Guyana

Georgetown's Anglican cathedral, completed in 1899 to designs by the English architect Sir Arthur Blomfield, is one of the tallest wooden churches in the world, its white-painted spire rising about 43 metres above the city. It is built largely of greenheart, a dense local hardwood resistant to rot and termites, and the soaring interior, with its pointed arches and timber vaulting, feels surprisingly airy in the heat. Restoration work has been ongoing for years, so parts may be scaffolded.

The surrounding streets make a good short walk past other landmarks of the colonial city: the red-and-white Gothic City Hall, the Victoria Law Courts with their statue of Queen Victoria, and the Parliament Building.

TipDress modestly and visit in the morning, when the light through the windows is best and the city is cooler.

The cast-iron market hall beside the Demerara River, finished in 1881 and topped by a four-faced clock tower, is the city's best-known landmark and its busiest corner. Inside and around it, traders sell everything from fish, cassava and hot peppers to gold jewellery, fabrics and household goods, while minibuses and river ferries come and go outside. It is loud, crowded and fascinating, and the place to see Georgetown's mix of cultures at work.

It is also a known hotspot for pickpockets and robbery, and both UK and US advice single it out; US government staff are barred from it entirely.

TipIf you want to see the market, go with a local guide in the morning, carry little and leave cameras and jewellery at your hotel.

A small, carefully kept park in the middle of Georgetown, laid out in the 1850s on what had been a parade ground, the Promenade Gardens are a quiet refuge of flowering trees, lilies, palms and a bandstand, with plenty of birdlife for such a central spot. They make a pleasant pause between sights.

For more space, the larger Botanical Gardens to the east have the giant Victoria amazonica water lily, the national flower, in their ponds, along with manatees in the canals and the Guyana Zoo. Go in daylight and preferably with others, as robberies have been reported there.

TipEarly morning is the coolest time and the best for spotting birds.

Much of coastal Guyana lies below high-tide level, and Georgetown is protected by a long sea wall begun by the Dutch and extended by the British in the 19th century. The promenade along its top is where the city comes to breathe: joggers in the early morning, families and food vendors in the late afternoon, and crowds at weekends and on public holidays. The Atlantic here is brown with silt from the great rivers, so it is not a place to swim, but the breeze and the sunsets are the reward.

The Seawall bandstand and the Round House are the traditional gathering points. As the light fades the crowds thin out, and US advice is to avoid the area after dark.

TipCome on a Sunday afternoon, when the Seawall is at its liveliest, and leave before nightfall.

The Essequibo, Guyana's longest river, meets the sea in an estuary more than 20 kilometres wide, dotted with islands; some, like Wakenaam and Leguan, are large enough to hold villages and rice fields. On little Fort Island stand the brick ruins of Fort Zeelandia, built by the Dutch in the 1740s to guard the colony of Essequibo, along with the restored Court of Policy building, the oldest surviving Dutch public building in Guyana, which now houses a small museum of the colonial era.

Boat trips from Parika, about an hour from Georgetown, combine the fort with stops on other islands, and some continue up the Essequibo to Bartica, gateway to the rivers and gold fields of the interior.

TipBook an island day trip through a Georgetown operator; boats are speedboats without much shade, so bring a hat, sunscreen and a waterproof bag.

On the remote north-west coast, near the border with Venezuela, a stretch of more than 100 kilometres of beaches made of crushed shells is one of the most important nesting grounds in the region for sea turtles. Four species come ashore here: leatherbacks, green turtles, hawksbills and olive ridleys, and the area has been a protected area since 2011, run with nearby Arawak and Warrau communities, many of whose members once hunted the turtles and now monitor them.

Getting there is an adventure in itself, involving a long journey by road, boat and sometimes small plane, and visitor facilities are basic. It is visited mainly on organised trips during the nesting season.

TipThe main nesting season runs roughly from March to August. Go only with an operator who works with the Protected Areas Commission and local wardens, and never use torches near nesting turtles.

