Karanambu

Karanambu is one of those places whose reputation arrives long before you do. It is a former cattle ranch on the Rupununi River in Guyana’s vast interior savannah, run for decades by the late Diane McTurk, a woman who became internationally known for rehabilitating orphaned giant river otters and releasing them back into the wild. The ranch is now a conservation trust and a small lodge, and reaching it is part of the point: a light aircraft over an endless mosaic of bush and flooded grassland, then a jolting drive to a cluster of low buildings under enormous mango trees, with the river somewhere beyond.

Giant otters and the river at dusk

The giant river otter is an animal that does not quite fit the dimensions your brain expects. They reach nearly two metres, hunt in noisy family groups, and have a presence on the water that is closer to a small dog than to anything otter-shaped in my prior imagination. We went out on the Rupununi in the late afternoon, the boatman killing the motor at the edge of a quiet stretch, and within minutes a family surfaced around us — periscoping their long necks high out of the water to look at us, snorting, vocalising in a startling range of barks and screams, entirely unbothered by our presence.

One surfaced close enough that I could see the individual whiskers and the cream blaze on its throat, chewing a fish with the loud, wet enthusiasm of something that has never had to apologise for table manners. Lia, who had been quietly skeptical about flying this far into the bush to look at otters, went completely silent, which is the most reliable signal she gives that something has exceeded expectations. On the way back we drifted past caiman eyes glinting in the torchlight and a tree full of roosting birds, and the savannah sky did the absurd unfiltered star thing that you only get this far from anywhere.

The lilies and the savannah

The other Karanambu spectacle is botanical and strictly nocturnal. The oxbow ponds here are carpeted with Victoria amazonica, the giant Amazon water lily, whose leaves grow to nearly two metres across with upturned rims like enormous green baking trays. The flowers open only at night, white on the first evening and pink by the second, releasing a scent to draw in the beetles that pollinate them, and watching one unfurl by torchlight while the boatman explained the cycle in a low voice was one of the strangest, quietest twenty minutes of the trip.

By day the surrounding Rupununi savannah is its own reward — a flat gold immensity dotted with termite mounds and sandpaper trees, where giant anteaters can sometimes be tracked on foot in the early morning, ambling along with that improbable prehistoric gait. We did not find one, despite a determined dawn walk and a guide with very good eyes, but I have made my peace with the things the savannah declines to show you. It is part of the honesty of the place.

Karanambu is best in the dry season, roughly October through April, when the savannah is firm enough for game drives and wildlife concentrates near the shrinking water. Access is by light aircraft or a long overland trip from Lethem or Georgetown, and the lodge is small, so it must be arranged well in advance.