Transamerica 2021 STOP 6 

October 3, 2021

Canouan, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines – Georgetown, Guyana

Flight distance: 485 nm
Hours in the air: 1:21

Africa and India combined in South America

“I will never go back here”, said 9 years ago. Now what might be the reason for such a statement? Maybe because the checks at immigration are rigorous, it always rains here or the place it just a dump.

Indeed, presumably because of drug trafficking immigration thoroughly searched the entire plane including luggage not going through customs, they were nice but it took a while and lots of staff even tough most of them were only watching. Immigration was swift and soon we were on our way to the capital, Georgetown, which was about 45 minutes drive. On the way there we got a first specimen of the wet elements as it poured for a good part of the drive and the roads were flooded.

 

The showers stopped by the time we got to the hotel and we had lunch aside the closed (Covid) pool, eating mediocre food. Then we took a taxi downtown and walked around the center, which looked more like a huge outside market than the center of a country’s capital. The absence of higher building makes it feel like a huge village, much like any larger town in Africa. While many beautiful colonial structures are still to be found in between countless simple buildings and simple shacks, most of them are not maintained at best, more likely shabby and ugly. The streets are covered with garbage and standing water in the ditches add to the overall “experience”. Nevertheless the locals enjoyed an easy Sunday afternoon shopping and just looking around or getting to and from family by hitching one of the countless mini busses. Well, that short walk concluded our dive into town and country which we ended with a nice teppanyaki dinner at the hotel.

 

We are looking forward to see the ABC’s this week…

Facts & figures

Guyana is situated in central north of the South American continent with a coastline at the North Atlantic Ocean. Countries with international borders to Guyana are Brazil, Suriname, and Venezuela, and it shares maritime borders with Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados.

The country is part of the Guianas, a region in the north-eastern part of the continent on the Guiana Shield, an old stable geological formation that forms a portion of the northern coast. The Guianas are bounded by the Orinoco, Negro, and Amazon rivers and the Atlantic Ocean. It includes Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana.

Guyana’s area is somewhat smaller than that of the United Kingdom, or slightly smaller than that of the U.S. state of Idaho. Large areas of Guyana are covered by dense rain forests (Forested Highland Region) in the southern part of the country. Most of Guyana’s population (90%) lives in the narrow, fertile plain along the Atlantic coast to the east of the country. The four Hinterland regions, which occupy more than two-thirds of the total land area are still largely unoccupied.

The country has a population of around 748’000 people. Capital and largest city is Georgetown (pop. 192’000). Guyana is the only English-speaking country in South America, spoken languages are English (official), but the vast majority of the population speaks Guyanese Creole, an English based Creole, Amerindian languages (including Caribbean and Arawak languages).

Historically, the Lokono and Kalina tribes dominated Guyana. Although Christopher Columbus was the first European to sight Guyana during his third voyage (in 1498), and Sir Walter Raleigh wrote an account in 1596, the Dutch were the first Europeans to establish colonies. After the British assumed control in 1796, the Dutch formally ceded the area in 1814. In 1831, the united colonies of Demerara-Essequibo and separate colony of Berbice together became a single British colony known as British Guiana. Guyana achieved independence from the United Kingdom as a dominion on 26 May 1966 and became a republic on 23 February 1970, remaining a member of the Commonwealth.

Source: wikipedia.org / nationsonline.org