The Soup Nazi

 Actually it was not a negative soup experience at all. It’s just that I like the Seinfeld humor and my wife doesn’t so if I can slip in a Seinfeld reference on my page I will.

It doesn’t look like much I know but it was a thick rich peanut soup -hold the hot sauce which I tasted and it was lethal.

We picked up our dinner at the store downtown, Souposo, which offers a variety of Indonesian soups  and rice dishes. We had fish to go with plantains and carrots. 

The staff were preparing a corporate dinner when we arrived so our order took half an hour to put together. 

But there was a breeze and Layne has acclimated after her malarial bout and seems better able to cope with tropical heat.

It was a relaxing moment waiting for soup. I like this retirement thing where other people work. 

We also stopped by the Presidential

Palace located on a sharp corner awkward for photography, but there’s always the internet for back up.

But behind the place is a large park…

…and the tables belong to a coffee shop…

…in these food huts alongside the park. It’s summer and low tourist season so most of them were closed…

…but coffee was available happily. A flat white for me and ice cream and coffee for Layne. 

Plus they ground two half pound bags of coffee for Layne. 

Sweetie Coffee worked for us. 

We tried anotherctsilors shop to get some clothes repaired but struck out again as they were too busy for immediate service. 

Actual picture of a residentially challenged local as always laid back. 

No idea what this place is but Layne thought it looked like a school district administrative headquarters. Memories of a past life I suppose. 

Paramaribo Street, Suriname 

Good soup, easy day and Rusty was glad to see us when we got back. 

Rusty walking Paramaribo

Nothing Much But Paramaribo

 Next weekend I’m off to my sisters wedding and an old college friend will be here with Layne for the week I’m gone. We’re planning our departure for after I get back and of course the first thing is organizing  Rusty’s exit papers to allow him to take the ferry to French Guyana. This is the vet: Dierenartspraktijk L.M. Bansse-Issa; say that three times fast. 

I find walking up to a building that is locked down with bars, especially a vet, a bit weird but Paramaribo may be more edgy than it feels like it is. Even the laundry was locked when we went to get our clean clothes, fourteen pounds weight for US$20 but nothing is inexpensive here. Our apartment for a thousand bucks a month does seem like a good deal mind you.  After  finishing business we had lunch which was at last an Indonesian saoto, a dish we had long since wanted to try. 

We got a side of white rice to which I added a few drops of the lethal hot sauce they use. Saoto was interesting, a bit like a ramen with crunchy rice noodles in the broth.  I’ll try it again but personally I find Vietnamese pho more interesting. The restaurant below which they call “warung” in the Javanese community in Paramaribo. 

We meandered home looking for a tailor to do some clothing alterations but the only one we found is out of town in China this month…so we consoled ourselves with a mango drink and went home to the as usual sleeping dog. 

Paramaribo on the way home including a couple of sandy streets which Google thinks are short cuts:

Parking the beast is easier in this town than you’d think. Mornings and afternoons have lots of the usual commuter traffic but so does the  noon hour as the country shuts down between 12 and four for the world's longest lunch hour. 

Wooden yellow street signs, surprisingly effective and visible. I can’t pronounce them but I can read them.

The other thing I’ve noticed in Paramaribo are the power poles made of wood. What’s odd about them is they are shaved tree trunks so instead of being round they are square. Who would take the time to do that and why baffles me. 

The usual Chinese grocery store. It sounds like a cliché but in Suriname all groceries are Chinese. 

I see the largest concentration of white people (who avoid eye contact with us) in the two top, most expensive grocery stores, Tulip and Choi’s. I assume they are transplants from the Netherlands in some capacity, diplomats, career transfers or Dutch people looking for better weather and maybe a few descendants of residents since independence in 1975. Pure tourists like us are extremely rare. 

 

Paramaribo is very Dutch, middle class neat and tidy. There are obviously poor neighborhoods but trash is scarce and neatly trimmed front yards are the rule. 

Who comes to gamble in the numerous casinos downtown I have no idea. 

The tallest building we have seen in this capital city. 

The bus depot has a lot more buses than you see on the streets. Traffic is mostly slow moving cars with a sprinkling of suicide scooters. 

Le Bac La Gabrielle

 Layne has been worrying about the ferry to French Guyana, the only way out of Suriname short of going back to Guyana on the northern ferry. There are no roads through the interior of this country to Brazil so you either cross the northern river, the Corantijn, or the Maroni River to the south. 

And since September 22nd the ferry operated by the French government has been out of service after one of the engines threw a rod.

The captain got sick too and there was no reopening announcement. We visited the French embassy to ask for an update and they knew nothing  

Layne was deeply worried not least because the idea of driving back across 550 miles of dirt road where she contracted malaria gave her the heebie-jeebies. We have to be out of Suriname October 8th when our extended temporary import permit for GANNET2 expires so we couldn’t wait indefinitely  and customs seems really reluctant to grant extensions. Ironically the police extended our permits to stay here till Christmas no questions asked  but we need GANNET2 of course.

Finally we got the news that the ancient ferry, called a “bac” ( barge), La Gabrielle long overdue for replacement should be back in service on Thursday. Apparently the Suriname navy shipyard helped repair the elderly be gone and hydraulic transmission and the French authorities hope the ferry will continue to operate for the rest of the year uninterrupted. 

It’s a classic story worthy of “Don’t Stop The Carnival” by Herman Wouk. The French have a new modern ferry The Malani ready to go but they can’t get the paperwork sorted out even after Suriname built a new stronger dock to accommodate the larger vessel. So they bumble along failing to act in a stereotypical tropical lassitude.

We meanwhile needed lunch and planned to try Indonesian soup but when we went to park near the Souposo restaurant, that really is the name, the piratical figure above flagged down and said we could park next to his eatery. It was simply an offer to get our tank off the street but we thought soup can wait let’s try this place. We got soup in the end anyway. 

I never imagined I’d have split pea soup here and I later ended up reminiscing with Bruce about a famous split pea restaurant called Andersen’s in California’s Central Valley.

We also got a plate of fried plantains and peanut sauce all for $5 the bargain lunch of Paramaribo. Roberto had his own story to tell, a life of living in the US in Florida and New York and tiring of running his own restaurant in the Big Apple this coming home to a slower pace of life in his home country. I keep hearing these stories of immigrants who end up at home, obviously because the ones still in the states are rarely encountered on the road…but there are lots like Roberto. 

That and a drop off at the laundry was enough travel for the recovering malarial patient and we retreated to the apartment and our sleeping dog. 

Iit is slightly shocking how much he likes to sleep in his old age. His hotspots are slowly growing back so he is much more relaxed. When he wants to go in or out he stares at the door but most of the time he sleeps, on his bed, on the couch where I annoy him by running my hand compulsively through his fur and most often on the cold hard floor. I don’t think he’s happy to know the ferry is back in service.