Kourou, French Guiana

Our hotel in Kourou, Le Gros Bec, is within walking distance of the boat terminal servicing the Salvation Islands. It's about an hour long boat ride to the islands and the return day trip cost us €42 each. It was a sensational day, hot and sunny and with a cruise ship also docked nearby their were quite a lot of tourists scattered around the island. We spent all our time on Royal island, and as well as wandering around the derelict prison cells and administrative buildings, we saw agoutis and capuchin monkeys at every turn. It's easily walkable and we must have walked close to 10km during the six hours we were there.

Hotel Le Gros Bec in Kourou

The Salvation Islands were made infamous by the book by Henri Charrière and subsequent film Papillon starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman. Used by the French as a penal colony up until the early 1950's, many of the worst convicts were sent here, but Charrière was one who always professed his innocence.

Some of the derelict prison cells

The hospital on Royal Island

The entrance to the hospital

Looking towards Devil's Island from Royal

The following day we went to the excellent Space Center where the Europeans launch the Ariane, Soyuz and Vega rockets. The tour was in French but the tour guide was gracious enough to translate for us whenever she got the chance. The restricted area is enormous and the tour took close to three hours but it was well worth it, and free. We didn't get back to the hotel until about noon and we needed to be back in Paramaribo in Surname that night. Things were about to go pear shaped.

The European Space Center in Kourou

The Vega launch site

Paramaribo, Suriname

DUTCH GUYANA
We arrived in Paramaribo in the pouring rain late on a Sunday afternoon after an afternoon spent in a minivan from the border at Nieuw Nickerie. Conveniently the driver deposited us at our hotel - a Courtyard Marriott standing like an oasis beside the Suriname River. I used my Marriott points for our stay and we ended up in a great room with a big balcony overlooking the river. Paramaribo, also called Parbo, was much bigger than I expected. I had anticipating walking around the place easily but it sprawls out along the river and just keeps going and going.

We spent a day in and around Paramaribo wandering the streets and taking in the atmosphere but it was Independence Day in Suriname and many shops were closed. Lot's of Dutch tourists were all around us but English was spoken where we needed it. One of the highlights in Suriname is the strange sight of a mosque next to a synagogue. When we finally found it, we were was surprised to be invited into the mosque by the caretaker to take a look around.

Mosque beside a Synagogue - apparently the only instance in the world

Paramaribo

ROAD TRIP TO FRENCH GUIANA
The following day, November 26th, we needed to get across the border into French Guiana and eventually to Kourou or Cayenne. We had the option of taking a bus but by chance we stumbled across a taxi driver, Arno, who offered to take us all the way to the border at Albina, straight away, for  €70. I think ht bargaining started a bit higher but we thought it was a good idea and was going to save us a bit of time.

Roti & Parbo in the taxi to Albina

Taking Arno up on his offer was to be one of the best decisions of the trip. Painful at times but certainly noteworthy on many fronts. As we left town he pulled into a roti shop, called The Roti Shop, and got lunch and a few Parbo beers for the car. Arno smoked a spliff as we got further away from the capital and the roads quickly became awful, although there is a staggering amount of road work being done so in a few years this road will be excellent. There are speed bumps in every town but as we neared the bauxite mining town of  Moengo we took a detour on to a clay road riddled with pot holes. Arno picked up a random girl in Moengo and hit on her for the next 20 minutes before dropping her at her grandmothers house. Albina is a nothing town with zero charm and certainly isn't a place you want to spend a night. We took Arno's phone number on the off chance that we would use him again (we would). The border crossing was super fast - there was no line and as soon as we got to the pier a pierogi driver offered us a ride across the river for SRD30 so we took it.

Crossing to French Guiana via pierogi

It was one of the easier border crossings I've experienced and quite interesting too. The pierogi's are everywhere and are a much quicker option than the car ferry. But once we got into French Guiana we made a decision that we were to later regret. We ditched the plan to rent a car and instead took a minivan for €50 to Kourou.

Shortly after a toilet stop, where we also stocked up on beer, we were stopped by the Gendarme for a passport check. When they realized we were from New Zealand the conversation quickly turned to rugby, then to self depreciating humour and finally to a selfie.

The minivan dropped us at the hotel of our choice - Hotel Le Gros Bec - but the reception was closed so we went walking around the town, found an excellent African artifact store and bought a mask. The room at the hotel was a real treat - a spacious room with a mezzanine bedroom for €72 a night.

Georgetown, Guyana

Guyana and Suriname are the only two South American countries to drive on the left. Suriname is the smallest country in South America because although French Guiana has a smaller land mass, it's not a country in its own right since it technically belongs to France.

