Two weeks ago, me and a group of agents and marketing reps from the U.S. and Canada toured Guyana, as guests of the Guyana Tourism Authority. I had talked with one of the tour operators about Guyana for years and finally got to experience first-hand what he had been telling me about.
To me, it seemed like such an exciting mix for those looking for something different. The country promotes it's amazing wildlife and Kaieteur Falls (the highest single drop waterfall in the world), but it offers much more than that. When you visit the interior, it's like visiting a frontier territory - a vast land, largely untouched, except for the natives and a few foreigners who came to carve out a life, as you can see from the video below.
To me, it seemed like such an exciting mix for those looking for something different. The country promotes it's amazing wildlife and Kaieteur Falls (the highest single drop waterfall in the world), but it offers much more than that. When you visit the interior, it's like visiting a frontier territory - a vast land, largely untouched, except for the natives and a few foreigners who came to carve out a life, as you can see from the video below.
Once you get out of Georgetown and away from the coast (where about 90% of the country's population of about 475,000 people live), it's mostly jungle and savannah - it is still a pristine country with over 80% of the land mass still virgin rainforest with healthy populations of wildlife that are endangered in other countries. . Kaieteur Falls, the biggest tourist attraction in the country, draws less than 10,000 visitors a year and the rest of the interior probably gets only about 3,000-4,000 actual tourists, so you don't have to worry about crowds. Guyana has very few sealed or dirt roads. There is only one main road (mostly dirt) outside of the cities and it goes from Georgetown, on the Atlantic coast, to Lethem, on the border with Brazil - about a 15 hour drive. Otherwise, travel to the interior is done mainly by small airplanes, boat rides and/or 4x4 rides, or by hiking.
Once you get into the interior, you can start looking for the over 900 species of birds, including the Cock of the Rock and the Harpy Eagle. Or you can search for animals like jaguars, giant anteaters, giant river otters and black caiman (if you go to the right places, you stand a very good chance of seeing them). Fishermen can hope to catch arapaima, peacock bass, marlin and about 600 other species, though not all in the same area. Though we were rushing around from lodge to lodge - only staying 1 night at each, we still managed to see:
- giant anteater
- giant river otters
- black caiman
- spectacled caiman
- golden rocket frog
- Roraima black frog
- Guianan Cock of the Rock
- manatees
- jabiru storks
- Savannah hawks
- orange-breasted hawk
- ospreys
- chacalacas
- green ibis
- scarlet macaws
- red and green macaws
- kingfishers
- currasows
- white egrets
- swifts
- skimmers
- river turtle
- more - I'm trying to get a list from a better note taker
Some of the native tribes have opened up ecotourism lodges in order to bring in an income and give the Indians a reason to stay and preserve their land and culture, rather than having to move to the city or become miners. In fact, 5 local tribes joined together to operate the Rewa Eco Lodge. Income from the Caiman Lodge helps to fund a local library and donations from visitors at the lodge help to maintain a conservation project for the endangered black caiman. Unlike in other places where the natives have become jaded due to visiting tourists, the people here are truly appreciative and are super friendly. There are several more of them around the country, including the original one at Surama. These are all fairly new endeavors, so the guides and workers are sometimes a bit shy, not realizing that visitors are very interested in hearing what they have to say about the plants and animals and their way of life. One of the guides at the Waikin Ranch even revealed the recipe for curare, tought to him by a Wai Wai tribesman.
We met with Colin Edwards, son of a British diplomat, who bought a cattle ranch in 1993 and turned it into a lush oasis with an eco lodge that helps the local community. Colin is full of tales of the "old days" when they had to haul in supplies from Brazil. At Karanambu Lodge we were hosted by Melanie McTurk. She is related to Diane McTurk, the famous "otter lady" who rescued young giant river otters and established a trust to insure the sustainable use of Karanambu wetlands and savanna through wildlife and habitat conservation, research, and education in partnership with local communities. Diane was the daughter of the infamous Tiny McTurk, who established the ranch in the 1920's and Melanie had interesting stores to tell about both of her colorful relatives. Both Colin and Melanie are normally at the lodges to host visitors.
The Garden City of Georgetown also offered more than I expected. A mix of Europeans, Amerindians, East Indians, Chinese, Africans and Creoles live in a city with classic colonial architecture, bathed in a Caribbean atmosphere with the sounds of calypso, reggae and soca music, including the new mixed genre called chutney soca. Our fantastic city guide, Salvador, remembered the good old days when he was young, with no curfew and he danced to the sounds of the likes of Lord Kitchener, Black Stallion, Mighty Sparrow, Byron Lee and other Caribbean musicians. He was also a fountain of knowledge about history, architecture and science, having been a teacher in the past. Did you know that Georgetown has the tallest wooden church in the world or that a former slave from Guyana became a teacher in England and had Charles Darwin as a student?
Last, but not least, I must mention the food - especially since places like Lima are drawing so many people because of their cuisine. Everybody raved about the food while we were there. All of the meals we had were delicious and people were gobbling up the various hot sauces. We were shown around a local market by chef Delven Adams of the Backyard Cafe while he picked some great produce for the lunch that we had at his cafe later that day. He also took us to a local store where all sorts of herbs, spices and foods were available and we all bought our share of the goodies.
I can't wait to go back to experience some of the places we did not get to go to so that I can have another great adventure. If you go, instead of mass tourism, you will find a country of intimate and simple lodges, ranches, rainforest resorts and camps where the wildlife is still undisturbed, the forest intact, and the major highways are the rivers. This is a destination for travelers rather than tourists, for those seeking the raw and untouched. If you always need air-conditioning, hot showers, nightclubs, and room service then this is not the place for you. This region is for an experience of how the world once was and what the developed world has largely lost.
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