Saturday, Nov 23rd, Ramada Paramaribo Princess, Suriname

 

Desmond, our guide for the day, gave us one of the best city tours of our destination - Paramaribo.   We arrived in the City after driving to the border from French Guiana, getting our exit papers checked and passports stamped, and climbing into our motorized dugout canoe.  The short ride across the river separating French Guiana from Suriname was followed by a three and half hour bus ride to our hotel in Paramaribo (Ramada Paramaribo Princess).  

Four days earlier, we stopped at the hotel to drop off our large luggage in order to lighten our flight weight for the small planes which took us into the rainforest.  Now, we were headed back home and needed the extra clean clothes, a shower, and could finally get a look at the City of Paramaribo.  

More than the other cities we have visited, Paramaribo's buildings and city layout tell the story of the many ethnic and national influences which have occupied Suriname.  Mosques, synagogues, Protestant churches built near each other, and streets which reflect the neighborhoods which operated the City.

This is the last day of the tour, and we ended it with a Goodbye dinner even though most of us will share an extra day waiting for our flights out.  To see all of the photos taken today, click on Saturday, Nov 23rd, Ramada Paramaribo Princess, Suriname.

Friday, Nov 22nd, Hotel Mercure Kourou Ariatel, French Guyana

Greetings!

We bailed on hanging with the tour group today.  They enjoyed a long drive to a Catamaran ride to a group of offshore islands, including Devil's Island (the French Jail).  We enjoyed a restful day at the hotel, and watched birds on a lake from above the dining room.  I produced a couple of useful website posts which will help me keep Sonoma County moving forward while it would seem the nation fall backward.

Thursday, Nov 21, Hotel Mercure Kourou Ariatel, French Guyana

Greetings!

The European Space Launching Facility is located in French Guiana, not far from where we stayed last night.  That big black thing next to this paragraph is a mock up of one of their latest rockets without the outer skin.  It was used to make sure all the buildings were large enough along the production route for the real rocket to fit.

We started early from our hotel to drive to the site, as it was quite a way down the coast, and is surrounded by 80 square miles of protected forest.  Once we arrived, we were given a tour of the entire facility, starting with the production of the bottom stage of the rocket and proceeding up the fuselage.  Finally, we were taken into the control building and shown the row upon row of computer stations from which all of the space agency personnel monitored the many aspects of the launch and flight.

Leaving the European Space Site, we stopped at a local Supermarket for lunch on the way to Cayenne, the capital of French Guyana.  Home to the pepper, it is the most populous French-speaking city in South America.  Better than that, it promised a meal of duck, steak, french onion soup, baggettes, and burgundy wine.  Patience was the key, but we are well on our way to great meals surrounded by friends who test our ability to understand their language.

Similar to Guyana and Suriname, French Guiana has a history forged in indigenous original residents, invaded by foreigners, who imported slaves to grow and dig for resources for exportation.  Because it has remained colonized and supported by France, it has become the home of many fleeing allied colonies and desperate countries.  Tensions are rising over immigration practices between newly-arrived refugees and long-time residents as worries over future economic security.

To see all of the photos taken today, click on Thursday, November 21st, Hotel Mercure Kourou Ariatel, French Guiana.

 

Wednesday, Nov 20th, Hotel Mercure Kourou Ariatel, French Guyana

Today, we flew back to the coast of Suriname, and boarded a motorized dugout canoe to cross the river separating Suriname from French Guyana.  The last of the trip's three places we're visiting, French Guyana is actually not a country.  It's an overseas department and region of France.   It should not be confused with Guinea, a country on the west coast of Africa.

Here's a couple of little known trick questions about France and French Guyana.   Where is the largest national park in South America?  Where is the longest border in France?  The answer is in French Guyana (the border is between Brazil and French Guyana).

Today was a long traveling day, and not many photos were taken.  We arrived at the Hotel Mercure Kourou Ariatel just in time for dinner.  No webpage exists for it, but its 4-star status is deserved.  

 

Sunday, Nov 17th, Kabalebo Resort, Suriname

 

Today, we flew from Georgetown, Guyana to the Kabalebo Resort a few hours up the Kabaleto River.  It's the only river in Suriname that doesn't host an indigenous community.  Instead, twenty-five years ago,  the ecolodge now called the Kabalebo Resort began.  Operated by descendants of the original Amerindian and African Maroons, it's a three-star resort 150 miles from the nearest road which serves both the avid fly-fisherman and travel adventurer.

Over the next three days, we'll hike through the rain forest, canoe to rapids, spot an assortment of birds, flowers, trees, and animals.  Learning from those raised in the forest about the many uses of everything around us, it brought unusually rich insight into this precious environment.

