Brasil­ia).

Ho­tel Casa Dos Frades, for­mer­ly the res­i­dence of Ca­puchin Fri­ars of the Fran­cis­can Or­der, was the ide­al lo­ca­tion for our brief stay in Man­aus. It’s lo­cat­ed next to the renowned church of São Se­bastião and di­rect­ly op­po­site Man­aus’ main square- Largo de São Se­bastião. Even more note­wor­thy is that the ho­tel is but a minute’s walk from the city’s main at­trac­tion- the Teatro Ama­zonas (Opera House) that was in­au­gu­rat­ed in 1896 at the height of the city’s rub­ber boom. At that time, Man­aus was known as the Paris of the Trop­ics.

From our ho­tel, you get a clear view of the the­atre’s icon­ic dome, re­splen­dent with its 36,000 tiles de­pict­ing the Brazil­ian flag, im­port­ed from Eu­rope. In­spired by the French Rev­o­lu­tion, a spir­it of re­pub­li­can­ism was in the air, and the words Or­dem e Pro­gres­so (Or­der and Progress) were in­scribed on the flag. By 1889, Brazil ceased be­ing a monar­chy as Em­per­or Dom Pe­dro II was de­posed by the army.

Look out for Part II of the ad­ven­ture next week.

Jan West­mass is the au­thor of Out of the Box Tales of trav­el 1972-2013. He is lin­guist, teacher and trav­eller ex­tra­or­di­naire.