Note: Some photos are up at http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/hauteboy/Trips/3355

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.