I've just returned from a two week trip through the southern Caribbean and the Guianas in northern South America. The Guianas (Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana) are a rarely visited destination, most guidebooks only dedicate a handful of pages to this region. Guyana had put together a good tourist guide this year in anticipation for the Cricket World Cup. Suriname was harder to get info, with most information only available in Dutch. The three areas are remnants of colonialism, Guyana (British Guiana), Suriname (Dutch Guiana) became independent in the 60's and 70's, while French Guiana remains a overseas department of France.
The fun began even before our flights departed; back in December my friends and I had booked our award tickets on Delta and Air France using Northwest miles. The Guianas are in the Northern South America zone, and this only would require 35k miles. My friends planned to leave a week earlier than my us, and spend a day or two in each of the independent eastern Caribbean countries. My wife and I (her ticket booked with Delta miles) would fly to Tobago, then meet them in Barbados before continuing onto Georgetown, Guiana. My wife planned to island hop with a friend of hers up the Antilles, meeting us in Guadeloupe two weeks later. So already we had 4 award tickets, all from different accounts, with 3 different itineraries. My friends had AUS-ATL-SJU (DL), CAY-FDF (AF), FDF-ATL-AUS (DL), I had AUS-ATL-TAB (DL), CAY-PTP (AF), PTP-ATL-AUS (DL), my wife had booked AUS-ATL-TAB/PTP-ATL-AUS (DL). Got that straight? CAY=Cayenne, French Guiana; PTP=Point a Pitre, Guadeloupe; FDF=Fort-de-France, Martinque; TAB=Tobago; PAP=Port au Prince, Haiti.
A few months ago, I got a schedule change notification on our ATL-TAB flights. The Tobago service was a new service that was supposed to start in February, but Delta cancelled the service before it started. I didn't call in right away, and a few weeks later the FDF-ATL and PTP-ATL flights were also cancelled, leaving us in quite a jam!
We were eventually able to get our tickets changed to AUS-ATL-ANU (Antigua) on Delta, then returning CAY-PTP (overnight) PTP-MIA on the Air France milk run, then MIA-ATL-AUS on DL A remnant of colonial ownership, Air France operates a multi-stop flight CAY-FDF-PTP-PAP-MIA. That also put my friends on the same flight via Guadeloupe; when booking the tickets originally there weren't 4 award seats available for FDF-ATL or PTP-ATL; we had split 2-2. There has been quite a bit of turbulence in the Caribbean air market this year; BWIA folded back in December and was replaced with Caribbean Airlines. Also LIAT and Caribbean Star airlines merged back in January. Then Barbados raised their departure tax. This has resulted in higher fares through the region and lower numbers for inter-island travel. I had already purchased tickets TAB-BGI-GND//GND-POS//POS-GEO on LIAT and Caribbean Airlines, with this schedule change I had to change the LIAT tickets. But since our plans had changed anyway, we decided to meet our friends on their flight to St. Vincent and spend the day with them. I was able to change my LIAT flights to ANU-BGI-SVD//SVD-GND//GND-POS. We would be arriving in Antigua late Saturday afternoon, then departing to Barbados at 5:45 the next morning. Not alot of time, but enough time to get a passport stamp. I also booked a hotel at the Grand Royal Antiguan for one night. We were all set, or so we thought..
5-19
1 USD = 2 Barbados Dollar
Hotel: Silverpoint Hotel, Barbados, $177
(http://www.silverpointhotel.com/)
Flight: Austin (AUS) to Dallas (DFW), American
Flight: Dallas (DFW) to Miami (MIA), American
Flight: Miami (MIA) to Barbados (BGI), American
We arrived at the airport around 4:30 AM on Saturday to find our our original Austin-Atlanta flight at 6:00 was delayed. Since our connect time to Antigua was only an hour Delta was rebooking people on alternative flights. After waiting 45 minutes in line, we finally had an itinerary AUS-DFW-SJU-ANU to take over to American, where we found out Delta had given us an illegal connection time in San Juan. By the time we had sorted this out, it was too late for checkin for the 6:00 flight with American, which made it not possible to make it to Antigua the same day, since all other flights were sold out. Since we had tickets from Barbados the next morning, I then asked if they could reaccommodate us to Barbados instead of Antigua. Using M's internet phone I finally found a routing via Dallas and Miami to Barbados. After almost two hours on hold, it turned out Delta couldn't change my ticket since I had booked with NW miles, but Delta was willing to change my wife's ticket since it was Deltas fault the flight was late, they were willing to send her to Barbados. Finally M got in the AA line while I ran over to Delta to reticket her itinerary. Took only a few minutes and since the Northwest counter was next door, I asked if they could now change my ticket. They couldn't as they were busy still checking in people. They gave me a gate pass so I could have my ticket reissued at the Northwest gate; running through security and down to the other end of the terminal they were able to reacommodate my ticket on American as well. The clock read 8:10 and the flight was departing at 8:30 AM. Whew. Ran down to the other end of the terminal, still waiting on M who had checked in our bags at the American desk and was still going through security. We made the flight to Dallas barely with minutes to spare! In true flyertalk spirit, the flights on AA were full-fare, which conveniently posted to my QF account
We had a few hr layover in Dallas, after going to the lounge found out M and I were booked on different Dallas-Miami flights. The earlier flight was sold out and I would have to wait to get a seat at the gate. The flight was totally full, no chance of an upgrade at the last minute. We were able to get seats together though luckily. We had a 3+ hr layover in Miami before our flight to Barbados, we went to the lounge to drop off our things then went and had a jerked chicken sandwich in a pasty bun. why is airport food so unappetizing? Finally we boarded the flight to Barbados after they changed terminals on us! The flight was pretty uneventful, but we actually had to buy dinner onboard, no more free meals in coach, even international flights to the Caribbean! The Barbados airport was pretty new and had signs all over for the cricket World Cup which had been in April. I had booked a last minute hotel for Barbados when we were in Miami, the Silver Point. Our taxi driver took us everywhere else, Silver Crest, Silver Wave, etc before finally finding our hotel. By this point it was nearly 11PM and our flight out the next morning was at 8AM. The guard already had our reservation, but reception had already closed. The Silver Point hotel was quite nice, certainly worth a check if we ever come back. But we pretty much crashed after setting up an early wakeup call and taxi.
