Our travels have brought us to Guyana, formerly known as British Guiana. Although we are visiting all three of the Guianas, we ended up spending the least amount of time in Guyana. That’s partly because of our interests (food!), and partly because our tour company in Suriname changed dates on us several times, which meant we never got back to Georgetown.
Unfortunately, we arrived in Georgetown on Good Friday, which is a holiday in Guyana, as is the whole weekend, including Easter Monday. The only things that open were a few convenience stores and a couple of ethnic (Chinese, Indian) restaurants. But we did find a good local restaurant. Georgetown itself is usually considered a fairly dangerous city. And with no people around it was a little spooky, even in daylight.
And yet, we had a good time. We stayed as the Rainforest B&B that’s their courtyard above), an attractive place run by a wonderful couple, and full of interesting people. There were also two rescue dogs living there and a number of turtles. And we made it to some of the main sites. First was the St George’s Cathedral, the world’s tallest (143 ft/43.5 metres) Gothic cathedral made out of wood. It’s actually Gothic Revival, built from 1889 to 1894, and serves as the seat of the Anglican bishop in Guyana. There are flying buttresses galore, lovely stained-glass windows, and a beautiful organ. The interior’s light and space are impressive as well.
Just up the road from the church is the National Library of Guyana. The library was originally known as the Carnegie Free Library, funded from a grant by Andrew Carnegie. It opened in 1909 and over the years grew and changed its name to the Georgetown Free Library and, eventually, the National Library. We love libraries! It remains the legal depository for all books published in Guyana, but also functions as a lending library. We had a quick browse through the stacks (Dewey) to see what was there.
Not far from the library is the Walter Roth Museum of Anthropology, housed in a beautiful old colonial mansion. It has lots of information on the native peoples of the Guyanas. There is a good deal of focus on the daily lives of people, including tools, clothing, and food. One interesting note: you are not permitted to take photographs of the objects in the museum – but you can take a selfie or a picture of someone standing next to the object.
Without doubt the highlight of our visit to Guyana was a trip to Kaieteur. (Our guide told us that the ‘teur’ suffix means ‘falls’ so Kaieteur by itself is sufficient.) We flew there from Georgetown on a small twelve-seater. They managed to get thirteen passengers by putting someone in the co-pilot seat! The flight takes about an hour and you pass over beautiful jungle landscapes and impressive mountains.
Once we landed in the Kaieteur National Park, our guide took us on a walk which afforded three views of the falls. She pointed out a number of flora and fauna as we walked along, including the Golden Rocket Frog. This frog is found only here, and lives its entire life in one particular bromeliad, because the latter maintains moisture year-round. You would think with a name like ‘Golden Rocket’ it would be an impressive thing, but in fact it’s extremely tiny. Still cute, though!
The falls itself is the largest single-drop waterfall by volume in the world. Others are higher but Kaieteur’s combination of height and volume gives it its number-one ranking. Alas, since it was the dry season, the falls were at only about 10% of their capacity. Still, it was an awesome sight, not least because you stand on extremely sheer cliffs opposite the fall to observe it!
We can’t end without saying something about an Easter Monday tradition in Georgetown. It’s a holiday, as we noted above, and on this day, Guyanese of all persuasions fly kites. You can find them doing so in the parks and really any green space that permits it. But the best place to go is down to the sea-wall and the ocean. There you will find many hundreds of people flying all manner of kites on the beach. There are food trucks and music, and lots of people promenading up and down the walk along the sea. It’s a spectacular sight, not least because some of the kites are incredibly elaborate and incredibly beautiful.
All in all, we figure we did pretty well in Guyana for a brief stay. We’re sorry we won’t make it back there!
To make sure you don’t miss a single moment of meandering, minimalist, magic, sign up for our fortnightly newsletter!
