Journeys into the interior of Suriname (2)

Trip Start Aug 29, 2009

Trip End Ongoing

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A wild camp in the Coesewijne National Park

(Paramaribo hotels)

Flag of Suriname Paramaribo, Suriname
Sunday, October 11, 2009

Coesewijne, or Swimming with Caiman

Peter writes:

Vulture circling

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 Alex at the guesthouse, we found ourselves roaring out of town towards the Coesewijne National Park in an old but still impressive Nissan Patrol 4x4. The car, stuffed with paddles, tents, fishing rods, cans of petrol and so forth, belonged to Henk, a large, confident, black guy, who spoke English (when he remembered he should because of my lack of Dutch) with a strong Caribbean accent. He drove as fast as possible, given the condition of the 'roads', playing loud music that he often sang along with, more or less. When not 'singing' he kept up a pretty continuous monologue in sranan tongo (clearly a man entirely comfortable with the sound of his own voice), and occasionally gave us interesting nuggets of information about the geology of the landscape, the history of the region and so forth.

The long-suffering recipient of Henk's no doubt cogent opinions was Jay, our tour leader, a much younger guy of evidently hindustani descent. Jay told us that he usually works at one of the main tourist centres, and that this was his day off; we found out only later that he was a last-minute substitute guide, whose lack of experience caused him some problems during the trip. Most of his siblings are in Holland, with the exception of his 13-year-old younger brother, whom he's paying to keep in school (which is only compulsory until 12). Without Jay's support, the brother would have to find work himself, at the expense of his education.

Termites and tarantulas

Our first stop (other than to pick up supplies) was at an Amerindian village called Bigi Poika, to pick up our local guide. The layout and architecture were quite different to the Maroon villages we had seen earlier. Houses were spaced out along the road, each one with a covered exterior space, used for both work and recreation, where we often saw people relaxing in hammocks. Everything was well built and for the most part in good repair, in contrast to Gunsi, where the huts were mostly very small and frequently quite dilapidated (though termites had a lot to do with this).

We pulled up at one compound, but found out that our guide wasn't quite ready because of caring for his sick mother, so we went on to the end of the village, where Henk took us for a walk along a decaying causeway to a lovely creek occupied by small boys playing in the water.

Bridge to creek in Bigi Poika

After half an hour we went back and collected our guide, a short, stocky older man called 'Baba' (reflecting his grandfather status), who squeezed onto the back seat with us, making the rest of the car ride quite uncomfortable.

Women peeling cassavas

However we didn't go far immediately, since we were taken to see the traditional process of making cassava bread under one of the covered spaces. Two women were efficiently peeling and scraping cassavas, ready to be grated (which they now do with a petrol-powered machine), squeezed in long bag woven from reeds and pounded into flour in a large pestle.

Baba pounding cassava

Baba demonstrated the pounding action to the great amusement of the two women, either because his technique was poor or perhaps just because this is traditionally female activity (Baba told us that the men concentrate on growing the cassavas). Another woman was baking oval flatbreads over a fire, which were then cut in half and packaged, with three half-breads in each plastic bag. We recognised these, having bought one at the market in Paramaribo without knowing what it was!

Finished cassava bread

The programmed 'demonstration of traditional culture' now complete, we returned to the jeep for more bumpy driving, this time along white sand tracks through low-growing vegetation. Eventually we came to a tidy encampment where, after some hanging around, the contents of the jeep were transferred to a boat with an outboard motor for the next stage of the journey. We said goodbye to Henk and set off with Jay at the tiller.

View from the boat

Baba sat at the front, from where he made hand signals to Jay to navigate the boat around various obstacles such as rocks, sandbanks and sunken tree trunks; we helped with bailing water from the slightly leaky boat!

Leaky boat!

Jay cut the engine whenever there were birds, or in one case, monkeys, to be seen, but otherwise we motored on up the river in search of a promising camp site. Prompted by the threat of imminent darkness, Jay chose one and we set up camp at the edge of the river. Jay gave us a tent to sleep in that we mostly erected by ourselves, while he and Baba tied a tarpaulin and hammocks to convenient trees. Baba lit a fire, and that was it – we were camped in the jungle!

Our camp

Jay told us the campsite was flooded in the rainy season, which meant that there wasn't much vegetation on the ground, so it was possible to move around without treading on hidden snakes. Supper was slightly odd, with the two of us seated on the ice box (the only thing in the camp you could sit on), eating, while Jay and Baba hung about. It never became entirely clear when or what they ate, and we found out later that the rather hurried and ad-hoc start to the tour meant that there weren't really enough provisions for everybody! There wasn't enough bedding either, as next morning Jay was unwell, having caught a chill in the night after giving both of the 'blankets' ('sheets' to those of us from cold northern countries!) to us. We immediately gave one of them back, since we had brought our sheet sleeping bag anyway, and offered ibuprofen. We suggested cutting the trip short, but Jay wouldn't hear of it, and insisted on taking us fishing.