5-20
1 USD = 2.7 East Caribbean Dollar
Hotel: Best Western South Plaza, Grand Anse, Grenada, $105
Flight: Barbados (BGI) to St Vincent (SVD), LIAT
Flight: St Vincent (SVD) to Grenada (GND), LIAT
Early wake the next morning for our taxi to the airport. The reception wasn't open yet for the hotel, good thing our stay was prepaid! As we were arriving at the Barbados airport, Dean and Scott showed up as well. They had spent the previous week in the Caribbean hitting all the independent countries; St. Kitts, Antigua, Dominica, St. Lucia and Barbados. We checked in for our flight, and still had over an hour to wait. We had booked our LIAT tickets on their website, which allows you to book multi-stop itineraries. When we received our boarding passes were printed on flimsy receipt paper! We grabbed a quick breakfast before going through immigration. We didn't have to pay a departure tax here. The flight boarded early and we were one of the last ones to board the Dash-8 plane. Our flight to St. Vincent was about half full and only took 40 minutes. We departed and arrived early (all our LIAT flights departed early, some by 30 minutes, get to the airport with plenty of time!!), but took awhile at the airport to see if we could checkin our bags for our evening flight. It was too early, but the Customs area would let us store our bags for the day. I tried the ATM, first time failed but second time was a charm. We caught a taxi (EC25) into town, first checking at the ferry to find the sailing times to Bequia (pronounced Beck-way). Sunday isn't the time to visit St. Vincent; everything is closed and the minibuses don't run so often. We had a good breakfast at the Cobblestone Inn, then hired a minibus for EC60 ($17) to take us up the west coast out to Wallibou (sp?) bay, where they filmed Pirates of the Caribbean. It took about 40 minutes, over the winding roads. The film crew had left the film set mainly intact, but with time some of the fake stone/plywood was already falling apart. There was a huge pile of empty coke bottles lying around left by the film crew! We walked the plank (not nearly as adept as Johnny Depp) over to the peir then back. We walked back into town, about 20 minutes (quite warm at this point), and were enjoying an icy Sprite in a shop when suddenly these guys on motorcycles pull up and say that the Miss St. Vincent contestants are about to arrive. We go outside to have a look and this truck pulls up blasting music with a busload of beauty queens. They all come out and seeing us, rush over and say hello and ask how we are enjoying St. Vincent! What a neat experience! We then waited for over an hour for a minibus back to Kingstown... again Sunday being a slow day. It was almost 3 PM by the time we arrived back in Kingstown, and we deciced not to try the east coast, spent awhile walking through town to a few churches; Kingstown not being very large. We then went to the ferry to see about Melissa's ticket. It was still over an hour, so we all had a beer. Soon the ferry arrived and Melissa and I had a long kiss goodbye; she was going to go to Bequia for a few days, then onto St. Lucia, while Dean, Scott and I went onto the Guianas. We hopped in a taxi back to the airport, but still had a few hrs wait before our flight. We were on the same flight, but I would be getting off in Grenada for 24 hrs while Dean and Scott went onto Trinidad. I would fly onto Trinidad the next evening.
The LIAT flight to Grenada was pretty quick, also on a Dash-8; too bad it was at night as you could not see the Grenadines below. Scott got off the plane for a minute just to say he touched Grenada then got back on to continue to Trinidad, where I would be meeting them the next evening. I caught a cab (40EC) into Grand Anse town, there were many more tourists here than in St Vincent! It was already after 9PM when I had a quick dinner of Grenadian jerk pork which was quite spicy! There was a group of Venezuelans sitting at the table next to mine. Grenada (yes, the place Reagan invaded) was hit pretty hard by hurricane Ivan back in 2004, the Grand Anse and capital St. Georges were quite badly hit, some 90% of houses were damaged. Fell asleep around 10:30 to wake up early the next AM. My plan was to go to Carriacou island for the day.
5-21
1 USD = 6.2 Trinidad and Tobago Dollar
Hotel: Airport View, Trinidad & Tobago, $35
Flight: Grenada to Trinidad, LIAT
Woke up early (Caribbean gets light 5-6 AM but dark around 6 PM) to go into town. The reception wasn't open yet, so walked down to Grand Anse beach. Very pretty in the morning light. There were a few runners along the beach. All the hotels along the beach had new roofs, having lost them in the hurricane. I then caught a minibus (2EC) into town, and walked up to Fort St. George. The capital surrounds a lovely harbor full of old warehouses. Many buildings here were still damaged, including two huge churches which were still roofless. I saw the ferry arriving below and ran down to it, only to find it wasn't leaving for another hour! Quite warm already even though it was only 8AM. Sat around for awhile before boarding the Osprey ferry (140EC). The ferry took about 1:45 to Carriacou island, but the sea was quite rough and many people were sick, my head was spinning! The harbor at Hillsborough was a gorgeous blue color! Hired a taxi driver to give me a few hr tour of the north part of the island (90EC), we went up to the hospital which had an awesome view out over the islands and fringing reef. The water was an amazing blue color.
The viewpoint was at the main island hospital. The hospital was originally built at the top of the hill as mosquitoes usually stayed near the coast. However Hurricane Ivan had damaged the roof (twisted pieces of metal were scattered about) and the hospital was still closed.
Carriacou doesn't have any freshwater sources; all houses have huge catchement tanks for rainwater. However Carriacou was quite dry at the moment, the usual rains for this time of year haven't arrived. We continued over to Windward on the eastern side of the island; this town was originally settled by the Scottish, and you can still see McLeod, Stewart, etc names in the cemeteries. The Scottish were boat builders, and this tradition continues today, there were several wooden boats under construction. We continued to the far north point of the island which had a good view out over to Union Island (part of St. Vincent and the Grenadines) just a short distance away. We had to head back down the same road as the western road was too rough. On our way back into town, I asked my driver if he could drop me at Paradise Beach, one of the best beaches close to town. He agreed for the same price, good deal as the beach actually was some distance past the small airstrip.
