Today marks the 50th anniversary of Guyana achieving independence from Britain. In one sense, this is a historical fact of the most straight-forward kind, the sort of half-century-shaped nugget of trivia on which pub quizzes are built. But in another way, this is a red-letter date tinged with an element of the unexpected – the key surprise being the presence of the word “Britain” in connection with a country that sits on the north-east shoulder of South America. Someone, somewhere – surely – has made an error here. For while the British Empire extended its tentacles across vast portions of the planet, the idea of this tea-drinking, railway-building stiff-upper-lipped global realm having anything to do with a largely hip-swaying, Spanish-speaking, jungle-clad continent seems rather improbable.
But the record shows that Guyana was under British rule between 1814 – when treaty machinations during the closing stages of the Napoleonic Wars saw it transferred from Dutch hands – until May 26 1966, when it emerged from the colonial era as its own boss.
St George’s Cathedral
Credit: Matyas Rehak – Fotolia
Fifty years on, you have to look hard if you want to see traces of the country’s former ties to London. Most of them lie in the coastal capital Georgetown. There is the Providence Stadium, where the West Indies play occasional cricket matches – any hint of bats, balls, bails and wicket keepers usually being a sign of a place where Britain was once in charge. There is St George’s Cathedral, a wooden behemoth of a building, soaring to a height of 143ft (44m), and finished in 1899 – a religious totem that is so much an Anglican outpost it sits on “Church Street”. Then there is the name of the city itself, a tribute to George III.
“Any hint of bats and bails is usually a sign of a place where Britain was once in charge”
Credit: 2011 AFP/STAN HONDA
But look outside the big city (it isn’t big, really – the last Guyanese census, in 2012, listed its population as 235,017), and even these little echoes of life under the old guard from over the Atlantic fade away. In fact, echoes of anything beyond the call and squawk of the rainforest disappear. Guyana is a country which largely lives under a thick canopy, with the exception of those areas where savannah stretches towards the Brazilian border in the south-west, and great rivers – the Essequibo, the Demerara, the Courantyne – cut silvery paths across the landscape. It is not a place which throbs with metropolitan chatter or the general hum of human existence (its entire population is less than three quarters of a million). It is a tropical fragment, a sticky, humid, leafy package. That it was supposedly the inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1912 novel The Lost World says everything.
For this reason, it is one of the world’s most fascinating places for travel. A few years ago, I spent two weeks charting the country’s backwaters and byways – a journey which remains one of my most thrilling experiences in more than a decade as a travel writer. True, Guyana cannot claim the cool factor in which Brazil wraps itself. Nor can it boast the sophistication of Argentina, the ruggedness of Chile, the must-see heritage of Peru or even the vague air of danger (rather a thing of the past these days, admittedly) which comes with trips to Colombia. But it is all the more intriguing as a result of this – a genuine mystery in a world that is increasingly over-documented. It is not quite a “lost world”, to borrow Doyle’s description. But equally, it is difficult to say it has been found.
You only have to look to Kaieteur Falls to see how this idea of a destination only loosely pinned to popular consciousness plays out. It is not that no-one has ever seen or heard of Guyana’s main landmark. It is more that, if it were located in a country more widely appreciated by tourists – a Canada, an Australia, a USA – it would be a bucket-list staple, a face that launched a million postcards. As it is, this spectacular cascade goes about its business in relative anonymity, the Potaro River plunging 741ft (226m) in a single sheet, unhindered by much in the way of health or safety. There are no barriers, no paved walkways, and certainly no souvenir shops or overpriced cafes. And although you can hike there, access is largely via the tiny airstrip which hides behind the treeline. Once you arrive, it is just you, the water, and the thought that there is nothing separating you from a drop into the abyss. I remember standing on the lip of the waterfall, watching rainbows dancing and flickering across the spray which rises up from the bottom, waiting for someone to tell me to step back. Part of me is still amazed that the shout never came.
“I spent two weeks charting the country’s backwaters and byways – a journey which remains one of my most thrilling experiences in more than a decade as a travel writer”
Credit: geraldine revillard
There are further exotic attractions – Iwokrama (iwokrama.org), a research station dedicated to rainforest conservation, where guests sleep in sturdy cabins, and can head out in search of jaguars; Karanambu (karanambutrustandlodge.org), an eco-lodge amid the wetlands of the south, where visitors can glimpse giant otters swimming amid huge victoria amazonica lilypads in the River Rupununi; the nearby savannah, where those long-nosed idiosyncrasies of the natural world, ant-eaters, thrust their heads into the turf.
None of these sites ranks as a Machu Picchu, a Christ The Redeemer or any other A-list South American icon. But this is the point. Guyana is a travel option for those who want to avoid the crowds. I realised this most specifically when I found myself at Baganara (baganara.net), a small, comfy – but by no means high-end – resort which sits on a little beach, 100 miles inland, on the east bank of the Essequibo. Above the bar, a faded photo showed Mick Jagger sitting on the very stool from which I was nursing a rum cocktail, the Rolling Stone having flown to the hotel for lunch after watching England play cricket in Georgetown in 1998. When you end up in a place where one of the planet’s most famous men comes for quiet time, you really know you have left the beaten track behind.
How to get there
Guyana specialists Wilderness Explorers (020 8417 1585; wilderness-explorers.com), offer an exhaustive 15-day “Guyana Nature Experience” from US$5188 (£3,577) per person, not including flights. The likes of Journey Latin America (020 3603 8024; journeylatinamerica.co.uk), Last Frontiers (01296 653 000; lastfrontiers.com) and Cox & Kings (020 3582 9512; coxandkings.co.uk) also sell guided and private Guyanese tours.
Source link : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/south-america/guyana/articles/guyana-south-america-best-kept-secret/
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Publish date : 2016-05-26 03:00:00
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