Karanambu Ranch

Our guide had forwarned us about the difficulties of our final stop in Guyana, a remote and rustic place where the rooms were rather open to the elements thus allowing a plethora of wildlife to come in.  Getting there involved four hours travelling by boat, although that did include stops to look at wildlife on the way.  On one such stop, the guide asked if we wanted something to drink - juice?  rum punch?  With a snack of home-baked cookies?  Bemused, I asked for the rum punch and a cookie and no, he wasn't joking.  & this was to set the tone for our three days there, with rum punch freely available before and during every lunch and dinner (and at a few other times too) and generally excellent food.  The kind of 'remote and rustic' which isn't too difficult to deal with!

He was right about the wildlife in the rooms though.  I walked in to mine to find several cockroaches and a lot of ants, and a gecko fell onto my hand as I put my rucksack down.  Later I realised there was a large and occupied hornet's nest in the rafters as well as quite a few bats, and some of the spiders were worryingly large.  I had to get the owner in to move one for me as it sat in the middle of the doorway into the bathroom and I could not see a way around it without getting too close for comfort.  Another couple in my group found a scorpion in their room, and we were warned that snakes sometimes came in too.  It was the kind of place where you checked beneath the toilet seat before sitting down, kept all your bags zipped up tight and tucked the mosquito net in very carefully at night!  But the beds were comfortable, there was a hammock in the porch - and did I mention the rum punches?

There were a wealth of activities too.  Of course our main focus was birds and wildlife (which included pinnated bittern, pearl kite, jabiru stork, capuchinbird, giant anteater, savanna fox and squirrel monkeys) but the three of us who were interested also got to play with a rescued giant river otter that was being brought up before its release back into the wild.  Its fur was so incredibly soft but unfortunately the muddy bank where we played was full of sand flies so I paid the price for the next few days.

There was also a small lake near the ranch full of water lilies, and we all took the opportunity to go and watch these open one evening.  As the sun goes down the big buds gradually unfold - within an hour all the flowers were wide open although the process was too slow to be visible (mind you, after a couple of rum punches I thought I saw movement in one...).

But too soon, I really could have spent another day or two at Karanambu, our stay came to an end and we had to head back to civilisation.  We flew back from the airstrip behind the ranch; here are three of the others at the departure gate.