An Englishman in Paramaribo continued
After lunch and coffee watching the rains come down (the roads flood for half an hour or so, but then clear leaving some potholes well disguised as puddles), we decided to try and fathom Paramaribo's bus system. The buses are little Japanese mini-vans and run a bit more like taxis in that you can get off an on when you want but the routes are set, and named by the places the buses go. The route we needed was PBO (Paramaribo, Billitong, Onverwacht) but how you'd know this without inside knowledge is beyond me; I guess everyone "just knows". Certainly not a bus map in sight.
Anyway, once we found the bus stand, we got on and sat there for a while waiting for the bus to fill up. Don't expect to get a bus here and know what time you'll be getting to your destination. The bus is going nowhere until it's full. Eventually you get going, and so does the music. Personally I preferred the reggae to the Barry Manilow, but I guess tastes differ amongst the drivers. One flaw in the "goes when full" system is that it's virtually impossible to get on the bus until it's travelled far enough for people to start getting off, but nodoby seemed to mind. The buses normally have something themed going on - often Bollywood-like characters painted on them, or religious slogans on the back. Maybe that's something they should introduce in London to releive the boredom as the bus crawls through rush-hour.
Although the main roads in Suriname are pretty good (as long as you avoid the more obvious potholes) there aren't very many of them. As the bus headed "home", we got a good chance to look at the people and houses in the side roads, usually dirt or gravel tracks. The buildings often look rather fragile (except for the big mansion-like ones, which often seem to be ones built by drug-barons but seized by the government). Suriname seems to be contradictory - in some ways it's definitely a developing country, but in others quite advanced. Broadband Internet banking/packing-case shacks, very efficient agriculture /decidedly free range chickens. It also has a very relaxed attitude to tourists, presumably because they don't get many. This is nice as you don't get the hassle often associated with more visited places. Nobody's trying to make a quick buck out of you, and they let you get on with just trying to fit in and observe how everything works. If you do get chatting, they're interested in where you're from and how you've ended up in Suriname.
Having said that, as I mentioned we did go on a tour to a place called Nieuw Nickerie and Bigi Pan. We (Esther and I, Kees and Elsbeth, some Dutch tourists as well as Wanna and her two crew from the tour company) headed off along the coast towards Nieuw Nickerie on the Suriname/Guyana border, passing some pretty towns (such as Groningen - why did colonists always have to name places the same as towns from home? No imagination). Nieuw Nickerie is actually Suriname's second biggest town, but that doesn't mean it's large - a few streets around the central canal with some sprawling country roads. We arrived in time to see the Netherlands-Argentina game, only to find the one place that said "all games shown here" didn't open until after the match had finished. Oh well, back to the hotel.
In the hotel we found people we didn't expect to see - Italians. Italians that used to live in London in fact, so they were quite chatty and offered us some of the finest rum I've tasted, El Dorado from Guyana. Check it out if you get the chance. They were pretty loud and attention-seeking, but I guess that's what you expect (sorry Alberto! BTW, they were from Monza - isn't that where you're from?). Asking them how they'd ended up in Suriname, they said they weren't tourists - they were in the casino trade (our hotel was part of a casino) and travelled around a lot; places like Palestine(!), Thailand, Venezuela, Columbia and so on. I'm still not sure how that means you end up in Suriname, but whatever.
After the match (not a great game, but okay), it was off to see the sunset by the river that separates Suriname and Guyana. The sunset was fine, but not as interesting as the small boat that arrived (presumably from Guyana) which was greeted enthusiastically by people on the beach who seemed to be haggling over the contents of a bag the new arrivals had brought with them. I'm not entirely certain it was all above board.
And that got me thinking back to our Italian friends. Travelling to places with certain reputations, spashing lots of cash around, hanging out in a town on the border, involved in the "casino business". Maybe I just have an over-active imagination, but I couldn't help wonder if our friends had a few connections with a well-known Sicillian organisation. And there were we having a rum or two with them. Does that mean I owe them? I've seen The Firm - it can all get way out of hand. Anyway, it could make arrival in the States interesting. "So, you've been to Suriname via an usual route, with tickets booked separately from your US tickets, visited the Guyana border, were seen with some people Known to us, have arrived via Puerto Rico, and are headed on to Bolivia. And you think you're coming in?" Hopefully not.
Anyway, the evening was pleasant if uneventful as the town never really woke up, and we headed off early in the morning to Bigi Pan. Much of Suriname's local dialect is a mishmash of English, Dutch, French and Creole terms. So "owmeni?" means "how much is that?" and "bigi" means "big". "Pan" describes a large depressed area of land that stays permanently flooded by a 50-100cm of brackish water. Apparently brackish water (mixture of salt and fresh water) is very good for wildlife, birds in particular, which is why we were going there. To enter the pan, we had to travel up the river a while, then haul the boat over a dike into a 8km canal (built of course by a Dutchman). Chugging up the canal, we saw kingfishers, hawks, heron-like birds, and lots of others I'll need Esther to translate. Out in the pan were jumping fish, elegant storks, crabs munching away on fish caught in nets, and a bit later on a caiman. I was ignorant of what a caiman was but felt a bit nervous when told it was like an aligator. Courtesy of Elsbeth's binoculars, we got to see the eyes poking above the water before it vanished.
Time was up, and so was the battery in my camera so we headed back along the canal at full speed rather than the slow putt-putt on the way up. Of course, now the animals and birds started showing up all over the place, and letting us get really close. Especially the caimans. They may only have been a metre long or so, but they still looked like they could cause a nasty nip. Fortunately the intrepid Kees was undaunted and still with working camera got some nice snaps of the caiman before it got snaps of us. Well done Kees.