Kaieteur is the reason many people come to Guyana. Here the Potaro River, about 100 metres wide in the rainy season, plunges 226 metres over the edge of a sandstone plateau in a single unbroken drop, around five times the height of Niagara, into a deep gorge wrapped in rainforest. Measured by the combination of height and volume of water, it is among the most powerful single-drop waterfalls on Earth, and there are no crowds, no railings for most of the way and no buildings in sight.

Kaieteur National Park, established in 1929, protects the falls and the forest around them. Rangers lead short walks from the airstrip to a series of viewpoints, passing giant tank bromeliads where tiny golden rocket frogs live; with luck you will see the bright orange Guianan cock-of-the-rock nearby, and the swifts that nest behind the curtain of water return at dusk.

TipMost visitors fly in on a day trip by small plane from Georgetown, often combined with Orinduik Falls on the Brazilian border. Flights run only with enough passengers and depend on the weather, so keep a spare day in your plans.

In the very centre of the country, the Iwokrama Forest covers about 3,700 square kilometres of rainforest set aside in 1996 as a living laboratory for showing that a tropical forest can be protected and used sustainably at the same time. It is run by an international non-profit centre in partnership with the Makushi and other Indigenous communities around it. The research station and river lodge at Kurupukari, on the Essequibo, are a base for boat trips at dawn and dusk, forest walks and night spotlighting for caimans.

Further south, near the Atta lodge, a canopy walkway of suspension bridges and platforms hangs some 30 metres up in the trees, putting you at eye level with toucans, parrots and the spider monkeys and red howlers that move through the canopy. The only road from the coast to the Rupununi runs through the reserve, and this is one of the best places in South America to have a chance, however small, of seeing a jaguar crossing it.

TipGo up the walkway at dawn, when the birds are most active and the forest is cool and misty.

Where the forest meets the open savannah at the foot of the Pakaraima Mountains, the Makushi village of Surama runs one of the best-known community tourism projects in South America. Guests stay in simple lodges built in traditional style, and guides from the village lead walks into the forest, climbs up Surama Mountain for the view across the savannah at sunrise, canoe trips on the Burro Burro River in search of giant otters and tapirs, and visits to the village school and farms.

The village decides how tourism works and shares its earnings, and staying here is an opportunity to learn about Makushi life from the people who live it, rather than as a spectacle.

TipBook ahead; many visitors come on packages that combine Surama with Iwokrama and the savannah lodges further south.

The North Rupununi savannah is a vast, grassy plain dotted with termite mounds, palm-fringed creeks and low hills, which turns to wetland in the rainy season. Annai, a small Makushi settlement with an airstrip on the main road south, is the hub, and the long-running Rock View Lodge nearby is a gentle introduction to ranch life on the savannah, with a pool, gardens full of birds and walks up the hill behind for views across the plain. Lethem, on the Brazilian border, lies several hours further south.

The Rupununi is cowboy country as well as Amerindian land: the region's vaqueros still run cattle on the grasslands, and the annual Rupununi Rodeo in Lethem at Easter is a big event.

TipThe road from Georgetown to Lethem is partly paved and partly dirt; in the rains the unpaved sections can be very slow. Scheduled flights to Annai and Lethem save a long day's drive.

On the Rupununi River, a former cattle ranch turned wildlife lodge became famous through the conservationist Diane McTurk, who spent decades rescuing and rehabilitating orphaned giant otters here. Karanambu is now managed by a trust and remains one of the best places in the Guianas to see these huge, social, noisy otters in the wild, along with black caimans, giant anteaters on the open savannah and Victoria amazonica lilies opening at dusk in the oxbow ponds.

Days follow the rhythm of the wildlife: boat trips on the river at dawn and in the late afternoon, early morning drives across the grasslands to look for anteaters, and evenings watching the birds come in to roost.

TipThe dry season, roughly September to March, concentrates wildlife on the rivers and makes the savannah easier to cross.