After 8 days in this beautiful country, we were finally going to check out the city of Georgetown. It is the capital city of Guyana and with a population of 200,000 it is the countries most populated city. Guyana was settled by the Dutch and then came under British control before gaining their independence from the UK in 1970. Georgetown is a city bursting full of different cultural influences.

The whole country feels incredibly Caribbean and there are times you would completely forget that you were in South America! The national language spoken there is English which is super handy as well. We spent two days in Georgetown; one day boating along the river and then the following day we ate our way around the city.

We had just spent two days camping out in the bush, then sleeping in a ranch before finally heading back to Georgetown and we were knackered to say the least.

After arriving back in Georgetown we stayed in the stunning Roraima Duke Lodge Hotel. We were so tired after the busy day that we could barely keep our eyes open during dinner and headed off to bed early enough. The next day we hit the road super early in the morning and met up with Old Fort Tours.

They brought us out the Essequibo River where we made a number of stops along the way. We stopped at Fort Island to see the last remain Dutch Fort which dates back to the 17th century. The island was lovely and there was an abundance of wildlife to be found. We were all fascinated with a sloth napping in a nearby tree but couldn’t get a good look at him. We also found a women who had two capybara as pets in her back garden. They are the biggest rodent in the world and are super strange looking. Have a look:

After that we saw Guyana’s biggest quarry, their island prison and a few other stops before grabbing some lunch on an island and then heading back toward our starting point. Along the way we stopped the boat to check out some howler monkeys that were hanging out in some nearby trees. There was so much wildlife to check out; it was definitely my favourite part of the boat trip.

That evening we checked into Kings Hotel and Residences and had another delicious meal before heading out to try out some of the local pubs in the area. It was a great night, albeit a bit foggy!

The next day was jam packed full of things to do which was difficult after all the previous night’s beers but we soldiered on!

We arrived late to the food market which turned out to be a photographer’s paradise. It was a great chance to see people milling about and selling their wares. I got some of my favourite photographs at the market.

We then got a crash course in the history of Georgetown and visited some of their most important buildings and monuments.

I still don’t really understand why but for some reason they have a herd of manatees in a small lake in the middle of the city. It was really nice to see them up close and personal but I do feel like they need more space to roam!

We also visited a statute celebrating one of Guyana’s national heroes, Cuffy. Cuffy was an African man who was brought over to Guyana to work as a slave but then revolted in 1763 and led a slave rebellion.

We also visited the symbolic Amerindian Benab in the centre of the city which acts as a reminder that all walks of people live in Guyana.

By the end of this tour we were absolutely famished and headed along to The Backyard Café to grab some seriously delicious food. The café is owned by Devlin Adams who used to live in the USA but got tired of the life up there and decided to come back to his native country of Guyana and open up his own restaurant. The café is an absolutely beautiful spot that Devlin built himself from the ground up. He heard we had a hankering for some pizza so whipped up some delicious, fresh pizza for us with some fresh watermelon juice and rum… It was fantastic!

Also while I was chowing down, something fell of a tree and hit me on the head, it was a passion fruit. I’d never seen them green and ripe before. I cut it open and ate it straight off the tree and it tasted gorgeous.

It turns out the pizza was merely a starter and the courses just kept coming. There was loads of fresh fish with mango on top, salad, cassava and so much more. It was one heck of a feast.

After the meal, Devlin brought over Robert the parrot and we all got to hang out with him for a while. He is an incredibly colourful bird and was very content being in the company of humans.

Eventually, after a perfect afternoon we left Delvin’s café and headed back into the real world. That evening we had a press briefing with the Guyanese media so we had to rush back to the hotel and get ready.

The briefing went really well and I think the media were very happy to have bloggers from all over the world be so impressed with their country.

I personally loved Guyana and think that it is the perfect place for someone who is looking at adventure tourism. They are just on the cusp of opening their doors to tourism and that could be what makes it so special. Last year only 20,000 people visited the country which is crazy when you think that over 1 million people visit Ireland each year.

One think I know for certain is that I’ll definitely be back for some more adventures if I get the chance. We’ve done the savannah, now I want to explore the depths of the jungle!