Author Archives: Dan Perry

About Dan Perry

Dan created this blog to document his South America trip, which covered every country on the continent and lasted over two years. He currently lives in Madison, WI.

The Perils of Hitching

December 30, 2006
Day 458

When we got back to Apoera, we met up once again with Germaine. He was feeling a bit better after his malaria relapse. We bought enough food for a few days and ran into Yohan, the Flemish guy who was on our boat when we first came to Apoera. The four of us walked to the edge of town together, where Craig and I were hoping to hitch a ride to the turnoff to Blanche Marie Falls, about fifty K's up the road.

It got really hot around noon, and Yohan and Germaine got sick of waiting with us, so they walked back into town. There were no trees around to provide shade, no wind, and not a cloud in the sky, so the heat seemed impossible to escape from. I pulled out my tent and made a shelter from the sun using the fly by itself, but it was still too hot even to think.

The only road out of Apoera goes all the way to Paramaribo, the capitol, so Craig and I figured there'd be a fair amount of traffic. However, in seven hours of waiting, not one car passed us. We felt quite dejected and walked back into Apoera figuring we'd have to hang out until after New Year's when there'd likely be more traffic. Spending the holiday in the village as opposed to a resort sounded fine, but we'd already been in the area for a week and were ready to leave.

When we got back to Germaine's place, we ran into Yohan again. Craig borrowed his bike for a quick spin around town. Five minutes later, he was back shouting at me to pack my stuff up. He found us a ride to Blanche Marie! A few minutes later, a government truck picked us up and drove us to the turnoff point.

Just off the main road was a shack where a drunken security guard was staying. He had been cooped up in the shack all alone for two months, and his boss was finally coming to pick him up, so I guess he started celebrating a little early. He showed us a room where we could lock all of our excess gear, so we didn't have to resort to stashing it in the jungle as was our original plan. Shortly thereafter, his boss showed up and took him away, but not before letting off a ton of fireworks. We still had to walk seventeen K's to get to the resort, so we camped early underneath the veranda.

Another Day in Siparuta

December 29, 2006
Day 457

Bamboo Raft Experiment Day 4

We spent another full day in Siparuta. A lot of interesting people came and talked to us, including the captain (mayor) of the village. One guy invited us to go fishing with him in his boat in the afternoon, but he didn't show up. He returned later in the evening with a bagful of bananas and oranges as an apology.

Craig caught some more big piranhas for us, and we learned about a kid in the village who recently lost three fingers to the vicious fish. His mom was cleaning a fish, so there were guts in the water, and her kid was splashing around in the water, which attracted a huge piranha. Before anyone saw it coming, it had bitten off the boy's index, middle, and ring fingers. Today I made sure to be extra careful when handling the piranhas as a result.

Several people assured us today that two boats for sure would pass the village in the middle of the night. For insurance, I decided to sleep on the jetty so I could signal any incoming boat with my head lamp well before it passed us. About 2:00 AM, a boat came toward us. I flashed my light at it over and over again, but for some reason, it didn't stop. The boats don't normally stop at Siparuta, so I really had my work cut out for me. A few hours later, the second boat came, and thankfully it stopped.

The boat, known as the "Washabo Boat," was much shorter and narrower than the boat we originally road in on. It was so overloaded with people and cargo, there was barely enough room on it to sit, let alone lay down. On top of that, the overloaded boat constantly swayed violently back and forth. At one point, we went around a corner, the boat leaned to the right, and never corrected itself. The boat had to stop and everyone had to move as far to the left as possible for it to stand straight again. It was a bit scary for me, but we made it back in one piece shortly after dawn.

Large Guyanese Piranha

December 28, 2006
Day 456

Bamboo Raft Experiment Day 3

The Siparuta welcome sign.

We awoke in the small Guyanese village of Siparuta. We learned that there would be a boat passing in the middle of the night, so we spent the day chilling out. It's a picturesque place with lots of mangoes and cashews to munch on. Being in Guyana, there's no electricity in town, so it's a much quieter place than Apoera. Craig went fishing from the huge jetty and caught two large piranha, so we had no problem getting dinner despite being back in Guyana with only Suriname money.

The only thing we were told about the timing of tonight's boat was that it would pass about twelve hours after the afternoon's low tide, but as far as we knew, it could've passed us at any time of the night. As it turned out, no boat came all night, so we would have to wait another day to try to leave Siparuta.

The photo album for this entry is here.

Made it (Almost)!

December 27, 2006
Day 455

Bamboo Raft Experiment Day 2

The canal.

Craig and I got up at 4:00 and checked the river. Sure enough, the tide was just starting to go out. We quickly packed up and left. Once again, we slowly drifted down the river under the crystal-clear nighttime sky. We got to Wakay at about 9:00, just before low tide.

