Northern South America Travel Diary

2012

Northern South America Travel Diary 2012

 

Sometimes I wonder why I spend time making travel plans.

Having set my alarm for 3:00 am before going to bed last night, I was woken by a phone call from the gentleman at the front desk at a little after 9:00 pm.

“Sir, you are booked on the 3:45 am minibus to the airport for the Surinam Airlines flight to “Poss” (i.e. Port of Spain) at 6:15 am.  Is that correct?”

“Yes”.

“Well, we have just been told that your flight will be delayed until 5:00 pm.  Maybe you would prefer to have some sleep and eat some breakfast”.

I agreed that sleep and some breakfast were certainly preferable to sitting at Zandery Airport for about 14 hours, so I thanked him very much and promptly re-set my alarm for a more civilized hour – after first taking the precaution of cross-checking his information on the Surinam Airlines website.

My ultimate destination for the day was not, in fact, Port of Spain (Trinidad), but Georgetown (Guyana).  However as there are no direct flights between Suriname and Guyana, even though they are neighboring countries, the best transit I could find when I was planning my travels was a very long 14 hour connection through Port of Spain.

I am probably a little different from most people in that planning an itinerary with a 14 hour transit stop did not cause me any exasperation whatsoever.  Indeed, for me, a 14 hour connection represents an opportunity, not an annoyance.  My intention had been to use the 14 hours to explore a little of Trinidad around Port of Spain, something that every student I have ever met from Trinidad has urged me to so.  Of course, with my scheduled transit time reduced now to three hours, this was no longer possible.  And THAT was exasperating!

However, it did mean that I had an additional, unanticipated morning in Paramaribo.  How should I use it wisely?  I had seen everything listed in the guidebook, in some cases three times (it is a pretty city, but it does not have an over-abundance of things to see and do – at least not until November, or so I was told by a very polite Javanese lady on Monday).

I decided to start searching for other suggestions on the internet.  The first website I visited listed a range of things to so, with the number 1 ranked attraction being the Neotropical Butterfly Farm.

I groaned inwardly – and then started to read through the rest of the list.  I had seen everything on the list except the Tourist Information Office (which they inexplicably ranked number 6 in the Things to Do) and the concrete bridge across the river (which I had seen from a distance, and which for some bewildering reason was ranked number 17 – what else would I find they had ranked, I wondered, the big round pipe discharging effluent into the river?).

Another website offered a suggestion that seemed to have more potential – a place that I had only driven past, but had not entered.  This was the Palmentuin, a large area of parkland with a forest of palm trees situated behind the Presidential Palace.  My enthusiasm waned a little, however, when I started reading some of the reviews: “Full of junkies who will do their best to part you of anything of value, don’t waste your time” and “Not a safe place to go to, especially at night, but during the day I guess it can be okay – but not much to look at; just large palm trees” were just two examples of the comments made.

There were some other suggestions of things to see – the zoo, the coin museum, an old red letter box – but in the end, I felt that the real charm of Paramaribo was the atmosphere of the city itself.  So rather than sitting in my room and waiting for the minibus to go to the airport, I decided to explore those wonderful streets once again for a few hours – after following the front desk officer’s suggestion of having some breakfast.

I began my explorations near Fort Zeelandia so that I could ensure I did not miss what seemed to be the most exciting of the new suggestions – the old red letter box.  That location also gave me the chance to explore an old colonial building that was now in ruins, enabling me to get a couple of evocative photos before a camouflage-uniformed soldier armed with an impressively large black machine gun told me unambiguously to get out.

Another of the newly researched suggestions, the Palmentuin, was located just across the road, so I conducted a quick inspection to see whether the online reviews were accurate.  I didn’t meet any junkies (as far as I am aware), and I found the palm grove to be pleasant and shady, though it would hardly justify a special trip to Suriname to visit.

I headed west from the Palmentuin, along several of the beautiful streets of colonial buildings with which I was now becoming very familiar, taking the opportunity to capture some extra photos in different light to my earlier experiences.  I walked west as far as the synagogue and mosque where I was able to figure out a way to get some far better photos of these two beautifully juxtaposed buildings, managing to get an angle that avoided the traffic, overhead wires and other obstacles that had interfered irritatingly with my previous photos.  I am still struck by the fact that these two religious buildings can co-exist so harmoniously as next-door neighbours, something I have only previously seen in Jerusalem and East London.

It was approaching the time that I would have to leave the hotel to go to the airport, so decided to make the most of this unexpected opportunity for exercise and walk back to the hotel rather than wait for a shuttle bus, a distance of about three kilometres.  By the time I returned I realized, perhaps a little later than I should have, that it was a searingly hot day outside.

I had time for a quick shower and a change into dry, sweat-free clothes before boarding the shuttle bus to Zandery Airport.  Unlike the drive after my middle-of-the-night arrival, which took just 45 minutes, the drive today took an hour and a quarter, such was the heavy traffic.  Nonetheless, I arrived in plenty of time to check-in and watch my plane, an old Surinam Airways Boeing 737-300, land from its previous flight and park out on the open tarmac – Zandery Airport does not boast air bridges.  Fortunately there was no thunderstorm, monsoon or cyclone (although there was steady rain) as we walked out to board the plane, somewhat “late” at 4:30 pm, given that my boarding pass suggested that boarding was due to commence at the originally scheduled “0515” (i.e. 5:15 am).

The plane took off, exactly 11 hours late, with profuse apologies from the pilots.  They explained that the aircraft had been stranded in Miami for the previous two days because of a landing gear problem when it arrived, and it had only been allowed to return to Suriname.  They noted that the airline does have a second Boeing 737, but this had been commandeered for presidential duties and had thus been unavailable to fill the gap.

The flight to Port of Spain took one hour and 20 minutes, which coincidentally is precisely how long it took to get to the front of the immigration queue after landing.  Port of Spain Airport looks attractive, but it is not a quick or efficient place to transit.  Even transit passengers have to clear immigration and customs because there is no interline transferring of luggage, and the by the time I had passed immigration, collected my bag from the now still belt, cleared customs, checked in for my next flight and cleared security, two and a quarter hours had passed.  I arrived at the gate just 10 minutes before boarding was due to commence for my connecting flight to Guyana.

This was a very quick and pleasant flight; just one hour in the air with a landing about five minutes early at 9:40 pm.  Processing immigration and customs at Georgetown Airport was far more rapid than Port of Spain, and I was outside by a little after 10:00 pm, where I met the driver (Sean) from the guesthouse where I intended to stay.  The 40 kilometre drive into Georgetown was fairly quick – there is not much traffic at that time of night – and I arrived at the guesthouse just before 11:00 pm.

It had been a long day, and in some ways a frustrating one.  As I headed for bed at about midnight after doing some washing, I was quietly grateful that I had not been up since 3:00 am (which would have been 2:00 am Guyana time) as originally planned.


Day 5 - Paramaribo to Georgetown

Thursday

28 June 2012

Today’s extra bonus images