The redoubtable Diane McTurk is nearly 80. A former press officer at the Savoy, she has a cut-glass accent, a dagger-sharp armoury of stories and a penchant for giant otters. Today, Diane is just one of the galaxy of exotic creatures that inhabit back-country Guyana, South America’s steamiest wild frontier.

I have heard there is still black magic in the Seychelles — “We call it grigri,” intones the waitress with the tight Afro curls, as I dissect my red snapper on the island of Mahé. She stares into the middle distance and shifts her weight from foot to foot. Behind her, waves lap on buxom granite boulders. “I have only heard this, of course,” she insists, adjusting her blue skirt and tugging uneasily on her T-shirt.