Winston Gummels of Tropical Gem Tours made this trip possible and so enjoyable.

This idea for a visit to Suriname had its roots in a too-small car with a convertible top- thus a folding kayak for aquatic adventure, and a frivolous comment in February 2005. Long before this set of circumstances was to send me off to South America, I had received a book called "Wildlife of the Rivers" as a school academic prize for apparent diligence in one subject or another. Within its pages was an account of a toad with the peculiar habit of raising tadpoles to mini toad size in the spongy skin of the female’s back. It was unique to a place called Suriname. Over the years this morsel of natural history had been expanded in my brain to the point where Suriname held many strange and exotic wonders of wildlife, though the country was never in the news and I had heard no mention of Suriname during my twenties and nearly all of my thirties. During my visit to Suriname, I found that nobody had heard of the Suriname Toad (Pica pica), and since my return I learned that this species has no tongue.

I really valued the sunshine afforded by my tippy little Suzuki’s ragtop in summer, and resolved not to obstruct its openness with a rack to carry the kayak I was intending to buy. This meant that I had to buy a folding kayak, which came in two bags which could easily fit into my unlockable car. It could even be checked as luggage on an airplane. When I first assembled my little boat, I was so impressed with the ingenious design and imagined all sorts of possibilities for aquatic fun. I raved about it to a friend who had just taken a new position at the New York Times "T" Style magazine, as the travel editor. Ann-Marie’s comment, being totally uninterested in the finer points of folding boat construction, was: "I’d like to send you down some obscure river in it..". Equally flippantly, I replied, "Suriname". This was sufficiently obscure that neither Ann-Marie, nor most of her friends at the NY Times had ever heard of the place, and her bosses agreed to the idea when it was finally pitched to them.

Google searches yielded little information on the rivers, let alone this little country between Jim Jones‘ Guyana, and the European Space Agency‘s Guiana (temporary abode of Papillon, Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, and Rene Belbenoit who blew the lid off the French penal colony), so the next step was to find a good map. While on a trip to Boston, Ceci King took the time to wander into a map store and found a good one produced by a Canadian company. Now I had some names of rivers, and little dots on the map that were centers of population. My map informed me that there were less than 450 000 people in the entire country, all but 23 000 living within 30 miles of the coast, so that the interior remains a vast expanse of forested and pristine jungle. It sounded sufficiently wild to me. How much terra incognita was really left on the planet?

I began to look into specific rivers, especially the ones that had no dots with names on their banks, and decided that the Coppename River, between a place called Tafelberg, and another called Raleighvallen looked as if it would do just fine. The problem was that it flowed through a newly set up preserve, called the Central Suriname Nature Reserve, which united and expanded three smaller nature reserves that had not been contiguous. No doubt, we would have to get some sort of official permission to undertake this little expedition.

A call to the Embassy of the Republic of Suriname in Washington DC elicited a number for the Forest Service. After a succession of calls to Paramaribo which had me bounced from person to person, I found myself speaking to a fellow called Bryan Drakenstein, acting head of the Nature Conservation Division of the Forest Service. After outlining the plan in brief, I emailed a more detailed proposal which he agreed to, with certain conditions. We were to take a warden, at our expense, and he recommended Winston Gummels of Tropical Gem Tours, (mytropicalgemtours.com) as the best man to help with the logistics.

The Times found Patrick Woodhead to write the story of what was sure to be a misadventure. Bobby Fisher and his assistant Christian Macdonald would record it all on film. Lee Manigault, and Pieter Sonneveld, a guide who was approached by Winston, would complete the team.

December 26, 2005

Monday. Departure for Suriname. It had taken about eleven months, from the casual conception of this idea to the American Airlines departure lounge, Miami International Airport. Over this period I had pushed, pulled, persuaded, ignored, ruled and overruled, and made decisions that might have some dire consequences if the Fates chose to look at us askance. If I didn’t get an unambiguous answer to any particular question, I tried to use my best judgment hoping that I would be spared the indignity of having it reversed.

I had driven from Pine Plains, New York after a bad night. I had been ill for no apparent reason for several weeks, and although I was expecting to decorate the verges of the highway with my last meal every few hours, this condition just as inexplicably disappeared when I started my drive. I was carrying two folding kayaks, a load of camera equipment, MP3 recorder, microphones, luggage and Bug-Off clothing from Orvis. I had bought and been given several dry bags, which I knew would prove indispensable. I drove to Charleston, South Carolina on Christmas Day to pick up Lee, and the next day we left for Miami in the bouncy, noisy Suzuki with no functioning radio. We had plenty of time to think.

On the long drive the car would periodically and inexplicably cut out, until we discovered that Lee’s toes were pushing against the wires that ran to the car’s infernal computer. Every large truck traveling down I95 which passed us sent us across the highway with the force of its slipstream. It wasn’t the most luxurious mode of travel. After a steak dinner in Palm Beach (why not?), with several Christmas drinks, we spent the night in a cookie-cutter hotel near the airport. We flew out the next morning to Curacao, hoping like hell that the boats wouldn‘t be kneaded into a mangled bundle of tubes and rubber in the cargo hold.

From the air I could see several Keys worth exploring by kayak on some future trip to Florida. The Bahama Bank was clearly visible. For a while we flew over some deserted looking islands, possibly part of Andros, before reaching open water for the quiet leg to Curacao. The approach took us low over the sea, through patchy rain showers, then a bank to the left on final. We flew low over several terraced cliffs, a sign of the island’s rising geology, and touched down past a couple of US Air Force AWACS planes. It was the first time in ages I had to deplane onto a runway rather than into a square elevated jetway, and it was pleasantly unsophisticated. We waited for a couple of hours in the blissfully hot and humid airport lounge, excited but not doing much apart from watching the tourists. The theoretical time of departure was dangerously close before the Suriname Airways MD-82 finally made an appearance. curacao airport

The three hour flight to Paramaribo was comfortable and not crowded, and we arrived late in the evening. A lady passenger near us was invited forward and hung out in the cockpit with the pilots for most of the flight. The cockpit door was hardly ever closed. A man holding a crude placard with my name on it greeted us as we emerged from the terminal at J. Pengel International Airport, a relatively uninspired but airy building, After fighting our way through a crowd of enthusiastic taxi drivers we piled our bags into his station wagon for the drive into town. His name was Andre, and though he spoke no English and we no Dutch, we did establish that he was a trucker for a fuel company. The road worsened a few miles from the airport, there were plenty of mangy looking curs on the side of the road; the drive generally reminded me of the approach to a secondary Zimbabwean town. There seemed to be no consistent speed limit, and in the short time it took to get to town I realized that use of the horn was mandatory to automotive survival in Suriname. We passed a bauxite mine, and several industrial complexes before we entered the southern suburbs of Paramaribo. We were deposited at the Hotel de Luifel, and were met by Winston Gummels. Contrary to my expectation, he looked about as un-Surinamese as I could have imagined. He was more Caucasian than I, and clearly in a celebratory spirit. I expected this, the entire population of Suriname seems to go on a massive bender between Christmas and New Year. We were driven to a party at the Gummels compound, which was in its death throes when we arrived. A few people remained, and I had an interesting conversation with Henk, Winston’s father, whose sentences were punctuated with an interrogative sounding “ay” at random points. He suggested that the Tafelberg to Raleighvallen idea was less than feasible due to the terrain, uncertain water level (it had been low for several years) and the limited time we had to undertake this little trip.
During our discussions I got my first taste of Parbo beer, which was sure to become a favorite. Winston offered us some samoosas, and Indonesian rolls which, when dipped in a spicy sweet sauce, were beyond delicious. The night was ripped by fireworks every few minutes, and we were to learn by sheer lack of sleep that this boisterous pyromania would continue until after the New Year. We would also learn that daylight was no great inhibitor to the setting off of "bombels."

With the news that our trip had major problems as originally planned , I spent several sleepless hours ruminating on the options we might consider. Plan B was to fly to Kayserberg airstrip, and travel down the Zuid (South) River, join the Lucie River and emerge near Amotopo airstrip, on the Corantijn River which formed the western border with Guyana.

December 27

Tuesday. Lee, a fearless experimenter in all things culinary, was felled by gastric illness. Since the delicious morsels we had eaten the night before didn‘t cause me any problems, it was probably an imported condition. Lee had absolutely no desire to deal with me, and I was banished from the room we shared. (Great Kiskadee in the neighborhood)great kiskadee We had discussed the fact that living in such close proximity for six weeks would leave few secrets between us in terms of those subjects that wouldn’t enter into polite conversation, except in the broadest terms and with liberal use of euphemism. So I understood why she seemed to find my concern irritating, but I would have had a hard time explaining to the father of her children, let alone her parents, how I could have brought her into an environment where she had only lasted one day. To allow Lee some recuperative peace, I wandered around the vicinity of the hotel to begin familiarizing myself with the birds I would probably see most often. Over a dingy white wall, in the neighbor’s yard were several trees, including mangos that offered good possibilities for Twitching. Great Kiskadees were feeding chicks that uttered plaintive squeaks every few minutes, and had done so throughout the night in spite of the battlefield sounds of the fireworks. These birds were ubiquitous and approachable, and I never tired of seeing them whenever we stayed in Paramaribo. (Common Tody-Flycatcher)common tody-flycatcher I was excited to find a pair of Common Tody-Flycatchers constructing a pendulous and rather scruffy nest, and continued to follow the progress and try for the best photographs. Sadly, when we returned from our first outing a week or so later, we found the nest destroyed. The gardens and plots near the hotel were populated with small green parrots, Bananquits, Wrens, Blue-Gray Tanagers, Anis and others that defied identification until I became more familiar with the local birdlife. I knew that if I were stuck for something to do, I could entertain myself by taking a walk around the block. Winston picked me up after a rather sorry breakfast of "egg and cheese," and instant coffee with powdered creamer. Later, as I was idly examining a packet of the stuff, I discovered it was laced with an insalubrious compound called Sodium tripolyphosphate. Some years ago I had been asked to look into this compound by a friend researching marine contaminants, and found out that it is used in everything from chicken nuggets to carwash detergent, and is not particularly good for you. We visited Zorg en Hoop airport, situated in the suburbs, to examined the Gum Air planes that would ferry us around the countryside. We also needed to examine a better map than I had, to find a good body of water for the practice paddle once Patrick arrived. I was not too keen to practice on a river with fast-moving water, rapids and a high probability of bodily damage. I was going to make damned sure that any mishaps we might have happened on the main river trip, in the middle of nowhere, so that the extraction of an injured corpus would be really thrilling. We drove into town to change some money, I was beginning to feel helpless without a little wad of the local currency. After a bit of a convoluted drive through buildings in every state of maintenance, we entered the clogged and busy center of town. Modern concrete structures stood shoulder to shoulder with old wooden colonial beauties, though the latter were clearly feeling the effects of the climate. Winston determined that the bank was too busy to change travelers cheques without losing one‘s cool. I was to discover that this simple transaction was exceedingly arduous and required far more steps than one would consider reasonable even if one had the most bureaucratic mindset. We would try again closer to closing time. It was my first look at the center of town. Next to the white and modern-looking bank stood the largest surviving wooden cathedral in South America, and it looked as though an effort was being made to refurbish the structure. wooden catherdral Back at the hotel I had an interesting discussion with a retired diplomat. He was Surinamese of Indian descent, and had been the country’s representative to the Hague around the time of the military coup in 1980, where a fellow called Chin-A-Sen ended up as President (there was another in 1982, led by a Lt. Col. Desi Bouterse, and yet another in 1990, engineered by the same guy). My companion on the little upstairsdeck was Mr. Adjodhia, and he was passionate about Suriname, but the terms of the pension given him by the Dutch government dictated that he live in Holland. He was disdainful of the Dutch, who he believed had a lot to answer for: he suggested they supported and supplied arms to those complicit in the murder of journalists, lawyers and villagers after the coup. By South American standards this was hardly the orgy of atrocities that had been committed in nearby countries, but fifteen opposition leaders were executed. Mr Adjodhia laughed easily and was unrestrained, and I thought I might learn a great deal from this man, who would be staying at the hotel until late January. He had (across from the Palace)town square He had researched his family history in Suriname to the point where he knew that, on his mother’s side, a forebear was second caste and had come from northern India. He also knew the date of embarkation from Calcutta, the name of the transport ship, its date of arrival, end date of the five year contract, and similar minute details that had been meticulously recorded during colonial times. After the abolition of slavery in 1863, contract workers were brought in from China with limited success, since the Chinese had little interest in working sugar cane when their five years were up. Workers from the Dutch East Indies were next, and finally Indians employed to work the plantations. I often asked people that I met in Suriname what made up their racial mix, and those of present day Indonesian descent always referred to themselves as Javanese.

December 28th

Wednesday. Lee had recovered, and we resolved to emancipate ourselves, find our own transport and do some exploring. We decided to take an independent trip to go find Scarlet Ibis the next day. pied water-tyrantAt the bank I was amazed at the wads of US currency moving freely from customer to teller and vice versa, this was a country that most Americans I had spoken to hadn’t known existed. I asked for my cash in Suriname dollars (SRD) after the teller began handing me US dollars. I had to wait again while this conversion was done as though it were the request of someone clearly unhinged. After this performance, Lee and I strolled towards a part of town called the Waterkant, on the banks of the Suriname River. We were trying to find a specific police post where we had to have our visas endorsed, as we would be staying longer than two weeks. Of course, the office had moved and was now situated near our Hotel de Luifel, and would be closed by now. We passed the main square and the Presidential Palace, the president didn’t like living there and so didn’t, preferring to hang out in a house that also happened to be near the hotel. We decided on lunch and headed to Restaurant Sarinah a couple of blocks from the hotel. The restaurant was a low terrace, partially outdoors with a water garden and plants everywhere. I stuffed myself on Koebi steak (a kind of large river fish), with my first taste of fried Cassava and peanut sauce to start. Lee had a spicy noodle soup that would become her standard order on the many occasions we ate there. The staff was friendly and efficient, but too slow to refresh one’s beer, so they became quite used to us strolling over to the bar area and ordering refills ourselves. On occasion we ordered two drinks from the get go because the wait staff seemed to be unable to adjust to the rapidity of our consumption. It was a hot climate. Kiskadees were often flying around the restaurant, or perched on the chairs looking for insects in the ample vegetation sprouting from the planters dotted around. (Lee and Henk Gummels at Zorg en Hoop. Contrary to the way it looks here, this wasn‘t an unhappy occasion)Lee and Henk We shopped for supplies on the way home from lunch for the next day’s trip. We had decided to drive to a town called Jenny, on the west bank of the Coppename River. We would assemble the boat, paddle out to the mouth of the river and westwards along the mangroves to Totness, some 28 miles or so west of the river mouth. I had read that the Coppename Bank was an important staging and wintering area for masses of shorebirds, an area protected under the Convention on Wetlands, signed in Ramsar, Iran in 1971. I was sure that this paddle would be difficult, but rewarding. Nobody seemed to be able to give us any idea of what we were in for, just that the prevailing wind would be pushing us towards the mangroves. That evening we stopped by a horse show at the Gummels farm, all riders dressed in as much finery as one would see in Millbrook, and the horses also looked good to my relatively disinterested eye. French Guiana was competing against Suriname; the riders were mostly Caucasian but not exclusively. We bought some large bottles of Parbo beer, called Djogos, for SRD 10 (US $ 2.75) and watched the girls competing and in the crowd. They screamed so loudly with encouragement and congratulations when someone cleared a round that I thought the horses would bolt. The food on offer looked unappealing. Henk joined us and Lee began to charm him, assisted by a bit of beer in her system, she was on form! I made Winston call his wife Annique, and we took them out to dinner at an Indian restaurant. The food was good, but the samoosas I had as a starter weren’t very spicy. Dinner cost about thirty bucks for four.

December 29th

Thursday. I found myself awake at 3am, pondering the logistics of the practice trip with Patrick when he would arrive on the 3rd of January. The idea was that we would try out our boats, the Whisper-lite stove, gps units and other equipment. There was no way we could afford to spend $2500 on the practice trip where we had to fly in and out, nice as the idea might be. Winston was keen for us to fly to the Coeroeni river, which would bring us out at Amotopo on the western border. One small issue was that the border here was disputed territory with Guyana, and it would have been a little reckless to go without a guide. I had been contemplating driving south of the big dam (called Prof. Dr. W. J. van Blommestein Meer, quite a mouthful of Dutch.. I wonder who he was) to Pitagron, paddling through the lake northwards, and spending a couple of days hiking in the Brownsberg National Park. This was something I had wanted to do because of the specialty birds, such as Royal Flycatchers with their spectacular crests, found in that area. The down side was that we would generally be paddling against the prevailing wind, something that reduces somewhat the pleasure one gets from being on the water. I noticed that there was a rail line marked on the Canadian map so I thought we could travel from Brownsberg to town by train, but found out that the line was now in disuse. In the west of the country a similar line had been built to transport Bauxite from a deposit near the Kabalebo river, and a large dam, marked as present and watery on my map, stopped us considering that river for the main trip. As it turned out, that railway line was built but never used, and is now overgrown. The dam was never built, but the GPS system of the Cessna Caravan which flew us around the countryside had it marked as in existence. Not a ton of bauxite has been mined in the area. So much for Canadian maps and fancy gps; garbage in….garbage out.
To the Coppename Bank.

Lee and I met Harish, a student of marketing and part time taxi driver, a Hindi with a curious tuft of uncut hair at the back of his head. He would transport us the sixty miles or so to Jenny for a favorable rate. He took us to have our tickets and passports examined by some officious looking old cow in the humorless ministry dealing with those things, and then on to the Gummels Farm where we deposited gear not immediately needed. We were greeted by a shirtless Winston and his spectacular girth. For a young man (32) it didn’t look good, and I gave him such a hard time about it over the duration of my visit that by the time we left he said he had lost seven pounds because of my teasing. Luckily for me, he took it all very well and was polite enough not to harp on my many and varied flaws. In the swampy fields next to the long sandy driveway we saw several birds that were new to me, Snail Kite and Wattled Jacana among the most exciting. I hadn’t seen Brahman cattle as handsome as these since I had left Zimbabwe. We headed west towards Jenny. The road took us through areas where the houses became progressively more shack-like and spread out, with derelict cars and junk in yards that were swept clean of all vegetation, leaving only bare and dusty earth. This is common in Africa too; perhaps it is done so that anyone stepping out of the house can see undesirable reptiles or insects, but it does not make for the most picturesque home setting. Often we saw a beautiful Kapok tree with a nasty-looking dwelling in its shadow. Old farmland interspersed with tracts of forest, and a worsening road surface marked our progress, but as we slowed down to negotiate some huge pothole or sunken piece of Macadam, we could hear spectacular sounds from the forest edge. Harish turned out to be very decent, eloquent and intelligent. He was a lover of nature, and a member of that large majority of the Surinamese population that kept singing birds. Many residents of Paramaribo entered their melodious captives in competitions held every Sunday on the lawn outside the Presidential Palace. We got the low down on the four main types of singing birds, and how one can ruin the key of another if they are in close proximity. As we passed houses and businesses at 45 miles per hour, Harish would say "Twatwa", or "Pikolet", referring to the tiny avian content of a miserably small cage hanging under the verandah of some tin-roofed dwelling 30 yards away or more. We were regaled with stories of communication between him and a couple of his previous pets, notably a monkey and a parrot, that were too much like human interaction to pass our credibility test, but we became very fond of Harish in spite of his fantastic tales. Finally, we crossed over the Coppename River, turned off the bridge on the western end, and headed down towards the water. We unloaded and Harish took off back to town. I wondered if he thought he would ever see us again. The place was deserted except for a few houses a couple of hundred yards away. It was low tide, and the bank gentle and muddy. We assembled the kayak and organized the supplies that were to be stowed in the boat.Bridge at Jenny We shoved all our gear in the craft, slid over the mud, floated out and began to paddle. A pair of Rufous Crab Hawks saw us off from the remnants of the ferry dock that predated the swanky new bridge, screaming at us and each other.