Finally we can't mention Suriname without mentioning Parbo beer. The local brew is everywhere. You can't walk down a street without seeing the red and white signs on each corner. Occasionally you'd get a choice of Parbo or Heineken, but as the Parbo actually taste pretty good I don't know why they bothered. Anyway look out for it - it might be the next big import.
Anyway, once we found the bus stand, we got on and sat there for a while waiting for the bus to fill up. Don't expect to get a bus here and know what time you'll be getting to your destination. The bus is going nowhere until it's full. Eventually you get going, and so does the music. Personally I preferred the reggae to the Barry Manilow, but I guess tastes differ amongst the drivers. One flaw in the "goes when full" system is that it's virtually impossible to get on the bus until it's travelled far enough for people to start getting off, but nodoby seemed to mind. The buses normally have something themed going on - often Bollywood-like characters painted on them, or religious slogans on the back. Maybe that's something they should introduce in London to releive the boredom as the bus crawls through rush-hour.
Although the main roads in Suriname are pretty good (as long as you avoid the more obvious potholes) there aren't very many of them. As the bus headed "home", we got a good chance to look at the people and houses in the side roads, usually dirt or gravel tracks. The buildings often look rather fragile (except for the big mansion-like ones, which often seem to be ones built by drug-barons but seized by the government). Suriname seems to be contradictory - in some ways it's definitely a developing country, but in others quite advanced. Broadband Internet banking/packing-case shacks, very efficient agriculture /decidedly free range chickens. It also has a very relaxed attitude to tourists, presumably because they don't get many. This is nice as you don't get the hassle often associated with more visited places. Nobody's trying to make a quick buck out of you, and they let you get on with just trying to fit in and observe how everything works. If you do get chatting, they're interested in where you're from and how you've ended up in Suriname.
Having said that, as I mentioned we did go on a tour to a place called Nieuw Nickerie and Bigi Pan. We (Esther and I, Kees and Elsbeth, some Dutch tourists as well as Wanna and her two crew from the tour company) headed off along the coast towards Nieuw Nickerie on the Suriname/Guyana border, passing some pretty towns (such as Groningen - why did colonists always have to name places the same as towns from home? No imagination). Nieuw Nickerie is actually Suriname's second biggest town, but that doesn't mean it's large - a few streets around the central canal with some sprawling country roads. We arrived in time to see the Netherlands-Argentina game, only to find the one place that said "all games shown here" didn't open until after the match had finished. Oh well, back to the hotel.
In the hotel we found people we didn't expect to see - Italians. Italians that used to live in London in fact, so they were quite chatty and offered us some of the finest rum I've tasted, El Dorado from Guyana. Check it out if you get the chance. They were pretty loud and attention-seeking, but I guess that's what you expect (sorry Alberto! BTW, they were from Monza - isn't that where you're from?). Asking them how they'd ended up in Suriname, they said they weren't tourists - they were in the casino trade (our hotel was part of a casino) and travelled around a lot; places like Palestine(!), Thailand, Venezuela, Columbia and so on. I'm still not sure how that means you end up in Suriname, but whatever.
After the match (not a great game, but okay), it was off to see the sunset by the river that separates Suriname and Guyana. The sunset was fine, but not as interesting as the small boat that arrived (presumably from Guyana) which was greeted enthusiastically by people on the beach who seemed to be haggling over the contents of a bag the new arrivals had brought with them. I'm not entirely certain it was all above board.
And that got me thinking back to our Italian friends. Travelling to places with certain reputations, spashing lots of cash around, hanging out in a town on the border, involved in the "casino business". Maybe I just have an over-active imagination, but I couldn't help wonder if our friends had a few connections with a well-known Sicillian organisation. And there were we having a rum or two with them. Does that mean I owe them? I've seen The Firm - it can all get way out of hand. Anyway, it could make arrival in the States interesting. "So, you've been to Suriname via an usual route, with tickets booked separately from your US tickets, visited the Guyana border, were seen with some people Known to us, have arrived via Puerto Rico, and are headed on to Bolivia. And you think you're coming in?" Hopefully not.
Anyway, the evening was pleasant if uneventful as the town never really woke up, and we headed off early in the morning to Bigi Pan. Much of Suriname's local dialect is a mishmash of English, Dutch, French and Creole terms. So "owmeni?" means "how much is that?" and "bigi" means "big". "Pan" describes a large depressed area of land that stays permanently flooded by a 50-100cm of brackish water. Apparently brackish water (mixture of salt and fresh water) is very good for wildlife, birds in particular, which is why we were going there. To enter the pan, we had to travel up the river a while, then haul the boat over a dike into a 8km canal (built of course by a Dutchman). Chugging up the canal, we saw kingfishers, hawks, heron-like birds, and lots of others I'll need Esther to translate. Out in the pan were jumping fish, elegant storks, crabs munching away on fish caught in nets, and a bit later on a caiman. I was ignorant of what a caiman was but felt a bit nervous when told it was like an aligator. Courtesy of Elsbeth's binoculars, we got to see the eyes poking above the water before it vanished.
Time was up, and so was the battery in my camera so we headed back along the canal at full speed rather than the slow putt-putt on the way up. Of course, now the animals and birds started showing up all over the place, and letting us get really close. Especially the caimans. They may only have been a metre long or so, but they still looked like they could cause a nasty nip. Fortunately the intrepid Kees was undaunted and still with working camera got some nice snaps of the caiman before it got snaps of us. Well done Kees.Finally we can't mention Suriname without mentioning Parbo beer. The local brew is everywhere. You can't walk down a street without seeing the red and white signs on each corner. Occasionally you'd get a choice of Parbo or Heineken, but as the Parbo actually taste pretty good I don't know why they bothered. Anyway look out for it - it might be the next big import.
Comments