We had one full day in Georgetown to get our flights organized for Kaieteur Falls and for Glen to get his Suriname visa sorted out. First up were the flights - we got a taxi driver to take us to the tour office and paid USD$240 each for return flights from Ogle airport the following day. I'd been emailing with a guy called Frank Singh at Rainforest Tours and he made sure we had our seats reserved well in advance and made the whole process easy. Next stop wasn't quite as easy. The Suriname Embassy in Georgetown has a dress code - no shorts and no slippers (flip-flops) - we were both in shorts and sandals. Curiously though my shorts were long enough and my sandals deemed passable but Glen was prohibited from going inside the embassy. They let Glen fill in all the paperwork in the taxi and I took them inside to hand over and pay the fee - pickup later in the afternoon. Comical but excellent. Next stop the cricket ground.

Brickdam St near Stabroek

Stabroek market

The Bourda Cricket Ground in Georgetown is legendary for New Zealand cricket fans. It's here where Glenn Turner scored a then New Zealand record 259 and together with Terry Jarvis put on 387 which at the time was the second highest in test history for any country. A few things struck me about the place; it was really run down and not nearly as imposing as I had imagined, the drainage was awful, it had rained the night before and the outfield was flooded, but the people was so welcoming and again we made our way to the members lounge for drinks.

Glen & I at the Bourda ground in Georgetown, Guyana

Saturday November 23day was the day this whole trip was planned around - a day trip to Kaieteur falls in the Guyanese interior, purportedly the worlds biggest single drop waterfall. Thankfully the day dawned bright and the one hour flight from Ogle airport was smooth and picturesque as we flew south over the marshy plains and dense rain forest to the tiny landing strip next to the falls.

Kaieteur falls in the Guyanese interior

Me at Kaieteur falls

We spent about 20 minutes at each of the three photo stops en route, each stop offering a different angle and uncovering more of the falls character. It was one of those eerily surreal experiences being deep in the jungle with only a dozen people for company. Kaieteur Falls is amazing and I'll add it to my RWV list (Rivers, Waterfalls & Volcanoes).

The plane that took us to Kaieteur falls

About two hours later we headed back to Georgetown in the same plane and landed at about 5pm. I promised our taxi driver in Georgetown that I'd buy him a beer when we saw him again so he stopped at the nearest bar. One beer turned into four and before we knew what had happened we were back at the International Guesthouse. I don't recommend buying your taxi driver anything to drink before he's delivered you safely to your destination but this is Guyana and things are a little different here.

Tomorrow we head East, to Suriname. Dutch Guyana.

Port-of-Spain, Trinidad

My brother Glen joined me on a trip to cover the three Guyana's - British Guyana (simply called Guyana), Dutch Guyana (Suriname) and French Guiana (a department of France) - but on the way I discovered there is also a Spanish Guyana in Venezuela called the Guayana Region, and a Portuguese version now known as the Brazilian state of Amapa. The last two would have to wait but the other three were my destination this trip, but before we could get there, we had a pit-stop in Trinidad to kick things off.

Travel days are never too interesting but early on a Wednesday Glen & I caught the 7:40am flight from DFW to MIA, hung out at Admirals Club for a bit and happened to bump into our neighbor Natasha while we were wandering around. The Port of Spain flight left at around 5:40pm arriving close to 11pm local time in Trinidad. Since it was after 10pm the standard taxi rates were higher than normal - $45 for the Hilton. The trip only took about 20 minutes but when we told the driver we needed to come back to the airport tomorrow afternoon, he said make sure you give yourself two hours just for the taxi ride. He wasn't wrong.
We are stopping on the way back to do some bird watching so I got some Trinidad Dollars exchanged at a rate about USD$1:TTD$6.

Tourists typically come to Trinidad for bird watching or the carnival but since carnival wasn't in season and the bird watching was planned for our return trip we wandered down to the Queens Park Oval to see if we could find a way inside. Glen was wearing one of his IPL shirts with Warner on the back (American's google David Warner Australia Cricket) so he immediately struck up a rapport with the security guard who made a few calls and before long we were in the members lounge drinking Stag beer and eating lunch. There was no game on but we had a blast talking to some of the members and wandering around the ground. It was all pretty surreal, especially when the clouds rolled in and the rain came down, only to clear a few minutes later. We retraced our steps back to the hotel and spent all of two hours in the taxi back to the airport.

It's only a 55 minute flight to Georgetown, Guyana and as soon as we landed we found a stoned taxi driver in a barely road worthy sedan to drive us the 40 km from the airport to our hotel in Georgetown for USD$25. I chose the International Guesthouse because of the location and the good write-ups - I bought the taxi driver and the front desk attendant a beer and made Glen pay for our stay - $87/night for three nights. Maybe I was excited by another new country or another new currency but I was on cloud nine.  The exchange rate was about USD$1:GYD$200

Glen at Queens Park Oval

Me at Queens Park Oval