Lee and I had never paddled together in this boat; in fact the only other time we had been in a boat together was in Charleston where we rented a kayak, paddled out to Crab Bank in Charleston Harbor, drank a couple of Bloody Marys and paddled back. So for a while our paddles clanked whenever we broke rhythm, which was a bit annoying. We would have to get used to each other, and would probably be paddling together for the main river trip. Moving along the western bank of the wide river, we could see herons, egrets and the occasional flash of red as a Scarlet Ibis took off to avoid close inspection. This was very promising indeed. The water was muddy but relatively calm, and we made good progress towards the mouth of the river. A fishing boat passed us on its way in, and edged as close as possible to get a better view of the two idiots in a green fabric kayak of a kind that they had probably never seen before. More than a couple of people in Suriname that we had informed of our plan thought we were unhinged to do this without a guide or a motor on the boat. In retrospect they may have been right. Near the mouth of the river we found ourselves paddling into the middle of a large school of very big fish, with triangular fins. They were swimming slowly, partially on their sides in the shallow water, and appeared to be crabbing. We stopped paddling, trying to figure out what they were. I poked at one with my paddle, provoking it to shoot off with a huge splash, running into another which did the same. I got a tongue-lashing from Lee who didn’t feel too comfortable surrounded by large fish, especially when they were close and blind in the muddy water, and of indeterminate identity. They were definitely not sharks, so I couldn‘t really see what the problem was. We paddled on, the fish sometimes bumping into the boat, or making contact with our paddles until we passed out of the school. I wished I had a trident, those chaps had to have been delicious on the grill. We passed out of the mouth of the river, and turned westwards, hugging the mangroves. To our right, we could see the two headlands marking the mouth of the Saramacca river, which spilled out at the same point as the Coppename. I would find myself near the source of the Saramacca a month later. The wind picked up and the waves became quite rough. I regretted not having bought a spray skirt for the boat when we began to take on water. It became too difficult to continue, so we backed into some mangroves and hung onto a pair of low branches with our nose pointing into the waves for a couple of hours. It really worked our arms, but we passed the time in smutty and amusing conversation that neither of us would have wanted another set of ears to hear! Evening and high tide arrived, and the water calmed down enough for us to move on and find a suitable stand of mangroves to hang the hammocks. This wasn’t easy to do. I had to alternately stand on the gunwales of the kayak, and scale the trees, ape-like, to secure the ties, while Lee tried to stabilize the boat. Moving the boat back and forward, we were eventually set for the night and there was little else to do but get into the hammocks, eat something nasty from a can with crackers and watch the flights of ibis and egrets heading to their roosting spots, no doubt more comfortable and hospitable than ours. Winston had suggested we might see "one or two Scarlet Ibis," but the hundreds that passed overhead was a testament to how few people had explored this area in any kind of intimate way. I don’t remember having slept much, but enjoyed the sounds of fish and crabs in the water below our hammocks. Phosphorescence sparkled in the water as wavelets broke around the roots of the trees or fish darted through the channels. During all this calm, the Velcro fastening on Lee’s hammock managed to disgorge a life jacket, some clothing and several hundred SRD into the water, which had disappeared with the tide by the time it was light enough to see again. She didn’t mention this loss for several hours, and when she finally came clean, I began to wonder if I my demeanor made me seem incapable of understanding a mishap like this. (Scarlet Ibis flying east)flying Scarlet Ibis

December 30th

Friday. The sounds of birds in the mangroves greeted us before dawn, and I managed to make a fairly good recording. I could see hummingbirds flitting around in the low light, several types of woodpeckers, and small birds that I couldn’t identify were working the mangroves for breakfast as the sun came up. We packed up and emerged from the trees on a low but rising tide, walking the kayak until the water was deep enough to allow us to get in and paddle. The weather was perfect, and we delighted in all the birdlife. I managed to take several acceptable photos of the flocks of ibis passing overhead in both directions. Why was one group passing us headed west and another east? Surely those from the west were closer to the feeding grounds that lay to the west than those from the east. Perhaps the birds had more beauty than brains. Fish were once again running into the boat, but smaller ones this time. We began to find our rhythm with the paddles. The water was shallow and we had to move further offshore, which was bad for the wildlife viewing, but we would have been really stuck had we assumed that there was enough water for us to travel along the coast, deceived by a high tide. We began to encounter mud banks, at the edges of which were schools of pop-eyed fish with long whiskers and mouths agape, hoovering up something. I suspected that they were after the jellyfish that looked like round globules of fresh motor oil, in vast slicks in the water.catfish of sorts? Occasional gentle rain showers refreshed us as the day went on, and the heat built. We watched large storm clouds gathering with some trepidation, but weren’t subjected to raging water and drenching rain. We stopped to eat something nasty from a can once more, and drank Bacardi poured into a can of Litchis, which would become a favorite intoxicant on future occasions. We could see many birds on the distant shore, and some fallen trees and logs; some of the latter were clearly moving and turned out to be huge crocodiles. Perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing that we were offshore. Word has it that Christopher Columbus sighted this coast in 1498. He must have been pretty far out with a good telescope, since there was no way that a big boat was getting anywhere near the mangroves without finding a river channel. It took the Spanish another ninety-five years to set foot in the country; had they known of its gold deposits they might have looked more favorably on its forbidding approaches. It turned out that they left it to the Dutch to establish settlements nine years later. (looking behind us, to the east)looking back We made good progress until the tide rose and the wind picked up. looking westIt looked as if the afternoon would be a repeat of the day before, except now we had nowhere to duck for shelter. Every stroke of the paddle projected a spray of suspended mud that showered the windward sides of our faces. We had to travel in a very narrow zone between the mud banks and the breaking waves so we wouldn’t be swamped or stuck in the gooey mud. We were trying to travel where the water was as much mud as water, and difficult to paddle through, but we had no choice. As our sense of humor began to diminish, we decided to find somewhere to stop and rest for a while. We spotted a bank that was elevated and clearly only flooded at the highest level of the tide. It was packed with wading birds, mostly Black-bellied Plovers and Whimbrels. Some vegetation grew tenuously here and there, so it seemed that there must be some solid ground, or at least mud sufficiently crusty to take our weight. I got out of the boat and immediately sank to my crotch in the sticky mud, unable to lift my legs to walk through it. I had to crawl on my belly, more swimming really, and dragging the bowline along to a group of sorry-looking mangrove shoots a couple of feet tall at best. Lee got out and had to repeat my example, resulting in us both looking a uniform muddy gray in color, with only small patches of skin visible on the left side of our faces. The mud managed to permeate everything: I wasn’t able to take photos or look at my bird book without soiling whatever I touched. My binoculars had mud behind the lenses, which was unfortunate as I had really liked them. They had been good to me in the past. It was pointless to sit there, so we got in the boat and decided to tough it out. After much hard paddling, which took us depressingly further from shore, we seemed to pass the mud banks and managed to wave surf until we were close to the mangroves again. The water was still rough but cleaner, and we saw flocks of egrets, night herons, and Whimbrels, the latter perched unusually on dead snags. To give our aching shoulders a bit of a rest, we took turns using the umbrella we had brought as a downwind sail. After a few miles we rounded a promontory of trees and saw some derelict buildings standing in the water across a small bay. This should have been where the canal we were looking for entered the sea, where we could travel into Totness. There was no canal, but we beached anyway and washed as much of the mud off ourselves as possible. It was late, and according to the GPS, we had a mile or so to go before we reached Totness, but there was nothing to say that the canal we would find wasn’t overgrown, or if it was even navigable. We were exhausted, and it was clearly going to rain soon. We disassembled the boat, packed it into its two bags. The shoreline was actually the earthen wall of an old rice impoundment, and we found some trees that would do for stringing up the hammocks. It turned out to have been a bad idea not to bother learning how to put up the hammock’s rain fly. We got soaked and in spite of taking recreational codeine, neither of us slept at all. Today, the only sign of live human beings had been a helicopter flying low over the jungle from the west.

December 31st

Saturday. The morning found Lee with absolutely no sense of humor after such a miserable night. She told me later that she had had a small teary episode away from me, something else that made me wonder just how sympathetic people thought I was. Repeated tries on the Satellite phone had us in sporadic contact with Annique, and perhaps the message got through that we needed Harish to come out and pick us up. We packed, and began to drag ourselves, the boat bags and the luggage (far too much) up a partially overgrown track that led inland on the dyke. Instead of making a beeline for the main road which was only a mile or so away, the track, which now showed some signs of use, conspired to make life easier by turning 90 degrees and heading west for longer than we really felt like walking. It was too far to drag all our gear along this part before it turned again towards the main road. Lee went ahead to see if she could find some help, and I brought all our stuff to a point where it could be picked up. I saw some great birds on the way back and forth. The old rice field was full of Jacanas, herons and gigantic Ringed Kingfishers. When I had moved the remaining gear, I headed towards the road to see what Lee had come up with. I found her by a water control structure on a canal talking to a tall black man in military green overalls. His name was Albert. He was a Dutch resident, originally from Suriname, who was a designer and builder and said he was 64, but looked younger than I. He helped us find a truck to bring our belongings and the boat to the road, and stood with us in the rain and discussed the Surinamese over a bowl of the most delicious and timely instant soup which was perfect for that moment. He was single-handedly building a house and studio, a collection of joined rectangles with orange trim. He had been at it for several years. Local Surinamese men would stand and watch him at work, never asking for a job or exhibiting much curiosity except about the fact that he was working so hard. He told an amusing story of several men who had come to the gate, and shouted "klop klop" rather than ring the doorbell. When he asked them why they didn‘t press the button, they said that if one buries the wiring as he had done, nobody would know he had electricity. (The photo right: Harish, driver and Godsend, at the central market in Paramaribo.)Harish He said that in Coronie Province, people had the tendency to shoot and sell or eat whatever they could, and told of once seeing a kid on a bicycle with a croc draped over his back, off to sell the unfortunate reptile to the Chinese in town. The Surinamese were unwilling to work because it was so easy to live off nature, there was so much fruit, fish and wildlife around. He also had much contempt for the Dutch engineers, who had planned and built several hydro projects that failed because they hadn’t take into account simple things like how muddy the water was. The canal we were standing next to had been stopped upstream for no particular reason, with the result that water, which had been fresh enough to drink when Albert was young, was now all salt, and the fish were gone. Harish arrived and tried to hide the look of dismay on his face at the prospect of having his clean car muddied by us and our luggage. We headed back towards Paramaribo, on the way passing our starting point. It had been a tough but rewarding couple of days, and we both had a sense of accomplishment, though at that point Lee wasn’t interested in anything but soothing the spectacular rash that had afflicted her since the previous night. We stopped in Boskamp, on the eastern bank of the Coppename River, and bought a towel and T shirt for Lee. On the way back, we saw and discussed the various wild fruits, including breadfruit, which we could see growing here and there. Sweet fruits, which looked like breadfruit but stuck in different trees and hanging in the wrong place in the tree, were also growing at the forest edges and in people‘s yards. Hotel, hot shower, dry clothing, food. Winston was trying to get us both to go to his New Year’s Eve party, but Lee’s rash wasn’t putting her in the mood for revelry, so I went without her. We drove through a dense fog of firework smoke to Annique’s parents’ house, a beautiful white colonial about a hundred years old. It was decorated inside with religious paintings and her family was pleasant and interesting. Annique’s father is an ophthalmologist who works in a state hospital, but has a private practice in the lower floor of the house. Annique and family(Annique and her family, New Year’s Eve) The fireworks were deafening, and Winston began to unravel a 60-yard-long string of bomblets along the sidewalk. Debris from other explosions was raining down on us, and it was difficult to breathe the acrid air. I was told with some pride that Suriname had the highest per capita "consumption" of fireworks on the planet, and that this was a legacy of the Chinese brought in to work the plantations after 1863. Soon after midnight we head through barely visible streets to another party at the Gummels farm, very Caucasian and with "club" music deejayed by Scott, Winston’s younger brother, who was to fly us around the countryside later in our trip. I was generally bored, and happy to be back at the hotel around 4 and in spite of the cacophony outside, I was able to sleep. (Winston opening the box of bomblets)Diesel opens fireworks

January 1st, 2006

Sunday. Lee and I took a walk in the morning, examining the appalling debris left by the fireworks. The street was littered with "bombel" casing, spent bottle rockets and sundry pyromaniac detritus. We unpacked the boat, as well as all of our other muddied possessions, and began to clean the sticky mess. The day was generally quiet, and so we began to consume Black Cat and fruit juice with Vidia, a jolly and rotund Indian girl who worked at the hotel. She and Lee were fast becoming buddies, while I spoke to a 6 ft rail thin girl called Mishika, who was quite vain and suggested that she was a model, though I couldn’t quite figure out what she was doing hanging around in the hotel lobby waiting for something or someone. Now and again she would whinny like a demented horse at some sozzled witticism or other that dropped out of my mouth, and I found her less and less attractive in spite of me getting drunker as the afternoon went on. She said that she was trying to find a suitable apartment, having grown tired of living with her mother for the past year. We did have some amusing conversations as I became progressively more blotto, but I have little recollection of the subjects we covered. The afternoon melted into evening, and after sardines on toast and several Parbos, Lee and I declared the day over and hit the hay.

January 2nd

Monday. We headed into Paramaribo in a taxi whose shock absorbers and cv-joints were absolutely toast, and repeated the same old T Cheque rigmarole at the bank, except that this time the teller messed up the last simple step and it took an extra half hour to fix it. I wasn’t too amused in spite of all the apologetic smiles. On our way to find a digital camera for Lee, we were stopped by a British tourist in ridiculous clothing that marked him. His companion was the only other person from the US we would meet who wasn’t part of our expedition, she was from Boston and they had both thought we were Dutch. After the camera purchase, also quite a procedure, we were misdirected by the weasel of a salesman but eventually found ourselves at Fah Tai restaurant where we had arranged to meet Winston for lunch. After lunch we headed to STINASU, the Foundation for Nature Conservation and met Otte Ottema, Suriname’s only ornithologist. One could not have found a more typical mad scientist had one called Central Casting; he was skinny, bearded, nervous and wild looking though soft spoken, with a Guyanan wife perched on the chair on the other side of his desk. His office was a corner on the ground floor, with a door to the outside. (a selection of fish, central market)fish for sale Apart from scruffy books, tired looking posters of birds, he had a complete set of Scarlet Ibis flight feathers taped to a piece of paper. We briefly discussed the trip Lee and I had taken, and asked where we might see Capped and Boat-billed Herons, he offered to guide us for a fee that we did not have. I asked about the production of a field guide for the birds of Suriname, most people used Birds of Venezuela, and he said that he needed 50 000 euros for the project that he was hoping to get from the EU or some government. It struck me as interesting that he couldn’t conceive of trying to raise the money privately as one would in the US. If he really intended to do this project, he should have started the text anyway, in any moment of spare time he had, and would have had something to show any potential donor. We moved on to a nearby building, also in a state of impending decrepitude, climbed some dirty stairs and met Bryan Drakenstein, the head of the Nature Conservation Division of the Forest Service, who had originally put us in touch with Winston. He was bespectacled, black and well spoken, and couldn’t believe we had traveled the Coppename Bank on manual power only. He thought this was a first. He agreed to meet with Patrick when he arrived, but said he would have to consult with his superiors first. Winston offered us a discounted trip to Arapahu Island for a couple of days, there were unfilled seats on a plane headed out that way and we jumped at the chance. All we would need to bring were towels. Back at the hotel we got plastered with Vidia once more, and after a sumptuous meal of sardines yet again, we tottered off to bed.

January 3rd

Tuesday. Harish arrived at ten to take us into town. We presented him with the binoculars that we had bought him the previous day at the camping and fishing supply store. He seemed pleased but hardly effusive. We drove to the central market, noisy, not particularly clean and full of odors interesting rather than repellant. The downstairs was dominated by fruit and vegetable sellers, and Harish kept up a running commentary on just what we were looking at. I bought two types of wild fruit and some Amerindian bananas that were pudgy and delicious. I knew I would be thinking of these every time I contemplated a Chiquita banana back home. We examined the wild bird section outside which was sad. The fish section was interesting, and made my mouth water. There were shelves of snapper, snook, tarpon, various ocean and river fish, crabs and prehistoric looking swamp fish that were alive, wriggling, and ugly as all hell. The meat and poultry section looked morbidly interesting. Apart from the usual chicken, whole or in parts, I did notice a parboiled Armadillo, smoked Peccary and parts of animals that were probably Paca, Agouti or other Rodentia. It didn’t make me want to dig in with any great gusto. The upstairs section of the market sold Chinese made clothing, fake watches and nothing in my personal realm of interest, but we had to go in and try to extricate Lee.swampfish We left the market, paid off the guard at the Church where we had parked and drove to the northern section of Paramaribo, and stopped a large aviary with several macaws and a toucan inside. The area where most embassy personnel and other dignitaries lived was on the banks of the Suriname river, and the houses were large and generally well kept. In this area were more than a few half built mansions that, according to Harish, belonged to drug dealers who were cooling off in prison at the moment. We found an area with plenty of birds of all types after having negotiated water filled puddles of indeterminate depth, and stopped outside yet another unfinished mansion to walk a bit and see what there was. Little Grassquit males were jumping up and down from their perches uttering characteristic "srio" cries, the derivative of their local name. (Ruddy Ground Dove, common in the north of town)ruddy ground-dove On the way back we stopped for lunch at Chi Mihn, the sizzling seafood platter and fried squid, known here as inkfish, hit the spot perfectly. We moved on to the zoo, it was a miserable place and I felt sorry for its unfortunate inhabitants. I suppose that the rainy and dark day didn’t help the impression we got of the place, but the animals too looked pretty sad and some of the cages had the ubiquitous Paramaribo litter inside with the inhabitants. Harish said that the Board of Governors of the zoo had been gleefully looting all the donations for years. We were quiet that night for a change, and so I found myself awake once more for hours pondering logistics and things I could and could not control.

