There’s a sweet and special thing about making new friends: no matter how far away they live, you never know when they’ll turn into old friends. A chance encounter or short conversation with someone uncovers common interests or shared experiences and pretty soon, a quarter century has gone by and you’re still sending each other Christmas cards (and now, chatting on Facebook).Continue Reading
Travel: Trinidad, Where You Can Hug the Bus Driver
I favor a populist approach to travel. I’ve never been anywhere I didn’t like, so why try to pick the top tier? Love ‘em all! After visiting Trinidad for six days in March, though, I’m going out on a limb to proclaim that I may have encountered the friendliest people I’ve ever met on this planet. Really.Continue Reading
Travel: Random Tips and Trivia from an Old Backpacking Dog
I’ve been at this backpacking game for 26 years, but I’m still picking up a few tricks along the way. And useless bits of trivia, which might not be so useless if you ever go to Suriname, Guyana or Trinidad. Here are 10 things I learned during my trip in March.Continue Reading
Travel: A Very Un-Guyana Visit
After the speeding, singing shared taxi from Suriname to Guyana on March 10th, I checked in at Georgetown’s Tropicana Hotel, the only place I could find on the internet that advertised itself as backpacker accommodation. For $22 USD a night, it was nice enough, but unfortunately, aside from one young man who looked in my direction through mirrored aviator sunglasses without moving a single facial muscle, it didn’t have any guests with which to trade information.Continue Reading
Travel Comparative: Jungle Trips in Suriname and Guyana
This table compares a number of variables that you might want to consider if you’re planning to do an excursion into the Amazon jungle in Suriname or Guyana. My research was not super extensive, however I think I can safely cover the basics of what to expect (and for my own trip in March 2013, I went into the jungle in Suriname).Continue Reading
Travel: The Inevitable Backpacking Cock-Up, Followed by Redemption
3:40 a.m. on March 10th – My iPhone alarm goes off. It’s harp music. What a joke that is at zero dark thirty in the morning. I dress, then shove the last bits of crap into my backpack in a manner which bears no resemblance to packing.
4:00 a.m. – In front of the guesthouse, I get ready to wait for the shared taxi that’s to pick me up “sometime between 4 and 5 a.m.” in Paramaribo, Suriname and proceed to Georgetown, Guyana. Look, there’s a taxi out front already! Loaded with gear, I run-hobble over. It turns out to be another guest returning from a night out. Drunk, he stumbles into the guesthouse. Deflated, I drop into a chair on the porch.
4:30 a.m. – Of course the taxi’s not going to come in the first half of the hour. They’re going to make me wait. I could have slept until 4.Continue Reading
Travel: Suriname’s Amazon Jungle – Part II
“E Wiki No?” asks Netta, a woman of about 50 who works at the Pingpe ‘resort’ where I’m staying. She’s inquiring as to how I’m doing on this sticky March morning.
“Me Wiki O.” I’m doing fine, I reply, having been taught a bit of Saramaccan by Don, my guide for this trip up the Suriname River and into the Amazon jungle. Netta nods and moves off to the open-air kitchen to find some pomelo, knowing it’s one of my favorite fruits. In a bright pink t-shirt and pink patterned kanga, her form is in vibrant contrast to the cloak of green all around me.Continue Reading
Travel: Suriname’s Amazon Jungle – Part I
Named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2002, Paramaribo’s inner city has become a jumping-off point for both day trips and multi-day jungle adventures in Suriname. Almost all require the use of a tour company and a guide because the commute often involves both land and water travel, and to some rather remote places.
I sweated through two excursions last week (humidity is my enemy). The first was a one-day hike to the waterfall in Brownsberg Nature Reserve. A couple of Dutch tourists I met at my guesthouse warned me about the rigor of the hike so I wore my brand new Merrells and hoped for no blisters. Tracy and Keir, the British couple who joined me on the hike, however, had clearly missed the memo. They were both in Teva sandals, and Tracy wore a dress. She gets top scores for the agility with which she climbed the downed trees in our path, though we all saw her knickers.Continue Reading