Having been denied both the festivities and the valuable financial windfall that attends the Rupununi Rodeo on account of two successive years of postponement arising out of the coronavirus pandemic, residents and the business community in Region Nine are in high spirits following the disclosure that the authorities had cleared the staging of the hinterland’s most popular entertainment event over this Easter weekend.
Rupununi Hotel Owner and President of the Region Nine Chamber of Commerce and Industry Daniel Gajie, who spoke to us by telephone yesterday said that the community is uplifted by the news that the Rodeo had been ‘cleared’ for staging and that apart from the physical preparations that are still being made for the event the telephones of the various Hotels and Guest Houses had been ringing ‘off the hooks’ as coastal rodeo fans make plans to journey to Lethem for the event.
It would appear that news that the Rodeo was making a return to the Rupununi entertainment Calendar today has also triggered a knee-jerk response in parts of coastal Guyana and that, according to Mr. Gajee, there is a strong likelihood that the accustomed accommodation for visitors from the coast for the event will now be insufficient to meet demand. This likely circumstance will create a windfall for those residents of the community whose homes are often pressed into service when the relatively modest level of Hotel and Guest House accommodation is exhausted.
Stabroek Business understands that the villages of the villages of St Ignatius, Quarrie, Kumu and Moco Moco have already indicated that they are ‘open for business’ as far as accommodation is concerned.
Visitors to the Rupununi for the weekend rodeo will an opportunity to enjoy four separate Rodeo-related events, the largest and likely most exciting of these being the main ‘show scheduled for Lethem on April 16th and 17th. On Easter Monday Aishalton, Sand Creek and Aranaputa will host their own separate rodeos. Gajee told Stabroek Business that setting the substantive attraction of the Rupununi Rodeo aside he expected that visitors to the Rupununi would be seeking to ‘double up’ to make their visits a broader tourist experience.
Gajee anticipates that beginning today coastal visitors for the event will undertake their journeys to the Region by air or land and that more than five hundred vehicles are expected to traverse the Linden-Lethem road to witness the Rodeo.
While Stabroek Business was unable, on this occasion, to reach the Rupununi Ranchers with whom we had conducted and published extensive interviews during our recent visit to Region Nine, it is expected that given their reports of considerable financial loss arising out of the absence of the event for two consecutive years, they will be pulling out the stops to ensure their fullest participation in this year’s event.
