Guyana is a seldom-visited country along the North-East coast of South America (no, it’s not in Africa!). An astonishing 80% of the country is covered in primary forest (compare that to 3.5% in Costa Rica, just to put it into perspective!) that’s incredibly similar to it’s Amazonian neighbour to the South. The heart of this dense, untouched natural wonder is Iwokrama forest in the Protected Area. We spent 2 nights enjoying the Iwokrama River Lodge accommodation, which serves both as a tourist lodge and a research centre for various groups studying the diverse flora and fauna in the region.
For the price, you’d think this should be luxury travel.
It isn’t!
I’d call it comfortably rustic (if that’s even a thing!).
The cabins at Iwokrama lodge are lovely and to be honest they exceeded my expectations. The best part was the large porch with a hammock and chairs overlooking the Essequibo river. Sitting there, watching the sunrise with a hot tea was the perfect start to any day. It was also the ideal location for an afternoon siesta, something required due to the heat!
Screens on the doors kept (most of) the wildlife out while letting the evening breeze in. This let us wake up to the sounds of the forest without having any of the forest creatures sleeping with us! We even had a fan, although some of it’s benefit is lost with the necessary mosquito nets.
The showers were cold, but I did see a solar water heater on the roof of one cabin. I’m sure you could have a hot shower if you wanted. Although with the crazy heat and humidity I’m not sure why anyone would want a hot shower here!
Arriving At Iwokrama River Lodge
Most people are a bit (significantly) more sane than us and choose to fly into the FairView airstrip a short 5min drive from the lodge. In fact, the road from Georgetown to Iwokrama resort is so bad that anything other than flying isn’t even offered as an option when guests inquire. We never tend to do things the easy way, and I always do my own research and know all the options! So, instead of flying we took the overnight bus (with 2 kids) from Georgetown (you can read all about that journey here!).
We were picked up from the Kupukari ferry terminal around 6:30am. Thankfully the driver was waiting for us as we got out of the mini-bus. After briefly checking in at the check-point (which was really just us waving at the police officer and him waving us on) we bounced our way up the road a few short minutes to Iwokrama River Lodge Guyana.
Our 2 Amerindian guides, Owen and Lezlin, sat with us at breakfast (they joined us for every meal). Owen was in training, so Lezlin was there to supervise and add in any necessary extra information. They were both young, but tourism is still in it’s infancy in this country so it makes sense that many of the guides aren’t very old. Thankfully they recognized that we were exhausted, so decided to wait until after we rested to give us our orientation. This was greatly appreciated as I’m not sure I would’ve remembered anything at that point.
By the time my head hit the pillow back in our cabin I was definitely at the over-tired point. The girls played and made too much noise until we threatened them with no Halloween unless they napped! By the time we finally got them to sleep I’d tossed and turned for long enough that sleep wasn’t happening forme. Oh, the joys of traveling with kids!
Meeting Sankar The Black Caiman
After lunch we had a tour of the lodge and met Sankar, the resident black Caiman who likes to hang around the dock at Iwokrama Guyana. Owen, our guide, threw rocks in the water to call him, and before long we saw a dark spiky outline undulating towards us in the water. He’s definitely not shy and looked at us expecting some food (which is what usually happens when he gets called!).
Owen ran back to the kitchen and returned with a large cow bone. He placed it on the dock and Sankar crawled out of the water to get it. The girls were quite impressed that he chomped it down in one big gulp and wanted to run back to the kitchen to get him more food. Randy offered to just feed one of the girls to Sankar but they weren’t too keen on it.
Petroglyphs
The rain was short-lived, and cleared up in time to go for a late-afternoon boat ride up the Essequibo river. We saw some petroglyphs on a rock in the middle of the river, and walked through Rock View village, the only settlement within the Protected Area. The houses were basic, and typical to what we’ve seen elsewhere around the world.
There was no interaction with locals though, and not much wildlife out at this time of day either (other than a pair of woodpeckers). I guess the petroglyphs were kinda cool, but I’m not convinced they were worth leaving my siesta for! Maybe if I’d never seen petroglyphs before I would’ve been more excited (the downside to being a spoiled traveler!).
