Friday 4th April – Georgetown, Guyana

• Arrival at your leisure and self-transfer to our centrally located hostel in Georgetown.
• For those of you arriving early we will be heading to the Demerara Rum Distillery – this rum is unique to the region and our personal favourite!  We’ll see and learn about the unique distillery process and of course taste a few samples.
• Pre-tour meeting will be held at the lobby of our hotel at 6:00pm to discuss the tour itinerary and to meet your fellow travellers and YPT guide.
• Head out for dinner to the best Indian restaurant in Georgetown. The Indian community is one of the biggest in Georgetown and heavily influenced their cuisine.
• After dinner we’ll move on to a local establishment which has a selection of local rums and a local Banks beer, available as a lager or a milk stout and to get to know your group members.
• Overnight in Georgetown.

Saturday 5th April – Georgetown – Kaieteur Falls – Georgetown

Morning

• Breakfast at the hotel.
• Head to the airport and board our chartered flight at 11:30am departing Georgetown to see one of the natural wonders of the world, the rarely visited Kaieteur Falls.
• One of the highlights of this trip are the amazing views from our propeller plane as we reach the falls – here you can appreciate the sheer size of Kaieteur falls.
• We arrive at Kaieteur Falls at 2:00pm – which is a short 15 minutes’ walk from the airport.

Afternoon

• Lunch before exploring our beautiful surroundings.
• After 2 hours exploring the falls and taking some epic photos. The Kaieteur Falls are on the Potaro River right in the middle of the remote location and dense Guyana rainforest was hiding the world’s largest single drop waterfall.
• After an epic day we’ll catch the 4:00 pm flight back to Georgetown.
• This time we’ll explore the Chinese neighbourhood, another of the big community of Georgetown. For dinner, we’ll head to a local Chinese restaurant followed by much deserved drinks.
• Overnight in Georgetown.

Sunday 6th April – Georgetown

Morning

• After breakfast we head out on a walking tour to explore Georgetown known as the “Garden City of the Caribbean” – the only capital city in South America to have been a British colony.
• You’ll explore with us the Gothic Revival City Hall, St. George’s Cathedral, and Independence Square.
• Head to the Parliament Building which dates from 1829 – its history runs deep housing two cannons used during the Crimean War.
• Explore the Stabroek Market with its prominent clock tower – this is the largest and busiest area in the city.

Afternoon

• Street food by the market for lunch and continue to Walter Roth Museum of Anthropology which gives a great lowdown on the Amerindian heritage of the country.
• If there’s time we’ll stroll around the Botanical Gardens which is where families head towards the evening to relax and unwind.
• We’ll go for a quick rest back at the hostel before we head out again.
• Dinner in our favourite burger place.
• Begin exploring the nightlife by hitting some of the many rum bars before finishing at the 24-hour nightclub/bar popular with the locals called Jerries.
• Overnight in Georgetown.

Monday 7th April – Georgetown – Paramaribo, Suriname

Morning

• Early morning start with a packed breakfast ready to board our private bus to Paramaribo – capital of Suriname. This is backpacking and adventure at its finest as we drive through pristine countryside as the sunrises to the ferry port to Suriname.
• Board our 10:30 am ferry, followed by another bus to Suriname capital city.

Afternoon

• Along the scenic journey we’ll have lunch.
• On arrival, we’ll check-in to our centrally located hotel for a nice shower before heading out.
• Dinner at a creole restaurant where you’ll have the chance to try its very local dish, which combines three central ingredients: chicken, citrus juice and pomtajer, a local root similar to potato.
• We’ll head out for a night in the town to see how the local rum compares to its western neighbour – it would be rude if we didn’t.
• Overnight in Paramaribo.

Tuesday 8th April – Paramaribo

Morning

• Today we’ll be up early for a city tour around Paramaribo before making our way to Fort Zeelandia – which is an important site in Surinamese history and has the best views overlooking the Suriname River.
• We will do a visit to the Paramaribo flea market where we can see the local people buying and selling a whole manner of things. This is a real look into the contemporary life of this developing country.
• Along the journey, we’ll discover and learn about the religious diversity of the city. We’ll visit beautiful and impressive, Churches, Mosques, Synagogues and Hindu Temples that all coexist in the city.

Afternoon

• Lunch by the Suriname River.
• We will take a boat to explore the riverside, visiting the old New Amsterdam fort and a plantation. There are high chances to see dolphins!
• Dinner in Zus, a restaurant frequented by locals with live music.
• You cannot truly know a place unless you have been to its main nightclub, so we visit Mystique Pool café for a night out drinking with the locals.
• Overnight in Paramaribo.

Wednesday 9th April – Paramaribo – Saint Lauren du Maroni, French Guiana – Kourou

Morning

• Breakfast followed by an early morning drive to Kourou, in French Guyana, one of the furthest parts of the EU – French Guiana (they even take Euros!), again taking it to travel extremes by having to board a rickety boat to cross the river.
• We will meet with our local guide for a tour in Saint Lauren du Maroni, where we will visit a former transportation camp, where French prisoners would be sent to work as slaves.

Afternoon

• Lunch in a local restaurant that really will make you feel like you are in Paris.
• We continue along our journey to Kourou, where we will check in at our hotel.
• Evening walk around Kourou, dinner and the opportunity of tasting some of the local craft beer.
• Overnight in Kourou.

Thursday 10th April – Kourou – Devil’s Island – Cayenne, 

Morning

• Breakfast at our hotel before we head out to the Guiana Space Centre.
• The Space Centre is also the main spaceport of the European Space Agency. Geographically, the spaceport is situated close to the equator and thus easier to launch a spacecraft into an equatorial, geostationary orbit!

Afternoon

• Lunch before we hop on a 1 hour cruise to Devil’s Island for a 3 hour tour of the most infamous penal colony in the world – only 2,000 survived out of 60,000 souls imprisoned there.  This was a French prison in the 19th and 20th centuries with prisoners sent there from France and other French colonies worldwide. Home to Alfred Dreyfus in the late 19th – a chilling place.
• Evening arrival in Cayenne, capital of this French territory/colony hopefully in time for the sunset and our last farewell dinner followed by a night out!
• Overnight in Cayenne.

Friday 11th April – Cayenne

• Breakfast at the hotel before we begin a walking tour of Cayenne, including Place de Palmistes, colonial French Architecture, St Saviour Cathedral, and Fort Ceparou.
• End of the tour depart at your own convenience. YPT can arrange additional nights in Cayenne and land transport back to Paramaribo for a fee. We are more than happy to provide advice for ongoing flights.

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