Guyana
November 19th - 22nd, 2025
The country of Guyana, located on the north-eastern edge of South America, used to be first a Dutch and then a British colony and is the only English speaking country on the continent. Culturally it identifies more as a Caribbean country than a South American one. The small population of around 800,000 people live mostly along the coast, while the country's interior is covered in impenetrable and dense tropical rain forest. Guyana’s climate is consistently hot and humid, and it has two rainy seasons, a small rainy season in Nov to Jan and a heavier on during May to Aug.
My trip began in Georgetown, the capital of Guyana. I had arrived on a direct flight on Caribbean Airways from New York JFK. The flight takes about 5.5 hours and there is only a one hour time difference between New York and Guyana. I stayed in the Georgetown Marriott Hotel, where I met my tour group and our tour leader James in the evening. I had booked a 12-day group trip with a Canadian travel company called Adventures Abroad. I had never traveled with this company before. They turned out to be very good, the trip was well organized, we had an excellent tour leader in James and very good local guides in each of the three countries. However, what I hadn't known was, that Adventures Abroad mainly focuses on older travelers. I was one of the youngest by quite a bit among the 18 people on the trip. But it was also a group of very interesting and extraordinarily widely traveled people. It's rare that I find myself in a group, where I am one of the least traveled people.
We started out sightseeing itinerary with a city tour of Georgetown, the capital of the former British colony and now of the independent country of Guyana. Our first stop was a park at the edge of the city, which has a fairly small lake in it. When you hold some grass near the water the massive heads of these guys pop up for a snack. There are several manatees in this small pond. You can only see their heads since the water is quite murky.
Georgetown is a small but vibrant city of just over 120,000 people. It is located along the Atlantic coast at the mouth of the Demerara River. It's history and culture has been shaped by British colonial rule and its population is a mix of African, Indian, Portuguese, Chinese and Indigenous people. The old city center features many wooden colonial buildings, the most prominent of which is St George’s Cathedral, one of the largest wooden churches in the world
The busiest part of the city is around the Stabroek Market, which is a iron structure built in the 1880s. You can buy anything here ranging from a wide selection of tropical fruits and vegetable, spices to electronics and toiletries. During the day-time Georgetown feels very safe, but the city does not have a great reputation. Despite its friendly and welcoming people, it is quite a rough town with a lot of petty crime, and we were warned to not walk around alone after dark.
Our next stop was the aptly named Red House, a beautiful red colonial building, which houses the Cheddi Jagan Research Centre. Cheddi Jagan is considered the father of modern Guyana, as he was the central figure in the country's move towards independence and became its first president. The building contains a reserach library and lots of interesting exhibitions and information about Guyana's struggle for independence and its history since then. Here we also met another former president of the country, Donald Ramotar, who headed the government from 2011 to 2015. He welcomed us and gave us a short speech about Cheddi Jagan.
We also visited the small but interesting anthropological museum of Georgetown, which is housed in another wooden colonial building, and afterwards we strolled through the beautiful Promenade Gardens, which are in the center of town and are often used for official state ceremonies.
After lunch, we packed a small overnight bag and left the rest of our luggage in the hotel, because we were heading out for an overnight boat trip on the river. First we took the bus across the brand new bridge over the Demerara River and then drove for another 30 minutes to reach the shores of the much wider Essequibo River. Here we got on board a small speed boat, that took us upriver.
It was a short trip to our first destination - Fort Island. Located in the middle of the river not far from its mouth, Fort Island is a narrow 15 kilometer long strip of land. It got its name from Fort Zeelandia, a stronghold built by the Dutch (using slave labor) in the 1740s in order to control the traffic and protect its plantations further inland from potential attacks and raids from the ocean.
The island was the administrative center for the Dutch West India Company. There are a number of other colonial buildings on the island, the most prominent of which is the Court of Policy Hall, a large 18th century brick building that served as a church as well as a meeting hall and the court of justice.
After visiting Fort Island we got back on the boat for about an hour and continued further south up the river. Along the way we watched the sun set slowly over the river.
We spent the night in this beautiful (and totally empty) resort built on its own private island. It was called Aruwai White H2O Resort, and it was a lot more luxurious than I had expected to find this far into the jungle. It was located just south of Bartica, the largest mining town in the region.
After visiting another small island called sloth island, where we were looking (unsuccessfully) for sloths, we then were dropped off in Bartica and drove to a small airstrip nestled among the trees. This was supposed to be where we take a small plane to visit the highlight of Guyana - the spectacular Kaieteur Falls. James had warned us, that these flights occasionally get cancelled due to bad weather. However in our case the weather was fine, but there were not enough planes there. They had been diverted for military use due to some issue on the border with Venezuela. (Venezuela does not recognize the official border with Guyana, and claims large part of Guyana as their own, which has only become an issue in recent years, when oil was found off the Guyanan coast.) There was one plane that could take half of our group, and possible a smaller second plane, that could take another four people, but it was not clear when that second plane would arrive. Fortunately, several in our group kindly offered to stay back. I got a spot on the second plane, which ended up arriving so late, that the pilot offered to fly us over the falls for the view from above, but he wouldn't be able to land at the falls. We gladly accepted the four of us got on this tiny Cesna.
We had great views over the Essequibo River as it winds through the jungle and forms countless little islands. The bare areas with smoke rising up along the river are gold mines. Guyana is a major gold producer, and gold mining is a significant contributor to its economy. Most of the gold stems from small artisanal mines like these.
Kaieteur Falls, located deep inside the rain forest, on the Potaro River are one of the highest and most powerful falls in the world. With a drop of 226 meters, they are more than 4 times higher than Niagara Falls. They are Guyana's most famous tourist site, despite their remote location. There are no roads leading to it.
Kaieteur Falls were long considered sacred by indigenous people. The first European to see them was a British geologist who was led there by local tribesmen in 1870. Water levels were actually quite low at the time we visited. I had seen photos of the falls being much larger and more powerful during the rainy season, but apparently they are harder to see then, because the enormous amount of mist in the air.
Our pilot did three fly-overs for us, so we got these amazing views. We then continued northwards for another hour to return to Guyana just in time before it got dark. We had another night in the hotel in Georgetown, and left to Suriname the next morning. Our flight to Paramaribo left from the small airport again turbo-prop plane just large enough to fit our group.
No comments:
Post a Comment