South Rupununi - not what you were expecting

You might know Guyana for its intact rainforest and exploding oil economy. You might know that Guyana is part of the Caribbean Community, that it plays cricket, listens to soca and eats chicken curry.

But what you probably didn't expect was 20 000 square miles (that's the land area of Costa Rica or the state of Massachusetts) of savannah reaching from the Brazilian border to the geographical heart of the country.

What is this savannah? Who and what populates this place? And what do a 400-year-old madman's story about a land of gold, a map of South American river courses and the history of Manhattan Island all have to do with this extraordinary landscape?

Rupununi - Where?

The Rupununi borders Brazil, on the south-western margin of Guyana. You can see it on a satellite map of South America - a clear patch of sandy brown surrounded by rainforest green. The savannah spreads out into the Brazilian state of Roraima and nudges into the most south-eastern tip of Venezuela.

Rupununi is cleaved in two by the massive, deeply forested Kanuku Mountain Range. The North Rupununi savannah is smaller, with rolling hills and seasonally flooded wetlands. Here you will find the Macushi people and the majority of tourism in the region.

For the larger, more ancient and less explored South Rupununi, drive through the border town of Lethem, skirt the western edge of the mountains and head south, and then futher south. Keep going as the cell service disappears and the road turns into a sandy track. Small Indigenous villages cluster on the roadside, free range cattle wander over the road, and a barefoot cowboy on horseback follows them.

Forest to Grassland...

In terms of scale, the south savannah is 60 miles east to west, and 70 miles north to south. The Kanuku Mountains rear up to the north, irridescent blue in the far distance. The eastern and southern edges are the rainforest, where you can walk under the tree canopy (but without a path) until you hit the Amazon river 400 miles away. From the forest edge there is still another 100 or so miles to the tip of Guyana, inhabited by only one small Indigenous village. The western border is the Brazilian state of Roraima, known for cattle ranching and agriculture.

When you arrive, what surprises you first is the abruptness of the forest-grassland transition. In fact, there hardly is a transition - one moment you are walking in dense forest, the next the sun is beating down on your back and you are surrounded by dry, low grass. There is no change in topography, no big shift in soil composition. Why does the forest turn to savannah? Or should we ask why the savannah turns into forest?*

Grassland to Mountains...

Next, you are blown away by the topography of the south savannah. You've seen grasslands before - maybe from African safaris, maybe from watching The Lion King, but you haven't seen grasslands with great naked black-rock mountains erupting out of the ground. Some are domes, some spikes, some take the shape of mythical animals or body parts.

As a teaser, I will tell you three things about these mountains:

1. They aren't really black*

2. They are more than 2 billion years old*

3. From even a little way up, the view is spectacular*

Mountains to Rivers...

Far down below, you trace the line of the Rupununi River as it snakes downstream into the Kanuku Mountains (a miraculous feat in itself).

This river drains the savannah and ushers the water through the bottleneck of the Kanuku Mountain river valley, spewing it out into the North Rupununi, then on into the Essequibo and finally out to the Atlantic.

In a typical dry season, the Rupununi River turns into a series of slowly drying pools where Jabaru Storks and fishermen fight over doomed fish. But come rainy season this river is mighty and massive, bursting its banks and filling tens of thousands of hectares with floodwater.

Rivers to a Hydrological Phenomenon...

The mixing of waters from two mighty drainage basins.

Maybe it doesn't sound as awe-inspiring as it looks. So imagine this: climb onto the crest of a hill and look right to the Rupununi River, a tributary of the North-flowing Essequibo River, gorging its floodwaters out over the land, filling up all the low-lying savannahs.

Now look to the left and see the floodwaters of the Takutu, a tributary of the great South American giant the Amazon River, breaking its banks and spilling into the savannah.

And somewhere in front of you, in the shallow topography of the open grassland, the waters of these two mighty river systems mix, sometimes flowing east to the Rupununi and sometimes flowing west into the Amazon.

This hydrological phenomenon, the 'Rupununi Portal' is also present in the North Rupununi, and it has had many fascinating consequences for the region:

1. It was a source of the myth of El Dorado*

2. It was the indirect cause of the sale of the Island of Manhattan*

3. It trapped the colossal Amazonian Arapaima, largest scaled freshwater fish in the world, in the Rupununi River for long enough to allow the evolution of a new species*

..... And back to you...

Are you intrigued? Do you want to see these 2.4 billion year old black-but-not-really-black rocks jutting out of a savannah landscape of unknown origin watered by rivers that are somehow the source of El Dorado and a very big species of fish?

Might you also be interested in the crazy wildlife of the Rupununi, the Indigenous and Ranching culture, the fascinating food, and the intriguing locals?

I hope this short essay has created a little itch, a little niggling feeling, that maybe, one day soon, the South Rupununi of Guyana is a place you should check out.

*You'll have to visit us at Wichabai to find out how