Guyana

The Dutch West India Company set up trading posts on the Essequibo and Berbice rivers in the early 17th century. Dutch engineers turned the swampy coast into plantations protected by dykes and canals, worked by enslaved Africans; the canals and the 'kokers' (sluice gates) still drain Georgetown today. The Berbice slave uprising of 1763, led by Cuffy, held much of the colony for nearly a year; 23 February, Republic Day, recalls it.

Britain took the three colonies during the Napoleonic wars and joined them as British Guiana in 1831. After emancipation in 1834–38, planters brought indentured labourers from India, Portugal (Madeira) and China. Nationalist politics grew after World War II; Cheddi Jagan's elected government was removed by Britain in 1953, and independence came in 1966 under Forbes Burnham, with a republic in 1970.

Guyanese often describe their country as the land of six peoples: Indigenous, African, Indian, Portuguese, Chinese and European. Indo-Guyanese, descended from indentured workers, are the largest group; Afro-Guyanese, descended from the enslaved, dominate Georgetown and the public service. The two main parties have long drawn on these communities, and elections are tense.

Nine Indigenous nations — Makushi, Wapishana, Arawak (Lokono), Carib (Kalina), Warrau, Akawaio, Arecuna, Patamona and Wai-Wai — live mainly in the interior, where many run community lodges. A large diaspora in New York, Toronto and London sends money home and fills flights at Christmas.

The national dish, pepperpot, is Indigenous: meat stewed for hours in cassareep, a black syrup boiled from bitter cassava juice that also preserves it, so a pot can be topped up for days. It is eaten with plait bread on Christmas morning. Indian indenture brought curry, dhal and roti; African cooking gave cook-up rice and metemgee; Portuguese settlers left garlic pork; Chinese cooks made chow mein and fried rice everyday food.

Demerara sugar and rum are the old export staples. Demerara Distillers keeps working historic wooden stills from long-gone estates, the source of El Dorado rums. At home, the Christmas table adds black cake soaked in rum and sorrel drink.

More than 80% of Guyana is forest on the ancient Guiana Shield, cut by the Essequibo, Demerara, Berbice and Corentyne rivers. Kaieteur Falls on the Potaro drops about 226 m in one plunge; golden frogs live in the giant bromeliads on its rim. The Iwokrama reserve was set aside in 1996 for research and sustainable use, and the Pakaraima mountains rise to Mount Roraima on the Venezuelan border.

In the south, the Rupununi savannah floods each rainy season and dries into grassland dotted with termite mounds and cattle ranches. Giant otters, black caiman, arapaima (one of the largest freshwater fish), giant anteaters, harpy eagles and jaguars live here, and community-run lodges such as Surama and Rewa show visitors around.

ExxonMobil's 2015 Liza discovery in the offshore Stabroek block turned Guyana into an oil producer in 2019. Output has passed 600,000 barrels a day with several floating production ships (check the current figure), GDP growth has been among the fastest in the world, and a sovereign wealth fund holds the revenue. Georgetown has new hotels, malls, traffic jams and rising prices; critics question the terms of the contracts and who benefits.

Venezuela claims the whole Essequibo region — about two-thirds of Guyana — under an old dispute settled by an 1899 arbitral award that Caracas rejects. Guyana took the case to the International Court of Justice; Venezuela held a referendum on annexation in 2023. Visitors see the issue in maps, murals and news, not on the ground, but the western border zone is off-limits.

Almost all visitors fly into Timehri (GEO) from New York, Miami, Toronto, Trinidad, Barbados or Panama and base in Georgetown, where street crime means taxis after dark. The interior works as packages: a small plane from Ogle to Kaieteur, then lodges linked by the Georgetown – Lethem road and airstrips, run by a handful of operators.

Plan around the rains (worst May–July), keep a spare day for flights that move with the weather or passenger numbers, carry cash in Guyanese or US dollars, and bring malaria advice and a yellow fever vaccination. Overland, the official ferry leads to Suriname and the Takutu bridge to Brazil.