We arrived at Paradise beach, a strip of white sand and palm trees fronted by gorgeous blue waters. There was a small restaurant/beach bar there where I planned to have lunch. As I was sitting down, a woman at the next table said hello and started chatting. She was from South Africa originally but had been sailing since 1976. She was sitting with an old man from California, I joined them for lunch. Had a good fish plate and coke for 28EC. Sally had good stories about sailing near Madagascar and Kenya, she had arrived in Carriacou four years ago and liked it so much she got rid of her boat and had been there ever since! I can see why, it is a gorgeous place! We got on the subject of diving when the man started talking about his wife diving. Apparently he was quite drunk as he managed to spill his beer (and my coke) all over the table not once but twice.. after the second time they moved tables and I took the chance to say goodbye and head down to the beach for a swim. Spent about 40 minutes bobbing in the water before drying off and sitting down to wait for a minibus back to town. Not quite as quiet as St. Vincent, but it was still nearly a half hour wait. I still had over an hour to wait before the ferry arrived, so walked around Hillsborough for a bit. End to end took maybe 5-10 minutes, so after awhile I sat down in the shade of the tourist office to wait.
The ferry ride back into town was pretty uneventful; much smoother than on the way out. Arrived back into St. Georges about 5:15pm, and I walked up to the fort again to look around. The fort itself wasn't very big, but there was a courtyard where Maurice Bishop and several others were executed in 1983, this prompted the US invasion. He was a commie, but a good commie that the US liked well enough. Grenada had support from Cuba in building the airport (and still does today; the Cubans repaired most of the electrical systems after the hurricane). There was a plaque on the inner wall of the fort where Bishop and several others were executed by firing squad.. and a group of guys and girls were there playing soccer, the girls were winning. There is an awesome view out over St. Georges harbor from the fort, that morning the sun had been in the wrong direction. I walked back down into town, then caught a cab to the airport. I still had several hours to wait, and the airport was completely dead. I had dinner at the airport restaurant and paid the 50EC departure tax. Finally the flight arrived, actually a half hour early. All our LIAT flights had been on time, or early departure. Seating was first come first served, even if they had a seat assignment on the boarding pass. The boarding pass was more like a credit card receipt than anything else! I was flying to Trinidad and Tobago, where I would meet Scott and Dean again. The flight was short, all at night, and arrived at the T&T airport around 9 PM. I had been to T&T before, just an overnight stay, back in 2004 so I remembered the airport. At immigration, I said I would only be staying one night, but they wanted to see my ticket (it is electronic!). I had quite a bit of EC left, which I changed into 100TT dollars for the departure tax, then called the Airport View hotel ($35 a night), they also provided transportation to/from the airport. The airport van soon arrived, and took about 10 minutes to drive to the hotel. Trinidad & Tobago is very different from the other Caribbean islands; not much tourism (they have oil) and there is a large population of Indians who were brought here as indentured servants after slavery was abolished. It adds a different feel, the music is a cool mix of Bollywood and reggae. The hotel itself was quite basic, but clean and had hot water and A/C. Talked with D&S a bit, then went to bed as we had a very early wakeup for our flight to Guyana.
5-22
1USD = 200 Guyana Dollar
Hotel: Sleep Inn International, Georgetown, Guyana, $65
(http://www.sleepininternationalhotel.com/)
Flight: Trinidad (POS) to Georgetown (GEO), Caribbean Airlines
Woke up at 5 am, our flight wasn't until 7:45 but we wanted to be there a bit before (Our other Caribbean flights had actually been leaving early). There was noone in checkin line, and we went to have a breakfast of a muffin and juice. They started calling our flight, with nearly 2 hrs before departure! We went upstairs where there was a long line to pay departure tax. My passport had been stamped 'transit', so I didn't need to pay it! Still we were in the departure gate over an hour and a half before departure, yet they were already announcing boarding! We all boarded, then proceeded to sit on the ground for an hour! The 737 was quite full, it had come in overnight from New York. Not too many tourists, if any onboard. The flight took a little over an hour; we flew in over Guyana, viewing vast forests and the huge Essequibo delta. Hardly any sign of development anywhere; even as we were approaching landing we were flying over rainforest. Stepping off the plane the air was refreshingly cool; a surprise from the Caribbean where it had been quite hot. Still humid, it had been raining all morning. Immigration and bag check went quickly and we found a taxi to take us into town, about an hour away. On the way, we passed lots of sugarcane fields, and Dutch-style canal gates. As we approached town, the driver stopped at someone's house for us to change money, which seemed a little dodgy. The guidebooks always warn you Georgetown is dangerous, period. Basically says, don't enter certain parts of town, always take taxis even if only going block, etc. Not reassuring. Guyana seemed a bit of a ramshackle place, many buildings were dilapidated or crumbling, but there were plenty of brand new houses and cars as well. There is a huge population of Guyanese living in New York and elsewhere that send money back. Most of the tourists (and very few), were all originally from Guyana, but now lived (or had lived) overseas. Guyana was originally Dutch, then British until they gained their independence in the 1960's. After slavery was abolished in the mid 1800s, many East Indians were brought over as indentured laborers to work the canefields, this makes for a unique blend of cultures similar to Trinidad. The Guianas are more Caribbean than Latin; most cultural and transportation links are with the Caribbean or their former colonizers, Holland and France.