Sleeping at Iwokrama Rainforest
Even though it was still hot, we quickly fell asleep to the sounds of the rainforest that evening. This has to be one of my favourite things! It was so peaceful in a non-quiet kind of way. The frogs were pretty loud, and Owen told us that during the rainy season they’re even louder because they’re all over the lawn of the resort. It was just enough noise for me to enjoy it but not be annoyed by it, so I might consider bringing earplugs during the rainy season!
The next morning I woke up with the sun and watched the sunrise over the river from bed. It was so peaceful and beautiful. I could hear Howler monkeys somewhere in the distance, a lovely compliment to the chorus of birds.
Four Scarlett Macaws were perched in one of the trees on the edge of the forest and flew overhead as Randy walked to the main lodge to grab us morning coffee. We sat on the deck, watching the river, listening to the birds and drinking our coffees until it was time to wake the girls for breakfast (at 7:30am).
We headed to breakfast packed and ready for a hike to Turtle Mountain. The 15min boat ride up the Essequibo was lovely and we all enjoying the cool breeze as we sped along. Kacela’s hat blew off, but luckily we were able to retrieve it before it sank! She appreciated her wet hat keeping her head cool once we started hiking.
I’m not sure what possessed me to get us into a 7km round-trip hike with a fast 300m ascent in 30+ degree weather. It seemed like a good idea when I was booking the trip.
As we were starting our hike we ran into another guest who was just ending a short morning walk at the base of the mountain. He’d seen 2 Pumas, so the girls kept their fingers (and arms) crossed in hopes that we’d see a puma as well. They were surprisingly quiet for quite a long time, but I think their quiet is still too noisy to see a large cat!
Once I realized that Puma’s are also Cougars/Mountain Lions I wasn’t as disappointment we hadn’t seen them. These cats have an incredible range, all throughout North and South America. Growing up there were often Cougars that would chase deer around our neighbourhood, so I’ve seen them before from the comfort of my house. It’s not quite as cool as seeing them in the rainforest, but it’s technically still the “wild”!
During our walk through the forest Owen pointed out a number of different trees and vines as well as their various uses. There were a number of birds, a few red Howler monkeys and a red-rumped agouti (that Calais didn’t spot, much to her disappointment). There was also a TON of insects. The girls loved watching the millipedes curl and uncurl along the path and keeping an eye out for their most dreaded creature in the rainforest, the ant…specifically the Bullet Ant!
Calais, as per usual, was a champ and hiked the whole thing without a single complaint. Kacela, on the other hand, was a different story. She kept up, and all things considered did really well, but 2/3 of the way up she started periodically whimpering and complaining. I had to threaten to confiscate her Halloween candy, after which she promptly stopped whining!
We enjoyed our siesta time even more the second day because we were physically tired from the hike. The girls did some homework then played together while Randy and I had a short nap. We went to visit Sankar again, and on the way back up Calais exclaimed, “I could get used to this”. We were settling into our travel legs again, getting used to a good mix of adventuring and down-time, surrounded by incredible nature.
Life was pretty good.
After our siesta we went for a nature walk on some of the trails around the lodge. We started our walk on Screaming Piha trail and walked along the river banks for a short time before turning inwards and slowly making our way in a semi-circle back to the lodge. Again, we saw a number of birds and a red-rumped Agouti (Calais saw this one, so she was pretty happy!).
One of the girl’s (other) favourite things in the forest was the rather large Mora seeds. They were scattered all over the Iwokrama forest floor and many were sprouting from the recent rains. Some of the seedlings were a couple feet tall, and others were barely poking out of the pod. We often had to pay attention to where we were stepping because they were large enough one could roll an ankle if they weren’t careful (and not wearing proper footwear, which we really were not!).
It was cooler walking under the shade of the canopy, but still sweating hot! As we were exiting the forest we came across a small Blue Maroon butterfly. Both girls LOVE anything small and spent a surprising amount of time watching the little insect.
