On my first morning at Guyana’s Iwokrama International Centre, prehistoric guttural rumblings and feverish screams jolted me from sleep. I half expected to see some horrible jungle creature hanging over me, but it was just the dawn chorus of red howler monkeys. Awake, I stepped onto the cabin’s patio as the sun was rising over the trees on the opposite bank of South America’s third-largest river, the Essequibo.
As the howlers fell silent, golden rays bathed Iwokrama with a dawn calm that seemed to resonate. A pair of screeching scarlet macaws eventually penetrated the silence and I watched their reflections on the river’s calm surface until a 10-foot black caiman glided by, rippling the image in its wake. Across the river the trees remained dark, faceless shadows robbed of details, yet full of secrets.

I knew enough about Guyana’s rivers and rainforests to realise much of the morning’s activities were going on out of my view. On land, mammals are many and range from big cats such as the jaguar, puma, and ocelot to playful squirrel, capuchin, and brown-bearded saki monkeys. There are also tapirs, giant anteaters, giant armadillos, oversized rodents such as the capybara and aggressive white-lipped peccaries, the smell-them-before-you-see-them wild boars that travel in herds of up to 200. That is to say nothing of the smaller creatures like poisonous and constricting snakes (bushmasters, labarias and anacondas among them), scorpions, spiders, wasps, bees, mosquitoes, bot flies, centipedes, termites and armies of biting ants.

In the rivers there are stingrays, six-foot long electric eels, many toothy and prehistoric-looking fish species, including the menacing piranhas and a one-inch parasitic catfish called the candiru that has been known for lodging itself in the urethras of urinating swimmers (removal involves surgery).

So it goes in Guyana, South America’s unlikely Caribbean destination. With a historical backdrop of British colonialism and a nation of English-speaking locals, the culture and people of Guyana are decidedly more Caribbean than Latin, but the tourism experience is a far cry from the turquoise waters and 5-star resorts of the islands to the north. What Guyana offers visitors is largely unparalleled elsewhere in the world.

Within Guyana, part of the Guiana Shield – 2.5 million square kilometres of the world’s largest remaining tract of mostly undisturbed rainforest – and the Amazon Basin converge to create an enticing mix of ecosystems. Besides the rainforests that carpet roughly 80 per cent of the country, there are exotic mangroves, wild coastal swamps, rugged Atlantic beaches, lofty mountain ranges and sprawling savannahs.
With 83,000 square miles and only 770,000 inhabitants who live mostly along the coast – a mere five per cent of the land mass – the majority of Guyana is virtually unpopulated outside of the Amerindian villages, home to Guyana’s indigenous peoples. What remains is one of the world’s most unspoiled natural wilderness areas that harbours a remarkable diversity of flora and fauna, including more than 225 species of mammals, 880 species of reptiles and amphibians, 815 species of birds and 6,500 species of plants.

That morning at Iwokrama, as I stared at the seemingly impenetrable forest it dawned on me that the ants, cats, birds, monkeys, trees – all of it – were part of an ecosystem that has been thriving for millions of years. Throughout the world, the human race has conquered and claimed for itself, but much of Guyana has remained untouched, and this is the reason to visit.

Much of Guyana’s flora and fauna can be found at eco-lodges, resorts and villages throughout the country; those included in my tour that follows are only a small cross-section of some of it’s more well-known destinations and the key species that can be seen there.

The northwest
The northwestern region of Guyana is filled with beautiful waterways, dense forests, rolling hills and wide savannahs… and little tourism development. But Shell Beach, a 90-mile stretch of unspoiled Atlantic coastline where endangered sea turtles lay their eggs, is a reason for intrepid travellers to visit.

From March through August, Shell Beach is the nesting ground for four of the world’s eight endangered species of marine turtles: leatherback, green, hawksbill and olive ridley. While male sea turtles typically never leave the sea, females use their paddle-like flippers to crawl ashore and dig a nest in which they can lay a clutch of around 100 soft-shelled eggs. At Shell Beach guests are invited to watch the turtles nest from a rustic beach camp, which is also home to a turtle conservation project. The hosts are a group of reformed turtle poachers who now monitor the beach as ‘Turtle Wardens’ to protect their one-time prey, including the six-foot long and 1,000 pound leatherback.

Central rainforests
This region of Guyana loosely encompasses the Pakaraima and Iwokrama mountains, and includes two of Guyana’s tourism highlights: Kaieteur National Park and the Iwokrama International Centre for Rain Forest Conservation and Development.

Isolated in the middle of the Pakaraima Mountains, Kaieteur National Park is home to the 741ft sheer drop of Kaieteur Falls, Guyana’s crown jewel. While the greatness of Kaieteur is certainly in the falls – at its peak, 30,000 gallons of water per second flow over a wall some 400ft wide – visitors shouldn’t miss the area’s fascinating microenvironments supported by the constant spray of the falls.

Birdwatchers come to see the Guianan cock-of-the-rock leks, where the overly orange birds participate in bizarre mating rituals that involve calling and dancing for females. In the evening, visitors can also watch white-chinned and white-tipped swifts by the hundreds, as they return to roost behind the falls.

Birds aside, two of the park’s more fascinating creatures are the prehistorically large tank bromeliads and the miniscule golden dart frogs that spend their entire lives inside the bromeliads’ leaves. The terrestrial tank bromeliads, which have been known to reach nine feet in height, collect water in their upturned leaves, allowing the endemic frogs to thrive.