I had reserved a hotel in Georgetown, the Sleep Inn had good reviews, but I'd never heard back from them. We went there anyway, and they did have my name. It was a very nice place, just a few blocks from the market and other historical buildings, with free breakfast and internet for $65/night. Scott opted for a room with a fan, while Dean and I shared a double A/C room. We were about to go out and look at the town when it started raining again. After awhile it slowed down, and we got in a taxi to go check out what tour options were available. We went to the Le Meridien hotel to Shell Beach Adventures. I had wanted to go on a tour to the Kaieteur Falls, supposedly the highest single drop waterfall. The tour companies only go if they get enough people, 8 usually, but the plane only holds 10 including the pilot and guide. So they need 8 and only 8 people. It's tough to get a tour going midweek, especially during slow (rainy) season. D&S wanted to do a river tour, but we didn't have any luck with that either. We then went to lunch at a place recommended by the LP. It had closed/changed names, but was still very good, the owners were Venezuelan and Belgian. Prices seemed to have gone up, taxis were 300 Guyana dollars ($1.50) when the book said they should have been 0.40. Food prices were a bit more as well, I think lunch was $6 when it should have been $4. Not complaining too much We walked down through town to the next tour company, only to find out that a trip to Kaieteur had just left that morning, with 2 empty seats!!! Doh. We wandered by St. Georges cathedral, supposedly the tallest wood building in the world. At that point it started pouring rain again, so we holed up in the church until it subsided. We walked back to the nearest hotel to catch a taxi back to our hotel for a bit to regroup. Our taxi driver, Roy, had lived in New York and Suriname, we got his number as he knew the procedure for getting to the Suriname border. After resting a bit wethen went out again, this time to the Stabroek market. The LP guide describes it as a den of dope smokers, thieves, and other unsavory characters, but it was afternoon and the market was pretty quiet. The market has a huge gingerbread clocktower which dominates the Georgetown skyline. There are no high-rise buildings here and doesn't really feel like a city. Things are somewhat functional, there are traffic lights (new), apparently these were only just put in recently, until then there wasn't a functioning traffic light in the whole country. We saw lots of money had been put into preparation for the Cricket World Cup, lots of brand new hotels and a huge new cricket stadium, but the crowds just never materialized. Someone made some money somewhere though. We stopped by a bar to have a rum&coke and ended up having a long talk with some Guyanese at the next table. One had just come in from New York, he hadn't been back to Guyana since he was 15. That evening, we went out to the Dutch Bottle Cafe, in an old colonial house. Excellent food but service was a bit slow. Georgetown is quite dark at night, there are lights on the houses, but no streetlights and no sidewalks. There was also quite a bit of flooded streets/drainage ditches because of the rain. The city sits 7 ft below sea level, and the pumps can't keep up. Just like New Orleans, in fact Georgetown felt much like New Orleans in many ways, but without the French influence.
Stabroek Market
5-23
Hotel: Sleep Inn International, Georgetown, Guyana, $65
The next day looked much better, the clouds started clearing a bit. We walked around town some more, going back to the market in the morning. A little more activity here, the fish were in (mainly catfish) and fruit sellers. We didn't feel threatened at all, but there were three of us together. Not sure if I would have felt the same going there alone. Back to the tour companies to check on the situation. They had 5 people total (including us) for tomorrow, and needed 8. Maybe they go, maybe they don't. We then caught a taxi out to Splashmins, one of the 'jungle resorts' for tourists around the country, but one of the few accessible by road. Just spent 30 minutes there taking photos before back into town. We went and had lunch at a Brazil churrascaria, all you can eat meat and a beer for about $12. Yum. We walked through town a bit to the seawall, by this point the sun was out and quite nice. The seawall was deserted except for a few bums sleeping. Someone passed by in a car and told us to be careful. We were really close to the Le Meridien again, walked down there and checked with them. Still only 5 tourists and they were about to cancel the tour the next day. Dejected, we went back to the hotel. We were about to go out again when the tour company called, they had managed to get 8 people together for tomorrow, but we had to go by their office by 5 pm to pay! Luckily it was a short walk away. Afterwards, we went to Pizza Hut for dinner! No McDonalds here, but there is KFC, Church's Chicken, Popeye's and Pizza Hut. But no beef or pork on their pizzas, it was chicken or turkey only. We had the veggie only, but wasn't too great.
Location: Austin, TX -- AA PLT 2.8MM+ (life PLT); QF Silver; IHG PLT Ambassador; UA Silver
Posts: 4,435
5-24
Hotel: Sleep Inn International, Georgetown, Guyana, $65
The next morning Dean and I were going on the Kaieteur trip, Scott would wait around the hotel with nothing to do! They were supposed to pick us up between 9 and 9:30, but it was after 10 before they showed up. Caribbean time! We drove to the local airport (Ogle), and had to get weighed in. The other tourists were already there, all of them were Guyanese living in Canada. The plane was 100lbs overweight, so we had to eat/drink our snacks right then (how that helped the weight? it's still inside us). The plane was a 10-seater, quite cramped. We took off and got a good view out over Georgetown which was completely surrounded by sugarcane fields. The fields soon gave way to rainforest and meandering rivers. The flight out to Kaieteur was about an hour; the pilot gave us a good view out over the falls as we approached. The flight was fine, not bumpy at all but we did pass around some rain cells. Landing at the tiny airstrip wasn't too bad either. We walked awhile through the rainforest, looking for cock-of-the-rock birds. This part of Guyana used to be connected to Africa millions of years ago. There were huge bromeliads, 14 feet tall or more! The walk through the forest was nice, with birds of paradise flowers growing wild. No luck with the birds, but we did see some golden frogs hiding in the bromeliads. They have poison in their skin over 160,000 times more potent than cocaine! No toad licking here. We came out to an awesome viewing point of the falls. This is rainy season in Guyana, so the falls were at their fullest. 425 feet wide and 36,000 gallons a second were pouring over the falls, a straight drop of 741 feet. Feeling quite insignificant, we kept walking closer to the falls, stopping at 3 or 4 different vantage points along the way. We did the easy trip, flying in, but some opt for the 4-day boat/hike in. Eventually we ended up right at the lip of the falls, posing at an outcrop which had water pouring around it! There was a storm system moving in so we headed back to the plane. Our next stop was Baganara, another one of the tourist resorts. I sat in the copilots seat this time, but the weather was much grayer than our trip out. We stopped at Baganara for a few hours for lunch. It was quite a nice resort, built on an island in the massive Essequibo river. There were 10 rooms, and a nice porch/bar area where we ate lunch. Wasn't great weather for swimming, and we soon headed back to Georgetown. On the way back, we had a great view out over the city and Stabroek market. We went for dinner again to the Dutch Bottle cafe. Really good Caribbean chicken, and their fried rice was really delicious with mushrooms, broccoli, etc. We had an early night tonight as the next day we would be heading to Suriname!
