GUYANA
wanderlust.co.uk March 2020 55the once abundant nature. Around that time Rudy
started to hear about how wildlife tourism could
provide a sustainable future for the community. By
2003 they had planned to open an eco-lodge and
got some help and advice from a couple of lodges
which had already opened. However, there were
still many hurdles, including convincing everyone
that the tourism venture would work.
“The communities in the area were used to
trapping and poaching. We had to stop taking
wildlife and convince others not to,” said Rudy.
The world’s largest scaled freshwater fish is found
here, the arapaima gigas, an ancient dinosaur of
the deep that grows to over 2m in length and
breathes air. “We said no harvesting of the fish and
it worked. But after five years we were struggling as
there were no jobs yet and no benefit.”
By 2005, the lodge had opened although the next
challenge was how to attract customers. “We didn’t
know marketing.” It had just two customers in its
first year, but it has now grown to 200 a year.
This is true grassroots tourism, with the
community running it and benefitting. Rudy
took me to see the nearby village, where a newly
consecrated church, a health centre, nursery
school and primary school were all funded
through the lodge. “We didn’t know our
environment was so beautiful and that people
from other lands would want to see it. Now we
understand the true meaning of tourism.”Wild web
Wildlife continues to increase, with jaguars now
sometimes seen hunting for turtle eggs on the
sandy beaches that fringe the river. There is
a limited catch and release programme with the
arapaima fish that fishermen from around the
world pay a lot of money to come and do.
We took a number of boat excursions to different
spots where we walked on jungle trails. One took
us to a lake where we watched the sun set as the
giant lilies exploded into a riot of colour, and
Rudy told us of the sand monster that reputedly
lives in a neighbouring lake. The next morning
we took a boat on another lake that’s home to
over 400 arapaima fish and we kept catching
glimpses of them as they popped up to the
surface of the inky water to breathe.
Later that day, we took the boat upriver past
sandbanks covered in clouds of yellow butterflies.
As we chugged past one sandy beach, several terns
made it clear they were angry at our presence,
threatening to dive-bomb us until we moved far
enough away. Further on, a capybara with a baby
sat at the water’s edge startled to see us. A closer
look at offshore logs would reveal sunbathing
turtles of various sizes, while ospreys and other
raptors sat sentinel in the treetops.
The weather was changeable – brilliant sunshine
had us slapping on extra sun lotion and then⊲Your pad or mine?
(clockwise from left)
A boat trip to see the giant
water lilies; a red howler
monkey; giant river otters
playing by the river bank;
Rewa Lodge; a juvenile black
caiman on a giant lily pad; its
white female lower
Simon Chubb; Sarah Marshall;Naturepl