Other highlights at Kaieteur include carnivorous plants and brilliant morpho butterflies, including morpho hecuba, whose eight-inch wingspan makes it South America’s largest, and the iridescent blue morpho.

At its core, Iwokrama is a one million-acre (371,000 ha) research project used as a living laboratory for scientific research, ecotourism and sustainable tropical forest management. Located in the heart of Guyana, the Iwokrama Forest has an amazing cross-section of Guyana’s biodiversity, including 1,500 species of flora, 200 mammals, 500 birds, 420 fish and 150 species of reptiles and amphibians.

One of Iwokrama’s many monikers is ‘Land of the Giants’, because it has healthy populations of some of the Americas’ and the world’s largest species. While sightings are never guaranteed, Iwokrama is one of the best places to spot the elusive jaguar, the largest cat in the Americas, and the harpy eagle, whose six-foot wingspan and knack for plucking sloths and monkeys out of trees has earned it the nickname of ‘flying wolf’.

Oxbow lakes also have healthy populations of arapaima, the world’s largest scaled freshwater fish. These beasts, which can reach 3m in length and can weigh upwards of 440lbs, can be easily seen – and heard – as they belch and bubble on the surface as they breathe.

Iwokrama also boasts many dank spots along rivers that seem too archetypal to be real. Bright orange and black poison dart frogs pepper rocks, emerald hummingbirds elegantly hover, metallic blue-and-green beetles shimmer, kinkajous sleep and squirrel monkeys pass through the sounds of screaming pihas, the birds that provide the most recognisable jungle soundtrack. Unnaturally green swamps harbour anacondas, the world’s largest constricting snake that easily exceeds lengths of 20ft and feeds on peccary, deer, capybara and agouti. The elongated, trunk-like snout and mohawk of black hair on South America’s largest native mammal, the tapir (or bush cow, locally), are also seen along the banks.

The Rupununi Savannahs
In a direct contrast to the dense rainforests, the Rupununi Savannahs cover roughly 5,000 square miles of southern Guyana. They are one of the world’s largest open ranges of savannah lands, but they also encompass extremely bio-diverse wetlands, rainforest-covered mountains, hundreds of miles of freshwater river systems and several Amerindian villages and historical cattle ranches that also offer lodging.

The Amerindian village of Surama has an excellent community tourism experience that includes the chance to paddle a dugout canoe on the Burro Burro River. The silence of the canoes provides a great opportunity to find birds and wildlife, including jaguar, giant river otter, howler monkey, spider monkey, peccary, tayra, macaws, herons, and kingfishers. Depending on the season, it’s also possible to ask your guide to bring along a handline to fish for a few of the toothy red-bellied piranha or electric eels, which reach 6ft and pack 500 volts, found in the river.

Karanambu Ranch, located along the Rupununi River, is well known for owner Diane McTurk’s giant river otter rehabilitation programme. Giant river otters are often called ‘water dogs’ in Guyana, and their social and diurnal lifestyles have made them easy prey for hunters after their fur.

When Diane is rehabilitating orphaned or injured otters for their return to the wild, guests have a chance to get up close and personal. Depending on your comfort level around wild animals with razor sharp teeth, visitors can swim with the otters and hand feed them piranha.
Karanambu also offers a good chance to spot two of Guyana’s stranger creatures: giant anteaters and capybara. With a long nose, bushy tail, length of three feet and a shuffling gait exaggerated by the fact they walk on their knuckles, giant anteaters are unmistakable when seen. Regularly spotted along the river, the world’s largest rodent, capybara, has a stocky body with a large square head, webbed feet and arched, rounded rump.

Karanambu is also home to a healthy population of Guyana’s national flower, the Victoria amazonica. The largest of the giant water lilies, the flowers’ stalks can reach lengths of 7-8m with leaves that can grow up to 3m in diameter and support the weight of a baby. At dusk the lily’s flower slowly opens to a brilliant white bloom before increasing their temperature and emitting a strong odor to attract a beetle that pollinates them. Two days later the flower blooms again, vibrant pink in colour.

Not far from Karanambu on the Rupununi River are Yupukari Village and Caiman House. A highlight of a visit here is the ‘Creatures of the Night Tour’, which begins just after darkness settles on the river and many creatures emerge, such as black caiman, spectacled caiman, tree boas, iguanas, frogs, bats, nightjars, possums, tree dwelling rodents and capybara. Sleeping monkeys and birds are also often seen.
Visitors can also participate in ongoing black caiman research overseen by the community. Guests can observe caiman – the world’s largest alligator, which reaches lengths exceeding 15ft – being captured, and then assist in data collection – weighing, measuring, sexing, tagging – once the caiman is pulled to shore and secured. It may be your only chance to handle one.

At Dadanawa Ranch, a multi-textured cattle ranch that was once the largest in the world, expert guides lead guests in search of anacondas, big cats, giant river turtle, goliath bird-eating tarantulas, and the endangered red siskin bird. If the wildlife isn’t exciting enough, head out with the vaqueros to round up more tame beasts – cattle.

his is only a taste of what a visit to Guyana can entail. Guyana has a tourism offering that is, unfortunately, increasingly rare in today’s world, and it is the reason to look beyond the beaches of the typical Caribbean vacation.