Wakay is a government-run outpost at the end of a canal that goes all the way back to Nickerie. This time of year, it rains enough that the huge rice fields get enough water on their own, so the machinery used to pump the water from the river into the canal wasn't running. Still, we had a few hours to kill, so the friendly employee showed us the site. We had to go back and forth between the living quarters on a tractor because of the vicious attack dogs that protected it. We got a little bit of sleep, cooked all of our food, and stuck around until 3:00, when we got on the tied-up raft and waited for the water to change direction.

The rest of the day consisted of a lot of slow drifting. We had two paddles with us, but it's much more difficult to paddle a raft than a canoe because of the greater surface area and the logs sticking out of the sides. In a bamboo raft, you're really at the mercy of the river.

From the advice given at Wakay, we thought we'd easily make it to Siparuta, but that didn't turn out to be the case. At dark, we knew we only had a couple hours left with the tide on our side, so we tried to find any sign of civilization. Eventually, we spotted three large sand banks, where ships load up with sand to be turned into concrete and sold. We made it there after what seemed like an eternity, but then we got caught in an eddy and started going backwards. As far as we knew, we could've been going backwards because the tide changed though, so we paddled out to the center of the river, and sure enough we started moving in the right direction again. However, we were so far out that we couldn't paddle back to the shore in time to make it to the sand banks, so we had no choice but to continue.

We finally saw the lights of Siparuta and started heading there. However, the fiasco in the eddy consumed so much precious time that the tide was already starting to come back in. It was very frustrating because we were within 300 meters of our goal but couldn't get there. We were just about to look for a spot on the shore to tie up and wait for six hours when a boat full of Dutch tourists passed us. The raft was starting to fall apart, so we thought it best to flag them down. They already knew all about us from the gossip on the river and gladly drove us the short distance to shore. We didn't quite make it as far as we wanted to, but it was still an interesting way to go down the river. Now we just had to figure out how to get back to Apoera.

The photo album for this entry is here.

Slow Raft Floating

December 26, 2006
Day 454

Bamboo Raft Experiment Day 1

The idea of building a raft being fresh in Craig's mind after the Kaieteur experiment, he thought we should try again on the Corentine River, this time using bamboo as the material. Germaine scrounged up some machetes from his relatives and the three of us spent the morning chopping down bamboo trees in preparation for building the raft. Bamboo is better for building a raft than most wood because not only is it light and hollow, but it's also compartmentalized, so if part of it cracks open and gets flooded, the rest will still remain airtight.

After a few hours, everyone in the village was watching us and calling us crazy. In the end, some of them actually helped us chop, and someone even found some Styrofoam to put underneath. We bought 200 meters of thin rope, cut it up, and tied the pieces together. Eventually, we had something resembling a raft.

We had to hurry because the Corentine empties into the ocean relatively close to Apoera, so its current is directed by the tides. We went back to Germaine's for some final packing (I only took waterproof stuff, and nothing of any value), and were ready to go just as the tide started going out at 3:00. We were told that it would take one tide to get to Wakay, one more to Siparuta, and two more to get to the next town, beyond which the river gets to wide and choppy to support a bamboo raft. Of course, we knew that none of the time estimates would be even remotely accurate because nobody doing the guessing had ever gone down the river on a bamboo raft, so we'll just have to play it by ear.

Germaine, Craig, and I jumped on the raft with our minimal gear, and this time it only sank an inch or two before stopping. A bunch of kids watched us leave, and soon the village returned to normal after the morning's excitement. The raft moved very slowly at first, but then it picked up speed. We passed Washabo and got to Hog Landing (the last village with road access) just before dark. Progress was slow, but at least it was progress. Unfortunately, Germaine was feeling too sick from his malaria to continue, so he went back to Apoera. Craig and I will have to get up early to catch the next tide down the river.

Christmas in Apoera

December 23-25, 2006
Day 451-453

When the sun came up on the way to Apoera, I was surprised to see that the drunks, along with everyone else on the boat, actually were being quiet. Then I found out the reason why: one of the drunken teens passed out on the roof of the boat and rolled off in the middle of the night, and the captain didn't find out until this morning. Nobody said much else, but his chances of surviving didn't seem good. The somber crowd slowly disembarked the boat after explaining what had happened to the police.

Germain walked us through the village to his uncle's house. We met the residents, who seemed happy to have us camp there. The three of us set up our tents under the house. After being there a few minutes, the news had spread that the guy who fell off our boat was found alive by another boat that came up the river this morning. He had somehow managed to hold onto a tree in his underpants and shout loud enough for the ship to hear him. Suddenly, the festivities were back on again.

Apoera is much more modern than the villages I have visited elsewhere in South America. It has cobblestoned roads, running water, electricity, and even a cell phone tower. Still, the modern conveniences often meant loud noise all day long. Several houses constantly blasted music so I could always hear at least two different songs at once. Even worse were the fireworks. Kids and adults alike competed all day and night in trying to blow up larges pieces of the Earth in the name of Christmas. Don't get me wrong, I actually like loud music and fireworks, just not 24 hours a day, everywhere I go. The noise only becomes an issue when I can't escape from it.