January 4th

Arapahu Island. Wednesday. We packed up and tried to tidy room 9 which looked as though it barely survived the Blitz, and moved our possessions to the storeroom. Winston arrived around 9.30 to take us to Zorg en Hoop, which was bustling, no sign of any kind of security, and as the twin Cessna was loaded I discussed with Henk, our pilot for this flight, the state of the air charter business in Suriname. His main competition came from an outfit called Blue Wing, who used ex-military Russian Antonovs, with no spares available and little regard for the comfort of the passengers. The Cessna we were about to get into had been purchased in pieces from the family of a man who had prematurely moved to a different plane of (non-) existence before he had put the plane together again. The engines were new, and the plane looked fine if a little worn. I accepted the co-pilot seat and we taxied up the runway, passing new aircraft of the Surinamese air force which were new but no longer airworthy due to lack of maintenance. Henk suggested that for half a million dollars they could be made to fly again. In the shadow of these planes were a sorry looking bunch of confiscated drug planes, corroding away happily. Amotopo airstrip Through the clouds I got my first look at the vast jungle of the interior, periodically traversed by one river or another and broken by mountains as we flew further west. Henk told me that there was no radar coverage of Suriname; in the event of a plane going down the signal from its emergency beacon would be picked up by an FAA satellite and then emergency helicopters would be dispatched from French Guiana. After an hour and a bit we crossed the Lucie river, and banked over the Corantyne on final for Amotopo airstrip, crudely hacked out of the jungle, dirt, and not particularly long. We disembarked, and I saw my first macaws flying overhead. A Squirrel Cuckoo presented itself for inspection as it chased an insect nearby. The sounds from the jungle were wonderful, Screaming Pihas and others, and I became enthusiastic about making some recordings here. My little MP3 recorder was a gift from a friend, Elisabeth Carillo, and I had bought enough mini discs to record onto that I could probably have wired myself for the entire trip and had space left over. Butterflies with brilliant blue wings floated around, but almost disappeared when they settled, no trace of azure visible. At the river’s edge our gear was loaded onto a motorized dugout for the trip upstream. The jungle was fascinating, and I knew that I had found a natural world that would require more examination in the years ahead. We arrived at Arapahu and beached the boat under a tree housing a colony of Yellow-rumped Caciques, vociferous and striking. Up a path to the Lodge we were given the low down by Annique, and shown to our respective cabins. Lee and I shared one on a bluff overlooking the dock, there was slightly less noise here from the rushing water that surrounded the island. Silver-beaked tanagers flitted around the camp, and ate the ripening papayas on the fruiting trees. We strolled down the jungle trail to the Frederik Willem IV falls, quite a mouthful, and sat in an area of quiet water enjoying the peace, unaware for another day yet that this was the type of flow favored by electric eels. Back at the cabin we sat and watched the birdlife around us, Swallow-wings, looking ridiculous with almost no tail, were skillfully hawking insects and returning to a perch just off our porch, and a Long-tailed Hermit, a type of hummingbird, drove me nuts as I was trying to take its photo, by refusing to keep still. It rained intermittently, so gently that one could follow the drops as they fell. Our fellow guests were Ramone and his two daughters, Tanya and Mireille. Ramone was one of the only two Radiologists in Suriname, and I think he smoked more than me. His daughters studied in Holland, Mireille, 22, an MD doing her residency but looked as though she was 17, and Tanya in her mid-twenties and street smart. While we had been lounging around they had gone fishing, and returned with several fish that would grace the dinner table that night, including an Anjoumara and a big piranha. Dinner was late and delicious but Lee missed it. She peaked early from the sinister effects of Black Cat and wandered off, leaving me to speak barely coherent nonsense with the girls as we waited for dinner. Later, I woke Lee without meaning to, and we chatted with drunken mirth before passing out in the cabin.

January 5th

Thursday. I woke around 6.30am, the sun wasn’t up yet but it was getting light. It was difficult to reconcile such a warm climate with such late daybreak; in New York when it was that temperature one could be target shooting with open sights at 5am. I had to remind myself that we were only 3deg north of the Equator, and things didn’t change much with the seasons. I was expecting to waken to a cacophony of jungle sounds, but there was just the roaring noise of the fast flowing water over the rapids next to us. Even the Caciques were slow to start with their squawks and burbles. After an excellent and sorely needed breakfast, we carted cameras and fishing rods down to the dock. Jeff, the fishing guide and cook, would take us out to see what was willing to be captured. We floated down the river, engine off with just the noise of the birds from the bank, and the swish of fishing lines through the air. Macaws were flying overhead, and we occasionally disturbed White-necked Herons, monochromatic versions of Great Blues but with wholly black crowns and white thighs. Several species of kingfisher flew ahead as we approached, mostly Amazon and Green. We saw our first Howler Monkeys in the trees, which Jeff and the lads called "baboons". Jakobi caught a Pacu, the vegan version of a piranha, on fruit. In the bow, Jeff and Dale caught a couple of moroko using cashew fruit and banana. It was most satisfying to float down the river, no noise and little conversation, examining the birds and monkeys in the trees. I managed to record some of the sounds, and hoped that they were okay. yellow rumped cacique We turned up the second inlet and started the motor. As we headed up the tributary we pushed along several Green Ibis, many White-banded Swallows flew around us, and finally a Capped Heron flew ahead with its jerky wing beats, one bird I was very excited to see. The river had some bird-like diurnal bats that would also flush and weave through the tangled growth along the bank before settling again on a rock or snag, arranging themselves like the teeth of a large zipper. We ran up several rapids until we arrived at some little falls that put and end to that, pulled over to the right bank and tied up, flushing a pair of nightjars. Jeff called us over to look at a pool containing half a dozen or so lounging electric eels, some around four feet long, and all looking ominous.We hiked along an overgrown trail, Jakobi expertly slashing any impeding growth with his machete. Apparently nobody had used this track in a couple of years. There was little sound, but we passed some large trees with buttress roots, and arboreal ants nests were to be seen in every direction, sometimes on a huge tree and sometimes on a sapling that looked as though it would never be able to take the weight. We reached a fallen tree trunk that spanned the rushing river, and Jeff and Jakobi strolled over in their flip flops with hardly a wobble. I went as far as I could before losing faith in my fancy water shoes, with their hard soles, and skidded across on my backside. I was bedecked with camera and binoculars, neither of which I was ready to ruin by falling in. Actually, had I fallen in it was doubtful if I would have survived to care about the camera anyway, the water was fast and strong. I would just have to wash the skid marks out of my britches later. We reached a rocky point and had to turn around almost immediately, it was late and Jeff had to cook lunch. Lee and I slipped on exactly the same rock, me first and Lee forewarned. Her yell was much less subtle than my expletive, she had definitely punished her tail with that one. I looked at the eels again, they were big bastards, and I had a new appreciation for where not to hang out in a Surinamese river. As lunch was being prepared the girls headed back to the dock to fish, and I went along to see what they might get. Mireille found herself reeling in a piranha, which I was unanimously elected to remove from the hook and release. It snapped its jaws, but I managed to extract the hook and toss it back without damaging myself. Tanya then managed to hook a rock, so I was once again elected to free the line. I stripped to my underwear and waded into the water, knowing that it was teeming with piranha, one in particular whose sense of humor was less than gleeful right now. It was an interesting sensation knowing that my $18 Underarmor boxers were little impediment to a piranha that had made the decision to swim away with my wobbly bits. The Pobble Who Has No … black-faced dacnis We discussed birds with Jeff a bit, I was dismayed to hear that he employed people to catch birds for him to pass on to a dealer for export. The thinking seemed to be that the resources of Suriname were so abundant that they were inexhaustible, and taken for granted. One of the popular cage birds was now so rare in the wild that its capture is forbidden, but the law is hardly enforced. The evening was quiet, it was our last, and I was ready to do something. I had had enough of pampering, hot food, cold showers and all. Patrick had arrived by now, so we were getting close to the real reason we were in this country.

January 6th

Friday. I rose and waited for a spectacular sunrise, sitting on our east facing porch, but the clouds formed by the breathing of the forest allowed no direct sunlight to reach us. Another cat called from my right. After breakfast there was a move to hike on the other side of the river, but I decided to stay and try to take photos of the birds in a small fruit tree on the island. The blue tanagers eluded me but I did manage to capture a Black-faced Dacnis, before the interesting birds all disappeared and I had missed the boat for the crossing. I strolled up to the falls again, it was quiet except for the honking of a pair of toucans, and soon it was time to pack up and head to the airstrip and back to Paramaribo with its people and garbage filled ditches. The boat ride to Amotopo was wonderful, small macaws passed overhead and the trees on the bank were festooned with aerial plants and hanging boomerang-shaped red pods, the mosaic broken by trees with purple flowers the color of Jacaranda blooms.corantyne river's edge Scott arrived in the Caravan, disgorged some passengers including an attractive Dutch woman, tall of course, who peered at us as if we were something interesting from the jungle. Once onboard, Scott turned and asked me if I was responsible for the hickey on the neck of the Indian woman who was squatting under the grass shelter. Bastard. We avoided storms on the way back, and a horse ran onto the apron as we approached touchdown, a small and aeronautically inconsequential detail which Scott completely ignored. Back at the hotel I met Patrick, and we immediately began to discuss logistics over a couple of beers, while Lee took a nap. Patrick was a good looking Pommie, of medium build and Lee was particularly delighted to meet him. Winston arrived at 5 to take us to meet Pieter who was to be our guide for the Lucie River trip. Over a succession of Parbos, and a flood of Black Cat and coke, we established many things that I can’t remember, except that we would get wet and stay that way, and that I needed to get fishing equipment. Pieter was going to take a small rifle that would float if dunked. It seemed that iguanas, several birds and large rodents were on the menu if they could be found. After much discussion about where to go for a practice paddle, we decided on the Commewijne River which was east and not too far from Paramaribo, tidal and free of rapids. Patrick, not having lived in Africa for more than a few weeks, got into his head that he wanted to spend several days in a village of the descendants of escaped slaves, called Maroons or Bush Negros. It was a dying culture, and he was set on this endeavor. Winston wanted me to stay and organize for the main trip and I thought that the best option, but knew that Patrick would not go alone and it was doubtful if Lee would go just with Patrick. I was stuck. I hoped there would at least be some birds around while Patrick examined the dying culture. We tottered off to dinner, Chinese as I recall, and Patrick was not quick to converse with Henk, who I felt had a lot to say about the state of affairs in Suriname. I couldn’t blame Patrick if his retention of any conversation would have been minimal, as mine had been that evening. paddling on Commewijne

January 7th

Saturday. Rain. My fellow travelers were showing no signs of life after last night’s revelry. I was still wrestling with the options, to go to the Maroon village, or stay and take care of the preparations. I could take a small solo trip on the Cosewijne River, which ambles through swamps and is supposed to be packed with birds. I doubted this would have been a good move, me being the de facto planner and decision maker for the group, so it looked like the Maroons for me too. Winston arrived in his truck, we loaded up and headed off, stopping for lunch at a sandwich shop, where my fodder seemed to be suspiciously full of kidney chunks. The road east was atrocious and undulating, and headed through an area populated mostly by Indonesians. The early mosques built in here had the bulge indicating the direction of Mecca built into a western wall, the early Indonesian Moslems in Suriname had not realized that Mecca’s longitude had been traversed. We turned into the old plantation zone, and wandered up a road for a few miles to see where we would get out of the river. The spot was marked by a beautiful old plantation house in a state of disrepair but with a shiny new tin roof. The experts couldn’t get good gps readings, and that procedure took far too long. Some twenty miles further east we crossed a bridge and stopped, assembled the boats and headed down the river. Winston would pick us up at the plantation house in 22 hours. The river was quiet, but after a couple of hours paddling we heard the approach of a motor boat and immediately assumed that we had strayed into drug dealer turf, but it was friends of Pieter’s, the Tjins. Arthur introduced himself and his wife Jean, and for weeks I thought he had said "Otter Chin", but I did get the Jean part. We were photographed and examined, they idled next to us as we paddled along until Lee and Patrick headed off, and I had a bit of a job to catch up. The Tjins rejoined us after a while, and gave us some ideas about where to camp. We needed to look for tall trees near the bank that would indicate higher ground, and eventually we found an adequate spot. Patrick mentioned that nobody had ever traveled an hour and a half by boat, especially with the price of gas as it was, to say hello and check up on him. Hammocks strung up, we ate some of the junk food that we had brought, and began to attack the bottle of Black Cat, which had the distressing quality of draining away all too quickly. It either evaporated, or the Surinamese needed to make bigger bottles. Conversation started out as humorous and then became profound, liberally punctuated with the noise of hands slapping at bugs and spraying of mosquito repellant. The little bastards were eating us through the hammock floor, and I had to put on a hot bug-off shirt, and found some relief, but not too much sleep. Through the night the sound of bats nimbly helping rid us of mosquitoes could be heard as they swooped under the rain fly and banked away. Long before dawn the howler monkeys started their unearthly roar, it took me a little while to understand that it was monkeys and not the mysterious workings of some distant Surinamese factory. I was not going to get chewed up by insects and retrieve my recorder, which was a pity because that night gave us the closest and loudest howling that we would hear during our stay. In future the little device would stay with me in the hammock. buggy camp

January 8th

Sunday. I was impatient to get going, the tide would be with us, and I was awake. Birds began to sing, another underwhelming sunrise, and I agitated Patrick and Lee until they got up, We left the camp at around 7.30 am on a hot and still morning. There was more bird activity than yesterday, we pushed some complaining Green Ibis ahead of us, and Aracaris and a toucanet flew overhead. I thought I saw a pair of tiger-herons in the mangroves, although they could have been Sunbitterns, but my second pair of binoculars were trashed so I was unsure and annoyed. Buy cheap, buy twice. We slowed with the rising tide and it became hard work to paddle this stretch. Lee had been trying to get Patrick to recognize at least one bird, and though he eventually managed to distinguish a turkey vulture from a hummingbird, he would never make a competent twitcher. We stopped for tuna and corn sandwiches which seemed to hit the spot, but we were short on water. After a bauxite barge passed us and hooted its horn in greeting, we decided to pump a couple of liters of water. It was palatable, but a hundred yards or so further on we approached what looked like a log at first, but turned out to be a priapic and very dead manatee. The next time we grew thirsty and pumped, we discovered a dead dog nearby, so I resolved to preserve myself for the first beer I could find rather than drink this water. I found some fresh Scarlet Ibis feathers in the mangrove roots, clearly the birds had been shot and skinned right here. Tragic. Perhaps this was the reason we hadn’t seen any, though we were in prime habitat for Scarlet Ibis. Finally, and about an hour later than scheduled we entered the plantation zone and found our take out point. We were greeted by some people who once again took our photos, and I felt like a slightly fried and quite smelly celebrity. Winston came out bearing heaven-sent bottles of large Parbos, which we swilled as we broke down the boats. Several Borgoe rum and cokes put me in a perfectly contented mood on the drive back to the hotel, and we crashed on arrival, tired and sore. Patrick had developed a spectacular rash, somewhat like the one Lee had developed a week or so earlier from the Coppename bank trip. Obviously punchy, and with a bit of coaching from me, Lee got the giggles and woke Patrick up to ask him, "Are you chuffed with your rash, my Pommie friend?" but collapsed in fits of laughter before she had completed her barely coherent delivery. In Southern Africa, "chuffed with" meant "pleased with", and Patrick would probably have understood had he been able to make out what this crazy Yank chick was saying. Anyway, from here on out Patrick was "Pommie Friend, and we were "chuffed" with all things good. Later we ordered a driver, and headed to Amigo Grill for dinner, which was excellent. I had Bang Bang (snapper) with curry sauce, the huge fillet was obviously from a large fish which hopefully meant a healthy fishery. We were joined by Arthur Tjin, who had tracked us down somehow.. Paramaribo wasn’t a very large town. Conversation, lubricated with Scotch and soda which I needed like a terminal disease, centered around the upcoming river trip and the situation at Kayserberg, which was partially under Arthur’s control. Kayserberg would be our take off point. He had traveled down several rivers, and was a keen canoeist, so his advice was much appreciated. Patrick and Lee were dead on their feet, and headed off. Further discussion on the state of tourism was accompanied by more scotch, and then finally I too, was done. Arthur drove me back to the hotel, pointing out the hookers on the way and giving me knowing assessments on their personal qualities. Prostitution is legal in Suriname, actually, from what I could tell, almost anything was legal in Suriname. He assured me that he could help out if we got into trouble of any sort, and seemed politically connected. Lee and I had another totally unnecessary drink at the hotel, and then passed out. I seem to have been dubbed "Sergeant Suriname". The kids were going to have their fun. brahmans

January 9th

Monday. A day of shopping and logistics. Dinner at Sarinah, excellent as usual. Winston brought up a few issues for us to consider, one being the inclusion of another guide at no expense to us, who would be able to make life more interesting on the river. Patrick wasn’t keen, and I was indifferent although it would be rather fun to bring along the single kayak, and we could take turns at being independent. On the other hand, one traveler would be a loner by default, probably me and I would have been happy that way, but I knew it was going to be difficult keeping the double kayak afloat as it was not the most suitable vessel for the trip that was looming. Winston had asked me what thought Pieter’s role should be, he was uncertain just how he should treat us. I suggested he not baby-sit us, and at the same time help us avoid decisions and circumstances that would shorten our existence. It would turn out that Pieter was the perfect character for us.

