French Guiana, just like France, but double the price!

Day 29 ( 213 km)

     Day started out bad, we had 2 dead batteries, the good part was we discovered it around 8 am, so we still had 6 hours to fix it before the ferry left for French Guiana.

Scotties was short of acid so after buying a bottle, we got his started, I decided to buy a new one, but they only had 12 amps instead of 14 what I used to have and it said me back $ 100.00 US, but on the end I could get one in this border place, what was not more as an hole, completely run by Chinese as mostly anything is done in Suriname and the Guyana's! just around we had the bikes running again, but Scotty had some problems with losing cooling water, so he bought some Stopleak to stop the leak.

    Got on the ferry for 15 euro each and an half an hour we where in France, they stamped our passport and I guess we could stay for ever now as an European citizen, asked the guy from customs about the bikes and all he asked for if our papers are in order and after we said yeah, he told us good luck on your trip to Brazil. 

No paperwork was necessary, so theoretically the bike could stay as long as we want! 

   We took off, but the bad luck started again and Scotty's engine was overheating, I believe the water is not circulating and the fan is not kicking in, but as long as we were driving under 80 km an hour, the temperature stays just under the red and that is after dark when it is cool. The moment we idling the temperature shoots up, so we have to take care of this tomorrow.

We ended up in Kordou around 9 pm, this is where the European space shuttle program takes place and our first shock was the gas price $ 10.00 a gallon or 1.76 Euro a liter, then the hotel was $200.00 a night, so we have to get the hell out of this country fast, even McDonald hamburger combo was $ 15.00

Driving the Coastline of Suriname

Day 28 (391 km)

     Having for the first time a decent breakfast, which was as a compliment to the hotel, we had bread (punt broodjes), cheese, salami, bakkeljauw, fruit and a variety of morning drinks, so the day started good and we left around 9 am for the capitol “Paramaribo”. 4 hours later, we arrived and the chaos in traffic was enormously and it started to drizzle. To get to the other side we had to cross the big narrow bridge over the Suriname River, which was quite impressive and very high, then the road to Albina started, which is the border village on the river with French Guiana. 

This road was under construction and some parts, they just laid the tarmac and some parts there was red mole again and thick gravel, what took all our attention again, so we wouldn’t drop the bikes. Thick gravel is hard to drive on, the front wheel start to search and sliding from one side to the other and it feels like you lose control all the time! Around five, we reached the ferry terminal; to find out that there is no ferry till Sunday 3 pm and all is in the hands by a French company and all the want to get paid in Euro’s. Disappointed we checked in the only local hotel, what was not much but cheap, looked for the only Chinese restaurant to get some food and Pardo beer by the liter and decided tomorrow is maintenance day for the bikes, to kill some time till 3 pm

I always wanted to go to Suriname!

Day 27 (232 km)

      Heard the rain coming down in buckets around 4 am and was wondering if we were going to leave, but we tried around 8 am but it was still drizzling. we got out of George town in about 20 minutes and were heading East towards the Suriname border on a paved but slow road following the coast and it started to rain heavy non stop, so soon everything was wet again, but had to continue to get the ferry at noon.

     Arrived @ the port we had to go through some unnecessary paperwork to check out of Guyana and had to show insurance, before we could board, so showed him some bogus insurance they accepted and the ferry left around 1 pm with a couple of people and cars and an half hour later, we were in Suriname, saw the immigration guy and he was no trouble and then the customs gay, who asked for insurance as well, so showed him the same papers and he was satisfied, they were all nice to me after they found out I spoke Dutch and it looked like  a hero's welcome, they even wanted to take a ride on the moto's and this was the shortest border crossing sofar, I think less as 15 minutes. Then of course my bad luck started again wit a dead battery and had to use Scotty's to start mine, but it still took more as 2 hours to get it running and almost getting dark and the next town would be an half an hour away, New Nickery.

So we reached just before dark. found a nice hotel and got rid of the wet clothes and 7 pm we were @ restaurant and ordered "Dutch food" Bami, Kroket, Bitter ballen, and Loempia and felt good to eat this stuff in this part of the world.

     All the road signs are in Dutch, as well the menu  and everyone spoke Dutch to my surprise, the only thing weird was that the drive on the left , as in Britain. I do not not know, where that is coming from!  Suriname sofar surprises me a lot and what I always thought might have been truth, that the no good ones went to Holland in the seventies and the good ones stayed behind!