Goodbye Suriname

 

The idea is to be in French Guiana sometime Monday by crossing the Maroni River on a barge that runs between Suriname and France on the oddest schedule you have ever seen. The fact is the Guyanas are weird, they just are.

Even the ferry service between these two countries operates on a Mickey Mpuse schedule you wouldn’t believe so here it is. In French only of course and the best thing is it changes every week.

The river is less than two miles wide with customers and immigration on each dock and the ferry runs back and forth during the hours specified, some days morning and afternoon and some just half a day but never on weekends. I think that’s weird.

So far we have found limited communication between Guyana and Suriname, partly no doubt because the cost of crossing on ferries doesn’t help but there just doesn’t seem much curiosity about what lies next door. With no ferry on weekends if you had a inkling you might like to spend some time off in French Guyana where there are actual beaches you could only do it leaving on Friday and coming back Monday. Ironically the land distances are not huge. Three hours should see even us, slowpokes, at the ferry and four more in the other side should get us to our apartment rented outside the capital Cayenne.

We’ve given ourselves five days in French Guiana but there are some tourist things to do, visit the European Space Agency launchpad, take a tour around the infamous Devil’s Island prison and some other stuff Layne is looking up.  If you read the novel or saw the movie this is “Papillon” country, which gives it an anchor that Suriname and Guyana lack in the public imagination.

I doubt I will ever return to this corner of the world, anymore than we will return to South America after we drive back to Mexico, probably next year. Malaria prevented us seeing much of Guyana 

but we have spent far too much time as a result in Suriname and yet I could stay longer. It’s easy here and I suppose it’s as well rainy season is encroaching. 

A final collection of photos from Paramaribo, the city spread out like a suburb. 

I speak French so leaving Dutch behind will be a relief but France runs on 220volts so no more easy American style plugs to use with our appliances. 

We will be driving on the right again and from what we can tell there is some camping culture in French Guyana. They have “carbets” (kar-bay) which from what I can figure are tiki huts, some with picnic tables where it’s often possible camp for the night if we need to do that. 

French Guiana is an overseas department of France and sends a representative to the French parliament. It isn’t in the customs zone of the European Union known as the Schengen area, named for the treaty that created it but European travelers have no immigration barriers. 

I was reading about French Overseas territories and I learned that French employees who choose to live in their colonies known as overseas departments get extra pay and also get doubled pension contributions, which is great for them but for visitors prices are said to be sky high. 

Indeed our air bnb rates in Cayenne were nearly a hundred bucks a day where our fantastic place in Paramaribo was $40.  

So these are some of the considerations going through my mind as we get ready to cross the Maroni River. I’m looking forward to it. 

Sunday afternoon we spent disassembling our six week long home and putting it into our home. Both of us are looking forward to being back aboard GANNET2 but the heat isn’t going to let up for quite a while. I miss the cool livable air of the pacific coast. 

Pirenjaweg 19. It took me weeks to be able to pronounce our address. 

Rusty has enjoyed his break in the a/c.

Squared off light pole. 

Our neighbors are gardeners. 

Rainy season is closing in with distant rolling thunder. 

Breadfruit. Excellent in curry sauce. 

Sunset papaya tree silhouette. 

Goodbye Paramaribo. We enjoyed you.

Niew Amsterdam

 If you have a colony parked up a river and it’s making you money from all the slaves running the plantations around it, then you need a fort at the river mouth to keep pirates and rivals at bay. You also need a quarantine station to make sure new arrivals don’t bring disease (they didn’t have vaccinations back then). 

If you are in Suriname you let this history fall into disrepair but you leave the historical site open to anyone who wants to pay a visit.

We figured it was time Rusty relearned his travel skills so we took him  with us. Actually he had been acting a bit bored pacing around the apartment so we figured he needed some stimulation and the recent rains have dropped temperatures into the 80s. 

I think he enjoyed it. 

The distance to Niew Amsterdam was about 22 miles and Google Maps estimated the drive time at nearly an hour. 

Take a wild guess why the journey is so long for such a short distance…

Sticky traffic to get out of Paramaribo for one, plus the slow speeds required on the paved but very narrow back road to New Amsterdam slowed us down too. 

Neat tidy well organized Suriname with its speed bumps (drempel). 

The park in New Amsterdam is dedicated to independence, including  from The Netherlands in 1975. However there is also a monument to  the ship named below that in 1873 brought indentured Indians from India to work at the jobs slaves had done before emancipation started in 1863 and took a decade to complete. 

Indentured servitude was a polite name for slavery in the post slavery world. 

I’ve never previously seen a cannon held together with duct tape but Rusty found a spot in the shade to face off against the guns. 

There were a couple of local families picnicking at the tables in the shade but there were no staff or anything open on a Saturday. 

I couldn’t figure out what the big sandals symbolized but there they were:

More statuary dedicated to remembering the slaves.

And the drive back Paramaribo that seemed so much shorter than the drive out. On the same road. He wasn’t keen to board but he came reluctantly. 

We passed a cemetery similar to the huge main one in Paramaribo, uninteresting graves made of what look like bathroom tiles. 

And a school. 

The town was described by a traveler as pretty but what we found was a pretty park in an average odd suburban town common in Suriname. 

The capital is the same, a series of suburban streets and lots of greenery with no real center.  The homes are mostly well built brick and mortar homes with neat gardens a bit above the plank structures found in poorer countries. 

We passed a telecommunication museum - closed of course. 

Then back into the chaos of Paramaribo. 

We had planned lunch at our destination but the restaurant was closed so instead we stopped at our favorite fast food place, Roopram near our home.  

After six long weeks in Suriname it’s a lot easier to order food than it was at first, now I know what nasi and bami mean and what comes in a roti. 

We also stopped at Choi’s “ where shopping is a pleasure” and Layne picked up some supplies for the road. 

I walked Rusty after a fashion. 

Then we got home and opened our aircraft style packed lunches, lamb roti for about $16 each. 

Except this is Suriname and shat seems easy isn’t. Instead of peeling back the plastic lid shreds. Sigh. 

But there it is, a mild curry, boiled potatoes and beans, and naan bread with annoying yellow dal powder inside which goes everywhere and adds nothing to the taste. 

A tired old dog after a long day. 

I was pretty tired too. My head cold is only slowly getting better. 

Tomorrow we drive to France.