5-25
1 USD = 2.75 Suriname Dollar
Hotel: Guesthouse Albergo Alberga, Paramaribo, Suriname, 30 Euro (http://www.guesthousealbergoalberga.com/)
We woke up at 4:30 AM today, our taxi driver Roy would be arriving around 5 AM to take us to the border. The weather looked really bad today, big storms all along the coast. The border was about a 3 hr drive away, but there was a ferry in the middle that only ran once an hour. It started raining quite a bit after leaving town and Roy was driving slower to be safe. He was speaking about his experiences in Guyana and New York, how he had family all over the Caribbean and Guyana/Suriname. We ended up arriving at the ferry about 6:35.. literally a minute too late for the 6:30 ferry! We were still ok on time though, the ferry to Suriname wouldn't leave until 11. However the Suriname ferry only runs once a day, so missing that would be a setback! The wait wasn't too bad, and the next ferry arrived and started filling up. Several trucks and minibuses boarded the side-loading ferry. There was a turntable, but it hadn't worked in years. The ferry ride itself was pretty quick, and the rain had let up some, but it started coming down again once we reached the other side. It was still another hour and a half before we reached the Guyana side of the ferry. We changed money, though not at the best rate, then bought tickets for the ferry ($10). Sat down to wait, as it was only about 10 by this time, but we had already been on the road since 5 am! The ferry arrived at 11 (it was supposed to leave at 11), then it started raining, and raining, and raining. Noon passed, then one o'clock.. the ferry still sat there waiting while the natives were getting restless. We started talking with an older American woman there, she was from Florida and had traveled quite extensively as well. Her son was posted to the embassy in Georgetown and she was taking a few weeks to see Suriname and French Guiana, by herself! Found out she was staying at the same hotel we were in Paramaribo, so we decided to all get the same minibus/taxi once on the Suriname side. Finally, at 1:30 the ferry set off, it was still raining. Apparently the ferry operators didn't want anyone to get wet, but it was 2.5 hrs late already! There were only a few cars going across. The crossing itself took nearly a half hour, for some reason the ferry terminals on either side are nowhere near towns; on the Guyana side it is 8kms away from the nearest town, at least on a good road. On the Suriname side, it takes an hour to get to the nearest town, and that's if it hasn't been raining...
We hadn't eaten much all day, not much of an opportunity, as we left before the hotel had breakfast ready, and we hadn't bought any snacks for the trip. I had a few Cliff bars I had brought along which helped; and there was a canteen at the ferry terminal where I spent my last few Guyana dollars to buy a packet of stale cookies. We had thought about going to Nieuw Nickerie, the closet town on the Suriname side, to have lunch (though it was already 3:30 pm, Suriname being an hour ahead) and town was at least an hour away. Immigration passed smoothly, then we all got into a minibus heading directly for Paramaribo. The driver offered to drop us off at the hotel since there was four of us, very nice. The fare was 45 Suriname dollars. The road indeed was pretty horrendous, and we ended up being the last bus to leave, soon all the other buses had zoomed ahead leaving us behind. Pothole, mud, pothole. It was like being in Africa. No signs of human settlement either, just the road and cleared jungle. We did soon come to fields of rice, the tractors here are equipped with huge side paddlewheels so they can work in the mud. Couldn't get a picture of one but saw one tearing through a field like a mudbuggy. It ended up taking nearly two hours to the town, and that still left three hours to Paramaribo, at least this was on a paved road! The road was severely flooded in parts, which made for really slow going. You'd think the Dutch of all people would have drainage figured out! Suriname is the former Dutch colony on the northern part of South America. The Dutch traded a little island in New York called Manhattan with the British for Suriname. Not an even trade methinks. Suriname has quite a multicultural society, with Chinese, Javanese, blacks, Indians, etc.
We drove on, still few signs of villages, just scattered houses and rice fields. We finally pull into Paramaribo about 9PM, nearly 10 1/2 hrs after we left Georgetown! Paramaribo, or locally known as Parbo, seemed a much more modern and safe city than Georgetown. We got to the hotel to find they hadn't understood my email and didn't have a reservation for us for that night! Luckily they did have two rooms available. It was already pretty late, but we were starving. We decided to head over to the nearby Torarica hotel where there was a strip of restaurants. The Albergo Alberga guesthouse was a great location in an old colonial style building, within walking distance of all the old city. At 30 Euro for a double, the price couldn't be beat either. Suriname mainly gets a lot of Dutch tourists, didn't see much on the web that was available in English. We walked by the Presidential palace to the hotel. We were very surprised to find a row of bars, restaurants and dance clubs, with lots of people walking around, lots of tourists. Mainly groups of Dutch girls dressed up to party! Quite a change from Georgetown where you don't walk around at night, certainly not dressed as h0tness.
We ate dinner at Cafe Vat; I had the Pom which was a local dish, kinda like a pork tamale but softer. Suriname has really good Indonesian food with the Java influence; the Dutch had brought in alot of indentured workers here from their colony, just like the British had done with Indians to Trinidad and Guyana. We were exhausted from the long day though, and went back to the hotel after a little internet. It was already after 11, making for a really long day.
5-26
Hotel: Guesthouse Albergo Alberga, Paramaribo, Suriname, 15 Euro
We spent this morning walking around Paramaribo. After the long day yesterday in the car/bus we were eager to stretch our legs. Breakfast at the Albergo was 3 Euro, for either toast and cheese or a fried egg. We passed the Hof van Justie and the palace again, past the unpronouncable Onafhankelijksplein (Independence Square) and down to the Waterkant, the row of buildings fronting the Suriname river. We found a tour company and inquired about options to Brownsberg park. Like in Georgetown, this was slow season and there weren't any tours going out. We had hoped to spend the night out in Brownsberg park, but this requires booking the lodges beforehand in town, but it was the weekend and the STINASU park was closed. We then went down to the Maroon market, which had an assortment of traditional crafts, spices, and bush meat. We saw a smoked monkey arm for sale! The market was huge, with two buildings and alleys winding behind. We then wandered up Jodenbreestraat, to a paradoxical sight of a synagogue next to a mosque! Suriname has quite a mixed culture society, they are proud of their heritage and the different ethic groups seem to get along well.
