A roughly five-mile drive out of Lethem will get you to St Ignatius. Close to St Ignatius sits a conspicuous strip of sand, in the middle of the Takutu River which separates Guyana from Brazil. It is named Ariwa Beach and it is a microcosm of Guyana’s potential for the creation of an interior-based tourism industry, a resource to which, over the years, the authorities have paid ridiculously little attention.
People, however, both residents of close by communities and visitors to Region Nine have, it seems, come to realise the value of Ariwa Beach as a potential tourism outpost.
When Stabroek Business visited recently we were told that Ariwa is a translation of an English word and, as well, the name given to a small and apparently quite innocuous fish found in the Takutu River. All that we were able to learn about the fish is that it has black and orange fins.
