Welcome to Guyana! This is my 88th country and only my second in South America, so I definitely need to step it up in this continent.
Fun fact, there are a lot of territories that have been known as Guyana / Guiana in northern South America over the years. The word originally comes from indigenous languages and means “land of many waters,” which certainly describes this region. There were at one time five different Guianas: (1) Spanish Guiana, now a territory within Venezuela; (2) British Guiana, now the independent country of Guyana; (3) Dutch Guiana, now the independent country of Suriname; (4) French Guiana, now an overseas region of France; and (5) Portuguese Guiana, now a territory within Brazil. I had originally thought the etymology was related to the four Guinea countries so it was interesting to find an unrelated place word that sounds so similar.
Our first night was fairly uneventful. The airport in Georgetown is quite far from the city, so most of the first night was simply a long car ride to get into Georgetown and then dinner.
Once we had a good night’s sleep in Georgetown, it was on to the main event, which was a chartered flight down to Kaieteur Falls! There are a ton of different ways to rank waterfalls. Wikipedia informs me that the notable statistic for Kaieteur is that it is the “highest flow single drop waterfall” in the world and the 123rd highest in the world. It is very far south within Guyana and requires either a flight or a multi-day trek through the jungle to get to.
The views as we left Georgetown were nice. Georgetown has fairly colorful buildings and it also sits at the mouth of the Demerara River. As we followed the river south, the landscape turned from urban to farmland to jungle.
The first view of the waterfall from the air! It was very impressive, both at a distance and up close. We landed right next to the visitor center and met up with a local guide who showed us around the national park.
There were three different viewpoints to go to and along the way our guide would point out native plants and animals. The walk itself was very easy but the guide was awesome. Our time in Kaieteur National Park was definitely a highlight across this whole trip for me.
This is not the best picture I’ve ever taken, but was a cool animal to spot in the wild! This is a golden rocket frog, endemic to Kaieteur National Park. It was hard to see in the plant – they’re absolutely tiny, I was amazed our guide was able to spot it.
While we were in Kaieteur National Park, we also did a little birdwatching! This was the most excited I’ve ever been to see a bird in person. I’ve definitely seen other cool birds, but in most cases I just recognize that they are cool and then find out more about them later. This is the rare instance where I knew of this bird beforehand. Meet the Guianan cock-of-the-rock. Yes, their name is crazy. I’ve always thought they were super interesting looking with their crests. We got to see several of them through the trees.
Here, you can see Kaieteur National Park visitor records. Most people come by plane, as you can see. I think if you were a very outdoorsy person, the multi-day Amazon trek to come by land could be a worthwhile experience, but I was quite happy with my choice to arrive by plane.
It was such a cool day. Guyana wasn’t my favorite country of this trip but this certainly was my favorite single experience that I had over the course of this week!