Sep 132012
 

This was definitely the leg of this trip that I was most excited about, and most nervous about. Both for the same reason. Traveling overland by public transport definitely holds a romantic realness about it. You’re often traveling with locals, getting an insight on how local people get from place to place, and if you’re fortunate you get a good chance to interact with them as well. I can only remember one time that I did the shared car/taxi thing, and that was several years ago when I took a shared bus/taxi service from Moldova to Transdniester. That was a large bus, however, but I’ll still count it since it left from the shared transport bus station.

In this case, everything I’d read online said that in order to be assured your share taxi would leave within an hour, you really had to be there before 7am, because after that time there were very few passengers leaving Paramaribo and you could be stuck waiting for hours for your taxi to fill up unless you wanted to buy all the spots up. Everything I’d read online told me to expect about 70 SRD for one of five seats in a share taxi (about $22) for the three hour ride to the border. With that in mind, I asked the hotel concierge to call around and see what options he could find.

He first came back with 500 SRD for a private car (about $155) which was absolutely ridiculous. In theory, I could show up at the share taxi rank and buy out all five seats for only 350. He then called “some friends” one of whom was willing to not only pick me up at my hotel the next morning, but would agree to come at 9am (yay sleeping in) and only charge 80 SRD. I figured for this price I’d be doing some sharing, but for the convenience of hotel pick-up, a “known” driver, and sleeping in it sounded great.

Fast forward to 9am…no sign of the driver. 9:15. Nothing. Hotel calls him and he answers…”stuck in traffic.” Finally, around 9:45, he shows up with his sister and her small child already in the car. Great, at least we’re off! No seatbelts, but wouldn’t really expect that in a bush taxi. Of course, where do we go? You guessed it, the share taxi rank! Fortunately, it was just to meet three of his “friends” he’d agreed to pick up and drive to the border, so the wait was only another 10 minutes or so. Doing the math, I was probably subsidizing the others a bit, but it was what it was.

He was a relatively safe driver, although once again the entire conversation was in Dutch. We attempted both French and English, but they couldn’t really keep up in either, so we spoke what Dutch we could and the rest of the time they all conversed in Creole. We did need to make one “ganja stop” along the way for the other passengers to smoke, and then we made another stop maybe 30 minutes from the border in order to…buy watermelons. All the passengers bought watermelons from the roadside, as well as buying huge slices of watermelon to eat. The driver offered “I buy you, you eat!” but I wasn’t in the mood for suspicious roadside fruits with another 4-5 hours in shaky taxis to go. This is where things got strange. He confirmed I needed to go to the immigration building (the locals don’t bother, and just take a water taxi across the river), since he knew it was important for foreigners to get the exit and entry stamps. “No problem, no extra.”

After we started up again, the driver’s English suddenly improved a bit. “You have girlfriend?” “Uh, no, too busy, too much travel.” “Oh too bad. I have 3 girlfriend. You have boyfriend? I have two boyfriend!” “Uhhhh…” This was definitely getting very very weird. Little more small talk and he gave up, until we pulled up to the border. The local boat tout across the river swarmed the taxi, grabbing at my luggage. Driver assured me “It’s ok, he my friend, he take you across river.” Ok, that’s fare. Saves me negotiating with the touts, and we confirmed the price was the same 20 SRD I’d seen online. Then, it got really weird. “You pay 80 SRD. If you no want pay, my friend have house down the street.” Now, I’m pretty sure he was suggesting trading the ride for, um, “adult activities” and I quickly gave him his 80 SRD and walked into the immigration hut.

You can see above the tout hurrying to the building along with my bag.  Once inside, there were about 100 people milling about, most of them with French passports.  I chatted with a few, and they were all from French Guiana.  Seems it was important for them to get stamps too, to document just how long they’d been out of the E.U.  It seemed to just be the local Surinamese who didn’t care.  Of course, why the line?  It was just before 1pm, and the immigration person was on lunch!  I had to wait about 30 minutes, and finally he showed up.  I’d obviously been in the region long enough by now, because when the shoving started I held my ground and was near the beginning out of the line.

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Sep 122012
 

My guide/driver picked me up right on time the next morning for the roughly two hour drive into the interior of Suriname (around 120-150 km or so) and into the edges of the Amazon Rainforest. My company for the day was a Dutch lady who had been born in Suriname and her two young sons. The plan was to stop along the way to get lunch at a small roadside Surinamees/Indonesian snack joint and then head into the park where we’d lunch before starting a several hour hike into the park.

