This is Karanambo, deep in the interior of Guyana. It’s been home to the McTurk family since 1922. Back then, the Rupununi was still an odd place to settle. It took as long to get to Georgetown as it took for Townies to get to London. There was no doctor, no government, and still a handful of tribes who’d shower you in arrows. But Tiny McTurk didn’t seem to mind. He was an enormous, plough-jawed man with an appetite for hardship. He taught himself to hunt with a bow, and could survive on a diet of turtles’ eggs. Once, when bandits tried to steal his cattle, he followed them back to Brazil, snatched all their guns, and burnt down their houses. After that, the Rupununi eagerly adapted to Tiny McTurk. He even acquired himself a riverside ranch, above the cinder toffee cliffs. There, he built himself a sort of palace, a vast, rambling structure, shaped like a beehive and made out of leaves.
The remarkable thing about Tiny’s life is that he managed to find a beautiful English girl willing to share it. Constance arrived in 1927, and together they became the savannah’s new aristocracy. Apart from Evelyn Waugh, almost every notable visitor to the Rupununi had paid them a call. Over the next fifty years, they’d receive visits from princes, presidents, David Attenborough, Gerald Durrell, and all the world’s best zoos. It was always a slightly uncertain grandeur. No-one ever wore shoes, and a goat ate all the books. Even more disconcerting were the young McTurks, the children that came tumbling out of the trees. Amongst them was Diane, the present incumbent of the Karanambo estate.