It's Wednesday night, and in order to make a weight limit on the small planes which transported us into the far reaches of the rain forest, my laptop stayed behind in stored luggage.  Consequently, my ability to post daily reports had to be sacrificed.  Instead, this post will link to the past three day's photo albums (Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday).  We hope they give you a sense of the wonderfully relaxing and stimulating times it provided us.

   

Saturday, Nov 16th, Georgetown, Guyana

 

Greetings!

After an early nature walk which turned out to be not early enough to hear many birds or see any animals, we had breakfast at the Lodge and boarded a boat to travel upriver.  Stopping at several places, Eugene provided us with the history and character of each.  Most were supply and access points for the gold, lumber, diamond, and other natural resource prospectors.

One of the stops was Bartica, where 70 Guyanese still live today.  We photographed the bold "One Guyana" sign symbolizing their resistance to the effort by Venezuela to annex the area north of the Essequibo River.  We walked a short way up the town beachfront, and met a delightful group of young women cricketplayers on their way upriver to a match.

On our return, we had lunch at poolside, and were met by Claude, who lives on the island.  He took us on a walk through the swampy coastal forest south of the Resort.  As a member of the Machushi tribe, who grew up in the forest, he was able to share much of the tribal lore and stories concerning the resources around us.

After the walk, Claude surprised us with a sloth he brought into the resort grounds from a nearby tree.  A pregnant female, somewhat smaller than others we have seen on other trips, but nevertheless a beautiful creature we were able to observe up close.

Late in the afternoon, we said goodbye to the Resort and took a local boat back to the Ramada Georgetown Princess Hotel in Georgetown. 

To see all of the photos taken today, click on Saturday, Nov 16th, Georgetown, Guyana.

Friday, Nov 15th, Kaieteur Falls, Guyana

 

Greetings!

There was not much that went right today, but this very seasoned group of travelers took it all in stride. 

 What did go right was the talk that Eugene gave on the.way to the Airport.  He showed us housing, and explained how the country turned sugar cane fields into viable low, middle, and high income homes.  Giving access to land to those with the will to work hard to improve it seems to have been a good strategy.

So after nothing planned happening on time, we flew to the Baganara Island Resort Lodge on an island in the middle of the Essequibo River (the border Venezuela claims).  We then hiked a short distance to the Kaieteur Falls, took a few photos to prove we all made it, returned to the bar and then...to the best dinner of the trip.

To see all of the photos takem, click on Friday, Nov 15th, Kaieteur Falls, Guyana.

Thursday, November 14th, Georgetown, Guyana

Greetings!

After a 12-hour set of flights from San Francico to Miami, and Miami to Georgetown, Guyana. we were met at the Cheddi Jagan international Airport on Wednesday, and driven for an hour by Dale, while Eugene provided an excellent commentary on Guyana's capital situated downriver at the mouth of the Demerara River.  We checked into the Ramada Georgetown Princess Hotel, and quickly fell asleep.

On Thursday, Nov 14th, Eugene and our tour guide (Lynn Spreadbury) hosted us on a City tour, including lunch back at our hotel, and a dinner at the Maharaja Palace, a great Indian restaurant.   

On our tour, we visited the Cheddi Jagan Research Center, where we met one of the past Presidents of Guyana (Donald Ramotar), who served. from 2001 until 2015.  Eugene, prior to becoming a local tour guide, had an illustrious career as a journalist, and was well-known to the President.  The President provided us with a very personal account of his time in office, and of the difficulty of governing the country without a majority of his party in the legislative branch.  His chief worry concerning Guyana now is its lack of electricity, and and is happy the current government is focusing on strengthening the country's infrastructure 

Georgetown has risen from a delta lowland, British plantation colony, which received its independence in 1966.  A series of canals draining the mangrove swamps nearest the mouth of three rivers, its housing communities look like, and are named to remind 18th century brits of, the homes they grew up in.  Large wooden stilted pitched roof two story homes which were designed to shed snow are everywhere, sit next to concrete, recent flat-roof structures more recently built.   The water from upriver, just before it reaches the sea, is held in ponds, and one of them serves as the home of a pod of Manatees.  With fist full of grass grown nearby, we got to serve them lunch by hand.

No Adventures Abroad tour would be complete without a visit to the local museums, and the Museum of Anthropology introduced us to Guyana's nine indigenous tribes, and the materials associated with 11,000 years of their occupation.  I was fascinated by the similarity of their pottery, and how closely it looked to that produced by those who lived in our Southwestern areas.

For an overview of our next fourteen days, and an itinerary for each day, click on our Trip Map and see it again on Google Earth.  

To see a few of the photos we took on our City tour today, click on Thursday, November 14, Georgetown, Guyana.  Limited internet access will probably prevent most of the photos from appearing regularly on this trip, as we'll be staying many nights in the forests upriver in the Amazon.  You might want to wait, and catch the entire set of photo-links after we get home.