Guyana

Guyana lies on the Atlantic shoulder of South America and is the continent's only English-speaking country, tied culturally to the Caribbean rather than Latin America. Around four-fifths is rainforest on the Guiana Shield, while almost all of its 800,000 people live on a narrow coastal plain below sea level, kept dry by seawalls and drainage canals.

Known for Kaieteur Falls, Demerara sugar and rum, pepperpot and cassareep, Rupununi savannah and offshore oil boom.

Highlights

  • Kaieteur Falls, Potaro-Siparuni (Region 8): The Potaro River drops about 226 metres in a single uninterrupted fall over a sandstone escarpment, roughly five times the height of Niagara. It sits inside Kaieteur National Park, reached mainly by light aircraft.
  • Stabroek Market, Georgetown, Demerara-Mahaica (Region 4): Georgetown's central market, a cast-iron hall with a clock tower completed in 1881 and built out over the Demerara riverbank. It remains the city's main trading floor for produce, fish and gold jewellery.
  • Iwokrama Forest, Potaro-Siparuni (Region 8): A 371,000-hectare rainforest reserve dedicated by Guyana to the Commonwealth in 1989 as a site for testing sustainable forest use. It is managed with neighbouring Amerindian villages and includes a canopy walkway.
  • Shell Beach, Barima-Waini (Region 1): Roughly 120 kilometres of shell and sand coast in the far north-west, protected since 2011 and one of the few places where four sea turtle species all nest. Monitoring is done with local Indigenous communities.

Places in Guyana

Getting around

Georgetown and the coast run on privately owned minibuses working numbered zones. The fare structure is set by government, and every operator is required by law to display it inside the bus. The Transport and Harbours Department runs the stelling ferries, including Parika to Supenaam, bookable through its FerryPass portal. The Demerara Harbour Bridge is a toll crossing: $40 for a motorcycle, $200 for a private car and up to $700 for a large bus or lorry.