The Journey to Paramaribo

I walked to the Bourdha Market Post Office to post the cards which hopefully arrived in England, Brazil and New Zealand. Then I walked at least a mile to Water Road and the Demerara River in the hope of seeing the bridge over the river but it was much further upstream. I walked back to the hotel past the British High Commission, the Presidential Palace and the Roman Catholic Cathedral.
I had lunch at Froggy's, overlooking a crossroads where the traffic lights didn't operate but the traffic seemed to manage.
After checking out of the hotel at 2pm, there was an 80 minute drive to Chedi Jagan Airport, made longer in time due to the traffic jam caused by the lack of traffic lights at a junction. We should have been spending the day on a long drive to the border with Suriname at a river but it was possible that the single ferry would not be operating due to maintenance so, rather than taking the risk of being stuck at the border, JLA organised a flight to Paramaribo.
At the airport, we had to complete a lengthy online immigration form despite having been issued with online but printable visas in the UK.
The Surinam Airways 737-800 was almost full, having started in Miami. The departure board had shown flights to Miami and New York, maybe a reflection of Exxon Mobil being present in Guyana. Surinam also has offshore oil.
The flight took 40 minutes before landing at the efficient Johan Pengel International Airport, and then we had a 60 minute drive to the Eco Tourica hotel on the banks of the Surinam River in Paramaribo, the capital of Surinam. The clocks went forward one hour so we arrived there at 22.30.Read more