After getting settled into the Airport Inn in Trididad i got some good shuteye, I got a good nights sleep, got up, had a few cups of coffee and a fews bananana's. I got everything booked into paramaribo, got a guest house booked, the Amice Guesthouse, and was ready to see whatever i could on the island.
At around 11 the guesthouse owner took off to take her son to "lessons", that left me all alone with the maid/housekeeper. She was absolutely no help, not able to help me get a taxi, get out of there or anything of the like. Thats ok though, as i was tempted to fly over to the island of tobago, there were plenty of flights leaving that day, unfortunately as was the precedent i had found with caribbean airlines, there were none coming back, so as far as i could figure the wanted you to get there, but really didn't give a shit if you got back.
i got a quite a few updates done while i was there waiting, so it wasn't a complete loss of the day. I finally got out of there at around 4 and headed to the airport, as there wasn't really much else to do with the day, and going to see the beach was not a high priority, or a priority at all. Once at the airport i quickly acquired a newspaper and found some food this local chicken place which was quite good, and they had this hot sauce they called "pepper" that was burn your nostril hair hot. mighty tasty...
after reading the USA today from cover to cover and finishing my chicken and fries i headed out for what would be one of my many cigarettes for the evening. While outside i ran into a french girl living in guinea named Caroline (and damn it all of i didn't have neil diamond in my head all the rest of the night), a teacher to be exact, she spoke decent english and was easy to carry on a conversation with, she was coming back from a holiday in guatemala with frends from france, and heading to paramaribo like me. We talked a little about french guinea, unfortunately she was of no help, not able to recommend any hotels or guesthouses, so again i was on my own, working off what i had found before i left as well as wiki travel which i am lucky is an offline application on my ipod.
at around 7 we were allowed to check in, it was painless and easy, and all that hoopla the agent told me yesterday about travelling to surinam without a return ticket was all bullshit, as long as you have a visa, they don't care, you paid your money and paid for the ticket, they don't care. On the way to the gate, after clearing immigration, which by the way doesn't stamp you out, my stomach growled a little bit more, so off to the nearest shop to get some treats and water, i ended up with some coconut fruitcake, it was tasty, a snickers bar and a bottle of water.
I easily found a seat at the gate and was going to take full advantage of the free wifi in the airport when the couple behind me, Mara and Sam traveling with thier two children struck up a conversation with me, it started from them telling their son and daughter that if they didn't behave they were going back to new york...i followed that up it never works, kids know your bluffing, especially when your in a foreign country, they know to call your bluff then.
We talked about enw york, bollywood movies and traveling around, India, northern s. america, and where our plans were taking us next, it seems as though they were heading back to guyana (the place of there birth) with their children to visit with relatives. In my mind of course i was cursing them, as they were on one of the flights that i had tried to get on, i didn't let them know that though.
the flight itself was not sold out so there was lots of extra room, i had an isle seat and the gentlemen on the window was a swiss bloke making his way from canada to the southern part of south america, in effect doing all of the americas, he was taking a year, started in January and is ending in december. He was staying in northamerica via Couch surfing, which is an online network of people offering out there couches to strangers, it can be couches, spare bedrooms, futons, a hammock, and that is how he stayed all through canada and the US, he said it doesn't work quite that well in central and south america, but i thought it was a novel way to stay for free.
Finally we landed in paramaribo, we were the last flight of the night, obviously as it was 1AM by the time we were on the ground, the ground of which had no landing strip lights....THERE WERE NO LIGHTS, looking out the window all you saw was darkness, then all of a sudden you feel the wheels touch down. seriously there were no lights.
Once on the ground we cleared immigration, and the taxi was waiting, i had to go back into the airport cause i forgot to exchange money, then like the doofus i am, i think i exchanged too much, gonna had to see if the guy at B&s is heading back anytime soon to buy some of this off of me. I ended up sharing the taxi with the swiss guy who didn't have a place to stay, unfortunately when he got there it was completely booked. the room was nice, it had a balcony and tea and coffee service, i'm pretty sure it catered mostly to europeans, as the welcome guide was in dutch, english and french, (surinam being a former dutch colony leads me down that path).
Finally got to bed around 2.30, its gonna be a long day tomorrow trying to get to french guinea and onto brasil.
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