Jay fishing

Jay clearly loved fishing, and did it at every opportunity, even in the dark. He took us out in the boat to try it for ourselves, using the extra rods brought for the purpose. After randomly hooking trees, sunken logs etc., we eventually grasped the mechanics of casting, but the finer points of catching fish clearly eluded us as our hooks remained un-bitten while Jay reeled in one fish after another. The trip along the river did give us the opportunity to see more birds, though, including several stately black-collared fish hawks, herons and kingfishers.

Kingfisher

We also glimpsed some rarely-seen howler monkeys, which we had heard in the night making an extraordinary noise sounding like some huge beast far off in the jungle.

Black-collared fish hawk

After lunch Jay retired to his hammock, and Baba took us on a jungle walk along the river, pointing out various trees and plants (it turned out that he is a highly experienced forester and a senior park ranger). Along the way we came across another camp of keen Javanese fishermen (and women), where he sternly checked their permits and exhorted them to take all their litter home. When we came back through the same camp later the atmosphere was more relaxed, and the other people realised they recognised Baba from the television, where he had won a talent competition telling jokes! He obliged them by doing a routine about how the country's different races sing and dance that generated a lot of amusement.

On returning to our camp, Baba used some reeds and palm stems he had collected to construct an ingenious traditional fish trap.

Baba making a fish trap

This took quite a while, partly because the plants he had found weren't quite the right ones, but the end result looked like it would work. In the meantime Jay had recovered sufficiently to do some more fishing, and we had fresh fish cooked over the open fire for supper as the light faded.

Fish cooking

After supper we were suddenly told 'we're going to see something now', so we followed Jay and Baba back to the boat. Quietly, using paddles, they set off onto the pitch black river. We shone torches into the dark, and saw points of light glinting back at us. These were caiman, relatives of alligators and crocodiles, floating in the water. We sidled up to one that turned out to be a metre-long juvenile, which Jay suddenly snatched from the water to give us a better look! This rather conflicted with our eco-sensibility and so we declined to handle the potentially traumatised creature, although I did take a picture. Elsewhere, rather larger eyes returned our torch beams, which our guides thought might be the caiman's mother (apparently they care for their young for the first three months). They didn't seem inclined to get close to that one and we returned to camp.

Dusk view down river

The night was still young, however, and the indefatigable Baba led us off on another walk, this time in the dark. We heard a chorus of tree frogs, avoided dislodging a termite nest and saw a fair-sized animal hiding in some bushes. Baba got quite excited and called it a 'dier', although when we enquired further it seemed to be a giant rodent like an agouti that is called a 'hay'. We were very shocked when Baba said he wished he had a gun to shoot it! Apparently it is a great delicacy and the thought of that tasty meat made him quite forget he was supposed to prevent hunting in the forest!

The next day we broke camp and headed back downriver. It was now the weekend, and we saw quite a few boats heading the other way with parties of fishermen, and realised that, though the park is uninhabited it's certainly well visited; it seemed like half the Javanese of Paramaribo had turned up with ice boxes, initially full of beer to be gradually replaced by fish.

Kingfisher on a tree

Back at the landing point we were met by Henk, and, with U2 blasting from the Nissan's stereo, retraced our steps. We stopped at a small shop/bar in Bigi Poika where a very cute young wild boar was running about as a pet. Baba bought us all beers, and then we said goodbye and returned to town. Despite not catching fish or handling caiman we were well satisfied with our trip.

Some sranan tongo Baba told us:
(NB: spelling is phonetic, based on Dutch pronunciation)
angri ikiermi
sang joe borie?
mi borie foroe
mino njang foroe
dang sang zjoe njang dang
minjang fissie
ma sortoe fissie dan?
ano habi frowie sotoe fissie, ma a moesoe sweetie
sang ju adrinie?
mie wannie drinie watra

Dutch/English translation:
ik heb honger / I am hungry
wat heb je gekookt? / what have you prepared?
Ik heb kip gekookt / I have cooked chicken
ik eet geen kip / I don't eat chicken
wat eet je dan / what do you eat then?
Ik hou van vis / I like fish
wat voor vis? / what kind of fish
doet er niet toe wat voor vis / does not matter which fish
het moet lekker zijn / it has to be tasty
wat ga je drinken? / what are you going to drink?
Ik wil water / I'd like water

Els's haiku:
Languid caiman float
Hawks and kingfishers swoop down
Macaws fly over