Downtown Inn Paramaribo

... gains by this, though later we passed the road to a gold mine that is in Canadian hands, from which apparently only 5% of the profit goes to Suriname! The last 95 km stretch was not tarmacked. This may not sound very far, but it took hours as Aniel needed to drive very slowly to dodge the many potholes as well as other drivers. He shook his head as we were overtaken by yet another rusty bus, overloaded with people and luggage, muttering, “I would never ...

... Luckily three more passengers were found quite quickly. Instead of looking for a sixth passenger the driver decided that one of our rucksacks took the place of a passenger – which it did. There was no way a sixth person could have been squeezed in. We had to pay for the rucksack/passenger although I managed to beat down the price, much to the amusement of the other passengers. We drove rather fast along the potholed road, and got to ...

... own almost ALL the businesses, not just the grocery stores and trinket shops. They may very well have come in originally with the Indonesians (though usually referred to as 'Javanese'), given that rice and noodle dishes are universally known as 'nasi' and 'bamie', whether warung or Chinese or 'roti shop' and the steamed buns are 'saw paw', same as Indonesia if I remember correctly. The old waterfront of Paramaribo has been declared a UN world ...

... Gtown, via New Amsterdam. Apparently, this whole region of north-eastern South America was known as Suriname prior to colonial times, which derives from an Amerindian word (broad term that). During colonial times different parts of it changed hands a number of times between the British, Dutch, French and Spanish. Hence New Amsterdam being in Guyana, known to be former British Guiana. Also it wasn't the Brits who built Georgetown six feet below sea level ...

... then again I could be wrong. It's also going to be interesting working at this new school (which I now have to get up way earlier and take 2 buses to get there, even though it's just in the other village, otherwise it's a 45 min-1 hour walk). The staff has teachers with many years of experience who are very self-assured and as a result are confident that their way is the correct way. I don't think either Pat or I will have any trouble, but it'll still be interesting ...

... de majoor en ontmoeten onze "vriend" van de vorige keer. Hij wil graag ook onze gestempelde crewlist zien, want die moet ook opnieuw gestempeld worden! De lijst, waarvan deze dienst twee exemplaren heeft ontvangen, en wij een derde aan boord hebben achtergelaten! De belangstelling en beleefdheid maakt dat na veel aarzelen en uiterste zorgvuldigheid het stempel toch vast in ons visum wordt gezet. Met het hand op het hart moeten we verklaren om a.s. maandag aan de balie de ...

... 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 ...

... and then waits for it to refill. The bus doesn't leave until it is full. Typically this is amazingly fast, but can be tedious in the evening. The price is 1 SRD (in the evenings most routes are 2) this is about 50 cents Canadian. The driver, who incidentally is called "the chauffeur", is paid either when you enter or leave. It beats me how the driver can keep track. In the beginning I paid getting on the bus, but changed this routine after Brenda and I were hollered at one day by ...

... that they are repeating it this year. Eve Eisler, who is the author and owner of the VM gives the rights to preform the play free every February to qualifying applicants. Brenda managed to get Suriname's application in and accepted as well as find a producer for the production before she left. They are also going to partner with Grande Prairie as a sister city for the production. Steve and Amy are a young couple from Saskatchewan. Steve is a computer guy and Amy's ...

... 3 village (or so we were told) that were not relocated in the area as a result of the flooding. One of them is Baku and another is Libi Doti which is very close and has about 800 people. Brokopondo is fascinating in itself. A strange and rather eery graveyard of white tree trunks. We wondered how on earth the boats maneuver the lake as there are trunks of trees all over and no doubt many under the water surface. However, they apparently follow the old river systems and seem ...