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!

Georgetown!

Day 26 (215 km)

     Left before sunrise to see if we could get a visa for Suriname in Georgetown and had to be there before 11 am. the first 100 km to Linden took almost 3  hours and had  red mole dust again up to in our nostrils, but we made it to their embassy. the security officer said no visas are issued on Thursday, but then she said some countries only need a tourist card and we lucky belonged to the very view exempt. Actually I thought Dutch people would have had it more difficult, because we have an arrest warrant against their president for dealing in drugs, but they were all nice, helpful, spoke in Dutch to me and after we paid $ 25.00 each for their tourist card, we checked already at 11 am into our guesthouse downtown. Had Chinese lunch, washed the much needed bikes, all our clothes and even all the saddle bags.

    

         Tomorrow we should enter Suriname around 1 pm on the ferry between Guyana and Suriname and then we will see where we end up!

Red mole road-trip towards Georgetown

Day 25 (350 km)

Not too bad,washboard

Hotel Lethem

     Woke up good and we were looking forward to make the trip to Georgetown, the capital. It is one of these roads where lot of stories is written about. One saying impassible to do in the raining season to halfway decent in the dry season,

Good bridge, the first one out of 100!

getting worse

      We didn't know in which season we are and didn't bother asking, so we took off in a red mole dust from Lethem to get to a river crossing at 7 am, where a ferry only makes 3 crossings a day , 6 am. noon and 6 pm, so I guess we are shooting for the noon one, I hope!  

Ferry Crossing

    The road started out as a washboard and an hour later I already had an headache and loose teeth, so after the first 4 hours making only 100km, 
I realized that we were never going to make the noon ferry, so we stopped  by the only little shop we came accross to drink some cold drinks. The owner said, there is a crossing every hour, so we left in a good mood and the road venn started to get a little better, we could make now 35 km an hour. Reached the ferry around 1 pm and had the luck, she was waiting for us and took us in 10 minutes to the other side, where we had some chicken and rice lunch and more water. By now the motorcycle, us and our luggage was covered by red mole dust and the sun was boiling and nobody you could depend on in asking how many hours more! 


So 2 pm we left and this is where the road became terrible, with everything  you could image, was there, but  the loose sand was the worst and we were so intense busy with steering and not dropping the bike, we still didn't believe afterwards we made it, but not to Georgetown but a place what is called "58" and this was a 24 hour truck stop with no trucks but had all the amenities, gas, food, shower and beer and they were renting out hammocks for people who got stuck , like us and ended spending the night laying in an hammock waiting till day break and as we found out we still had to go then another 4 or 5 hours!

British Guyana or Guiana?

Day 24 (350 km)

     8 am, we were on the road again, this time to the first town in Brazil, Boa Vista and on a decent 2 lane highway, we made the 240 km in two and a half hours. Filled up with gas , but this time $ 5.25 a gallon and our free gas party came to an end. From there to Bonfim, what is a border place on a beautiful paved highway, without cars and we reached there around noon, turned in the moto papers, but to get the immigration exit stamp, we had to wait till 2 pm. 2:15 pm we were on the Guyana side and after health inspection! (Yellow fever vax), I was allowed to see the immigration, who gave me 3 days and I told him, probably I will be out in 2.  Scotty of course forgot his Yellow fever and after talking to him, he got pardoned and was let in the country as well, then we had to start the process to get the bikes in and for that we had to go in town to buy a $ 17.00 policy, return to the helpful girl with a ton of photo copies and 5 pm I left their office with all their paperwork, so I can go tomorrow to the capitol “Georgetown”

     Had local Chinese food and just like in Utila in the early days, they had to start the generator first. They speak the same slang as Utilians, so they were surprised, I could understand them and even talk to them back in the same fashion.