Paramaribo has the uber-present McDonalds and KFCs, we stopped at Micky D's for a milkshake as it was beginning to get warm. We then went over to the Avis office to see about renting a car for the next day; their office closed at noon but we wouldn't need the car till the next morning. We filled out the paperwork and arranged for our rental to not start until that evening; that meant we would only need a single day! Back to our guesthouse, buying a bottle of rum along the way, where we told them we would need two more nights. Spent the afternoon wandering some more about Paramaribo, having a roti for lunch. The Zeelandia fort was closed (on Saturday?), so we were only able to get photos from the outside. We saw many more Dutch girls today, very few Dutch guys. They must come here for their eco-experience, or to hook up with a local guy. We saw several walking around with local boys! That night we went back to the restaurant strip and ran into Diane again, the woman we had met waiting for the ferry. She was headed off to one of the beaches, it is currently turtle nesting season. There were several discos going tonight but we were pretty tired still from the long day yesterday and walking around that we just went back to the Albergo and crashed.
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continued..
5-27
Hotel: Guesthouse Albergo Alberga, Paramaribo, Suriname, 15 Euro
(http://www.maps2anywhere.com/Maps/it...map-sample.jpg)
Early this morning we picked up our rental car from Avis and planned to drive to the Brownsberg park, about 120km south of Paramaribo. Suriname has devoted over 12% of the country to national parks in an attempt to preserve ecodiversity and promote tourism. All roads in Suriname converge on Paramaribo, so it is supposedly difficult to get lost. However only 26% of the roads are paved (and those are badly potholed), also it was rainy season making the roads worse. For this reason we had rented a Tucson 4x4. In Suriname, although it was a former Dutch colony they drive on the left, a remnant of British control. There were two possible roads we could take, the first one via the airport, the second via Paranam. Somehow we missed the turnoff to the airport, and ended up on the secondary road. The road was in pretty good shape until we reached Paranam, where there is a huge bauxite processing plant (SALCOA); this point there weren't any signs and the roads were confusing with plant roads and a dirt road that looked like it went into a junkyard. This road ended up being the one we needed to take. The soil throughout Suriname and Guyana is sand, so they seal the roads here with bauxite ore. Makes a pretty red color, but when mixed with water it's ugly mud. The road was quite wide (for the mining trucks) but potholed with puddles from the rain. We saw several villagers walking past, including one woman wearing African garb. In the 1800's, slaves (Maroons) escaped into the jungle and continue living a subsistence lifestyle, some of their culture is identical to tribes in Ghana.
Since we were on this road, we decided to go to Jodensavanne (http://www.jodensavanne.sr.org/), the first Jewish settlement in the New World. Basically in the 1600's the pope gave a group of Portuguese Jews some land 100km in the jungle to get rid of them, this was during the Inquisition. The site was on the other side of the river, but both of our maps indicated that there was a bridge. We found the turnoff to Carolina, down another bumpy dirt road, but this was actually in better shape. We passed by several Amerindian villages, thatched huts and Chinese shops. After a half hour we arrived at the river, only to find the bridge was still under construction!! (there had been a bridge but it was a few trestles remaining) There was a ferry, but the engine cover was off and someone was banging on it with a hammer. Not a good sign. There were a few other vehicles there waiting on the ferry so we hung around about 20 minutes, but it was already nearly 11 AM and we didn't want to get stuck on the other side if the ferry broke down again. We decided to cut our losses and and continue onto Brownsberg park. By this point, our gold-colored SUV was now two-toned, the lower half being caked in bright red mud!
We drove back to the main road, then headed south to Brownsberg, still about 60km away. The land slowly started rising and getting hillier, but the road was still pretty bad. Towns passed by in a blink, there was nothing out here but the road and the forest. Suddenly we heard a thump-thump of a flat tire! I had been driving like a maniac around the potholes, but had still managed to hit a few pretty hard, and had eventually blown out the sidewall. We got out the spare tire only to discover it had a nail in it and a huge bulge in the side. Not too encouraging! We put on the spare anyway and it seemed to hold, we drove gingerly to the Brownsweg town, still some 20kms away. Finally a town of some size, there was a garage where we were able to get the original tire patched. While we were waiting there, a busload of Dutch girls on a tour pulls up; it's impossible to avoid them here! The repair only cost 25SRD ($9) and we were soon on our way up to the park, still 14kms away. The road started winding up the mountain, through 6" deep puddles (we were glad for the 4x4). We were silently cursing the woman at the tour office though who said it's only 1:30 from Paramaribo to Brownsberg, it had taken us nearly 4 hrs, even without the delay of the flat tire! We continued driving up the mountain then opened up to a gorgeous vista overlooking the surrounding jungle and Brokopondo reservoir. We arrived at the park office around 1:30, passing a group of Dutch girl hikers on their way to Irene falls. We definitely wished we had been able to spend the night here, since we needed to get the car back by 8PM and it looked like it was going to be another 3-4hr drive back to town. So after all that driving, we only spent about an hour and a half, including eating lunch. We did finally see some wildlife, lots of lizards and salamanders, and an agouti. It's a cross between a rat and a guinea pig, but larger, and good to eat apparently.
The drive back to town was pretty uneventful. This time we finally found the road going via the airport (not marked). This road was really bad right to the airport, where the road was paved all the way into town. Saw the Suriname Airways 747 parked on the tarmac, this flight goes to Amsterdam. Not sure why they have to put the airports so far out (both Guyana and Suriname's airports are 1hr+ from their capitals), it's not like they are lacking space here! Most likely some minister owned the land where the airport ended up. Started pouring rain on the way, but it still wasn't enough to wash all the mud off the car. We started looking for a car wash, otherwise we would have to pay a hefty cleaning fee (by this point there was mud everywhere, inside and out, floormats, engine, etc). We passed a Shell station, but their car wash person had gone home (it was Sunday). We were driving down the road when we caught out of the corner of our eye a carwash sign; an Indonesian family had converted their garage into a carwash, for only 20SRD ($7.30) they would wash and vacuum out the car! It was a full team effort, with the whole family pitching in to clean the car. They even cleaned and replaced our original tire and spare (we were still running on the spare with the nail in it!) Excellent job and we gave them 25SRD, that probably saved us $20 or more in cleaning the car rental place would have charged. Got back into town and dropped our stuff at the hotel before returing the car just in time at 8PM.