There wasn't much to do around town, so we spent most of our time meeting the locals, checking out the Christmas parties, and going to a soccer game in the neighboring village of Washabo. We also met a guy named Kurt who runs the local snake exporting business. He has anywhere from ten to one hundred snakes at his house at any given time, waiting to be driven to Paramaribo for sale. We stopped by and checked out his green tree snakes, among others. They were quite beautiful, but proved to be dangerous when one of them started constricting Kurt's arm.

The photo album for this entry is here.

A Crowded Boat Ride

December 22, 2006
Day 450

Today we took the boat up the Corentine to Apoera. With Christmas just around the corner, it was very crowded with teenagers going home. With not an inch to spare, it wasn't very enjoyable. It got worse when it started pouring rain as soon as we left. I covered myself with plastic, but still got pretty wet. The old leaky tarp hanging above our heads did almost no good.

During the trip, Craig and I met a local guy named Germaine, who was on his way home from his logging job. He was pretty weak after barely surviving a bad case of malaria, saved only by his youth (21 years) and his fitness (he can run 10 K's in 32 minutes), and he was still in good spirits. He told us we could camp under his uncle's house, so we should have a good spot to spend Christmas.

There wasn't even enough space on the boat to lay down, but I piled some stuff behind me and managed to clear enough room to lay on my side in the fetal position under my plastic in the rain. The real issue was that there were several kids drinking and being rowdy next to me most of the night. Talking to them only seemed to make them louder and inspired them to shoot off more fireworks, so I just pretended I was in a happy place and finally got a little shuteye.

Relaxing in Nickerie

December 20-21, 2006
Day 448-449

We found out that there will be a boat leaving on Friday for Apoera, so we decided to stick around for a few days. Given the Dutch influence, bike-riding is a popular activity. I borrowed Arwen's bike while she was at work and rode around town for part of a day. I saw houses proudly displaying the Surinamese flag, Indian-influenced hotels, and a few mosques. The city sits on the Corentine River, which borders Guyana and is influenced by the tides of the Atlantic Ocean. Nickerie is the first nice city I've visited since Leticia, Colombia about two months ago.

The photo album for this entry is here.

Lots of Patient Waiting

December 19, 2006
Day 447

Craig and I took off at the crack of dawn this morning. We managed to get on a minibus right away, then a ferry and another bus to the Corentine River, which borders Guyana and Suriname. We waited in line 45 minutes to buy a ticket for the ferry to cross the river, but that didn't really matter because we sat around for two more hours while they unloaded the ferry from its previous crossing. The ferry took all of fifteen minutes to cross the river, but then we had to go through customs on the Suriname side. That took another hour, and suddenly it was mid afternoon.

We got onto a bus to Nieu Nickery, and once we got into town, we waited another hour while the confused driver figured out where to drop people off. There was nowhere to get anything to eat all day (unlike Latin America, where you're never more than five minutes away from food, even if you're on a bus speeding down a highway) so my patience was wearing thin. Eventually we found a guesthouse at the YWCA (pronounced "why-ca" here, another source of confusion) that was recommended by someone I met in Georgetown.

I can tell already that this is a much nicer place than Georgetown. It's quieter, the houses are nice, there's not piles of garbage on every street, and the people don't shout at you constantly. Dutch is the main language here (it's a former Dutch colony), but everyone seems to understand English. The people are an interesting mix mainly of black, Amerindian, Indonesian, Chinese, and Indian. While looking around, we met Arwen, a Dutch doctor who is staying here a year. We hung out with her and Robert and Rodger, two locals, and learned more about places to go and things to do in Suriname. I think we'll stick around for a couple days now that we're away from the madness of Georgetown.

Avoiding Getting Whacked

December 16-18 2006
Day 444-446

Most people in Georgetown go to the High Court every day.

My only reason for going to Georgetown was to get a visa to enter Suriname. I got into town on a Friday night, however, so I'd have to stay a few days until the embassy opened. In the meantime, I checked out St. George's Cathedral, which is supposedly the biggest wooden building in the world, the Starbroek Market, where you can buy anything legal or otherwise, and the multitude of old English wooden buildings that are scattered throughout the city. One highlight was going to two new movies for 50 cents, but I was a bit disappointed that I missed out on seeing the new Bond movie by only a few days.

The guidebooks didn't lie: it's a dangerous place, and I was sick of it after a few days. Walking around in the day was fairly safe, but the constant shouts of "Hey white boy" started to bother me after awhile. I guess that since they don't get many tourists here, the people have no idea how to treat them. I can imagine their surprise in a couple months when thousands of Australians storm the streets for the Cricket World Cup. A lot of people are nice, but the majority just shout at each other and drink and smoke weed all the time. There are almost no police around, and the atmosphere is completely different than the interior of the country. It's too bad that the few tourists who do go to Guyana usually only go to Georgetown because hitchhiking around the interior was a real highlight for me. I felt that I was taking my chances with every day I stayed in town, so I was happy when my visa was processed quickly as soon as the new week started, and I made plans to enter Suriname first thing in the morning.

The photo album for this entry is here.