River Cruising / Scenic Float in November

The Essequibo is Guyana's liquid highway, and moving on it slowly is a reward in itself. Above the confluence town of Bartica the river spreads into a maze of forested islands, black-water creeks and old Dutch trading channels, and a scenic boat journey here threads between them at the pace of the current. This is not white water; it is a float past walls of rainforest where you scan the banks for kingfishers, herons, toucans and osprey, spot three-toed sloths hanging in riverside trees, and watch for the tucuxi river dolphins that surface in the wider reaches. Island resorts and creek landings break the journey for a swim in tea-coloured water, a forest walk or a stop at Bartica's frontier market. The Essequibo has drawn river travellers since Walter Raleigh's day, and its lower island belt, an easy day or overnight from Georgetown, is the most accessible slice of Guyana's interior, big rainforest scenery without a long expedition in.

The River Gambia is the country, a broad tidal river that runs the whole length of the land, and cruising it upstream is the way to see a Gambia the beach resorts never show. From the estuary the river narrows into forested banks alive with birds, and the upper reaches around Janjanbureh reward the journey with the country's richest wildlife. At the River Gambia National Park, the Baboon Islands hold a long-running chimpanzee rehabilitation project, and boats drift past to see the chimps on the forested shore along with hippos, crocodiles and red colobus monkeys. Nearby stand the Wassu stone circles, a UNESCO-listed field of ancient burial megaliths thousands of years old, and Janjanbureh itself, a weathered old river town of colonial warehouses and slave-trade memory. A multi-day cruise strings these together with village landings and long, slow days on the water, watching fish eagles and kingfishers work the banks. For a traveller who wants to read a country by its river, the upper Gambia is the reason to head inland.