The drive to the park wasn’t too bad, except for the last 20km or so, which took well over an hour to cover. It was a nasty potholed dirt road, and when I say potholes, we’re talking 1-2 feet deep and filled with mud and water most of the time! However, we made it to the park just fine and were ready for lunch.

I still don’t remember the name of what I ordered for lunch, but it was a soup with pulled chicken in it along with lots of spices and a bag of rice and other condiments…including a hard boiled egg, to mix in. Quite tasty! While eating at some tables in the park, we were rewarded with some fantastic views.

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Sep 112012
 

Up early, and off to the smaller “domestic” Ogle Airport for the flight with Gum Air to Zorg en Hoop Airport in Paramaribo, Suriname. Both of are the “smaller” airports that are “downtown” and when they say small they mean small! Unlike the charter flight to the falls the previous day, this one was actually pretty serious with security/immigration/etc, but they paid absolutely no attention to the baggage allowance. It was advertise at only 15 kg per person, but I was closer to 19-20 and they didn’t say a word. It was only like $2/kg extra anyways, so…

I had bought my tickets with TransGuyana Airlines, but showed up to find out the flight was operated by Gum Air. Seems they codeshare on this route, with TransGuyana offering one flight, and GumAir the other. Since my ticket was just a computer printout, I had no way of knowing in advance. No big deal, I was glad to see, however, it was the same plane type as the day before.

Georgetown, Guyana, Ogle Airport (OGL) to Zorg en Hoop Airport, Paramaribo, Suriname (ORG)
GumAir Flight 42
Departure 8:30, Arrival 10:45, Flight Time approximately 1:15 minutes
Cessna 208B Grand Caravan, Registration PZ-TBT
Seat “5A” alone in the back of the plane

Flight was completely full, but no luck this time in getting the pilot to let me sit in the copilot seat So, I took the seat way in the back so I could watch. This plane has seen better days:

A couple of aerial shots from during the flight.  We were at a max altitude of 12,000 feet, which I thought was pretty unusual for an unpressurized plane.

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Aug 102012
 

I’ve been sitting still too much.

Well, not really.  I just spent 6 days in Las Vegas, but that’s not blog-friendly.  I might post about the flights and hotels at another time, but that’s not all that exciting.  It’s time to count some countries, and that’s just what I’m planning on doing shortly.  I was inspired by the FlyerTalk thread on the cheap Delta fares to Georgetown, Guyana.  Didn’t really work for me (especially since I don’t “do” Delta, and it’s a redeye to boot) but I found a great American fare to rack up some EQP, so booking done, it’s time to plan!

Originally, I wanted to get to Georgetown, Guyana.  That’s easy enough.  But I don’t do one country in a trip, not when there’s another right next door.  I could have bought a round-trip ticket to Suriname, but the times were inconvenient, and I was curious about doing it overland on a combo of bus and ferry.  Get out of the city, and see a little bit of the “real” country.  Only one problem….Suriname?  Only way out by plane is back to Guyana, or to Amsterdam.  No thanks….so keep going east overland to French Guiana.  Not really a “country” but definitely distinct and interesting….and a way out that wasn’t Paris….Martinique.  That figured out, the route was cast:

So in brief, the plan is:

1)  Fly to Trinidad, and connect 3 hours later to Guyana, arriving at 2am
2) Sidetrip to Kaieteur Falls – one of the world’s most amazing waterfalls – on a tiny single engine prop
3) Overland by bus/ferry to Paramaribo, Suriname
4) Hang out in Suriname
5) Overland by bus/ferry to Cayenne, French Guinana
6) Hanging out in French Guiana, and hopefully seeing the Guiana European Space Centre
7) Cayenne to Fort-de-France, Martinique
8) Exploring Martinique
9) Martinique – St Lucia – Port of Spain, and a night in Trinidad
10) Trinidad to DC on American again

I have 9 days, so plenty of time for this trip…but alas, it’s not much planned yet. Kinda winging it as I go. Only place I need a visa is Suriname, so better get on that one! Also, it looks like a yellow fever and malaria hot zone, so better get hopping on that too! Lots to plan, not much time to do it! Recommendations welcome, it’s under two weeks to go….