Great report! And a tip of the hat for both booking that crazy set of awards and managing to pull it off without any rescheduling disasters. Note to self: avoid road travel in the Guyanas in the rainy season
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Great report! After reading this, I'd like to go myself sometime - preferably on the 747 in Business Class. Given the slow rate of modernization to the region, I'm surprised that Suriname Airways isn't still operating their DC-8s.
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Devils Island or bust
5-28
Hotel: Hotel Tentiare, St. Laurent du Maroni, French Guiana, 75 Euro (triple)
(http://www.destination.fr/guyane/hotellatentiaire.html)
Today we were planning to cross over to French Guiana. Since we hadn't spent the extra night in Brownsberg park, we had an extra day, and decided to break the trip in St. Laurent du Maroni, on the French side of the border between Suriname and French Guiana. French Guiana had been used as a penal colony and St. Laurent had been the site where prisoners were unloaded. St. Laurent also supposedly had some of the best colonial architecture in the country, so we thought it would be a good place to break the journey, we didn't want another 16 hour travel day! We had to go back to Avis this morning to get our rental receipt as we had just dropped off the keys the previous night. Then down to the market area where the minibuses to Albina departed. We were swarmed by helpers as soon as we arrived, but were able to find a shared taxi leaving for the border immediately. The taxi was the same price as a minibus (30SRD), we thought we might be more comfortable in the car, although they are good about not overloading minibuses too much here. We set off about 9:45AM and over the bridge to Meerzorg, on the other side of the Suriname river. This part of Suriname is has a large percentage of the Indonesian population, saw many people out on scooters and Warungs (restaurants) everywhere, with the tropical flora we could have been in Java! Suriname has speedbumps (drempels) everywhere, which seem useless given the potholed state of the roads. Still our driver managed to do 140km/hr (90mph!) most of the way, nearly killing an otter and a hawk that were in the road! Soon the towns were behind us and we were following the thin ribbon of road through a green valley of lush vegetation. It took about 1:40 to Albina (150kms), which is separated from French Guiana by the Maroni river. There are two daily ferries, or you can hire a pirogue to take you across. As soon as we pulled up to the canoe dock, the taxi was swarmed by canoe operators, sticking their hands and even bodies through the car windows and grabbing a hold of us! We finally picked one guy, who would take us to the police to stamp out of Suriname, then across to the French Guiana side for 10SRD each ($3.60). The canoes are quite long and stable, and the crossing only took a few minutes.
We arrived at the French immigration and surprised the officials to see three Americans coming across not on the ferry! Officially you need a yellow fever cert to enter French Guiana, one of my friends had forgotten his, but the officials never asked to see ours. French Guiana is an overseas department of France, as such it's part of the EU and uses the Euro. Everything is expensive, even more so than Paris, especially when we're using the American Peso. Peugeots, Renaults, and baguettes abound. It also has the smallest population of any of the Guianas, only about 180,000. It is heavily subsidized by the French government. We had the disadvantage of arriving on a holiday (Whit Monday/Pentecost/Memorial Day) and everything was closed. The architecture here was French colonial, like New Orleans or Pondicherry. We went to have lunch at one of the few open restaurants and got our first shock, 50 Euro for the three of us. Quite a bit expensive compared to the other Guianas. For this reason, many French Guianese go over to Suriname for shopping, we had noticed several French couples in Paramaribo. Found an ATM which worked for me, but not my friends. The friendly neighborhood bum was also standing around the ATM demanding money but we ignored him. We then went to the Hotel Tentiare to check on a room. This hotel was very nice, a former prison administration building, we got a triple room for 75 Euro that had a loft and a view out over the church. The door had a complicated lock mechanism, which we managed to break when going out!
Our first stop was the old Camp de Transportation, where the arriving convicts were processed. There was supposed to be a tour at 3PM, we arrived to find the gates open but noone there (it was a holiday). We walked about for awhile, they had restored several of the prison barracks but others were still in original condition, now all mouldy and rusting. Nothing much interesting inside the barracks, just rings in the walls where the prisoners were shackled together. Not a pleasant place even when restored. The Camp was only a processing center, most convicts were later sent onto the Iles du Salut. There is another part of the prison where supposedly Papillon's (Henri Charriere) name is carved but it's off limits without a guide. The prisons in French Guiana operated for nearly a century, from the mid-1800's to the 1950's, when they were closed due to rampant abuse and miserable conditions. Some 90% of the prisoners died from conditions or disease. We went down to the modest tourist office, which was open and had some brochures in English with a walking guide to all the colonial buildings in town. We walked around town some more following the guide, there were some gorgeous buildings, although most are in some state of disrepair this adds to their charm. There is a huge hospital here, one of the largest colonial hospitals that originally held over 400 beds. Then stopped by a shop to buy dinner. Having been stung by the price of lunch, we feasted on dinner of baguettes with salami, cheese, and a bottle of wine, that only came to 10 Euro total!
5-29
Hotel: Hotel Ballahou, Kourou, French Guiana, 55 Euro (triple)
(http://www.destination.fr/guyane/hotelleballahoug.html)
This morning we woke up early to examine our options for getting to Kourou, the launch point for visiting the Space Center Guyanais and the Iles du Salut. Having re-read our guidebook only to find out the bus for Cayenne had already left at 7 that morning and the next one wouldn't leave until nearly 2PM! We went down to the dock anyway where the minibuses departed, as we were arriving some boys started running towards us, one losing a shoe in the process! They were the touts for the pirogues but they left dejected when they realized we weren't going back across the river. We found a minibus that almost had a full load, but it was going to Cayenne only and they would charge us the full fee (35 Euro) to go to Kourou. They only needed a few pople so we hopped in and he drove around for 20 minutes looking for passengers before setting off around 8:30. The roads in French Guiana are in top-rate condition, much better than Suriname. They even have center lines, unlike Guyana
We arrived in Kourou around 11 AM, and stopped at McDonalds for a bite.. the Euro stings even here. We walked to the nearby Hotel Ballahou, but their reception was only open from 12 PM till 2 PM and 6 PM till 8 PM! There were some workers there though who must have called the manager as she showed up about 10 minutes later. We then went to walk through town. Kourou is an ugly town, quickly built in the 60's and 70s when the nearby launch center was constructed. There's no real center, no public transport, no taxis and it is very spread out. It was also raining, that annoying kind of drizzle that doesn't really get you wet but still is unpleasant. We walked by a large military base where there were French soldiers doing exercises wearing camoflauge hotpants! The book warns that Kourou can be dangerous, there are higher paying jobs with the space center, and there has been a lot of illegal immigration, mainly from Brazil. We saw lots of young men standing around smoking weed. We found a good Brazilian place for lunch, then found a tour office where we booked our trip to the Iles du Salut for tomorrow (40EUR). Walked yet another hour to the Vieux Bourg, but everything here was closed as well. Finally late in the afternoon we were so exhausted from walking, we found a gas station and were able to call a taxi, we kept his number for use later.