January 10th

Tuesday. Patrick and I headed to the market early, it was something he needed to see. We were shadowed by a purse snatcher, probably eyeing my camera, but after he got the evil eye from Harish and me, he moved off. We examined cassava in all its different forms, from baby food to facial rub. I was again captivated by the fish, fresher than our last visit, and Harish threatened to cook a yellow finned variety if and when we returned from the river trip. Patrick bought Lee a cheap watch, she hadn’t worn one for years, having lost several expensive makes. Next stop, the fishing tackle shop where we bought line, hooks, etc. to give as gifts to the Maroons. I purchased yet another set of binoculars, refusing to go on a trip like this without backup. We passed by the airport to discuss with Henk the upcoming Maroon experience, and Scott "Kid Suriname" arrived in the Cessna Caravan, switched it off and joined us. Scott wanted us to go and look at an old Rumrunner that the Gummels family was fixing up to take tourists around and ply them with alcohol. It had been sunk in the Suriname River and gone through several owners since its re-floatation, finally ending up in Scott’s hands.(Ok, this aspect of the boat's history is being disputed by Winston, who is either being pre-menstrual, or I have been had for an idiot by Scott, both of which are distinct possibilities!) No doubt the boat had a colorful history, and there would certainly be some rum consumed on its decks in the near future. It was being beautifully fitted, much emphasis being placed on the bar, and the quandary of the moment was what kind of railing would be required to contain the drunken revelers while the boat was anchored in one river or another. We looked at some of the elegant fishing boats undergoing repairs, they were relatively large and solidly constructed, but powered by outboards of only 45 or 48 horsepower.capt. handlebars the princess cadenceScott left to speak to some boatyard manager, and we encountered an Indian sporting an impressive moustache with a WW II style crash helmet perched on his head, who began to amiably and unilaterally chat in perfect Dutch. When the torrent slowed, and we heard "Gummels", he lapsed into English for our benefit. He was a chain smoking boat captain currently running marine engines from Cayenne, French Guiana to Suriname for repairs since it was that much cheaper, and readily agreed to be photographed. The first shot had his hand to his mouth drawing on a cigarette, which he said was unacceptable because his moustache was obscured. The previous photo was the second try. On our return to the hotel, we received news from Winston that almost drove me nuts. Bobby and Christian, the photographers, had no visas for Suriname and no spare pages in their passports. We discussed the various options, and I was hoping like hell this could be resolved by Saturday, now the earliest possible day that we could leave for Kayser and the river trip. The bar across the street from the hotel was called JNI’s, what that stood for I never did figure out, and I tried to calm myself with several beverages. The result was a sense of resignation, and then I was buoyed by the delicious crabs that we had bought at the market that morning. The occasional cook at the hotel, a stocky, shaven man who looked as if he’d be more comfortable holding an assault rifle than a spatula, had looked at my efforts in the kitchen and taken over to save me ruining what was a delicious pile of ingredients. I was ushered out, and he refused to tell me how he had cooked the claws when I asked him, but he did a hell of a job with our purchase. This was the beginning of an interesting evening. A driver took us into town, to the Waterkant, an area of bars and outdoor eateries next to the Suriname River, which was empty for the most part. We found ourselves in a bar drinking Black Cat and passion fruit, which seemed to slide down rather well and before long I found my frustration at the delay begin to dissipate. I can’t remember who suggested that we stumble up the road and stop in at the casino, but it wasn’t a great move. I had money in my pocket, which I erroneously thought was a better idea than leaving it at the hotel, so I became the banker for the evening. We played Blackjack, and I discovered that Patrick was only marginally less clueless about the vagaries of this form of idiocy than I was. Under his inept tutelage, the first humorless croupier, a Korean, decimated us in a matter of minutes. We were then eviscerated by an equally surly Caucasian girl, overseen by a manager who looked the part of a Triad Enforcer, but smiled when we told him so under the influence of a river of Black Cat. Then, it was a pleasure to be flayed by the next dude, a black croupier with a sense of humor. By now, there was little controlling what came out of Lee’s mouth, and her insistent pleas and flashes of ample cleavage finally got him to undo his tie, and then open his shirt to the waist before she would lose any more (of my) money. His name was Gilbert, pronounced with a suitably French inflexion, and he doubled over with laughter when Lee said’ "Hit me, you big black bastard.." , or "take me gently….". Patrick, who was about to marry a South African with all the associated issues of racial tact and guilt, was stunned that Lee could get away with it. In spite of the good humor, Gilbert removed every last ort of cash that I was prepared to put on the table. My gambling companions came up with their share of the losses the next day, slightly sheepishly. Back at the hotel, I couldn’t sleep until I had fired off an angry email sometime after 3am, and then slept like the dead.

January 11th

Wednesday. Winston took us to the bank, and I discovered that $400 in Travelers Cheques were missing. It was quite pointless for anyone to have taken them although in Suriname I suspect you could cash almost anything with the ID of a Sumatran Rhinoceros accepted for a Swedish tourist, and I was a fool to believe that the chambermaids in Paramaribo were any more honest than anywhere else. I met with Pieter once more, and made several purchases at the camping store at his recommendation, including fishing plugs, waterproof boxes etc. He didn’t think it was a good idea for me to go and hang out with the Maroons, there was much to organize. I agreed, but felt I had little choice. It was time to get out of town, the casino debacle was not to be repeated. I left money with Winston for the last minute supplies we hadn’t thought of, and we headed to the airport. Henk introduced us to the revered Gra Man, or however you spell it. He was talking on a cell phone, wearing soccer training gear, Nikes and bedecked with some crude and chunky gold adornments, and clearly indifferent to our presence. We climbed into the plane, and as we began to throttle down the runway we heard a rattling noise from the right side of the old Cessna. Takeoff was casually aborted, the Gra Man not taking his eyes off the Dutch and English newspaper he was studying. It turned out that his seat belt was hanging outside the fuselage and getting agitated in the slipstream. The rattling Cessna took us to the airfield at Pusugrunu, Poesoegroenoe on some maps, but let’s save ink.schoolhouse We were met by the uniformed Government man, all ingratiating and untrustworthy smiles, and our gear was whisked away from us before we had a chance to reconcile ourselves with what was there and what needed to remain close to our persons. At the river’s edge we boarded a motorized dugout and crossed the Saramacca, which was beautiful with large rocks and treed islands. Sweltering in the government building, white and airless but decorated with scarves tied together, we discussed what we were doing here with the various Kapitanes and their underlings. Translation wasn’t easy, but we established that photography was allowed, biltong was good (Patrick had brought some) and we were to get a dose of this culture. A bottle of Hannapier Eau de Vie appeared, this vile libation seemed to be the drink of choice but it wouldn’t be mine after a taste, more like Eau de Mort. The Gra man called it whisky ("Weeskee"), and the barely functioning alcoholic who controlled the stock was pointed out to us in case we had an overwhelming urge to get into the stuff and needed to purchase it. A clear plastic bag containing cigarettes, canned food and fishing gear seemed to have taken legs. When I asked the Government rep about getting it back, he smiled and assured me calmly that I would never see it again. Over the next few days there seemed to be an ample supply of my brand of cigarettes (Morello), and canned ham tins appeared on top of the careless trash piles outside certain houses. We followed the leaders of this group of villages to the school, empty and in a state of dereliction, built but never occupied by a student or teacher. The structure was appealing, two hexagons with airy apertures in the walls and a tin roof, but somewhat sad in its decrepitude. saramacca river In the village of Pijetie, a couple of hundred yards upstream from Pusugrunu, our bags had been placed on the porch of a dead man’s home. Although I was quite positive that the former owner would be indifferent as to who might own it now, the villagers insisted that the possession remained with the dusty corpse until the house itself collapsed. We learned later that he had been the only Maroon polititian in government, probably an activity that helped shorten his stay on the planet. Pijetie was sited on the east bank of the Saramacca, in a beautiful spot where the river ambled past big granite rocks, dugout canoes pulled up on the small patch of sandy beach next to a large flat rock, with unpolluted water. The river bank was populated with huge mango trees which periodically dropped ripe fruit onto the tin roofs, the resulting sound like a shotgun blast, at any time of day or night. Walking under the trees was hazardous, but every morning there would be a few ripe mangos for breakfast, life sustaining since most of our food had been stolen. As the afternoon progressed the Gra Man and several of the village luminaries sat under the dead man’s house on plastic chairs and became progressively more blotto on Weeskee, which we were apparently enthusiastically buying for them. At one point the less than coherent Gra Man began to enquire as to our sleeping arrangements, and began to ask "Ha mach?", indicating towards Lee. She wasn’t too enthusiastic about this line of enquiry as Patrick and I had discussed that, if it looked as though we might be slow stewed in a large cauldron, we could always bargain for our freedom using Lee, who was clearly excellent wife material. It turned out that he wanted to hang Lee’s hammock between Patrick’s and mine, she was slightly more comfortable with this idea than the prospect of being sold into jungle servitude by her traveling companions. In his zeal to be ingratiating, Patrick began to talk about dinner and suggested we feed everyone. So an ever increasing number of people in various stages of intoxication showed up to consume our sparse dinner of tuna and corn with pasta. This put paid to our prospects of feeding ourselves over the next few days, and we began to diet with little choice in the matter.kid in dugout The bender continued into the night, and when Lee had had enough she entered her hammock, while Patrick tried in vain to discuss the gold mining threats to the villages under the Gra Man’s control with the totally legless man himself. What did emerge was that he controlled 9800ha of mining concession, and employed a bunch of illegal Brazilians, who were gleefully poisoning the land, which was fine because it was all downstream. "If you don’t pay, you got a problem" was a persistent refrain when he talked about the miners. If they were not forthcoming with money or gold, he had the option of having them jailed in Paramaribo and deported. Sometime between our arrival in the village and the superb party we hosted, we found time to meet and photograph almost everyone, swim with the piranhas, and test out the cruising capabilities of the dugout boats. The kids were very friendly and fascinated by their images in the viewing screen of the digital camera on playback. A sorry looking Red and Green Macaw was brought out on a stick at one point, and I took a bunch of photographs of this magnificent bird which nobody seemed to like. I could have sworn that it was possible to see the sadness in its eyes, though I am not usually given to anthropomorphism. With the Gra Man passed out in the dead man’s house above us, and the bloody roosters crowing all night, I didn’t sleep much. This little sojourn in the village was going to be trying, but was interesting to see rice being threshed in the same way it had been for years, and cassava being prepared in its various forms, and we would later greatly appreciate the flat pieces of cassava bread that we were given. We were shown the sturdy vines the could be flaked and pulped, and would poison a small lake enough to stun the fish (and kill anything else) if one was too lazy to catch them with a rod or net. From descriptions I have subsequently found in various publications, these Lianas could have been Ayahuasca or Caapi, from the genus Banisteriopsis, whose bark is used to make powerful hallucinogenic drinks favored by Amerindian medicine men. It didn’t seem as though the Maroons used them to get stoned, if they did I am sure I wouldn’t have been able to resist trying some, if only to detach myself from this little bit of reality. Apparently, the stuff tastes terrible. We had tasted the sweet pulpy Maripha palm fruit which grew everywhere, and were a favorite of the macaws that we would see in large numbers in a few days. noisy cockerels

January 12th

Thursday. I tried to fish in the river using a piece of cashew fruit without success, and settled for recording the bird on the far bank. Patrick had been taken off to go hunting with one of the Kapitanes, Emmanuel, who was a decent sort. I had made the mistake of showing an interest in the generator we had passed on the trail between the villages, and was pressed to "fix" them. So I looked at these new but already abused pieces of equipment, the bolts holding the alternator, and water pump belt had been broken off inside the engine block from having the bejesus tightened out of them, and the future functionality of the motor depended on a single bolt to prevent it from overheating and blowing the head gasket. It was a job for a mechanic with spare bolts, a drill and good knowledge of wiring. What a mess. I fiddled with it a bit but decided that the grease, futility, and very real prospect of further messing it up put me on the fast track to the cauldron, to be slow boiled with salt, habaneras and perhaps, wild potatoes.squeezing cassava Lee had been detailed to accompany the women to the cassava fields in the forest, and we met back at the dead man’s house in the early afternoon. After a sumptuous lunch of crackers dipped in warm mayonnaise, we got on a boat with a hunter, three women, several kids and the Gra Man’s son, who spoke English (and responded to the name Oswald) and headed upstream for the noisiest hunting and gathering expedition that one could imagine. We beached the boat and headed up a trail, I followed the hunter closely who was examining every inch if the forest ahead, his ancient Russian Baikal single shot shotgun unslung and at the ready. simian dinnerBehind us and unseen, the women and children were chattering noisily. One of our party was called Bailey, the rather well nourished lady in the photo above, squeezing water out of the cassava pulp in the woven device she is holding. She often called us over to see some method by which various foodstuffs were prepared, mostly cassava in it’s different forms. We entered a cassava field, the hunter moving quietly ahead to scout for potential prey, and the women began to dig up cassava and various tubers at the base of some large-leafed lily-like plants, which were called "potatoes", or just "good". We disturbed several nightjars, and a King Vulture flew overhead as we stood in a burned area which I expected would become a cassava field in the future. This little moonscape with felled trees was already yielding several spinach-like plants which were edible, but to my eyes indistinguishable from others that were not. A large locust was pointed out to me, with assurances that it was very good to eat. On returning to the village, we swam and took to the hammocks for an afternoon nap to make up for sleep that we had missed due to the reproductive impulses of the cockerels. Patrick returned from his outing bursting with excitement at his experience. The take had included two monkeys, two Grey-winged Trumpeters (one shot) and five beautiful blue Tinamou eggs about to hatch. I took many photos of what was actually a pretty gruesome scene, and later watched the monkeys having their hair removed, but not skinned. Patrick was giddy with excitement, and had seen several owls, and being the incompetent birder that he was, probably marched right past some wonderful birds. All three of us were filled with some trepidation at the certainty of having to consume our simian relatives at some point in the very near future. But the Trumpeters looked pretty good. We bought several Parbo Djogos, and were then summoned to dinner by the Gra Man who was already legless long before sunset, and had an excellent meal of Trumpeter with some type of chili sauce, and the most delicious rice I have ever eaten. It was with profound relief that we hadn’t been subjected to the monkey meal, and I found myself wondering if they were hanging somewhere for a couple of days to get a little more gamey. One of the monkeys had to be shaken out of the tree in which it had become entangled on its way down, and August, the friendly looking character holding the unfortunate monkeys, had shinned to a great height to get it down. We collapsed early, thankful to be spared another evening of Weeskee consumption in our immediate sleep area. trumpeters for dinner

January 13th

Friday. As the sun was coming up I sat on a large flat rock at the riverbank watching nightjars skimming the water between the rocks. They were replaced by White-winged and White-banded Swallows as the morning became lighter. We swam, scrounged mangos from under the trees and were then summoned to the boats, supposedly to go fishing. We traveled upstream, past where we had gone hunting and gathering, and stopped at a village about twenty minutes away. It was quiet, had a fruiting but neglected Star fruit tree, and a functioning school. Two teachers, five classes and the sixth form with two students in a building which had definitely felt the effects of the tropical climate. I suggested to the Gra Man, who was already fairly well lubricated, that he personally hire a teacher, buy books and school supplies, and subsidize the education of the kids in the villages lower down. He agreed, but I don’t think he was particularly pleased by the idea. I didn’t particularly care what he thought of me, my disillusionment about his human qualities was pretty complete. I saw him as a drunken and rapacious fool, and felt sorry for the unfortunate people who lived within his sphere of influence. baikal shotgunsWe were dragged through a couple more villages, I was once again asked to examine a generator which hadn’t worked for five months, its fuel tank and filters hopelessly clogged with sludge, no effort having been made to clean anything. Likewise, a rice polishing machine which hadn’t even been opened to see what was wrong. It was little wonder that the colonial powers had acted in a paternalistic way, there was little choice. In a village across the river, we were informed that it was tradition for visitors to buy a bottle of hooch, so we sat while the drunks consumed it. tinamou eggs Patrick found a fishing bow and arrow, and shot it into the side of a house where the iron arrowhead buried itself with a satisfactory "thunk". We went into the forest to see a man making a dugout from a large and straight tree, which was fascinating considering that it was roughed out with a chainsaw and then excavated with various curved tools, soaked and its gunwales forced apart with wooden wedges. The interior was then burned and sealed with tar, before the side planks were nailed on and it was ready to take to the water. On the way back to Pijetie, the Gra Man was passed out in the moving boat, but did wake up to take all of the vegetables that lay in a boat paddled by a woman and her daughter. We couldn’t quite understand what gave him the right to do this, but she didn’t seem to protest too much. Back at the village, we were summoned to lunch about mid afternoon, it was monkey time. We looked at each other, this would require more than a little gastrointestinal fortitude. Luckily, the habaneras obscured any taste the flesh might have had, but the rubbery texture of the simian skin wasn’t easy to take. The Gra Man periodically spoke, with bits of monkey bone protruding from his mouth. Lee chose to delight only in the sauce. It was time to get out of this place. The Tinamou eggs had hatched, and the chicks were beautifully marked. I was captivated and hated to think of their future prospects, probably the pot. Our last supper was fish, Pacu, which was good if a little bony, and seemed to cleanse us of the monkey that had slid down our throats with some difficulty earlier that afternoon. Also on offer were the wild "potatoes" cooked in coconut milk, and cassava in its potato-like form, very good all in all. We sat for a while with Oswald, and spoke about the future of the village and his father’s fondness for the bottle, which he didn’t much care for. A kid approached and asked him something, calling him "Rogers". When I asked why, he replied that it was his name. So I asked why he hadn’t corrected us, we had been calling him Oswald for days, and he said that he hadn’t noticed. carving a dugout newly hatched tinamou

