Our six-country tour ends

JAN WESTMAAS

CONCLUSION

WE had to fill out forms and receive QR codes or some sort of online approval at least eight times, simply to enter and exit Guyana and Suriname. Compare this with our experience in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay where nothing of the sort was required, except in the case of Chile where everyone had to make an online declaration re any animal or plant-based product or handicraft or any cash more than a named amount that he or she might be carrying. In any event, this form could have been filled out manually at the airport.

There is no bridge crossing the Río de la Plata (62 kilometres wide) from Buenos Aires in Argentina to Sacramento in Uruguay. Similarly, there is no bridge crossing the Courantyne River from Molson Creek in Guyana to South Drain in Suriname (1.5 kilometres wide). The crossing in both instances is done by ferry. That’s where the comparison ends.

What really matters is the efficiency and speed with which people, goods and vehicles are moved across borders. The 90-minute border crossing in the Southern Cone on the super-modern ferry – the Buquebus – was seamless. On the other hand, the short crossings on the ferry Canawaima from Molson Creek to South Drain and back was marred by unnecessary bureaucracy and by a vessel inadequate in size (capacity for only 24 cars and 200 passengers) and poor in service to cater for growing traffic.

According to the Guyanese Chronicle of September 14, the presidents of Guyana and Suriname agreed “on the urgent need to review its operation to improve and strengthen the reliability and efficiency of the service.”

On the lone coastal road from South Drain to Paramaribo, Dave our driver, flew over the humps, skirted the potholes and raced over the asphalt and gravel, so intent was he to get us before nightfall to Hotel Royal Breeze, a cut above the Aracari hotel in Georgetown. We got nowhere near Suriname’s renowned forests. With 90 per cent of its land covered in forests, this country, the smallest in South America (634,431 inhabitants in 2024), is reputedly a nature lover’s paradise. Ironically, the closest we got to enjoy the country’s nature was on the afternoon that members of our group went to watch pink-belly dolphins on the Suriname River that runs alongside Paramaribo.

We had not come to Suriname to trek through forests or to go wild-life spotting. Neither did we have time, given our brief stay, to visit any of its Amerinidian communities or Maroon villages established by runaway slaves. “The indigenous comprise 3.8 per cent of the population but sadly their future is threatened by the mining of gold, bauxite and diamonds on their lands,” said Giovanni, our fluent English-speaking guide from Paramaribo. “This town itself is named after the tribe that lived near the mouth of the Suriname River,” he added.

The following morning Giovanni took us on a much-anticipated tour of the inner-city of Paramaribo which was declared a World Heritage site by Unesco. “As you can see, wood, so easily available, was the material of choice of the Dutch in the 17th and 18th century. Unesco listed at least 291 buildings and monuments for conservation. Only a few have disappeared since independence,” declared Giovanni. As he said this, he asked Dale to stop the bus so we could pay a brief visit to the Neveh Shalom Jewish synagogue with its sand-covered floor located next door to the far newer Paramaribo City mosque!

At least ten per cent of the population are of Javanese origin. The vast majority of them are Muslim, brought by the Dutch from the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) to work as contract labourers on Dutch-owned plantations from 1891 to 1939. Trinidad and Guyana share a similar story with Suriname, except that the indentured population came to the ex-British colonies from the British Raj in India from 1838 to 1917.

As pre-arranged, our bus and maxi-taxi complete with luggage left Paramaribo early on the morning of July 23 for Albina, the town on the Maroni River, that borders St Laurent du Maroni in French Guiana. The 450-mile-long river divides French Guiana on the east from Suriname on the west. Unlike crossing the Courantyne from Guyana to Suriname or crossing the Rio de La Plata from Argentina to Uruguay, where we crossed by ferry, our crossing of the Maroni River was done in three small pirogues!

The crossing was efficient. It went without a hitch. In no time, the pirogue captains and their helpers had us and our luggage aboard and across the river. Waiting for us on the other side were the three mini-buses operated by Transport Jacqui, the Cayenne-based company I had hired to move us around French Guiana for three days. Clearing French Customs and Immigration in a jiffy, we were ready to move on.

