The final preparations for my expedition to Papegaaien Eiland were done at the Residence Inn Hotel in Nieuw Nickerie. Nieuw Nickerie is the second town in Surinam and is situated close to the border with Guyana. The town can be reached from Paramaribo by bus which takes about 4 hours. There is no regular airservice anymore but you can hire a plane at Zanderij Airport. You can pay anywhere with US-dollars. $1.- equals 2500 Surinam Guilders. Credit cards are not accepted and you need several vaccinations and tablets for malaria etc. Close to Nieuw Nickerie you will find rice-fields and banana plantations. The main language is Dutch.
The Residence Hotel is situated in the center of the town and has another branch in Paramaribo. The rooms are fine and you have access to the internet and email from the managers office. For this the manager gives up his pc for only 2$ per hour. Cellular phones don't work here, only in Paramaribo, but from July on there should be a GSM station in Nieuw Nickerie.
Main-street in Nieuw Nickery consists of two rows of palm-trees with a pond filled with pink waterlillies in the middle. When you go there in the evening you will be eaten alive by mosquitos. Alongside the road are little local shops, most of them run by Chinese or Hindu residents.
Some palm-trees in Nieuw Nickerie in front of the local market. The little white bus is the main form of transportation in Surinam. These busses are owned by locals and carry 25 to 30 people. For a 4 hour drive from Nieuw-Nickerie to Paramaribo you have to pay $3.- and you can see a large area of Surinam.
The local market is the place where most of the food is traded. Here you can find bananas, mango's, coconuts, rice, chicken, but you can also hire a taxi or some men for planting rice in your fields. A taxi means that somebody is offering his car to you, keep in mind that most people driving cars do not have a driving license. Shops in town are open from 07:00-12:00 and from 16:00-19:00. An average working day wage would be about $25.- depending on your job. When I was visiting Nieuw Nickerie in June 2002 the people working on the local banana plantation had not received wages for the last 3 months. A group of women was on hunger-strike and one of them was in hospital.
Close-up of a coconutpalm. The country is covered with these palm-trees. This one is a rather short one but as you can see on the other pictures they can reach a hight of 15 - 20 meters.
In front of the hotel you find the local football-field. This field is also used for keeping goats. On Sunday morning local men gather here with their singing-birds. The birds are some kind of a hobby, they have contests and good birds are very expensive. During the contests the birds are placed in their cages about 10 meters apart and a judge counts the number of noises the birds produce. The one with the highest score is the winner. People also take these birds to work or on a visit to relatives. Other residents of the local football-field are the wild dogs. You see these dogs everywhere in Surinam. They don't attack people but seem to feed on the garbish.
The stand, sponsered by the local bank / insurance-company.
The Nickerie River flows from the far south of Surinam to the Atlantic Ocean. Ships used to sail up to Wageningen for loading rice. The town of Wageningen is named after the Dutch town of Wageningen. In The Netherlands there is an agricultural university in the town of Wageningen and people from this university have assisted in developing the rice production in the area. Surinam used to be a Dutch coloni untill 25 November 1975. Now it's a republic. The countries neigbours are Guyana in the west and French Guyana in the east. In earlier days the countries were reffered to as British Guyana, Dutch Guyana and French Guyana.
The lift-bridge across the Nickerie River was build by the Dutch. It was used for ships sailing up to Wageningen. Because of poor maintenance the bridge can not be lifted anymore, but there are plans to get the bridge in working order again.
Vultures rest in the local TV tower in Nieuw Nickerie. When traveling through Surinam I saw hundreds of these birds, most of the time cruising above the jungle looking for food. When we drove from Paramaribo to Nieuw Nickerie on the first day there was a dead boa on the road with about 20 vultures eating from this dead snake. The taxi driver told me not to worry and showed a rather large revolver.
Local houses in Nieuw Nickerie. Most of the houses in Surinam are made of wood. Only the rich residents have houses built of brick. In the jungle most houses are built about 2 meters above the ground on poles.
Nanni Sluis is a water-inlet in the Corantijn River for the rice-fields in Nickerie. The picture shows the water-inlet at low tide. "Sluis" is the Dutch word for lock.
When driving from Nieuw Nickerie back to Paramaribo you will cross the Coppename River. This bridge has also been built by the Dutch.
Most large projects in Surinam have been realized by companies from abroad. One of the best things to do seems to build projects that maintain themselves because these will last longer. It seems rather strange that large parts of Surinam are so poor while the country can produce it's own food and has gold, oil, bauxite and diamonds. After all Surinam is a beautifull country and I do hope that help and proper management will give this country an economic and social boost.
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