January 14th

Saturday. The final shakedown, for 575 SRD, comes via an embarrassed Rogers. Supposedly we used 60 liters of fuel for the hour and a half or so that we had actually been in the dugout, utter bull, and we disputed this vigorously. We pointed out that we had subsidized the old fool’s flight to and from the village to Paramaribo 100%, and he was welcome to share in the cost of renting the Cessna that had brought him, and would pick him up on the return leg after depositing us at Kayser. In the end we were lightened by only 400 SRD, our arguments firm and I think, unexpected. I took a photo of the hunter/ radioman and his mangy cur. This dude had arms that Leonardo would have wanted in front of his easel, and was kind enough to offer us Maripah palm fruit to chew on while we waited. After a long and uncomfortable wait at the airstrip, the Cessna finally approached and we felt a strong sense of relief. Apart from getting us away from this rapacious bunch, the trip was beginning in earnest. Bobby and Christian emerged, we introduced ourselves and said our goodbyes to our recent hosts, then piled in the plane with undisguised enthusiasm. Both were tall, Bobby at 44 would be the oldest on our trip. He had a craggy face, and tattoos on his arms that belied a gentle voice and nature, while Christian would be the youngest, skinniest, and most citified! The cloud cover was low, and after a flight of about forty minutes Philip had to find a gap, spiral down to treetop level and quarter around to spot the strip at Kayser. nearly loaded dugout, kayserI imagined that Alaskan pilots did this all the time, but it would not be something that the FAA would recommend to recreational flyers. After unloading, we piled our gear together and waited for the next plane to arrive. It was bringing Pieter, the boats and the food, and hopefully the supply of Black Cat and cigarettes that we had begged Winston for over the unreliable sat. phone. The Cessna landed, and to our undisguised glee disgorged Pieter’s gorgeous girlfriend Nancy, who had come along for the ride, as well as boats and bags of supplies. All was loaded on a trailer and towed by tractor down to the river bank at the western end of the airstrip. It seemed that the load and boats, as well as the seven of us including the pilot of the dugout, would seriously tax its ability to stay afloat. As we gingerly headed down the Zuid river, negotiating the rocks and skimming over small rapids the boat listed precariously, but dumped none of us, or our kit. Once again the skill of the drivers of these boats was amazing, and in this case there was no lookout who knew the river perched in the bow, just Pieter. After a couple of hours of traveling along the beautiful river, with all manner of birdlife flying overhead, we stopped and unloaded on a large flat rock that lay in the river. Pieter, following the do-not-baby-sit instructions I had given Winston to the letter, picked up his fishing rod and cast his popper into the water on the downstream side. Strike.. Peacock Bass, first cast, but I think it came as such a surprise that Pieter was taken aback and didn‘t set the hook. Although he didn’t land the fish, the tone was set. Pieter would obsessively cast his lure out whenever he had ten seconds free. We finally distributed the load, dominated by a blue barrel which contained all the food and which was likely to float if we turned over, and set off. The nature of the kayak prevented too much bulky weight, so the canoes did the heavy lifting. I knew that future trips with a kayak would involve a serious re-think of what was useful to take, shape was exceedingly important. Lee and I were paired, and had to get used to each other’s paddling again. Bobby and Christian, in the foreground of the previous photo, had never paddled together, and Christian had actually never been in a canoe in his 28 years. It was with some pain that we watched them making such slow progress, but we moved along. The river banks had so many birds, from nightjars to Tiger-Herons, and it all got me very excited. Every few minutes there would be a slow flight of Macaws, a fast one of parrots, then we saw King Vultures, every kingfisher Suriname had to offer, eagles and several birds of prey I couldn‘t identify. Pieter going to get his fishing rodWe passed a motorized dugout coming in the other direction, with some Amerindian guides and a porky German frog biologist, who sat, Buddha-like but unsmiling, and took photographs surreptitiously as he passed us, camera held low. That bothered me. Bobby and Christian were getting used to each other, but both had trouble with the seats of the Pakboat. They were poorly designed and kept coming undone, sending the posterior of whomever was supposed to be planted on them backwards, upsetting the boat. We went through several small rapids and Lee and I learned, after a few unsettling scrapes, to look out for the rocks that could rip the belly of the boat open. Pieter periodically cast for fish, but luck wasn’t with him, and after several hours paddling we stopped at a flat rock and made camp. After swimming and bathing in the refreshing water, I tried to fish with the Cassava bait that I was using on my telescoping rod, and was obliged by plenty of hits but no success. poison frog We were visited by a Poison Dart Frog, blue and black, with bright yellow accents, and larger than I had expected. The poor little fellow was hounded around the camp by camera-wielding humans, but it wasn’t touched. It was interesting to see that the combination of bright yellow and black in these frogs was used by hornets, coral snakes, and caterpillars and warned potential predators and stupid people against the general inconvenience of being poisoned or stung. Pieter called this Okopipi Camp, after the local name for these frogs. Lee, a great proponent of the joys of Spam, cooked the stuff with rice and other adornments that made it palatable, not bad at all. After a touch of rum and some conversation, we headed off to bed. I slept on the rock under a tree that had shed its hard pods which I had to scrape away. Soon it began to rain softly. The shallow vee in the rock I had chosen for my bed started to run with water, and I used the fly sheet from the hammock to cover myself. This was no help, and I didn’t sleep for more than a few minutes at a time. As the crow flies, we had only done 5.8 miles in three hours, not too impressive considering we had over a hundred miles to go, in less than nine days. king vulture

January 15th

Sunday, Day 2. A day of paddling, learning the water, and watching the wildlife. Pieter and Patrick were generally some distance ahead and would come across the animals first. We encountered a couple of groups of Giant Otters, who were curious about us, but as Lee and I were behind, with Bobby and Christian that much further back, we missed them basking on the rocks and the photo opportunities were slim. I would have been interested to see them out of the water to get a sense of their size, and be able to see the white markings that many had around their throats and chests. Toucans seemed to cross the river earlier in the morning, then small groups of macaws would fly over making plenty of noise. Howler monkeys periodically treated us to an early Halloween, but the noise of the water made recording difficult. We were traveling along the official boundary of the Central Suriname Nature Reserve, which was the right bank, and since there was nothing but pristine jungle on the left and straight ahead, we were bound to see just as much in the next few days. The kayak began to take on water, and Lee and I bailed regularly. We were not to have dry rear ends for the rest of the trip, but our tolerance for just how much water was acceptable increased as we paddled downstream. Coming to the mouth of a small creek that ran into the Zuid river, we decided to stop and see if we could catch some fish. Pieter recognized this as a good spot for some sport and sustenance. He had a blue nylon rope with a gigantic hook at the end, and Lee her rod with the huge lure that we had bought at Pieter’s recommendation. The creek mouth turned out to be occupied by some very hungry Anjoumara, which ferociously attacked anything that was presented to them, lure or unbaited hook. After much fun and fighting Pieter landed one. Patrick leapt at it and dealt it a hearty clout to the head with a heavy stick, and its destiny was dinner. Lee landed another, again clouted by a possessed Patrick, who seemed to relish his new found inner savage. At one point the lure had stuck to an underwater log, but there was no way that Pieter was going after it by wading in, and he gingerly swung out the nose of a canoe to retrieve the lure. Everyone took turns with the rod, and teasing the fish until it looked as though the lure would be chewed to pieces. The piranha were getting some action too a little further out, and one ran away with the lure on my line, a testament to my skills at tying fishing knots. female amazon kingfisherI decided not to risk any good equipment with this kind of luck! I had already broken off the tip to my telescoping rod which brushed against some overhanging branches. Once again, buy cheap, buy twice. anjoumara Pieter took a stroll up the creek and returned saying how beautiful it was up there, and that there were some rocks that looked as though the Indians had used them to sharpen tools. Bobby and Christian were too excited about the fish (they didn’t catch any) to bother with this news, so Lee, Patrick and I trooped up after Pieter. Rapids, birds and magnificent trees before we found a suitable camp site, another granite island in the river. It was beautiful, with an area of trees with fast moving water on either side. I unloaded the kayak, and examined the beating that the hull was taking from the rocks and rapids. Cleaned and patched, I thought we would be in good shape. I deliberately used as little repair material as I could, keeping in mind that this was only the end of Day 2, and who knew what lay ahead. Pieter laid some green twigs over a wide crack in the rock, and I was instructed to make a fire at the base. We were going to smoke the second Anjoumara. Pieter had spatchcocked the fish from the back, scored the flesh, washed it in vinegar and liberally applied lime juice and salt. He laid it skin down high over the fire, and after a couple of hours, turned it over. We would have to keep the fire going for a while. The other fish was cooked, eaten with rice, all done with great gusto. At one stage in the evening Pieter saw a pair of yellow, (or was it red?) eyes in the treed part of the island. He called it a "Hay", and got quite excited. From what I could tell, it must have been a small rabbit-like animal which we chased all over the place without seeing again. I had no idea what this could have been, Pieter knew what an Agouti was, so it sounded like a Dr. Seuss concoction to me. (Checking for leaks.)checking for leaks Subsequent research, and several emails back and forth to Pieter’s perch in the car dealership determined that the mysterious Hay was actually known to the rest of the world as a Paca, a large spotted rodent eaten in all of Amazonia and Central America. I had intended to sleep on the rocks as I did the previous night, but some distant but impressive lightning made me change my mind and I slung the hammock and rain fly. Soon after we retired it began to pour. I had, for once, been lucky in the way I had set up the rain fly, remaining dry for one of the first good snoozes I had had in ages. Sadly, the Anjoumara didn’t fare so well, and as I was unconscious, it didn’t get the leafy covering nor added firewood that it needed. We had gone about 15 miles between gps points today. Zuid river rapid

January 16th

Monday, Day 3. Lee hadn’t slept at all, her rain fly having been set up incorrectly. She had been soaked through but still had some sense of humor. We took along the smoked fish, although it wasn’t cooked all the way through. The thinner parts that were done would sustain us at some point today. The boat repair seemed to be working, but I had no illusions about what lay ahead. Clearly, if a kayak like this was to be used to navigate rapids and rough rocks, modifications were needed. A padding of some sort had to separate the hull from the metal tubes that made up the frame, and extra rubber or vinyl strips needed to be laid along the parts of the hull that made contact with abrasive obstacles most often. Pieter caught a piranha as we were packing up, and used its snapping jaws to prune a bush on the bank, which gave us a graphic idea of the care needed to handle one of these fish. The river was beautiful, big rocks, islands and small rapids and the going was good for a while.lucie river Lee was delighted to find out that Christian wasn’t too keen on frogs, one had found its way into the canoe and Christian hadn’t wanted to touch it to get it out. jungle tree We arrived at a point where the river that was choked with large boulders, and impassable. It was time to unload and portage. The weather was perfect, but it was hot work and required stepping over crevasses, changing levels and going very carefully. The kayak was the last to be carried, and my fancy water shoes let me down. I lost my footing and fell heavily against a rock, giving myself a sweet scrape on the back that glued my shirt to me whenever I felt compelled to wear one. The material that made up the soles was just too hard, and I envied Pieter his Yamaha shoes which were designed for riding those noisy water scooters. Once we were all across, we lolled in the calm water for a while, and then I walked with Pieter down to the next pile of boulders to see which side was the best to take for the next leg. We saw a camp made from poles and tarpaulins just inside the forest. I looked longingly at the toilet paper that had been wedged in the rafters, (most of our rolls were wet and fragile), but decided not to deprive the next visitors of that simplest of necessities. Pieter spied an habanera bush with some bright orange, and no doubt hot as hell, "peppers" on it. He fell onto the plant with glee and stripped it of ripe fruit as though the discovery of this burning manna had just given him a reason to live. Packed and replenished with vegetable heat, we set off once again. The river was narrow and active, and the boats were all taking a bit of a beating. At one spot we got out and examined the complicated series of maneuvers that we would have to perform to get through. First, a narrow chute, turn hard right within a few yards, run the nose up on a rock, push off without being dragged down a boat buster backwards, left around the rock and down several narrow channels avoiding rocks left and right. So easy. In the kayak we managed to get to the nose-up-rock ok, then as we rounded it and headed down the next channel I accidentally cracked Lee on the head with my paddle while trying to steer the boat by vigorous back paddling. Poor thing, she was stunned. By some sort of luck and help from the others on the rocks we ended up getting through in the uncontrolled kayak. I felt awful, and was profusely apologetic. Lee was taking a beating, and still such a sport. We ambled along for a few more miles when Pieter and Patrick stopped suddenly. christian and bobby get wetThe big rapid. It was all happening today. We examined the scene with a mixture of trepidation and excitement. Almost the entire river flowed strongly down a chute several yards wide with several inconveniently placed rocks. One in particular was to be avoided at all cost. Above the torrent we unloaded the containers that were heavy, unsecured or extremely valuable, such as cameras and film. Pieter and Patrick went first, the rest of us waited below to help if something or somebody was tossed out, incapacitated or floating away. They came barreling down, the boat swamping and pretty much uncontrollable as they reached us. I grabbed the bow of the boat, turning it sideways to the current and it rapidly took on even more water. Pieter jumped out onto the rock shelf that was about a foot below the surface, and immediately started leaping and yelling, "Eels, get out!" after first cursing in Dutch which we didn’t get. Lee was also moving fast, her feet had been in the water and she, too was getting zapped. Adrenaline and high voltage, the lunch of champions. Bobby and Christian went next, took on water in the same way and decided to ease into the bank a bit lower down to avoid the eels! The photo says enough, swamped but still upright. It was our turn. The kayak shot down with little control from us. The nose hit the rock that was to be avoided at all cost, and in a fraction of a second we had flipped and were in the water. It was a hell of a ride, but I hung onto the boat while Lee shot down the right side, attached to the boat without too much choice, being tangled in the bow line. I managed to stop the boat in a quiet spot where I hoped there were no eels, righted it and began to bail out the water. Lee had ended up on the right bank. Christian retrieved some of the gear that had decided our company wasn’t so desirable any more, and Lee crossed gingerly from the far bank to join us. With post-adrenaline calm, we dissected the experience, then dissected the smoked Anjoumara and ate it on bread, with mayonnaise, raw onion and sliced habaneras. It was delicious, and the setting idyllic. We sat on a group of rocks with little waterfalls all around. Capped Herons were on the rocks and in the trees, the area was full of birdlife, and the river looked as though it had punished us enough for the moment. We had lost our filter pump, which didn’t bother me much as had been drinking water straight out of the river for a day or so anyway with no ill effects, and Lee was also about to give up on the effort needed to produce potable water. great campsite We joined the Lucie river, it was wider, lower and the rocks gave us some grief. Pieter had suggested that this stretch would give us more choices in how to negotiate our way down, but a wider river meant that the water was generally shallower and we would have to zigzag quite a bit to find the best route. Bobby and Christian had holed their boat, and we were taking on water again which didn’t surprise me in the least. The river turned into a long series of low rapids, it was frustrating and we hit almost every rock that it was possible to hit. This boat wasn’t easy to control. Sitting low in a kayak was an added disadvantage, it was that much tougher to see the rocks although we became fairly skilled at reading the water. In addition, steering was done from the center of the boat rather than the extremes as with the canoes, so we couldn‘t turn on a dime. Lee was cranky from frustration, electric eels, the clout on the head from my paddle, and lack of sleep. It had been a hell of a day. We finally stopped when Bobby and Christian found a rock and began to unload, their boat’s waterlogged state had them worried for the cameras and film. It wasn’t a suitable place for the hammock sleepers, so we moved to the bank eighty yards or so away. I emptied the boat , turned it over to make temporary repairs in the morning. Pieter caught a huge Anjoumara, cut out some nuggets which he deep fried, and we ate with macaroni and cheese. It was a pity to waste so much of the fish, but Pieter was exhausted and it was plenty of work to prepare one properly. I was busy with the boat, so was little help there. Besides, Bobby and Christian wouldn’t be eating with us. They never complained that we had all the booze in our camp. The shallows had stingrays cruising around, and Pieter pointed them out to us. These odd looking spotted fish seemed to be very docile and approachable. A few minutes later I was wading in the water and put my foot a few inches away from one that had come right up to the little sandy beach. It was perfectly camouflaged to the careless eye. According to Pieter, the pain from the barbs on their backs was worse than having a broken limb or chunks removed from you by a piranha, so this was named Stingray camp. In the semi darkness I set up Lee’s hammock and rain fly. After dinner and a bit of rum, she got in and came crashing down. I had chosen a branch that was rotten on the inside, and cursed myself for not testing the setup. Anyway, Lee was done with hammocks and for the rest of the trip slept in Pieter’s tent. I suspected that she was very glad that this day was over. It had been a tough day. I put Lee’s hammock back up, on a more secure branch this time and got in. The rain that did not come in spite of the ominous flashes of lightning in the distance. stingray camp, looking upriver From Stingray camp, looking upriver.

January 17th

Tuesday. Day 4, the short day. We were only able to paddle for about five miles. Our boat was taking on so much water that we had to stop at a flat rock, unload and attempt to repair the damage. The others took this opportunity to try and dry out equipment and clothing, but we were all bedeviled by intermittent rain that prevented the glue patches from sticking properly. Sewing was in order, but the needle in the repair kit was unlike any I had ever seen and hopefully asked Pieter if he knew how to use it. He gave me a look. So I sewed up the holes, cut apart my life jacket and then stuffed the pieces and my Therma-Rest mattress between the hull and frame. I would have to rely on my swimming skills from now on if we were turfed out of the boat again. Tempering my frustration was the sight of three Capped Herons alighting in a fallen tree close to us, and communicating with each other using elegant gestures and crest-raising. Lunch was tuna sandwiches, the bread was almost inedible at this stage. I fiddled around bending the tubes that made up the kayaks frame so that they approximated their normal shape, and wished that I had brought young Hawk contact cement and roofing tar along to seal the boat’s hull. Patrick did a lot of fishing, then wrote up his notes using the cutting board as a palette, and perched on Pieter’s chair. For a couple of days Lee and I had been annoyed by the dumbest bees which buzzed us constantly, and had a peculiar fascination with shiny black plastic. The winged nuts, and the zipper of my backpack, which had been strapped to the rear deck were swarming with these noisy bastards. It was pointless trying to record anything while they were frantically running their tongues over the nuts and zippers. In the end we had to cover the backpack with a red tarpaulin, and put hairy seedpods over the exposed wing nuts. Dinner was dried shrimp and beans. That night I heard the ominous crunching of a tree slowly starting to lean, and then come crashing down nearby, very nearby. I thought I was a goner, and in a manner that I thought I shouldn’t deserve for its sheer lucklessness. Nobody came to check on me, I guess I would have been just as dead in the morning. Folbot Repair Camp, pretty miserable.

