Dadanawa Ranch

Dadanawa is the largest cattle ranch in Guyana and one of the most remote anywhere, with about 6,000 cattle on an area given as some 4,400 square kilometres. It still works, with vaqueros, most of them Wapishana, riding the savannah, and it takes a small number of visitors who ride out with them, camp on the range and travel the Rupununi headwaters. Visitors use it as a base for birdwatching and river trips, and the family who run it set up the Rupununi Conservation Society to protect endangered siskins, other birds and river turtles.

History

The name is a distortion of the Wapishana name Dadinauwau, "macaw spirit creek hill". Dadanawa began as a trading post set up by a man named DeRooie around 1865, and in the late 1880s it was sold, with 300 head of cattle, to H. P. C. Melville, a gold prospector from Barbados who had been lost and near death from malaria in the area some years before. In 1919 the ranch was sold to investors and became the Rupununi Development Company. Harry E. Turner, an English former cavalry officer, managed it until 1965 and later wrote the company's early history (Wikipedia, Dadanawa Ranch).

The main sights

• The working ranch - cattle worked on horseback across open savannah.
• The vaqueros - mostly Wapishana riders, many working barefoot, who run the herds.
• The scale - a holding measured in thousands of square kilometres.
• The Rupununi headwaters - river country south of the ranch buildings.

When to go

September to April is the dry season and the practical window. The wet season from May to August floods much of the savannah and cuts the tracks. Round-ups happen on the ranch's schedule.

Before you go

Accommodation is basic ranch quarters, not a lodge, and the experience is working rather than curated. Access is a long rough drive from Lethem. Everything must be arranged well in advance and the ranch takes very few people.

Nearby

Aishalton is southeast, and Lethem is north.

Key facts