While in Surama, I heard about a BBC film crew that was on the Burro Burro river.
A couple of days later they turned up in Fairview, having canoed the 70 miles from there. They were filming for Serious Adventurers, a series in its eighth year, shown on CBBC (Sundays, 1600 hrs, currently showing a series in the footsteps of Livingstone in Africa) and on channels in 120 other countries.
Showing a group of eight teenagers selected from across the UK, this series was following in Sir Walter Raleigh's 1595 expedition from Trinidad to Mt Roraima in Venezuela and then through Guyana. The crew included a couple of expedition leaders, doctors, logisticians, camera-men and the producer, who I met at Bradford's house, when they all came to have dinner.
Here they are the following morning, dressed in their expedition wear at Fairview's grass airstrip, waiting for Cessna planes to fly them on to the Kaieteur Falls, which drop 226 metres over a sandstone cliff.
It was incredible how much gear was being carried, including a portable generator for the camera-men, an inflatable raft and bulky filming equipment. It took over an hour to load up the planes.
There also seemed to be lots of waiting around, trying to get the best footage and to coordinate logistics.
Practically the whole village turned out to watch.
This is the old primary school, where they slept the previous night and from under which village children watched.
I hung around some time and chatted to them, but it seemed to be taking a while for things to move on, so I left them to go to the river.
Twenty minutes later, the three Cessnas flew low over me as I swam in the rapids.
