Guyana: Nine Attractions and Natural Wonders

The land of many waters

Guyana, on the northeast shoulder of South America, is culturally a Caribbean country — English-speaking, a former British colony, tied to Trinidad and Jamaica more than to its Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking neighbours. Its roughly 800,000 people, mostly of Indian and African descent, live along a narrow coastal strip, much of it below sea level behind Dutch-built sea walls. Behind them, more than 80 percent of the country is unbroken rainforest, savanna, and tabletop mountain, with some of the best-preserved wildlife habitat on the continent.

The nine below run from the coast into the deep interior. The dry seasons (roughly September–November and February–April) are best for travel and wildlife; Kaieteur is fullest just after the rains.

1. Kaieteur Falls

Kaieteur is Guyana's icon and one of the world's great waterfalls — a single sheer drop of 226 metres (with a further cascade below), carrying a huge volume of water, and set in pristine forest with almost no infrastructure and few other visitors. Golden rocket frogs live in the giant tank bromeliads at the top, and swifts nest behind the curtain of water. Most people fly in from Georgetown for a couple of hours on the clifftop trails.

Overland trips exist but take days of river and jungle travel.

2. Georgetown

Georgetown, the capital, is a low, hot, faded city of Victorian wooden architecture behind a long sea wall. Highlights include St George's Cathedral, a soaring all-timber Gothic church; the red-painted colonial "Red House"; the Walter Roth anthropology museum; the botanical gardens with manatees in the ponds; and a cricket-mad culture at the Bourda ground. It is also the base for every trip into the interior.

The wooden buildings and drainage canals give it a slightly New Orleans feel; take normal city precautions after dark.

3. Stabroek Market

Stabroek Market, on the bank of the Demerara river, is Georgetown's chaotic commercial heart — a rambling Victorian iron shed topped by a landmark clock tower, packed with stalls of gold jewellery, produce, salt fish, pepper sauce, and hardware, and surrounded by minibus ranks. It is the best place to feel the mix of the country's Indo- and Afro-Guyanese, Amerindian, Chinese, and Portuguese threads.

Go in the morning, keep valuables close, and it is a highlight rather than a chore.

4. The Iwokrama rainforest

Iwokrama is a nearly 3,700-square-kilometre reserve of intact lowland rainforest, managed for conservation and low-impact tourism with the Makushi communities that live around it. A canopy walkway near Atta Lodge puts you in the treetops for dawn birdwatching; boat trips on the Essequibo look for black caimans and river otters; and the forest here has one of the best chances anywhere of seeing a wild jaguar on a road at night.

The single road linking Georgetown and Brazil runs through it, so it is reachable by 4x4 as well as by air.

5. The Rupununi savanna

South of the forest, the Rupununi opens into vast seasonal grassland and wetland along the Brazilian border — a landscape of Amerindian villages and a few old cattle ranches that now take guests. Karanambu, once home to "otter lady" Diane McTurk, is famous for rehabilitating giant river otters; Caiman House at Yupukari runs black-caiman research you can join; and the wetlands hold jabiru storks, giant anteaters, and the world's largest waterlily, Victoria amazonica.

The regional town, Lethem, sits on the Brazilian border; the savanna is best in the dry season.

6. The Rewa and Essequibo rivers

The Essequibo, South America's third-largest river, and its wild tributary the Rewa are the classic Guyanese wilderness journey — days of boat travel and hammock camps run by the village of Rewa, looking for arapaima (one of the largest freshwater fish in the world) in oxbow lakes, tapirs on the banks, and harpy eagles overhead. Sport fishing here is strictly catch-and-release.

Trips of four days to two weeks are arranged through Rewa Eco-Lodge and Georgetown operators.

7. Shell Beach

Shell Beach, a roughly 140-kilometre stretch of the northwest coast near the Venezuelan border, is one of the few sea-turtle rookeries on this coast — leatherback, green, hawksbill, and olive ridley turtles all nest here between March and August, monitored by a long-running community conservation project. The beach itself is made largely of crushed seashells, backed by mangrove full of scarlet ibis.

It is reached by a long boat trip from the town of Charity, staying in simple camps.

8. Orinduik Falls

Orinduik, often visited on the same flight day as Kaieteur, is its opposite in character — not a single towering drop but a broad staircase of terraced red jasper rock over which the Ireng river slides in shallow, warm sheets, ideal for sitting and bathing. It straddles the Brazilian border in rolling, open Pakaraima savanna, a complete change of scenery from the forest.

Charter flights combine Kaieteur and Orinduik into one long day trip from Georgetown.

9. The Kanuku Mountains

The Kanuku Mountains, rising forested out of the southern Rupununi, are one of the most biodiverse spots in Guyana — home to an estimated 80 percent of the country's bird species and healthy populations of jaguar, giant otter, and harpy eagle, protected as a community-managed area. Village-run lodges at Nappi and Maipaima offer guided forest walks and river trips, and the climb of Mount Kusad in the nearby "Kusad" hills.

They are reached from Lethem, at the end of the road (or flight) from Georgetown.

Guyana is an adventure-travel destination: distances are huge, roads few, and most serious trips use light aircraft and boats arranged in advance. A typical week to ten days links Kaieteur, Iwokrama, and the Rupununi, with a day or two in Georgetown.