Partly from her conservation interest and partly from her access to Air Services Limited aircraft, my wife Annette has pretty much been all over Guyana, so when she came home last week raving from a trip to Karasabai, describing it as a standout in our country, I had to pay attention. Essentially, this is her story, I’m only doing conduit work today, so when I report that the community’s name is derived from the Macushi word ‘krasa” referring to a canister found in one of the lakes in the area, you know that she’s the source of that footnote.
Annette has taken me to places I had only heard of in our country but never seen and she sums up Karasabai as “the most beautiful part of Guyana”. It is located in the southern end of the Pakaraima range of mountains, and to get there from Lethem is a two-and-a-half hour drive (there is a daily bus service) and clean and comfortable accommodations are on site at the Government Guest House as well as the Amerindian Hostel, both of which are fully solar-powered. Available tours include a trek up Saddle Back Mountain, which is a very sacred archaeological site in this mountain community.