January 18th

Wednesday, Day 5. We set off on a long paddle down the "boring" stretch of the Lucie. The lack of rapids was fortunate for the kayak, and although we were still taking on water (I really needed roofing tar to seal the sutures- I had noticed that the dugouts we had seen were sealed this way) progress was good. I had been continuously and annoyingly pointing out the pendulous nests of Oropendolas and Caciques to Lee. When she had had enough, and told me to shut up about the fucking nests, I tapped her on the shoulder gently and silently pointed to some nests on the right bank. This put her into a fit of giggles for a while. That wasn’t particularly funny in itself, but there wasn’t much happening to amuse us. That was about to change. We came up on a capybara on the left bank, it entered the water and swam upstream past Bobby and Christian. fowl for dinnerI wasn’t sure if they even saw the giant rodent. Lee had asked Pieter "How much further?", and Pieter spotted the animal when he turned around to answer this question, one of many such questions, from Lee. We teased her a bit about constantly asking, and I knew that Pieter knew only marginally more about this river than the rest of us, so the question was pointless. Patrick and Pieter stopped, and peered into the trees on the right bank. We fell silent as Pieter took out the .22, and shot a Curassow out of a tree, then scuttled around on the bank to retrieve it. The bird was a female, with a fully formed yolk in the oviduct. Curious looking, it was black with a white belly, yellow beak and a curly crest of feathers on its crown. Pieter gutted and salted the bird, fresh poultry for dinner. It would last until evening, and if it festered a bit, so much the better for tenderness! This little hunting episode gave us a welcome rest, and a spot of entertainment as the piranhas made short work of the entrails that had been tossed into the water. A short while later, in a quiet stretch, we paddled up to a tapir grazing calmly on the bank.tapir It seemed totally unfazed by our approach, and without seeming to be in any hurry, it made its way down the bank, got into the water and swam downstream before getting out and ambling up a trail into the forest. This scene gave me an idea of what one could see when unhurried and quiet in this part of the world. At around 2pm we round a curve and decide to take a break.gutting curassow I had spotted a pair of Trogons flying across the river and setting down, and as soon as the kayak was nosed in, rushed up the bank to investigate like some obsessed nerd. I took some poor photographs, and was just about to chase some Jacamars into the forest, when I heard some unholy cursing and yelling from the river below. It was really a spectacular volley of expletives from the normally civilized lips of our Pommie Friend. Patrick had been in the water, when a cocky piranha decided to chew on his ankle a bit to see if Englishmen were as succulent as their normal prey. Luckily for Patrick, the fish had chosen to bite around the ankle bone, and he only had two semicircular cuts above and below rather than a mouthful of flesh missing. Bobby leapt in with his camera, and I recorded the conversations going on, while Lee was wanting to sew the victim up like a darned sock. In the end he opted for butterfly stitches, and to keep his leg up and hope the bleeding would slow. Pieter was surprised that the large species of piranha would attack, it was usually the smaller schooling buggers that went for whatever moved. We made damned sure that from now on the water was fast moving before we would venture in. This potentially nasty situation actually provided us all, even lunchable Patrick, quite a bit of amusement, but I think it dawned on all of us just how hazardous this little jaunt could turn out to be. Once the bleeding slowed, caimanPatrick got in the front of the canoe and lay with his leg up in the old style that could only be pulled off by the colonial English. Pieter paddled alone for a few hours, before Patrick joined in again. We passed a great rock to camp, but Pieter decided that we needed to press on and make up some time. "What I can say is that there are no guarantees, but we should be able to find a place to camp lower down". But we struggled, and humor was evaporating. Bobby passed us and mildly said, "I’m so fucking disinterested in nature right now…" He and Christian were having a tough time seeing the funny side of this. Of course, Lee had no hesitation prefacing anything she said to Pieter with "there are no guarantees…", with an accurate Dutch inflexion. He became known as "Pieter of da Rrrocks and da Rrrrapits", which stuck to him until he finally saw the backs of us. In his way, he smiled slightly when we gave him the gears, but he took it well and gave some back. After more than 28 miles, in straight line measurements that day, we arrived at an acceptable spot at around 6pm. I hung Patrick’s hammock for him, he was trying not to move around too much and I suspected that he might even be enjoying having a servant. A pair of Black Caracaras examined us from a tree above the camp. The river bank looked as though it flooded often, and there seemed to be few rocks on which to camp. patrick with leg upDinner was the Curassow and beans with Vienna sausages, another of Lee‘s favorites, spicy and very good. We were only eating one full meal a day and so almost anything tasted good. Bobby had the inspired foresight to sent Christian off to a Health Food store in New York to buy a stack of energy bars, which sustained us between our lavish dinners. The bird was a bit tough, but chewing has its satisfying side. A caiman came right up to the rock we were inhabiting, and fearlessly examined us for quite a while. Rum, Scotch and a recreational painkiller had me fast asleep until 3am, when I woke and lay there listening to the hooting of a pair of owls and other spectacular sounds of the Surinamese night. Late Arrival Camp. rocks in the lucie

January 19th

Thursday, Day 6. Low cloud. Coffee and instant oatmeal, another inspired idea from Bobby. As Pieter put it, we had a couple of "free miles" before hitting an extended complex of rapids that his father had mentioned, Seven Brothers Rapids. They were visible in the Google Earth printouts that Pieter scanned as often as time allowed, but it wasn’t absolutely certain that he had the printouts in their correct order due to the clouds obscuring parts of the river in the photographs. I was interested to see how the boat would hold up. At this stage Lee and I were getting a little lax about bailing out the water constantly, and only worked at it if we stopped or the orange Pelican box between my legs, that held the cameras, began to float. After an hour of mellow paddling we reached a small rapid with a fairly fast flow and one rock to be avoided. Patrick and Pieter were some distance ahead, and we watched them breeze down the rapid, stop and wait for the rest of us. Lee and I shot down and turned without hitting the snag in the water below, or sailing into the overhanging vegetation on the curving bank. Bobby and Christian hit the rock side on, and the boat crumpled, taking on water and bending even more as it filled. Bobby was standing forlornly holding up the garbage bags containing the shot film. We retrieved what we could find floating in the current, and headed to a flat rock at the edge of the rapid. I swam out in the current and found myself pushed against the bank, where I tried see if I could find anything that might have been caught by the vegetation, and then swam back. Bloody hard work against the current, but it was possible by crossing over the main flow some distance below the rapid, just where the piranha and eels waited for lunch without expending too much energy. Once the crumpled boat was emptied, we let it go to catch on the snag. It would be easier to drag it in through the slower water. Bobby and Christian had to jump into the water, let themselves be carried down and swim up again. I was afraid for all of the film that had been shot so far, I couldn’t see how that or Bobby’s cameras could possibly have survived. An exhausted Pieter also had to swim back, and I threw him the bowline of the kayak, he was really struggling. Patrick dragged the broken boat back with the remaining canoe. I went off in the kayak to see what might have floated a bit further downstream, a crucial section of the Pakboat’s structure had wandered off in the current. I couldn’t find it in spite of the bright copper/brass color, and the Lucie River also claimed its first unpaired sneaker. Lee lay in the sun, warming up the Sat. phone and letting the testosterone figure out how to deal with the situation. Patrick heated up water for coffee, and we contemplated our various options. rigging the PakboatIt was feasible to hike through the jungle, with gps and machete, for fifteen miles or so to Coeronie airstrip, whose coordinates were known to Pieter. We could call in a helicopter for about $900 an hour, or we could try to fix the boat. Pieter and I headed off in the canoe to the edge of the forest and cut saplings that were straight, strong, and in various lengths and thicknesses. We used these to splint the bent and mangled structural rods of the canoe. Those that we couldn’t bend straight, we broke, inserted sticks and rejoined, then duct-taped to approximate what they should have been. As the rods were "repaired", they were inserted into their proper places, and after a while the bag started to look like a boat again. With the help of some photographer’s clamps, which were originally brought to fashion a shade for Bobby and Christian, we pulled off one of the more effective rigging jobs that I had ever seen. And it floated! The weight was redistributed between the boats, and Pieter would be paddling this boat with Christian from now on, with Bobby and Patrick in the surviving canoe. It had taken about four hours to effect the repairs, and we headed off again, resolving to stick closer together. Although we had lost time, we negotiated much of the "Seven Brothers Rapids". In parts, the water was very shallow and the kayak was getting pretty torn up. There was little we could do except try our best to avoid the worst rocks. We had to get out and walk the boat so many times that there was little skin left on our shins, and the rough "water spinach", which grew in the fast current didn’t help when the spiky leaves came into contact with raw flesh or shin bone. Frustration was mounting, but there was no choice but to continue. Periodically we came across sandbanks that had built up in specific spots in the river, and Pieter would enthusiastically cast his popper in the hope of catching a Peacock Bass, but for the most part he had little luck. His lure was trying to mimic the movements of little fish that would get up and skitter across the surface of the water for upwards of twenty yards, apparently a favorite of the Bass he was so keen to catch. Eventually, luck and a Bass struck Pieter, and the first one of the trip was cooked and eaten on the first rock we came to a few minutes later. From one of these sandbanks a strikingly marked plover flew up and away, black, white and sandy brown with red legs-a Pied Lapwing, the only one we would see on the trip. Somewhat drowsy after the morsels of fish, we all rested a while, and some of us fell fast asleep. Camp that night was on a rock with trees on the attached island. Access was by passing the island on river left, and turning a hard right down a small channel with a huge rock on its left, and into a slow area, then through a gap about two feet wide. Patrick went fishing and got the lure stuck under a rock in one of those perilous quiet bodies of water. He didn’t go in, citing the need to keep his ankle dry. The rod remained out there until morning, when Pieter found it, and I had to dive to free the lure. ( Bobby standing on a gigantic tree trunk that had become wedged against some rocks)huge tree wedged As the darkness encroached out lights were swarming with small moths, and Pieter, who was cooking dinner using a red light forbade us to come near with our headlamps. When someone asked him where he found this amazing device, he said, "Wal Mart, nine bucks". Dinner was made from reconstituted dried shrimp and Indian spices. Poor Christian managed to stumble and spill his dinner onto the rocks. We finished the rum, (I knew there wouldn’t be enough) before finishing the scotch and starting on Pieter’s Borgoe. The rum, and cigarette issues had been interesting ones. Pieter recommended that we each bring two bottles, decanted into a large plastic soft drink bottle to save weight. Patrick, who had quit smoking but loved smoking my cigarettes, and who was slightly horrified and remorseful at the volume of Black Cat we had consumed, decided he was not going to bring any booze or cigarettes, but would smoke and drink until there was none left, at which point he, and by default, the rest of us, would have to quit our vices earlier than we would have wanted. Although he didn’t give any sign of recognizing the inherent selfishness of this, he did get a bottle of rum at my insistence. There was no way that any of us would have voluntarily sat out the evening’s grog ration after a hard day’s paddling. As it happened, this was the situation with the cigarettes, and resupply didn’t come from Winston and for half the trip we were without cigarettes, a situation that was just fine as I felt great for it. Patrick drank to the last day. berthed boatsWe generally mixed our rum with powdered "ade" flavoring, one packet per liter of water. Back in Paramaribo, we had bought some in various flavors, but not enough. So Pieter had sent Winston to get more as we would need plenty to make the river water more palatable for general hydration, not just as a mixer. Winston had grabbed a whole carton of a flavor called Melon Tuna, made in Brazil, and this became our only mixer after a couple of days. It was awful, with an indescribable taste that was neither melon nor tuna, either of which would have been preferable. We periodically dreamed up suitable punishments for Winston, this was a particularly cruel joke.

January 20th

Friday, Day 7-the last full day on the water. My facial hair was driving me nuts. I was absolutely certain that I had brought a couple of razors but for several days there had been absolutely no sign of them. We had obviously torn the hull of the kayak again, and bailing was pretty ineffectual so we simply pressed on in the wallowing "Rockfinder", as the boat had been dubbed, and made good progress. We went through some fun rapids with few mishaps. As we were heading down some fast water, river left, Pieter shouted "Paradise Bird". A Sunbittern, not often seen in the wild but a big draw in zoo exhibits, was walking over the rocks in the rapid. I couldn’t get to my camera as we were just about to head into water that required our total attention. Patrick had taken Bobby down river right, and there was a crash that we could hear across the river as they smashed nose first into a rock. I looked over to see Pieter with head in hands. It was the only sign of frustration I had seen from him during the entire trip. The nose was a bit mangled, but it not a showstopper. Patrick was definitely that much more fallible without Pieter in his canoe, and his attitude was adjusting somewhat. Through this complex of rapids, there was a boat swamping, and we saw Patrick and Bobby standing like cranes on their personal rocks; Patrick wasn’t keen to leap into the water because he didn’t want to bleed in it and excite the local piranha population, and Bobby must have found Patrick’s propensity to bleed a definite liability. Pieter came to pick them up. Lee had been visited by "Flo", as she put it, and her complaint was that she was bleeding more than Patrick, so we probably had every piranha in the river trailing our boat. We were certainly past the point of having many secrets. rapidsWith that trained feminine eye, Lee had noticed that us boys were getting lean and that we seemed to be showing more muscle definition around the upper torso. Although I don’t remember her having paid us this compliment openly, she asked me how her back and shoulders were looking every day in case I hadn’t noticed just how toned she was becoming. I saw a lot of Lee’s back, but tried to keep my eyes looking out for boring things like jaguars and Oropendola nests. No wonder I’m single. The canoes had stopped before a rapid which had some ominous looking standing waves that could swamp the boats. Lee and I tried to cross the fast flow to join the others to decide the best route through, but as we paddled, really hard, it became obvious that we wouldn’t make it without being taken sideways into the rapid. I shouted to Lee, "we’re going, NOW". With no argument or the slightest hesitation she stroked towards the channel and we shot through without mishap, and it was a thrill. I was lucky to have her as my shipmate. Later, we had another tough rapid to negotiate. A rock sat squarely in the middle, dividing the narrow channel. After that there was an obstruction on the left which would have to be avoided by a hard right turn, and then hard left to get out. On the right was another rock, but with careful steering, Lee and I decided we could shoot straight through, narrow as it was. We would probably never make the hard turn on the left. Without consulting the others, this is exactly what we did, and zipped through with much more ease than the other boats. Pieter paid us the compliment by telling everyone that we had made the best choice. What else could we do? At this stage we were essentially traveling down an unexplored river in a colander that didn’t like to turn. out of the rapids capped heronThere were quiet stretches of the river too. I was continually pleased to see the Capped herons, and pointing them out became quite boring for anyone within earshot. Bloody binoculars, they were continuously fogged up or had droplets of water on the lenses, so I struggled to identify the many different species of hawks that sat or flew nearby. I would have to get some expensive gas charged binos for any future trip where moisture might be an issue. It wasn’t too difficult to identify the Black Caracaras, with orange faces and white rumps, that quite often kept us company, and would investigate the camp knowing there might be spoils even though it was doubtful that they had ever seen people around here. We had also pushed a few Rufescent Tiger-Herons ahead of us, rufescent tiger heronand finally we came across one that was too lazy to fly away before I had taken several acceptable shots. The day was hot , and I could feel myself get burned by the sun. My lower lip was getting thick, it felt very odd, and I knew that when I removed my britches I would have a pallid and wan band of pink skin next to dark tanned torso and legs- a human Galloway. I had seen this in cattle and goats, so felt I was in good company. We found a beautiful spot to camp on the left bank. It had all the ingredients that we needed, sand to pull up the boats, rocks for Bobby and Christian, and trees for Patrick and I to suspend the hammocks. I unloaded the boat and sewed up a large gash in the hull that had allowed us to wallow in the river while on it. The Rockfinder didn’t have to last too much longer, and at this stage it was being kept afloat as much by the inflated bladders running along the sides as Archimedes’ principle. I had gathered some fruit from a couple of trees and thought it might be good to try for pacu in the fast flowing water below the little rapids nearby. Plenty of bites at first but no luck. I didn’t really mind, it was peaceful and the sunset was going to prove spectacular. Patrick cooked Pasta, and Bobby once again surprised us by producing great tasting liquorices, something I would normally avoid like strychnine. I really needed to tap into his sources for these life enhancing morsels in times of deprivation. We also successfully nailed every last drop of Pieter’s rum, but that didn’t matter-if I knew Winston, who was going to meet us the next day, he wouldn’t come empty handed. By now, I think he knew what simple pleasures made us happy. We were all tired. It had been a hell of a trip, and although all of us were clearly in much better physical condition than when we started, the relaxation of the next two nights would be welcome. I think I slept a bit. It was sad in a way that this was the last evening of our little adventure. lost boat camp

January 21st

Day 8. Saturday. Just before sunrise I went down to the riverbank, passing Patrick’s hammock and its unconscious content. I had set up a little further into the forest at the edge a hollow which probably flooded if the river rose very high. To my right Bobby wandering around, busy with his morning toilette. Ahead I could see the boats up against the little sandbar, but it struck me as odd that there were only two. I hadn’t seen Bobby, or anyone else for that matter, move a boat anywhere. I called to him and asked if he thought there was anything wrong with this picture. The river had clearly risen in the night, perhaps by about eighteen inches, and one of the boats had floated away. Looking downstream, we didn’t see any sign of the bright red hull. When everyone had roused themselves, we finished off the Starbucks coffee, (yet another of Bobby’s inspired ideas) and discussed what our options were. There was always the hike through the forest, gps and machete in hand. We could bury the supplies that wouldn’t fit into the remaining boats.. or someone could try to find the wandering canoe. It would be tough to bring it back upstream through the rapids, or get the equipment down to wherever the boat might be. Patrick was embarrassed about not having tied up the boat, and I suppose I didn’t help too much by reminding him that navies still tied up battleships. It was useful to note for future trips that one could probably have totally different experiences on the same river, at the same time of year, depending on how much rain had fallen upstream. We had seen heavy clouds to the east, but no hint that so much rain had fallen. Pieter and Patrick headed downstream in the splinted and imperfect boat, and after a while returned with the stray. It had gone through a few rapids before getting caught in an eddy near the far bank, a few hundred yards away. We packed and headed off at no great pace, we were still ahead of schedule in spite of the lost boat episode. Pieter, with his subtle sense of humor, called this Lost Boat Camp, and in all likelihood this will be Patrick’s enduring contribution to future travelers floating down this body of water. It was some twenty miles as the geometrically minded crow would zigzag from Nice Rock Island Camp, suites at the Hilton for the night of day 6. We had relatively easy going through some minor rapids, but our kayak did manage to hit most of the treacherous rocks submerged in the river, just to remind us that complacency was unwise, even at this late stage of our trip. We arrived at a large rapid, with substantial rock islands, and expected to see the dugout at the lower end. Nothing.our hot hostess A few more miles, almost thirteen from the camp, and Pieter spotted the motorized dugout and paddled down. It had pulled up onto a small sandbank where Dale, Jakobi and Winston had been dozing for a couple of hours waiting for us to show up. Pieter gestured that the other two boats should stop upstream a bit and disassemble, they would pick us up as there wasn‘t a whole lot of room where the dugout had berthed. Winston, having subjected us to Melon Tuna, redeemed himself by revealing a cooler with iced cold Parbos, which we fell on. I didn’t bother to pack the boat perfectly, and tossed bits and pieces into the dugout with little regard to how much we actually owed the pile of aluminum, rubber and nylon. We headed for Arapahu, Dale dipping a long stick into the water to gauge the depth rather like walking it through the water as we sped along. I made sure that the remaining beers weren’t left to get warm, and relaxed deeply for the first time in quite a while. My eyes were alert enough to see a Black Nunbird in the trees as we sped by, and after a little while we joined the Corantyne and headed upstream, south to Arapahu, beds, food and relative comfort. raging water, Arapahu Island At the island we staggered out of the dugout, I carried my cameras and didn’t give a damn what happened to the rest of our stuff. Annique had come down to the dock to greet us, and we trooped up to the lodge after her. The classic statement from Bobby came out in his mild tone, "Tony, she’s HOT!". Lee heard this, and complained that Bobby hadn’t said this about her over the last eight days. My fancy shoes had completely mangled my feet, the raw and bloody patches under my toes were less than appetizing to look at, and I had never wanted a cheap pair of flip flops so much in my life. It was mid afternoon, all of us attacked the beer, Borgoe and Black Cat. I had four plates of food, and countless drinks. Pieter and Nancy were draped around each other, and as the booze flowed we became more vocal and idiotic. Pieter and I resolved to assemble the kayak and shoot the rapids in the eastern split of the river next to the island. I didn’t know how this idea would seem in the sober light of Sunday. After stuffing ourselves , talking absolute rubbish and giving our livers relief from their recent hiatus, some of us headed to the dock to catch a piranha for bait. They were singularly uncooperative, and the fishermen gave up. I took the rod, cast a couple of times and hooked one, so we were on again.red headed cardinal The idea was to catch an Anjoumara to smoke, and Dale and Jakobi piloted us up the western channel of the river towards the falls. We hopped over some rocks to a pool where Patrick caught our prey after a few casts. It began to get dark, we alternately fished and sucked on our Parbo Djogos, but it looked as though that was the only candidate for the smoker we were going to get this evening. I heard some splashing in a little pool a few feet away, and suggested to Patrick and Pieter that there were fish trying to swim upstream, let’s have a look. Pieter and Nancy had walked through this pool and hadn’t noticed that it was amply populated with eels. The splashing noise was actually from the little fish that were getting shocked, we wondered how the eels didn’t hurt each other. With lightning speed, Jakobi nailed one with his machete right behind its head, but then absolutely refused to touch it. patrick with electric eelEel was supposed to be the best bait for Anjoumara, so we chopped some up and tried again. Although there were a few hits, we didn’t land any more fish and headed home. In the dark, with no motor and only the occasional flicker of a flashlight, the lads took us to the main river, and then fired up the motor to take us upstream to the dock. I was taught how to spatchcock the fish for smoking, it was then washed in vinegar, before salt, pepper and lime juice was liberally applied. Jakobi took me to his smoker, a rack over a fire that I knew would be far too hot, the fish was going to be too close to the fire and dried out if cooked this way, which was what happened. More drinks, more amiable, then loud, then argumentative conversation on subjects that didn’t warrant so much passion, and I staggered off to bed. I was lucky, and didn’t hurt nearly as much as the exuberant late-nighters the next morning. Now I couldn’t find my bloody toothbrush, but I had begged a disposable razor from one of the fellows who staffed the island which I would appreciate in the morning. I had been in the same musty clothes for two weeks now, several shirts that had never completely dried out before being stuffed into a bag for traveling on, and one pair of pants whose legs could be unzipped. It was going to have to stay this way until we reached Paramaribo. Something funky was happening with my pins, they seemed to be swollen around the ankles. It was an odd feeling more than uncomfortable, but the rest of me was stiff and sore. Clearly, I close to forty. There wasn’t much skin on my shins.

