Dadanawa Ranch is located on the

Rupununi River The Rupununi is a region in the south-west of Guyana, bordering the Brazilian Amazon. The Rupununi river, also known by the local indigenous peoples as ''Raponani'', flows through the Rupununi region. The name Rupununi originates from the word '' ...

in the

Rupununi savannah The Rupununi savannah is a savanna plain in Guyana, in the Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo region. It is part of the Guianan savanna ecoregion of the tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome. Description The Rupununi Sava ...

in the

Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo Upper Takutu-Upper Esequibo (Region 9) is a region of Guyana. Venezuela claims the territory as part of Bolívar (state) in Esequiban Guyana. It borders the region of Potaro-Siparuni to the north, the region of East Berbice-Corentyne to the ea ...

Region of Guyana. It is the largest and one of the most isolated cattle ranches in Guyana.

Location

Dadanawa Ranch is one of the most remote ranches in the world containing about 6,000 cattle. The ranch area is said to be . It is located on the Rupununi River in the South

s, in the Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo Region of Guyana. The habitat of the area is diverse, "ranging from

riparian forest A riparian forest or riparian woodland is a forested or wooded area of land adjacent to a body of water such as a river, stream, pond, lake, marshland, estuary, canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered chann ...

/scrub along the Rupununi River to savanna with few scattered trees". The preferred means of travel to Dadanawa is by jeep. It takes about 3.5 hours to drive from Lethem to Dadanawa in the dry season, and as much as three days in the wet season. Tourists often stay at Dadanawa and use the ranch as a base for further journeys throughout the South Rupununi.

History

The name "Dadanawa" is a distortion of the local

Wapishana The Wapishana or Wapichan (or Wapisiana, Wapitxana, Vapidiana, Wapixana) are an indigenous group found in the Roraima area of northern Brazil and southern Guyana. Location Currently the Wapishana are located in the State of Roraima, Brazil, n ...

Amerindian name of Dadinauwau, or " macaw spirit creek hill". Dadanawa started out as a trading post by a man of the name DeRooie about 1865 and was sold with 300 head of cattle in the late 1880s to H.P.C. Melville, a gold

prospector Prospector may refer to: Space exploration * Prospector (spacecraft), a planned lunar probe, canceled in 1962 * '' Lunar Prospector'', a NASA spacecraft Trains * Prospector (train), a passenger train operated by the Denver & Rio Grande Western ...

from

Barbados Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate) ...

who found himself lost and near-dead of

malaria Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death. S ...

in the area several years before. The ranch was sold to investors and established as the Rupununi Development Company in 1919.

Workers

Ranch cowboys are called "

vaqueros The ''vaquero'' (; pt, vaqueiro, , ) is a horse-mounted livestock herder of a tradition that has its roots in the Iberian Peninsula and extensively developed in Mexico from a methodology brought to Latin America from Spain. The vaquero became t ...

", most of whom are Wapishana Amerindians who operate barefoot and are responsible for managing ranch livestock. The ranch supports over 40 people in the main compound including the direct and extended families of the manager and staff, some of which extend for three generations. The ranch is now run by Duane de Freitas, his wife Sandie and son Justin along with his Irish partner, Erin Earl. They run an ecotourism business from the ranch and visitors from all over the world come to birdwatch or go on river trips in the savannahs and Amazon rainforest. Duane and Justin have set up the Rupununi Conservation Society to protect the highly endangered

siskin The name siskin when referring to a bird is derived from an adaptation of the German dialect words ''sisschen'', ''zeischen'', which are diminutive forms of Middle High German (''zîsec'') and Middle Low German (''ziseke'', ''sisek'') words, which ...

s and other bird and river turtle species.

Harry E Turner

Harry E Turner was an English ex-cavalry officer who said that he had ridden in the last British army cavalry charge in the Middle East during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. He was the manager of Dadanawa up to 1965, and retired to England that year.

References

* The Rupununi Development Company Limited -The Early History, 1972, *Turner, Harry E. {{Settlements in Guyana Populated places in Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo Ranches Agriculture in Guyana