Georgetown, Guyana

https://www.tripsavvy.com/georgetown-guyana-visitors-guide-1637080

Few of us know much about Guyana, South America's only English speaking country. Rich in oil, gas and minerals and richer still in its huge tracts of unexplored pristine rainforest and savannah where species remain to be discovered, this place is well worth the effort to get to and the difficulty getting around once you do. It's one of my favourite countries ever.

Little wonder then that Georgetown, Guyana's capital city, is itself an enigma. Georgetown is more like a large country town than a city with around 350,000 inhabitants (in a country with a small population of 800,000), lots of green spaces, four big open-air markets and some of the friendliest most welcoming people you can meet.

As an ex-British colony, Guyana is culturally more aligned with its Caribbean neighbours Trinidad and Barbados than other South American countries. As a result, reggae and calypso can be heard on Georgetown's streets rather than samba or latin vibes. The proximity of the United States has an influence too with many Guyanans emigrating to the USA to work.

The multicultural population are headed up by people from East India and Africa (a throwback to the slave trade) but chances are wherever you're from you'll find someone that lives in Georgetown from your country.

Find out more: watch our videos:

6 fab reasons to visit Georgetown

https://www.intrepidescape.com/things-to-do-georgetown-guyana/

As a town with many parks and rivers, Georgetown is rich in wildlife. You can feed the gorgeous West Indian manatees in National Park, see rare and beautiful species when bird watching in the Botanic Gardens and cruise down Demerara River with flocks of scarlet ibis, great and snowy egret and various heron species. All these activities are covered in our videos:

Georgetown is a 'foody' place. Its rivers offer a variety of fresh fish and seafood, its rich soils grow all manner of fruit and veg and its farms provide chicken and beef. With a large East Indian population, there are many very good Indian restaurants and local entrepreneurs such as Chef Delven Adams provide Guyanan style dishes straight from the market to your table. Great restaurants are covered in our videos:

There is a direct short 50 minute flight from Georgetown to Guyana's main tourist site, the breathtakingly beautiful Kaieteur Falls, the world's tallest single drop waterfall at 741 feet or 226 metres high. Set in Guyana's only national park, the Kaieteur National Park (visit https://national-parks.org/guyana/kaieteur#), this day trip is well worth the visit. A ranger will take you to between 3 and 5 viewpoints to view the falls. There are few tourists in Guyana and even fewer at the falls so you could have the place to yourself. Watch our video: Falling for Kaieteur Falls, Guyana or the short video if you do not have much time. For photos and more info, see the web page.

http://exploreguyana.org/guyana-museums/

There are some interesting museums and art galleries in Georgetown that are well worth a visit, including the National Museum where you can see now extinct wildlife including the giant sloth portrayed in taxidermy, the Walter Roth Museum of Anthropology where you can find out more about Guyana's thriving AmerIndian communities and Castellani House, the national art gallery featuring works by Guyanan artists in a lovely 19th century building.

Georgetown has cool indoor and outdoor markets full of colour and life and produce. Bourda Market is a great place to wonder round and see the various food on display and maybe have breakfast or lunch at one of the many stalls. We did this in our video: Georgetown, Guyana. Stabroek Market is the largest market selling everything under the sun but can be dodgy. Don't even take your mobile phone here.

Guyana and Georgetown get very few tourists. A well-known saying is that Machu Picchu gets more visitors in a day than Guyana gets in a year. As a result, people here are very friendly and accessible and when you eat in some of the restaurants the chefs and managers will come sit with you and tell you about their wonderful town and country. Local people are full of tips and advice on how to make the most of your stay.

Nowhere is crowded, except on weekends. People will be very pleased to meet you.

Watch our videos:

Where to stay

http://exploreguyana.org/hotels/

Guyana is not cheap and neither is Georgetown. Be prepared to spend a lot on accommodation. There are the usual chains, including the Marriott Hotel which is well situated near the main sights. Hotels are recommended on http://exploreguyana.org/ and on TripAdvisor.

We stayed at Cara Lodge, a beautiful heritage hotel with a lovely bar and a great restaurant. It's in a nice residential area and an easy walk to town. The staff here are very friendly, helpful and efficient.

Getting to and around Georgetown

As a country that has been overlooked by tourists, Guyana and its capital Georgetown are not easy places to get to. There are flights from various places in the United States, mainly New York and Miami, and British Airways has said it is starting a direct flight from London the Georgetown in 2023. Other gateways include Panama City, Panama and Port of Spain, Trinidad.

Try not to arrive in Georgetown at night as taxis between the airport and city have been held up and the occupants robbed.

There is a lot of poverty in Georgetown and muggings do occur, mostly at night. During the day, most places in Georgetown are okay to walk around if you dress down and take nothing more than a mobile phone with you. Leave your expensive cameras and most of your money in your hotel. Most people are extremely friendly and welcoming. We had no problems walking round the city on our own. Stabroek Market can be dodgy and if you go to the Botanic Gardens (which I recommend) stay round the main entrance where there are lots of people, or go on a bird watching tour with a local guide (this means you can take your zoom lenses to photo the many birds you will see).

There are 'no go' areas: your hotel will advise you where these are.

At night it's best to take taxis, which are inexpensive, everywhere. Your hotel will ring for a taxi for you and restaurants or bars will arrange for you to get taxis back.

From Georgetown to...

You've come all this way to Guyana, which is far more than Georgetown. There are heaps more amazing places to visit.

There are quite a lot of places near Georgetown where you can see wildlife and do various activities. I have not been to these but Guyanan people like them. Some of these are:

Visit Guyana's premier attraction, Kaieteur Falls. Watch our video on Kaieteur Falls and check out our web page for more information and photos.

In Georgetown there is also the office for Iwokrama River Lodge and Research Station (https://iwokrama.org/our-work/sustainable-tourism/iwokrama-river-lodge-and-research-centre/). You can get a 55 minute flight to Fair View and arrange for someone to pick you up and take you on a short 5-10 minute trip to the station. Here you can get accommodation, meals and a guide to take you on boat trips along Essequibo River and into the lovely rainforest. There is heaps of wildlife here, the work they do is interesting and worthwhile, and I thoroughly recommend this place. They even have a bar with beer. We have a great video on Iwokrama for more information, and also a web page.

You can also get a flight to Lethem, Guyana's second biggest town, from where you can cross the border into Brazil. You can also arrange a road trip 2 hours up the road to Yupukari Village and Caiman House. The latter will provide accommodation, meals, trips round the village and trips to the savannah to see the giant anteater and other really cool savannah animals. They can also arrange your transport from Lethem to Caiman House and Caiman House to Boa Vista in Brazil, or back to Lethem to return to Georgetown. For Caiman House, see http://caimanhouse.com/

All these activities are expensive and take a lot of organising so you may, like most travellers to Guyana, consider taking a 2-week group trip which takes you to the above and a host of other fantastic places besides where you can see a wealth of wildlife. Our 13-day trip, Guyana Nature Experience, was run by Wilderness Explorers in Guyana (you can book directly with them) and Pioneer Expeditions in the UK. WE uses US dollars, Pioneer UK pounds so it depends where you are from who you organise with. I thoroughly recommend this fab tour, and no, I am not getting paid for this recommendation :)

We will be making videos about the above places and more in the coming weeks.

For now: watch our videos and get hooked on Guyana: