The Acarai Mountains are a wet, forested highland region of low mountains in southern Guyana, running along the country’s border with Brazil.
One of four mountain ranges in Guyana — alongside the Imataka, Kanuku and Pakaraima — the Acarai were first documented in 1821 by cartographer A.H. Brué as Sierra do Acaray. The range’s unnamed high point stands at 1,009 metres and sits at the headwaters of two major river systems: the Essequibo, Guyana’s longest river, and the Courantyne. The actual source of the Essequibo remained unknown until 2013, when a Guyanese-German expedition finally located it within the range. To the east, the Acarai extend into the Tumuk Humak Mountains along the Suriname–French Guiana frontier with Brazil.
The mountains are home to a single village of Wai-Wai people, descendants of tribes once thought extinct. The settlement was first recorded around 1837 and represents a rare example of cultural survival in one of the Guianas’ most remote corners.