January 22nd

Sunday. I was feeling good, and up early for the ubiquitous instant coffee (at least it was Nescafe) and nasty Creamer. A Common Black hawk, not shy about people, perched near the cabin which contained Patrick, Lee and me. The Silver-beaked Tanagers were whizzing around as soon as it was light, and I wrote up these notes for a while before the somewhat groggy and tattered revelers arrived for breakfast. We lazed for a bit, and in the late morning we all ambled along the trail to the falls for a swim. With the help of Pieter, Jakobi and Dale we crossed a fast flowing channel and headed further up towards the face of the falls than Lee and I had been on our previous visit. The rock formations were wonderful, and came across a tree that was festooned with so much growth that one thought it might break every bough. There was an almost prehistoric feel to this spot. The water rinsed the area clean of growth when the river really flooded. Like a genius, I had left my camera on the other side of the channel we had crossed, not wanting to lose it. Bobby had his, and it was much more valuable than mine, so I kicked myself. It was spectacularly beautiful. small channel,ArapahuOn the way back, Pieter and Nancy had found a spot where the water would provided the most refreshing massage as it shot through the rocks, and for a while I sat there with Annique and Nancy. On the trail back for lunch, we saw some Curassows in the trees which I suspect Pieter had no wish to eat, food and rum being plentiful here. Lunch was quite late, and we had Indian and Indonesian curry, and rum. After more rum, and a little afternoon rain shower, we decided to get in a little fishing. Once again we struggled to get bait, but Jakobi and Dale caught a couple of Moroko (carp-like vegetarians, golden with a black spot), and on his last cast before the boat turned upstream, Patrick caught a piranha. We had bait. Across the river from the dock we stopped the dugout, baited the huge hooks on the nylon hand lines, and dropped them over the side of the boat. Within a few minutes, Bobby caught a large catfish, and soon after that I hooked a huge one. I wrestled mine to the surface, the rope cutting into the wooden sides of the dugout, but I couldn’t get it into the boat before it snapped the hook. I couldn’t believe it, the huge hook was cleanly broken about halfway down its length. The catfish were gun metal gray above, with creamy white bellies and orange fins. Neither Bobby nor I had thought to bring a camera. Once my luck with the fishing equipment had clearly run out, as it had for the whole trip, I consoled myself by watching the others and clutching a Djogo that someone had thoughtfully brought along. We headed in after a lovely sunset for more unnecessary drinks and some dinner. This was piranha soup and the smoked Anjoumara, which was dry and overcooked as I suspected it might be. I started the antibiotics for my banged up feet, raw shins and swollen ankles, and retired early. I was somewhat blotto. According to Pieter, only the Bush Negros ate the catfish, the early Jewish settlers seemed to have convinced everyone else that it was unclean to eat these beautiful fish. I was to read later that they were extremely good eating, especially if they were pulled out of a river as clean as the Corantyne.

January 23rd

Monday. We were headed back to Paramaribo, and packing was a somewhat somber activity. Since dawn I had been ruminating over the logistics of getting everyone, and the equipment home. I was sitting down by the docks, trying to stay off my feet, when Pieter asked to whom he should address the question of buying one of the Pakboats. I told him they were his, both of them, and his face lit up. I thought that he would be the perfect person to repair and use them, it wasn’t as though they hadn’t been severely tested by the temperament of the Lucie, and our own deficiencies as paddlers. He could get one imperfect but serviceable boat out of the two, and we would have had a much more difficult and dangerous trip if he hadn’t been the character that he was. Lee and Patrick bought traditional fish traps from Jakobi, very cool devices, but I was glad that I didn’t have to carry them home. The motor on the dugout had some dirty fuel filters, and it was clear that we were going to be late for the flight. As we motored down the Corantyne to Amotopo airstrip, the Kid came around a bend in the river at treetop height, over our heads and then banked the big Cessna before coming at us again. Bobby had one shot in his camera, and mine was packed. I had learned nothing in the last couple of days, what an idiot. On the flight I asked Winston about Tafelberg, and he said in his usual way that he’d make a plan. Back at the hotel, Patrick went for a nap, and Lee and I headed off to Sarinah for lunch. Lee took her turn to sleep, and Patrick and I had a few beers at JNE’s across the street before getting ready for dinner, which was at Sarinah again. It was a meal with an excessive amount of food, and the tab was unnecessarily picked up by Pieter. After dinner, Lee was driven back to the hotel by Winston, and the rest of us trooped off to the Waterkant for a final drink, also totally unnecessary. over the Coppename river (flying over the Coppename river just above Raleighvallen)

January 24th

Tuesday. Lee headed off to the airport at around 3am with Harish, who returned later to take Patrick for his KLM flight to Europe. Bobby and Christian were going to take photographs in Paramaribo for two days before flying back to New York. They were headed on a motorcycle trip down the Ho Chi Minh trail for some magazine or other in a couple of weeks, and had a load of stuff to accomplish before then. I prepared for Tafelberg, it looked as though I was going alone which suited me fine. Winston had tried to contact a girl from "down his street" who might want to come with me, but luckily she couldn’t be found. I was looking forward to an entirely selfish agenda- photographing, reading, walking and recording, whatever my whim happened to be at any particular moment. Any masculine urges that had accumulated over the last month would just have to wait. There would also be the possibility of seeing Cock-of-the-Rocks, but it would be an eight hour hike and thus an overnight stay to the base of the mountain where the birds were most likely to be found. Even if I didn’t take on such an ambitious trek, perhaps there would be some frogs to amuse me.

January 25th

approaching tafelberg area Wednesday. Naked and alone in the Central Suriname Nature Reserve. I woke up later than planned, but packed and stored my gear, essential and surplus, as efficiently as I could. Winston arrived to pick me up, and I bought some bread (the shops were out the previous day), oil and onions. He dropped me off at Zorg en Hoop, and rushed off to find the guide that I absolutely didn’t want or need. Winston returned without the guide, to my immense relief, muttering that he wasn’t long for employment anyway. We packed the old Cessna 206, the Crab, and Phillip took the old bird up into the rain. After a while there were gaps in the clouds and we flew over the green cotton candy forest below, pristine and unbroken. Phillip reassuringly relayed that the plane had once been taxied into a house, and repaired, which was the reason it was such a bitch to fly. He was continually fiddling with the trim, and from the artificial horizon one could see that she flew with the left wing dipped. We had a discussion on the mechanics of the variable pitch propeller which sent Winston into a deep slumber in the rear seat, mouth agape, and Phillip gleefully made the little plane bounce in the air to try and lurch him awake. It didn’t work. As we neared Tafelberg the radio died. The plane touched down on a soggy and slushy strip and labored down the well vegetated taxiway towards the cluster of colonial era buildings and sheds. We unloaded my gear and sat at a picnic table under a shed and ate the lunch that Winston had kindly brought, Indian roti. I was shown the workings of the radio, and admonished to call Annique at Arapahu twice a day, at 5pm and 7am. Winston insisted that if I took nothing else, I had to have the machete with me at all times. He casually told me that if I was confronted with a "jag", to "just wave something at it". Tafelberg outpost looked a little bleak, the buildings were in some disrepair except for the couple that Winston and Annique had fixed up as part of the deal with the government. This won them the exclusive contract to operate a tourism business at this spot. I saw that the birds most common here were Red-shouldered Tanagers, which were zipping past our heads and eating the cashew fruits as they yellowed and ripened in the little trees all around. The male birds were black, with a brilliant red epaulette on the shoulder, and although they belonged to a completely different family, they resembled closely the Red-winged Blackbirds ubiquitous in eastern North America, and shared a similar habitat. The missing guide (Thank you, Divine Being) seemed to have the only set of keys for the entire complex, so Winston gave me permission to hack apart the padlock that kept the ATV out of our reach. We had to haul my stuff to the chalet, which was twenty minutes hike to the eastern end of the airfield. The bag with two bottles of rum and all the cans of food I had brought was heavy as hell, and I realized why Pieter was so keen on catching food while on the river. He expounded often the joys of desiccated shrimp and suchlike. I was sweating like a pig, and Winston was wheezing more with the effort of moving his body the distance than what he was carrying. That man needed to get fit. We dumped my junk in the chalet and walked down a path into the jungle arriving at a beautiful waterfall a hundred yards or so away from my home for the next few days. Winston and Phillip (I would probably buy a used car from either of these two characters. Winston is on the left.) After this cursory tour of my immediate environs, we trooped back to the plane, the lads hopped into the Crab, gunning the motor to make headway in the slush. They took off to the east, and I was alone. I rigged up the solar panel to charge the car battery which powered the radio, my link to the outside world.waterfall below the chalet I wandered around the complex of old buildings. Some were in really bad shape, and there were several old generators, no doubt dating back generations. They were all Listers, which I remembered as being reliable from past days in Zimbabwe. No effort had been made to remove them, probably because it seemed pointless to haul away a piece of junk, expensive as it had to be done by air. The old motors were simply put aside in the shed or tossed out for the elements to take care of. There was also the remains of the bulldozer used to construct the airstrip, one hell of a plane must have brought it here. Scratched into a piece of protruding sandstone were the words, "Welcome to Devil’s Island". Something or someone had done a pretty thorough job of eating the mangos that were ripest, very odd for a place that was supposedly uninhabited. I did manage to find half a dozen or so good ones before I gathered my remaining gear and headed back to the chalet. It was hot, and there was little noise coming from the adjacent forest. The air was still so by the time I reached my temporary home I was sweating healthily. I removed my clothes which seemed excessive and uncomfortably clammy. It struck me that I was alone and naked at that moment, and it felt fantastic. Those two words in the same sentence usually suggested vulnerability, misery, fear or paranoia. Over a can of Litchis with a little Borgoe rum for nutrients, I decided to test the validity of this snippet of conventional wisdom. I would remain naked for the duration of my stay. I looked like a belted ox anyway, pale around the zone of modesty, and darkly tanned everywhere else from my stint on the river. It also struck me that a "jag" intent on gnawing my bones wouldn’t have been too concerned about the state of dress of my mid-section. When could one, as an almost 40 year-old, spend five days buck-ass naked in a South American jungle? I packed a few items photographic and anti-insect, although I hadn’t been bitten much yet, and headed down the trail past the falls to see what was there. I was just contemplating that my general lucklessness, (I never win the lottery), would probably prevent me from ever seeing another poison dart frog, when one crossed my path. I followed the little fellow taking photos like a paparazzo on crack, thinking that I would probably never see another. Unlike the one we had seen in Okipipi Camp on the Zuid river, this one had asymmetrical markings. I did not have the imagination to think that these brightly colored little frogs could be marked as individually as fingerprints. On my return trip I met another whose markings were even more odd. As I emerged from the forest I found myself staring at a deer, and as I began to move my camera it slowly turned and walked the few yards into the forest. About the size of a goat, it had a rich reddish color. I had noticed tracks, and Winston and Annique seemed to think that to see a deer one would have to be extremely lucky. I checked in with Annique on the radio, an affair that took about an hour. After bathing in the falls, I decided that hot food with fried onions would be the best complement to my state of dress. It appeared that the gas bottle attached to the stove was too light to have anything in it, so I collected some "dry" firewood and, with the help of some kerosene, I got my sorry excuse for a campfire going. My mouth began to water at the prospect of dinner. The heavens kindly opened up with a light sprinkle of mist- like rain, and my natural ingenuity directed me to provide a cover for the fire.. it worked, and soon I had a good blaze going. I went upstairs to congratulate myself with a Borgoe and pineapple. The mixer was a powder from Brazil (Brand: SUKS, no kidding) which proved to be far superior to the Melon Tuna we had subjected ourselves to on the river, and I drank this out of a stylish Litchi can. While I was enjoying my sundowner, a roaring sound came from the northeast and I could see a grey curtain of rain speeding my way. The wind picked up and the hurricane (what’s in a name?) lamp went out. The downpour laid waste my plans for a hot dinner. I heard a tree crashing down in the forest. So it was cold corned mutton (Halal, must be good) for dinner. A can of mixed vegetables which, with the addition of mayonnaise, raw onion and Piccalilli helped make the mutton taste less like food for a spoiled puppy, but it didn’t look very appetizing. What would motormouth Emeril have done with these ingredients, before an adoring audience of none? I shoveled this insalubrious concoction into my mouth with the end of the 24 inch machete that I had idly honed to razor sharp while waiting by the radio room. I hoped that I hadn’t unknowingly hacked at any of the lianas used elsewhere to stun fish. All was not lost, I still had a third of a bottle of Borgoe, and a full one of Black Cat. The frogs were going great guns with their vocal efforts, and with the slightly unsettled air all was very peaceful. My legs were almost back to normal, and I slept better than I had in weeks.

January 26th

Thursday. The tree where a Common Black Hawk had been perched the previous afternoon had fallen. I checked in with Winston, Annique seemed unreachable by radio. It poured during the night, and my fire was a sorry sight. To amuse myself, I cut through the chain on the shed housing the four-wheeler, but I couldn’t start the damned thing . I would be walking, which was ok, but the idea of having to adjust my movements so precisely as to make each call-in time was just too much, so I informed Winston that I’d only be checking in once a day, at 5pm. There wasn’t going to be much that could kill me between sunset and dawn, unless the dead hummingbird (Fork-tailed Woodnymph) under my bed had bird flu. Back at the chalet I got the fire going with a liberal dose of kerosene, and drank my coffee. I thought that I might as well make this my main hot meal of the day too.. fried onions, mixed vegetables and chopped Vienna sausages. I headed down to the waterfall, at my back from where this photograph was taken, and trooped down the trail beyond it. The two frogs that I saw were most uncooperative, not allowing me anywhere near them for photography. This was especially frustrating since I had figured out how to use the macro, and was looking forward to getting some blindingly crisp close-ups of these colorful little buggers. I crept down the trail looking for anything interesting. To my left was a bit of a ruckus, and I could see White-plumed Antbirds and Woodcreepers in spite of the gloom. They were following a column of ants and picking off whatever the single minded army had disturbed. After a couple of hours on the trail, it showed no sign of ending, I came across a group of Curassows, who noisily headed off into the trees. I managed to get a few passable shots before heading back through the intermittent rain. I came across a particularly vocal little wren who responded perfectly to me whistling his call, drawing close and closer until I felt sure that I had a great recording. I didn’t get a clear view of the little fellow’s coloration, but from the poor photos I suspected he was a White-breasted Wood Wren, but the illustrations I had were not giving me a clear picture. Perhaps I could send this sound to the Cornell Lab and see what they came up with. I flushed a small brown ground bird on the trail, probably a Tinamou, and tried to take a photo or two but one would be hard pressed to find the bird in the shots I did manage to take, and it would be almost impossible to tell the species. Over the last day and night I had heard several trees crashing down in the forest. I guessed that the sandy soil which was probably derived from the weak sandstone of the area didn’t give a tree that much purchase, and there weren’t actually that many huge trees at Tafelberg. But the water was extraordinarily clean, every little rivulet running along the road had tadpoles trying to get up or down. I photographed a small misguided fish working its way up a rivulet about fifty yards from the river. The noises made by the frogs were loud, vigorous and like none I had ever heard anywhere.

