So the other day I'm asking a buddy where to find something and he says "Go South". It seemed a bit vague to me. "South? How far south?" "No SOUTH!" "Is this any South in particular or shall I walk to Brazil or what?" "SOUTH! You know South" "No I don't"...

This continued for quite some time... really.

Finally I got it out of him that "South" means "South Ruimveldt". Yup, and "North" means "North Ruimveldt", East and West as well. Wow imagine that. Seems odd that one particular town/village gets to steal the title of North, West, South and East... but it seems that's the only village that's broken up into 4 directions so it makes sense.

Here's another for ya. Several times I've been with a local and asked "Hey what's the name of this street?" I'd get a "First Street" or 'Third Street'. It seems like every village names their streets the same unless it's prominent. Efficiency I guess.

So the other day I'm with a friend and casually mapping as we walk around he tells me "First Street", "Second Street", etc.. then I see a street with an actual sign on it and the name was something TOTALLY DIFFERENT. So I ask "Is this Third Street or is the next one Third?" "No this is Third" "So why does the sign say ______?" "Right, well we just call it third".

So.

Gonna have to double-check all those First and Second streets I've mapped. :-) Thankfully it's not many so I haven't dug in too deep yet.

Anyhow, in Guyana I'm gonna be making good use of that localname tag or whatever it is. A lot of places and things here have common names and actual names. Sure is confusing when people tell you to go to a street that doesn't exist.

Mandala is a good example of this, it's a major road, but everyone calls it... Back Road. This is different from Front Road which actually IS named Front Road. They run parallel so I guess they're buddies or something. :)