Saturday, November 17, 2007

More From Guyana

Here's the latest from Jon Downes on the Guyana expedition - looks like all is going great, with new witnesses and cases to investigate:

Back at the CFZ headquarters in rural North Devon we are in a peculiar state of limbo. Our whole day’s activities revolve about waiting for one garbled two or three minute ‘phone call. After a long and fairly dull day, Richard ‘phoned just before 10.00 this evening GMT.
It has been another long and eventful day for the five-person expedition. First of all we want to reassure you that everybody is alive and well, although they are finding the heat very difficult. After all, they are not that far from the Equator.
It is a mark of quite how hot it is out there that Richard – who is usually pretty good in tropical climes – collapsed with heat stroke this afternoon. When he ‘phoned, he sounded dreadful, and we would like to stress that the satellite ‘phone link-up is of spectacularly poor quality, so although we guarantee that the gist of what is in this and future reports is correct, we are not certain that names of people or places are necessarily accurate. Yesterday, we told how the team visited the home village of their guide and mentor Damon Corrie.
We told how the ‘phone cut out for a few seconds so we could not tell you the name of this village, but we asked Richard today and as far as we are able to ascertain, Damon’s home village is called Pakuri (or something like that anyway).Because communications are so difficult, we tried to have two or three people on the line listening every time a call comes through. This has been particularly irksome at times this evening when three of us answered the telephone at once, agog with anticipation, only to find that it was my beloved younger step-daughter wanting help with renewing her mobile ‘phone contract.
This is just one of the mildly amusing aspects of running the world’s largest mystery animal research group from a family home.Jon and Graham listened intently as the weak and garbled voice struggled through the ether. Hisses and pops punctuated the gems of information, which were, however, well worth the wait.

And to find out what, exactly, was worth the wait, click here for more on the Capcom-sponsored Guyana expedition.

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