Suriname

Visited: October 2015

Duration of visit: 7 days

Capital city: Paramaribo

Population: 560,000 (2015)

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

• Capital city Paramaribo, with unique colonial Dutch-impacted wooden architecture protected by UNESCO.
• Navigating Suriname river, relaxing in a riverside lodge, swimming in wonderful river.
• Dentists encounter to pull out my tooth in Paramaribo.

Republic of Suriname is the smallest sovereign state in South America, dominated by descendants from African slaves and Dutch Empire. A tropical country, covered in rainforests, dependent on its abundant natural resources, where 30% of the total land area is protected by law as reserves. Many remote areas are accessible only by small aircrafts or several days boat trips upstream rivers in deep jungle.

Suriname and both Guyanas are usually not very high on priority lists of the most popular countries to visit in South America. Actually, many people don’t really know where exactly Suriname is.

What could be the main reasons to visit this exotic country?

I visited Suriname in combination with both Guyanas in 2015, when I already had years of exploring, travelling and living on the American continent.  I hadn’t had any expectation before the visit, but, at the end, I fell in love with the nature and interesting history that this region has to offer.

Paramaribo (also called Para) is the capital and largest city of Suriname, located on the banks of the Suriname River. Nearly half of the country’s population, of around 241,000 people, live in this city. The historic capital city, with colonial Dutch buildings, mostly merchants’ houses built after the fires of 1821 and 1832, is unique in Latin America.

The architecture reflects the combination of European classicism of the 18^th and 19^th centuries, intermingled with the craftsmanship of the Africans and later Asians, who contributed tropicalizing elements to this architecture. Additional elements from Creole culture, reflect the multi-cultural society of Suriname.

The Historic Inner City of Paramaribo was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2002.

The most interesting buildings are Mosque Keizerstraat and Neveh Shalom synagogue, located in harmony side by side. They show the kind of balance in which the country lives, unifying different cultures and languages.

Suriname is still strongly impacted by Dutch culture, being the only territory outside Europe where Dutch is spoken by a majority of the population.

I stayed in a basic guesthouse on the top floor of a classic colonial-house style. It was very simple and not particularly well refurbished; my room was extremely hot during the day and even at night it didn’t refresh.

I had a very unusual experience in Paramaribo, since my tooth started to hurt in the middle of the night. I knew that this particular tooth didn’t have a chance to be fixed any more. The only option was to pull it out. After a quick breakfast in the morning, I asked the owner of the improvised restaurant, Anish, if he knew any good dentists in Para.

He made a few calls and offered to take me to one of the dentists in his car, since it was too far to walk there. A middle-aged dentist of Dutch origin attended me immediately in her clean, organized, but basic clinic and offered me straightforward service to calm down my toothache by pulling out the problematic tooth. I was not mentally ready to go through this, since it was going to be my first real tooth to be missing in my mouth.

I requested Anish to take me to another dentist to get a second opinion. He was extremely helpful and we visited another four dentists in the morning, until it was almost lunch time and he had to go back to work.

I ended up at the first clinic, where I was attended immediately and after a few minutes of painless procedure my tooth was out. 30 minutes later my pain was gone. I was still in shock, back in the downtown, but ready to navigate the Suriname river.

I started navigating the Suriname river in town of Pokigron, located on Brokopondo Reservoir, at the end of a paved road, that I reached on a comfortable bus from Paramaribo. A small, informal pier, where boats dock, was getting busier every minute, until somebody finally invited me to join the group that was going upriver to my destination.

We were travelling upstream for about three hours. Some parts of the river were too low to pass in a long canoe, so all passengers had to disembark and walk over the rocky beach, while our skipper and his assistant navigated the boat with its long, narrow hulls, through low water rapids.

Skippers on Suriname river have impressive piloting skills with their outboards. Even when the river is wide, there are plenty of places with hazardous sunken rocks, but the skippers manage the outboard motor’s manual controls to vary the speed as they wish, and maneuver the boat onward without trouble.

They skillfully navigate the river, avoiding the rocks using the knowledge they have built from years of experience on the water.

As we passed by village after village along the river, people could be seen fishing and preparing food, doing laundry, swimming and playing in the water. The dark brown and warm river is part of each family home patio. Only recently, eco-tourism package tours are becoming more popular, with a rising number of tourists visiting villages even deeper in the jungle to experience this lifestyle by the river.

I decided to stay in a remote lodge with basic infrastructure and opportunities to walk around to nearby villages. Many lodges are owned and/or run by Dutch people, who are either retired in their homeland, look for different lifestyle close to the nature or foresee new business opportunity in this environment.

It was the same with my lodge. Peter took over management a year ago, when the lodge was in poor condition and was not receiving guests any more. With his ingenuity and knowledge of electrical engineering, he managed to refurbish 5 huts, the main house with kitchen and dinning room. It is not easy to bring all goods on a boat from Pokigron and make everything working properly in the jungle. You need to have patience and creativity to make things work.

There was a small museum nearby my lodge, where lifestyle of local tribes was explained. Also, some basic tools that they use for agriculture are exhibited. I visited a local carpenter, who was carving beautiful pieces of wood: chairs of all kind, tables and souvenirs. Saramaka tribe lives in traditional villages, which average 100 to 200 residents, always located near a river, with easy access to water, transportation and fishing.

During the next three days, I enjoyed the river: swimming, relaxing, bird watching and fishing. It is hard to describe the serenity of the place and the magic connection of residents with nature.

Without internet connection or any particular activity, I completely disconnected from regular rhythm and enjoyed simple things, one by one.

Suriname is one of the most unknown and undervalued countries in Latin America. Due to its historical connections with the Netherlands, it offers a unique combination of culture mix, architecture and food that is not available in other areas of mainland Latin America.

River navigation, swimming and fishing in the remote jungle areas can be rough, but it was the highlight of my trip in Surinam.