Before continuing to Kourou, where the European Space Centre is located, we visited the old, notorious penal colony of St Laurent where for roughly 100 years – mid-19th to mid-20th century – France sent its “hardened criminals,” including political ones to serve time. And from our hotel in Kourou, we would also be able to see the infamous Devil’s Island, an island on the Atlantic where prisoners were also kept.

It might not have been the most pleasant way to start a tour of any country but we were right on spot and most of us were eager to see the prisons built by forced labour (the prisoners themselves) in St Laurent. Most of the buildings, an interesting mix of French colonial and penitentiary architecture, were still intact, preserving an integral part of French heritage in the new world.

Our three-and-a-half-hour journey from St Laurent to Kourou in Monsieur Jacqui’sthree minibuses revealed a Guiana quite distinct from the two Guianas we had just been through. The roads were far better paved, the verges immaculately maintained and there were no unsightly settlements to obscure our view of the spectacular virgin forests that constantly met our eyes. Colonial power or not, France Overseas in South America appeared to be taking its responsibility for the environment seriously.

Cayenne, the capital, was but an hour’s drive from our hotel. After a restful night in Kourou, we headed straight for the old town that was built in the 17th century. Creole-style buildings in beautiful, bright Caribbean colours were everywhere. “Let’s get out and walk up to the ruins of colonial Fort Ceperou from where you’ll have a panoramic view of the town and the Cayenne River”, said newly qualified guide Lyncia, in her halting English. Unlike Dutch-speaking Suriname, where just about everyone understood and spoke basic English, most French Guianese, francophone to the core, spoke little or no English.

After visiting the fort, we popped into Cayenne’s main museum, La Musée des Cultures Guyannaises, appropriately located in a historic creole house. Spoilt for choice and with limited time, we raced through displays on French Guiana’s local and natural history, its archaeology and its ethnography. But what grabbed me most was its extensive and elaborate display of the Cayenne carnival! I was particularly fascinated by the “queens of carnival,” the Touloulous, in their elaborate costumes mimicking 18th and 19th century bourgeois women.

The high point of our visit to French Guiana was the evening of July 25, when we all witnessed, quite by chance from the comfort of a restaurant on the waterfront, the launch from the European Space Centre of the rocket Arianne 6, carrying a polar-orbiting weather satellite. The day before, we had visited the centre but had no idea that a launch was planned for the very next evening.

Fast forward to cold and wintry Buenos Aires, three weeks or so later. Our group of 37 that included most of the 15 who had been on the three Guianas adventure signed up for an evening dinner and tango experience at the Aljibe in San Telmo, an older, more colonial and bohemian-type district with streets paved with stone. “The three-course dinner, the music and dance was worth every peso” said one group member on the bus back to the hotel, to unanimous agreement.

The day before , the same number, including 14 from the three Guianas tour group, bit the bullet and paid US$120 each for an all-inclusive day out on a farm on the pampas, two hours from the city. Dubbed a day horse-back riding with the gauchos, it was an appropriate introduction on another wintry day to a key ingredient of Argentine life apart from fine wine – cattle and cowboys (gauchos). Wise to the needs of all members of the group, the needs of vegetarians were not forgotten at lunch time.

Of our travel in July and August through the countries of the three Guianas and the three countries of the Southern Cone, some varied experiences stand out from the many we had. The adventure on a speedboat on the Essequibo River in Guyana from Parika to Bartica stopping for lunch on Sloth Island and visiting the Dutch Colonial Fort, Kyk-Over- Al on the way, is impossible to forget.

In Uruguay, in mild wintry weather, the three-hour journey from Sacramento to Montevideo on a first-class road through gently rolling pasture land was an experience of a life time. Finally, the 22 kilometre long river-side promenade in Montevideo on the banks of the sandy Río de la Plata, busy with runners, walkers, lovers, everyday folk and families of all ages made a lasting impression on me. I long for the day that my own town, San Fernando, might enjoy a similar space for recreation and relaxation.

Jan Westmaas is author of Out of the Box Tales of Travel 1972-2013. Available on line on
Amazon.com