5-30
Hotel: Hotel Ballahou, Kourou, French Guiana, 55 Euro (triple)
Today was our trip out to Iles du Salut, site of the infamous Devils Island penal colony. Our taxi driver picked us up at 7:30 and took us down to the dock; we checked in and had to wait until 8:15 catamaran departure. There were quite a few other tourists (all French) along for the ride today. Our catamaran was the Royal Ti'Punch, owned by the Auberge on the islands and the trip took a little over an hour. There was a tidal bore about halfway to the islands, and the going was pretty rough for awhile. The Iles du Salut is actually a group of three islands, Ile Royale, Ile St. Joseph, and Ile Diable. There were prison facilities on all three islands, Ile Diable (Devils Island) iwasthe one used for political prisoners. It was the French Alcatraz, supposedly inescapable via sea, with strong currents and sharks as deterrents. It is still off limits to this day as it's illegal to land there, you can only see it from the other islands across the narrow channel. Why I don't know.
Ile Royale was our first stop, we had almost 6 hrs to spend on the island. It's not very large, but housed the guards quarters, death row inmates, and prison administration. It currently houses the Auberge hotel, where it is possible to spend the night. Quite pricey though for food, we had brought our own baguette and salami again for lunch. The islands are quite lush (unlike in the movie Papillon, which wasn't filmed here) with coconut palms and rainforest vegetation. Only a few of the prison buildings have been restored, most have been left to decay and have slowly been reclaimed by the jungle for the past 50 years. The Auberge is up on top of the hill and had a good view out over Devils Island. We wandered down to the condemned cells, where prisoners awaited execution. The cells were tiny, dank and dark. Not all prisoners were on death row, but their sentences were still harsh. If a prisoners sentence was 8 years or less, they had to remain in French Guiana for the same number of years once they had served their time; this was to help build up the population of the colony. Those who were sentenced to more than 8 years had to remain in French Guiana.. not that many prisoners even served their full time as most died from yellow fever or malaria. They weren't even given the decency of a burial, their corpses were simply tossed into the sea for the sharks! We went by the guard's childrens cemetery, creepy setting in the trees. There was another tourist family a short distance away who asked if we had any bread; there was a troop of monkeys nearby! We joined them and as soon as we had broken off a chunk of bread we were swarmed! They were climbing all over us and trying to get into my bag. There were several different kinds of monkey, smaller ones and big ones who soon started dropping coconuts from above! We escaped before being conked and went and had lunch, then walked around the island (not very large). The catamaran then took us over to Ile St. Joseph, another prison site. The prison here, Camp Reclusion, has been reclaimed by the jungle, it's a modern day Angkor Thom with strangler figs and trees growing through the cell bars, very scenic! It was also raining which added to the gloom. The rain soon stopped though (we'd been lucky, on our way out this morning the sky was an ominous grey but we'd avoided most of the rain so far). It was soon time to leave the islands for the trip back to Kourou. We'd hoped to arrive back before 6, we wanted to rent a car for the next few days to explore the area around Cayenne. Our taxi driver took us by the Sixt and Hertz locations, neither of which had cars! Most are in use by scientists on long assignments working at the space center. The LP guide says a rental car is recommended for French Guiana, it's more like a requirement! Limited public transportation (and expensive), few taxis and non-walkable cities makes having a rental car a must, if there is even one available! So 29 Euro in taxi fare later, we had to go back to our hotel without a car.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Seat 2A
Great report! After reading this, I'd like to go myself sometime - preferably on the 747 in Business Class. Given the slow rate of modernization to the region, I'm surprised that Suriname Airways isn't still operating their DC-8s.
I think the DC-8 is finally gone.. We saw a Suriname Airways plane in Port-of-Spain (they fly PBM-POS-CUR), but according to ExpertFlyer this is now a M82. They no longer fly to Georgetown or Cayenne.
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Posts: 45
I am considering going to Guyana as an alternate destination, in case for some reason (like a storm or flight cancellation) that I wont be able to get to my original planned destination, which is the Commonwealth of Dominica (DOM).
Do you consider Georgetown, and all of Guyana for that matter, an unsafe or dangerous place to visit?
I would be flying in on LI from POS if I go there.
Thanks
A reason to read flyertalk.com - trip reports like yours. What an exotic location for a vacation. I kept referring to maps.google.com to try and figure out where you were!
Location: Austin, TX -- AA PLT 2.8MM+ (life PLT); QF Silver; IHG PLT Ambassador; UA Silver
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Quote:
Originally Posted by twyatt
I am considering going to Guyana as an alternate destination, in case for some reason (like a storm or flight cancellation) that I wont be able to get to my original planned destination, which is the Commonwealth of Dominica (DOM).
Do you consider Georgetown, and all of Guyana for that matter, an unsafe or dangerous place to visit?
I would be flying in on LI from POS if I go there.
Thanks
I'd say certainly Guyana as a whole would be safe; Georgetown itself is a bit rough in some areas, but keeping to the center of town, and using some common sense should be Ok. There were three of us traveling together, which may have helped. We did take taxis at night, mainly cause there weren't any streetlights (very dark) or raining, but prices were reasonable. There wasn't any tourist hassle.
Kaieteur is certainly worth a visit, and the south part of the country (near Brazil) is also supposed to be interesting with cowboy culture. We didn't make it down there though.
I also booked a hotel at the Grand Royal Antiguan for one night. We were all set, or so we thought..
And a tip of the hat for both booking that crazy set of awards and managing to pull it off without any rescheduling disasters. Note to self: avoid road travel in the Guyanas in the rainy season 
