One of Those Days

Today was a day that every traveler has had at some point. It starts out innocently and ends up being the day from hell. I made two rookie mistakes that I normally don’t make and it cost me most of my day but a good story I guess did come out of it. It all started at 3:30am this morning in Georgetown, Guyana…

I had argued with my driver about why we were leaving for the border with Suriname at such an ungodly hour and he mentioned that there were two ferries that we had to catch and they could be unpredictable. My Lonely Planet said that I should be no later than 10am at the second ferry which is the actual crossing into Suriname for the 11am ferry. Being this was only 150 miles from my hotel I figured three hours outta be about right and of course it was but my driver Raj insisted that he has been driving in Guyana for 23 years and he knows best. How can I argue with that logic so I reluctantly agreed. Although I emphatically stated that I didn’t want to arrive at 7am and sit there waiting by myself for the ferry for 4 hours. He said that we would be lucky to make it by 10. I knew he was wrong but what could I do.

Needless to say we arrived there at 6:30am-yes 4.5 hours before the scheduled departure time. I was quite nonplussed about that situation as Raj tries to scramble to drop me off while he drove back to Georgetown-I was having none of that, I said if I am here this early after all my objections-then he’s staying with me. I made him just sit in the car while I slept in the front seat until about 9:30am when other cars started rolling up to the immigration office. I reluctantly paid him and sent him on his way because I was just gonna take the ferry and grab a taxi on the other side to Paramaraibo (Parbo).

To make a long and horribly annoying story short, the ferry didn’t actually leave until nearly 2pm. It was extremely miserable, long and boring and extremely hot and sweaty with nothing to do. I struck up a conversation with this Surinamese family of three and when we finally did arrive at South Drain in Suriname, they helped usher me through customs and immigration quickly, joining them as a guest. They then asked me how I was getting to Parbo. I mentioned I was getting a taxi and they insisted that I join them on their bus. I took a look at the bus and it wasn’t a bus, it was one of the African style minibusses that cram 25 people inside and have zero ventilation or legroom. Once again, I reluctantly said yes and proceeded to sit in the bus for 2 hours waiting for it to fill up because as in Africa, they don’t leave until they are full.

Finally, it shoves off up this bonejarring African style dirt road that makes you feel like you’re gonna hurl for like an hour until we finally reached a highway at Niew Nickerie. Again, to make a long story short, it took another four hours or so with umpteen bathroom breaks and random I don’t know why stops we finally made it to Parbo. I am staying at this beautiful eco resort here taking down a few Parbo Biers and dying for a shower after an 18 hour ordeal.

My two mistakes were this: I should have flown-I know better than to rely on third world people and timetables and should’ve just flown. The reason I didn’t was because I like to see the countryside and this drive was along the coast and I love coastal drives, plus the flight had a 2 hour layover-I would’ve killed to be there in three hours.

Mistake two was not getting a private cab and dealing with that damn minibus. It’s not like I’ve never ridden them before and been miserable at 6’3″, I could document so many occurences in Africa, South America and Asia where I swore I would never do it again but I still did it anyway; I can assure you that will be the last non essential minibus I ever ride. The other problem is that people smoke on these things and it drives me nuts and they don’t understand why you want them to stop in a small cooped up tin can with no ventilation. Oh well.

Even after all that crap, I am still pretty happy with my day because it made me realize so many important things, especially how lucky I am to be able to do stuff like this in the first place and more importantly-to always trust your instincts-especially after you have done careful research….oh yeah, and if possible FLY!

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Comments

  1. Your day sounds awful but it still beats my day and night at work, believe me

  2. Ya seriously, do you know how cold it is in Scotland right now, but that does sound pretty dodgy.

  3. Ugh.. we did this route last year, it made for a pretty brutal travel day. We left Georgetown at 5AM and didn’t get into Parbo until 9PM. Good luck on your TCC quest, I’m working on that as well!

  4. Do you recall the eco-resort you stayed at in Suriname that you mentioned in this? I’m actually heading to the ABC islands, Trinidad/Tobago and the Guianas in the next 6 months and I’m trying to loosely get an idea of the places to stay in each spot.

  5. I don’t remember offhand but it was in LP and if you mentioned the name I would recognize it. There’s only a handful of places to stay aside from the big hotel with casino in center of Parbo…the eco hotel was a 5 minute walk from the center.

  6. Kai Chongloi says

    Being a traveller you are bound to encounter these things. Look on the bright sight and be happy that you’ve got to experience them.

  7. Lee,
    I did the same trip yesterday but it wasn’t quite as bad as yours. Yes we left Georgetown at 3:30am but the minivan wasn’t crowded and the driver was very good and drove at a sensible pace. We were at the terminal by 7am but there was a game of cricket on TV (India v West Indies) so the time passed quickly. We left south Drain at 1pm after going forward an hour and we’re dropped at our hotel which is a new Marriott just a little north of the Eco resort at about 5pm. Lots of stop s but I used them to buy snacks, get some local change and get familiar with the money. Your post helped me mentally prepare though.

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