After years of travelling around Guyana, Allana Walters decided that she wanted to help others experience the country’s beauty while fostering an appreciation for nature. Her passions took shape in the form of The Jungle Bug, the local tour company which she started just over a year ago to coordinate trips to various parts of Guyana and provide adventures for nature lovers.
Walters leads a team of four persons who have more than thirty years’ experience combined. The company’s primary tour guide has more than twenty-plus years’ experience. Walters herself has been travelling across the country for over twelve years.
She told Stabroek Weekend that adventures across the country quickly became a passion for her and when she realised that it was a business she wanted to get into, she did her homework. She recalled that everytime she traveled somewhere, she posted pictures and people commented on the scenic places and enquired where in Guyana she was. People also began reaching out to her with random photos of places in Guyana they found online and asking for her help to find them. In most cases she was able to help them. A friend who lived abroad and who was missing Guyana encouraged her to start a blog. Eventually the idea of the tourism company was conceived. “I feel fulfilled when I help people to see the beauty of Guyana, and help people to appreciate nature…,” she said, while adding that she has built on her skills in customer service, social media marketing, and product development.
Like any other business, The Jungle Bug required the necessary investment of finance, time and effort. The business was finally registered last January and was able to organise a few trips before the impact of COVID-19 derailed its plans.
The local tourism and hospitality sector was particularly hit hard as non-essential travel was initially halted and all local resorts were forced to indefinitely shutter their operations.
While the effects of the pandemic may have dampened Walters’ excitement about her new venture, when the Guyana Tourism Authority began allowing resorts to reopen with COVID-19 measures in place, she moved to restart the business, albeit cautiously. “We try to follow the Guyana Tourism Authority guidelines as well as any orders coming out from the government, especially as it relates to COVID-19. The order had said that recreation at waterways were not allowed so many of these resorts were closed, and in fact some of them are still closed… and it’s kind of rough for them to get back on their feet. When they were just starting to open back up, we offered trips for smaller groups who were mainly family or close friends. I can say this provided us the opportunity to sit down… and finalise our incident management plans, where we took the opportunity to look at the pandemic and have built in… specific guidelines for pandemics like COVID-19. We worked with the Tourism Authority to get training done, hygiene, tour guide training, and first aid training under their guidelines and the Tourism Act,” she explained.
Walters is currently planning a Valentine’s Day trip for couples and it is already fully booked. It will be the second tour the company will be organising in as many months.
“We want people to enjoy nature on that special day — to tie love and appreciation and affection back with nature. We decided to offer this special package for people to get out and enjoy nature. We wanted to encourage people, especially after the lockdown or in quarantine or those who may have been working from home, to get back out in nature,” she said.
The tour begins in Georgetown and concludes at the Baracara Falls, situated along the Mazaruni River. There is a stop at Fort Island, at Eddie Grant’s residence, and the boardwalk at Bartica where lunch will be served. The couple that booked first will be receiving matching his and hers Paracord survival bracelets with compasses, fire starter tools, and whistles.
Aside from the basic tours where patrons are only engaged in sightseeing, The Jungle Bug tries to incorporate fun activities for its clients, such as scavenger hunts and other competitions. Last Sunday, during a tour at Kamuni Creek, situated along the Demerara River, patrons engaged in a hammock tying contest for special prizes.
The company is working towards conducting two tours per month. “We’re a small business but we’re taking it in stride,” Walters said, while noting that the Tourism Authority has signalled the need for a lot of the focus to be placed on local tourists as opposed to foreign visitors and she said the response from Guyanese has been better than expected. “Our last tour, which was also the first one for the year, was sold out very early and for this [upcoming] tour, I’m currently working the numbers. We did have some patrons who were internationals already in the country but most of the response came from Guyanese. We had planned for a smaller group this trip but now we have expanded because of many interested persons and we’re working on getting a bigger bus and a bigger boat,” she said.
Whenever it has organised a visit to or is passing through hinterland communities, the tour company tries to support them however it can, including by hiring their boat captains. It also networks with persons operating along their designated routes to carry out the tours, Walters mentioned.
Before the pandemic, the company had taken a group of persons to the Rupununi, where they visited Iwokrama, the Rock View Lodge at Annai, and Lethem. The company hasn’t coordinated any other trips in that area because all the resorts were the last to receive clearance to reopen to the public.
The Upper Mazaruni, which has been gaining much attention for its picturesque attractions, such as the Ushi Falls situated in Paruima, is on the company’s radar.
At present no tours to Berbice county are planned but Walters noted that the company is working towards making that possible. Berbice, she said, has great history and given that New Amsterdam is considered the most ancient town, she hopes to have a package that caters for that part of Guyana. However, there is no fixed date for when this will get underway.
Despite the impact of the pandemic on the tourism industry over the past year, Walters is cautiously optimistic about the future. “I see that Guyanese are looking more towards getting out there and enjoying what our country has to offer in terms of tourism… through The Jungle Bug and other businesses like The Jungle Bug I think it’s going to be a good year,” she said with fingers crossed.
The tour company can be contacted via phone at 691-0468, through its website https://thejunglebugcom.wordpress.com, or via on Instagram or Facebook.
