A Tour to Guyana

While South America is a very popular place for people to travel due to relative ease of access from the United States, there is a small part of the continent that is relatively untouched and not frequently visited even among seasoned travelers.

The Guianas, which comprise the countries of Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana, are not commonly visited when compared to other countries, such as Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador among others. Unlike the majority of countries in South America which speak Spanish with the exception of Brazil, the language of the Guianas is English in Guyana, Dutch in Suriname, and French in French Guiana. In addition, most people are unfamiliar with this part of the world. In fact, Guyana's only real claim to fame or infamy would be that it was the site of the Jonestown Massacre in the 1970s.

While I have had the opportunity and privilege to visit a large part of South America during my travels, this part of the continent kind of slipped under my “travel radar.” I had been aware of this area of South America for awhile and have wanted to visit this part of the world for quite awhile, but I never had the time and always opted for other locations.

One of the reasons I had put off on visiting the Guianas for so long was frankly the relative difficulty of access. Despite the fact that these three locations are right next to each other, it is surprisingly difficult to travel between the three. While there are flights between Guyana and Suriname, it is not particularly easy to gain access to French Guiana from them aside from land crossings. In addition, since these places are not commonly visited when compared to other countries on the continent, there is not much tourist infrastructure, so it is not particularly easy to get around. Because of these difficulties, I opted to avoid doing these countries solo as I would typically do. Instead, I decided to do a group tour from “Travel the Guianas,” which turned out to be excellent and very well put together.

Flying to Guyana from the US was quite simple since it just required a layover in Miami before arriving in Georgetown, which is the capital of Guyana. The flight itself was uneventful although I had heard from a married couple who were also on the tour with me and on the same flight from Miami to Guyana that an altercation broke out in front of the plane regarding a passenger who was demanding another passenger change their seat. It apparently got so bad that the captain threatened to turn the plane around. To be honest, I don't recall hearing this while on the flight, but I might have been asleep at that time.

Upon arrival in Guyana, I thought getting through immigration would be a quick and easy process. It was not. The immigration line moved incredibly slowly. Even though the flight I arrived on was the only flight, it seemed like the immigration officials decided to chat with everyone in an easygoing manner. The whole process easily took over an hour and a half. Admittedly, I was getting increasingly annoyed about the extremely slow pace and decided to follow a couple others who had slipped under the rope line to an immigration line that was only processing citizens. The immigration official in charge of that line did not seem to care, and I was through immigration before the others in the “foreigners” line that opted to not go under the rope. After completing immigration, I met the driver, and I also met the married couple that would be on the tour with me. They were interesting since the husband had been a fiction writer who had written a series of action/thrillers. Once introductions were made, we were taken to our respective hotels in Georgetown, which was quite far from the airport.

The hotel itself was comfortable albeit old and in need of a renovation since many items in the room had seen better days. For instance, the shower was missing tiles, and some of the furniture looked rather beat up. Since it was past midnight, I wanted to head to bed, but I needed to get some money. Luckily, the hotel had an ATM in it, but it was here that I made a serious mistake. Even though I had checked the exchange rate before arrival, I accidentally added an extra zero to the amount I wanted to withdraw, and I ended up taking out a few hundred dollars worth of Guyanese currency. Thankfully, I was able to get USD back because the guide had a lot of USD and was willing to change it for me. It was an important lesson to always pay attention to the number of zeros when doing currency conversions. This is admittedly not the first time this had happened; the first time was in Saudi Arabia when I accidentally took out about $500 worth of Saudi riyal.

Kaieteur Falls from Above — Kaieteur Falls from above

Despite the mistake with the currency, the country of Guyana is very interesting. The city of Georgetown itself has some interesting sites, in particular St. George's Cathedral, which is one of the largest wood constructed churches. However, the absolute jewel of Guyana is Kaieteur Falls.

Kaieteur Falls is very remote, and it is not possible to reach it by car (as far as I know). Instead, one must take a propeller plane to access it. On the day we went to Kaieteur Falls, we were taken to Ogle Airport, which is a small airport in Georgetown. Myself, the married couple, and another older traveler from Miami myself who was also on the tour were joined by a handful of other travelers who had decided to do the trip to the waterfall on the same day. Before we got on the plane, we were assigned seats to distribute the weight. The plane was very small and cramped, and my initial seat was under the wing right by the propeller, so it was quite noisy.

The day was beautiful for flying, but the flight was a little scary since the turbulence could be felt much easier, and the plane did not seem to be in the most pristine condition. There were occasional times that the plane shook quite heavily and moved up and down significantly. While that was totally normal, it was still a bit unsettling. During the flight, I saw just how remote Kaieteur Falls is. There are absolutely no towns around the area, and it is mainly just forest with occasional mining sites. After about an hour or so, the plane landed on an isolated airstrip where we were met by a couple other guides who took us to the waterfall.

In my opinion, Kaiteur Falls, which is world’s largest single drop waterfall at a height of 741 feet (226 meters), was the absolute undisputed highlight of visiting Guyana. The waterfall is quite large, and the scenery around it is absolutely amazing with the waterfall emptying into a large valley. In addition, on the way in, the pilots of the plane make a couple overhead passes over the waterfall, so it is possible to see it from above. Because Guyana is not a commonly-visited tourist destination, the only people on the excursion were me, the married couple, the traveler from Miami, a local Guyanese family of six, and two other independent travelers for a total of twelve., so there was zero issue with tons of other people being around.

Even though the initial arrival into Guyana was less than ideal with the extremely slow immigration process, and the fact I accidentally withdrew way more Guyanese dollars than would be needed, Guyana is a truly beautiful country that deserves more tourists. Kaieteur Falls is definitely the highlight of the country, and I suspect that when more people discover Guyana, Kaiteur Falls will become the must-see attraction along with the other waterfalls that are in the country.

Please enjoy the photo gallery. All photos were taken by me using an iPhone 13 Pro Max.