Best Western Elegance Hotel Paramaribo

<br>Coesewijne, or Swimming with Caiman<br><br>Peter writes:<br> Gunsi was delightful, but hopeless for seeing wildlife, so we decided to take a tour to the uninhabited interior of the country. These tours are quite expensive, but since uninhabited areas are not well served by public transport they are the only practical way to go. One of the tours advertised in our guesthouse as 'adventurous' took our fancy, and after some hurried phoning around by ...

<br>Els writes: On 30th September we left for a six day trip to Gunsi, a Maroon (Marron in het Nederlands) village in the jungle. Maroons are descendants from slaves who live a traditional lifestyle involving hunting and fishing. We had booked a car for 8.15 am to take us as far as Atjoni, the end of the road; after that all transport further into the interior is by korjaal. Aniel, our Javanese driver, first took us to a large supermarket at the edge of town to buy ...

... be able to sort things out for us. According to our guidebook Paramaribo is a four hour bus ride away, which might be cutting it a bit fine. So we agreed a price with one of the waiting taxi drivers and jumped in. But instead of making for the main road, he drove to a landing area for korjalen (long thin boats with an outboard motor). Many people cross the river this way as ferries are few and far between. He said that he wanted four more ...

... if I get desperate. Hunger speaks every language. Oh yeah, then there's the Chinese. Their presence here is out of all proportion to their numbers, as it is elsewhere also. I don't remember the phenomenon of the 'Chinese grocery' in my early years of travel in Latin America, but that could be my fault of memory, or it could be that they're multiplying in exponential proportion with China's new economic clout. They were certainly mentioned in the ...

... pretty muddy and uninviting. So I'm glad I also went to Tobago where the sea was blue and clear! Guyana is one hour earlier than Suriname, being a step further west. Disembarkation followed by another slow queue for immigration - no visa needed in advance for Guyana (or Trinidad and Tobago) for people from UK or most Commonwealth countries. Then wander thru customs and off to the minibus. Quite some time was spent loading luggage behind and under the back ...

... we are to start at a brand new school with computer labs, science labs, textile and home ec work shops, metal and wood-working workshops, a LIBRARY! And that we must take care of the stuff and so forth. So far I've been mostly bored, but that's because the things the speakers say mostly apply to the teachers who will be there for the long term and are part of the system. For myself, I am excited to be where I have actual classrooms and real resources. Granted ...

... mensen die een 15Pk kochten. Een erg populair motortje want alle taxiboten zijn er mee uitgerust. Men verkoopt hier uitsluitend tweetakt en de prijzen zijn redelijk laag. "Daar is de baby", riep de verkoper toen hij het ding over de toonbank tilde! "Ik ben blij dat ik die er niet uit heb hoeven persen" floept Syl er spontaan uit. Hilariteit alom. Lachen kunnen ze, die Suri´s. Ook de kortegolfradio was nog een probleem aan boord. Bij een heuse Kenwood dealer bespreken we ...

... Matthew. This is Jack Rogers from Peace Corps. How do you feel about going to South America?" Supposing South America could be just as exciting as anywhere else in the world, and knowing that they didn't send volunteers to Brazil anymore, I replied, "Sure. I'd like to learn Spanish." "Actually, Matthew, it's a Dutch speaking country." Curious, I thought. Shows how much I know about South America. "Ok," I said. "Great!" the voice on the other side said, "We'll send you all the ...

... share with are some typical Parimaribo experiences. Not the least of which are the city buses! The buses have amused and frustrated us from the beginning. Early on, Amy, one of the participants sighted the buses as her biggest cultural frustration. The buses are privately owned. The good thing is there are lots of them, although some lines don't run evenings or Sundays. They do follow routes, but there are no maps. Buses here are somewhat like boats in that most of them sport names ...

... frames on our postings. Brenda's was 2 months, mine 3, Steve and Amy 4, Sherilyn 5 and Jessica 6. So, I am the next to leave and Jess will have 4 more goodbyes before she is left to finish her project. We all have job titles and descriptions, but it seems that they are more for the purpose of satisfying the project proposal for the CCI funders, rather than anything that has to be adhered to on the ground here in Suriname. In saying that, we all have our areas of ...