The Réserve Naturelle des Nouragues protects a large block of primary rainforest in the centre of French Guiana, built around the Inselberg — a bare granite dome rising out of the canopy — and the Arataye river. It is one of the most studied patches of rainforest in the world, with two research stations that have produced decades of work on the forest's ecology.
It is not set up for casual tourism. Visits are limited, organised through approved operators and the reserve's managers, and reaching the stations means hours of pirogue travel up the Approuague and Arataye, including a portage at the Saut Pararé, then walking. What you get in return is forest with almost no human presence: jaguar and puma tracks, spider monkeys, macaws over the inselberg at dawn, and nights loud with frogs.
The reserve is named after the Nouragues, an Amerindian people who lived here and disappeared in the eighteenth century; their stone-grinding sites are still found in the forest.