January 27th

Friday. Rain, lots of it. I spent the morning close to the chalet, daydreaming and reading, and watching the approaching bands of rain. Low cloud swirled around the mountain. I heard Capuchinbirds for the first time. The sound was an unearthly electronic version of a calf lowing, the alternative common name is Calfbird. I leapt up and with the recorder to see what I could capture, but they frustrated me by shutting up when I was near enough to get something on tape. The rain didn’t help either, so I wandered back to the chalet for more of doing nothing. My experiment in prolonged jungle nudity was rudely interrupted by the arrival of a little Robinson helicopter at around 1.45pm, when the rain had just stopped. I was contemplating leaving for wilder parts. It must have flown at treetop level for quite a while, under the clouds which were very low. I watched it pass in front of the mountain, heading west to the airstrip. It hovered a few feet above the ground and moved sideways towards the radio room, before heading in my direction. I hurriedly put on some shorts, sat and picked up the binoculars as the little craft approached. I kept them trained on the chopper as it passed in front of the chalet and set down on he road about thirty yards away. The motor kept running, and I turned on the recorder with the microphone pointing towards the steps where I would meet whomever had come to visit. I thought it might be interesting to record this conversation with a stranger. The fellow in the right hand seat got out and came my way, the bearded fellow in the other seat got out but skulked around without saying a word. Jerome, as he introduced himself after I had bluntly asked him his name, was very friendly. The conversation, as per the recording, went like this:
J:(indistinct, perhaps Dutch greeting)
T: Morning
common black hawk J: Speak English?
T: Yes, only.
J: (indistinct)
J: Are you the only one here?
T: the only one here.
J: You’re kidding me.
T: Having a great time. Who’re you?
J: My name is Jerome (Surname indistinct)
J: I, uh, am looking for two guys who work for me..
(A Common Black Hawk soaring to the north.)
kingbird The recording becomes a bit difficult to follow because of the noise of the chopper, the wind across the unbuffered mic, and my moving down to ground level. Somewhere in there I said, "nice toy you have there", and his answer was that it belonged to his company. He knew I was bird watching, alone and probably just wanted to check me out. There was no way that he could have seen me under the darkened eaves of the chalet as they flew past, a distance of more than a mile. The two of them got in the chopper and took off to the south, probably towards Kayser. Dressed, I headed towards the shack, my daily twenty minute mandatory trudge through the sandy soil. I saw some jaguar tracks that definitely hadn’t been there the evening before. I headed from the shack towards the mountain on a trail that was wide and obviously well maintained. I was conscious of my clothing, and sweating heavily too. I was also conscious of the fact that there were definitely big cats around. Some distance up the trail I heard a squawk, and an orange puff scuttled away from me and was gone in the undergrowth before I could recover my composure and raise the camera. Winston later said it was some kind of "Bush dog", whatever that was, but later on Pieter confirmed that it was an Agouti. He had seen and heard this very thing just before he had shot and eaten them! The trail didn’t have clouds of birds, but I did record Screaming Pihas which I expected would come out well, and I did come across antwrens and wood creepers, as well as a large orange colored Woodpecker which I didn’t see clearly enough to hazard identification. I turned back and headed towards the complex, it was time to work the radio. I had a long chat to Winston, and a short one to Annique before heading back to the chalet, arriving as it started to rain. Dinner included garlic, which I had pilfered from the kitchenette in the radio hut. Fireflies were everywhere, they flashed twice in Suriname, and only once in Pine Plains, NY. The frogs were really noisy, and I watched a large electrical storm work its internal magic as it approached from the northeast, I would have to cover everything with a tarpaulin. The rainwater tanks were going to overflow again.

January 28th

Saturday. The mountain was relatively clear, with only white smoky clouds descending the western side of the nearest slope. There were patches of blue between the clouds that were racing towards the southwest. Brunch, after a gallon of coffee whitened and sweetened with condensed milk, was Brazilian Corned beef, raw onions, garlic and mayonnaise on bread. The tinned meat really did smell and taste like dog food, don’t ask how I know, and it was a sad statement that so much of Amazonia was being clearcut and burned for this crappy bit of nutriment. at the moriche stumpMacaws and Orange-winged Amazons had been investigating a moriche palm stump near the chalet; if either species decided to nest here one could get some great photographs. I wandered into the forest, bedecked with my bag containing juice, sound recorder and insect repellant. I had decided to go "off piste" a bit, and soon came across a picture perfect trail of leafcutter ants from the tree they were busy denuding of foliage for the "farm" they had under a fallen tree. My usual species of poison frogs are nowhere to be seen, but I did come across a black, green and yellow chap of uncertain toxicity. I slipped in the wet earth a few times and decided that I should really take a trail which would minimize the possibility of castrating myself with the help of the razor sharp machete I was stuck with. So I returned home and then took a road that headed east into the forest, which eventually narrowed into a trail. All was quiet except for some distant Howler Monkeys, and a bird that made a liquid clicking noise and went silent whenever I readied the microphone. I came across some of my usual frogs in an area much drier than I would have expected them to enjoy, and I managed to take a few photos. The trail ended in a grove of banana-like plants, and I returned to camp. I saw an ant bird on the way, but it was impossible for me to tell which species. For my afternoon venture I decided to wear clothes as I intended to head for the mountain where Jerome told me his three workers were hanging out. I passed the old gazebo that sat in a cleared area and found a trail to the north and entered the forest. It was hot in spite of my shirtless condition, and quiet. I was convinced that hungry spotted cats were eyeing my every step. I pressed on for an hour and a half or so, periodically losing the trail as it took a jackknife turn, or started up in an unpredictable direction after it crossed a rivulet or ravine. I was hoping that the path would bear to the northwest, and I could join a trail that would take me back to the main complex, but it headed steadfastly to the northeast. I reached a large stream that must have been the headwaters of the Upper Saramacca, and the trail widened again. I thought that if I urinated here eventually the Gra Man would taste my contempt, but it would only be his poor subjects getting this unfair treatment, the old fool would be drinking Wheeskee. I thought that this trail could easily lead one to Paramaribo, given a couple of weeks, but it appeared that nobody had been along this route in a while, the machete slash marks were old and I suspected that the trampled down leaves were probably deer and jaguar. On the return trip, I heard a Capuchinbird just as I was slipping and stumbling across a small stream; of course the microphone cord was tangled and the bloody bird went silent. The birds that had been answering this eerie call continued to oblige and I had to content myself with that, but I was really hoping for a good recording. As I reached the chalet it poured. I removed my clothing, fully appreciating why the Amazonian tribes hadn’t bothered with this second skin before the missionaries arrived with modesty, guilt and disease as new concepts for them to absorb. After my radio session with Winston and Annique, I gathered mangos and was back inside, naked and slicing fruit when the heavens opened. With each clap of thunder the frogs grew quiet, and with a short attention span I had become used to in North America, they resumed. The last of the Black Cat marinated the mangos, topped off with SUKS mango juice, sad but good. I was quite stiff and sore, and too lazy to contemplate dinner.

January 29th

Sunday.marmoset I woke to heavy rain sometime between 4am and 5. I emerged from my bed around 7, it was light but gloomy, the rain falling with varying intensity every half hour or so. I kept close to the cabin, encountered only one frog who looked like the same individual I often saw in this area. I strolled down the second trail, it was quiet and the only items of interest were some fresh "bush dog" tracks. After a bit of reading, I found myself contemplating the vast list of things I had to accomplish when I got home. I was a bit worried about my ability to get back into the swing of work after not having held a paintbrush in six weeks. I was going to have to find some discipline somewhere, restrict "drop-ins" and remove myself from the situation where I was easily available to play mover, stevedore or general fixit person. Around 2.30pm, the sky began to reveal patches of blue so I headed over to the main complex. As I approached the derelict building with the very active beehive, I disturbed a family of marmosets, black with golden brown feet and uncommonly long tails. They were obviously the people making short work of all the ripe mangos. The poor little buggers had to scurry through the grass to get to the nearest patch of forest, something foreign and uncomfortable to their innate behavior. This also answered the question as to why there were never any fallen mangos for me to gather. I flushed a Brocket Deer near another house, it had been snoozing under a thicket, and bounded away with a snort. When I mentioned to Winston later that I had seen five or six deer, to the point where they didn’t excite me any more, he told me that I was the record holder for deer sightings. No doubt an honor in the middle of nowhere. I followed a trail into the forest at the western end of the airstrip, it was quiet and I decided that marching up here in the short amount of available daylight left was pretty pointless. The calf birds were once again uncooperative as I sat in the gazebo with the recorder at the ready. I had missed my opportunity to get a good recording, the plane was coming to pick me up the next day. The evening was spectacular, with a large storm coming from the northeast. I recorded its approach, and managed to be ready when a trio of macaws did a flyby in the evening light. I cooked dinner, not bad with the help of some spicy sweet sauce I found in the kitchen of the radio room, but I should have omitted the corned beef. Thunder and lightning came on strong, but the savanna was spared the strong winds. 8.30 pm, bed.. I had survived my first alcohol-free day in a while.

January 30th

Monday. Leaving Tafelberg. It rained on and off through the day. I finished the last of my coffee, and eat a hot breakfast to get rid of weighty cans. I packed and marched my gear over to the airstrip in two trips, and planted some cashews and mangos that I dug up from the complex. Perhaps this could be the little mark I would leave behind from my stay. I thought this wasn’t too bad, the birds and marmosets had a great time with these fruits. black caracara (A pair of Black Caracara’s made sure I didn’t leave behind anything worth eating.)
I was a bit worried about the approaching storm, but eventually the plane arrived about an hour late. As Phillip taxied the Cessna and spun it around in the mud, Winston tossed a mini Borgoe out of the window. What a good man. We took off and circled the airstrip so that I could get a shot of my recent home, and then western edge of the mountain. Huge waterfalls, that were no doubt swollen by the recent heavy rains, cascaded off the lip of the tepui. We had a bird’s eye view of the illegal structure built by friendly Jerome. It was somewhat shrouded in mist, and I am sure that he would never be able to keep anything dry without air conditioning and a generator running all the time. Winston and Annique snoozed in the back seats while Phillip and I discussed politics and the hidden meteorological significance of the clouds we were passing through or avoiding on the flight back to Paramaribo. It was a bit tough to get every word in the noisy plane, and I found myself nodding to be agreeable more than in total comprehension, satisfied that I had the gist of most of what he said. Back at the hotel I cleaned up, and later fed myself at Sarinah, beginning a series of sweet and sour meals that appealed to my palate for the rest of my stay in Suriname. I crashed early, surprised at how tired I was in spite of the excellent sleep I had been getting at Tafelberg.

January 31st

Tuesday. Rain by the bucket. In the swampy field behind the hotel a Yellow-headed Caracara was clambering over a very docile cow, until it reached the head and perched there for a while, taking in the view. I watched movies in my room, read for a bit and in the late afternoon Pieter and Nancy came to pick me up to visit her father and uncle to see the caged birds. Black-headed Parrots, a gorgeous Cayenne Jay, macaws, several types of Tanagers, Green Oropendolas and a beautiful Moriche Oriole made up this collection of captives. The Oriole was his pride and joy, jet black with a brilliant yellow crown, epaulettes, rump and thighs. Truly sad to see them all in captivity. As we drove to Nancy’s uncle’s house, Pieter railed against the practice of keeping birds and put out some ideas about how to control the trade. I thought it would be very difficult controlling the national obsession with such a high level of corruption amongst law enforcement. Uncle had even more birds, Parrots, toucans, toucanets, Aracaris, Cotingas of various types, Screaming Piha (dull gray and passive), a Motmot, Green Honeycreeper ("a bad bird"), Purple Honeycreepers and a young female Cock-of-the-Rock (illegal, "I get a male too, soon"). His pride and joy was a hand raised Yellow Oriole, very cheeky and fed on wet dog food. It was time to get a drink, and we met Winston and Annique for dinner at Sarinah, nothing excessive.

February 1st

Wednesday. In the morning Winston took me to Gummels Farm, and after some running around we managed to fuel and pump up the tires of the ATV. I spent a few hours birdwatching and avoiding the ill tempered water buffalo that seemed to be a better economic proposition than cattle in the swampy reclaimed rice fields, where both of these edible ungulates roamed. Winston told me that the water buffalo weren’t habituated to the noise of the ATV, and likely to make a run at me if I came too close. When I asked Henk about corralling them for the trip to the slaughterhouse, he said that horses weren’t used because they were too valuable. I didn’t find out exactly how they controlled the animals, probably by armored car. I headed down a muddy canal all the way to the ocean. The mouth of the canal was strewn with huge tires, chassis of bulldozers and sundry heavy equipment. The first thought was how chronic this pollution was, but I could understand it from the perspective of trying to prevent the sea from removing your land. The shore was muddy and sloped so gently that one couldn’t see without the help of waves, just where it gave way to water. Herons, waders and large fiddler crabs stalked their prey in and around the small mangrove islands and on the flats, and the canal was full of water tyrants, kingbirds and egrets. A Rufous Crab Hawk watched me examine mangrove trees of a sort I had not seen in Florida, and strange pop-eyed fish were skipping around the shallow channels and darting in and out of the canal’s outlet. On my way back I tried to stalk a group of squirrel monkeys who gave me the slip, and a Yellow Oriole, one of the two wild ones I had seen, dashed past. Gummels Farm was packed with approachable Red-breasted Blackbirds, and annoyingly skittish Wattled Jacanas who took off on butter colored wings that contrasted strongly with their rich chestnut and black bodies, legs trailing. Snail Kites were so common as to be almost boring. I could imagine people who visited the Everglades looking for the sighting of a life time being unable to believe the numbers here. The lake at the farm had an island in the middle that was peppered with kites, and I was more excited to see a Laughing Falcon, Crane Hawk and Roadside Hawk. Back at the main house I spent some time talking to Henk, who had driven in as I was parking the ATV, mostly about politics and the proposed Kabalebo Resevoir which had never been built. The two companies involved in the bauxite mining, Suralco and Billiton, were at odds about how to process the ore. One of them favored the construction of a smelter, with its associated need for vast amounts of electricity and thus the dam, and the other wanted to build a slurry pipeline the 130 odd miles east to an existing plant. A rail line had been constructed to the Corantyne river about 40 miles or so from the proposed mine site, but since the mine, smelter or hydro dam had never been built, it lay overgrown and disused, reclaimed by the jungle. I said my goodbyes and Winston dropped me off at the hotel to check on my flights etc., after lunch at Sarinah (sweet and sour chicken, the real stuff). I found out that there was no flight on the 2nd, at 11am, to Curacao. I had to go to the Suriname Airways office early in the morning to sort something out. I had a slight panicky moment, and then decided that it wouldn’t be too bad to be stranded in this country for several years. I packed for a while and was just about to go to sleep when Winston called, showed up and dragged me out to an almost deserted bar on the banks of the Suriname river. After a couple of Black Cats Pieter and Nancy showed up, pretty smashed, and we had a great time. They had been at a concert given by one of Suriname’s oldest, best known and most boring country singers, but the person who captured the audience’s attention was the back-up singer. She was apparently stunning and threatened to hog the limelight after she gave a few solo numbers, The old crooner kicked her off, eliciting boos from the audience, who promptly got up and left. Typical of Pieter, he began to tell me all the fantastic things I could have done if I hadn’t gone off to Tafelberg on my own…. Republic Creek, 4-wheeling on the road to Apoera which is packed with wildlife, and more. "So why the fuck do you tell me this now when I am leaving on Friday?". "You never asked. You insisted on going off to Tafelberg on your own…" It emerged that when Winston originally had asked Pieter to guide us, saying that the fellow organizing this trip was a bird painter, Pieter’s response was, "What am I going to do with a fucking bird painter?" Now that this was out, I said that, had I known Pieter was a fucking car salesman, I would have chanced the river without a guide. It was quite a late night. (Red -breasted Blackbird)

February 2nd

Thursday. Sorting out the ticket was much easier than I expected, I was upgraded to business class, and I would have to be at the airport REALLY early. Winston dropped me at Gummels Farm where I did the same thing as yesterday. The cast of avian characters was augmented by a Long -winged Harrier flying by when I didn’t have the camera ready, and Limpkins which would have been a regional rarity in the US. I got a small lecture from Henk about reconfirming flights as one landed in any country, and my delay was due to my own carelessness. I had no idea six weeks ago that Suriname Airways were going to abruptly drop the flights to Curacao. After a bit more packing I spent a couple of hours birding with Harish on the north side of town where we saw very little. So we drove to Kwatta, on the west side of town to see the mangroves. Harish parked at a Hindi outdoor crematorium, with several smoldering piles marking that day’s immolation of the departed devout. It smelled like barbeque, but was supposedly a good spot to see Scarlet Ibis at the right time of the day. The area was flooded, houses had water running into their front doors, and cattle and horses were forlornly standing on the canal banks.. it was a swamp that should have remained a swamp. We headed back to the hotel, where I made some executive decisions about dumping stuff, most of which went to Harish and Winston. Vidia sorted out the bill, and Winston came over around 7 to take me for drinks at a spot on the Waterkant with the rather interesting name of t’VAT. I noticed again that all the Dutch girls wandering around (this seemed to be a fertile spot for viewing Dutch girls) seemed to have a kind of "bigness" but with pretty faces. Pieter and Nancy came to say goodbye, Pieter was unable to drink anything after last night’s performance, and I accused him of being a wimp and old. He was too weak even to disagree, and they left to go on to a function at Hotel Torarica for the outgoing head of Parbo Bier. I felt some sympathy for them.

February 3rd

Friday.Leaving Suriname. I woke at 1.30am, realized that I had another hour and slept it. Winston picked me up after I had swallowed several cups of coffee, and we headed out to the airport. I didn’t want Winston to be my taxi driver, but he insisted. On the way he said that a couple from Alaska were heading to the Coppename to undertake the trip we had originally planned, just the two of them for six weeks. I heard later that it was extremely difficult, but fascinating. When I asked how they had known about Suriname, Winston said that the husband had been in the Peace Corps in Guyana and had enjoyed his visits to Suriname. We said goodbye in the already crowded airport, at 3am. I was profoundly sad to go. Winston and Annique had given me a most beautiful volume, Birds of Suriname, which touched me deeply. I tossed out quite a few items to make room for it in my luggage, and spent the flights home buried in its pages. The approach into Port-of-Spain, Trinidad revealed an interesting topography, and might be a good place to visit. Geologically part of South America rather than a Caribbean island, it is already one of the best places in the western hemisphere to look at birds. We didn’t deplane, and after about an hour took off for Curacao. I had a lay over of several hours and amused myself by reading and watching a large group of tourists who had the flavor of a Midwestern Bible study group. Without exception, the men in this group wore new white sneakers, in contrast to the Europeans who were generally more Bohemian in their attire. At least the airport was airy and cool from the fresh rain, and not stinking hot as it was on our way to Paramaribo. Contrary to my expectations, Customs in Miami was a breeze. They weren’t even interested in the Surinamese fish trap that I was lugging home for Lee. How did I end up having to bring that home? On the way to Ft. Lauderdale, the traffic was brutal and endless…. Back to reality. In Charleston, I discovered that Lee had broken her ankle by stepping on a tennis ball the day after she arrived home. After all that..

An extraordinary number of people assisted me with this project, knowingly or unwittingly, and I am profoundly grateful to you for having allowed me to express what was encoded in the "irresponsible" section of my genetic filing cabinet. My life was changed. For most, you know yourselves and I have known many of you for years, I could name and thank you individually but I have rambled on enough and hope that a collective expression of my appreciation will do. Anything I have to say would be insufficient. Thank you.