A little Suriname, a little Guyana.

As time passes quickly these days it is soon time to load up and carry on our little adventure. A short day of 250km takes us to Niew Nickerie, which is on the North Coast of Surniname. The town is dominated by East Indian and Chinese stores along with huge houses and rice paddies. I guess there is still money in farming after all and this is also a Port city. We assume it is for shipping of rice, pineapples, coconuts and whatever else grows around here. They likely receive goods from China and India based on the products we see in store windows and in the market.

A bit of a fixer-upper.

Pastures and lots of cattle.

The rice farming equipment looks a bit funny, although I must admit I have never really paid much attention in the past. The tractors are standard front wheel assist or 4 wheel drive, but they have what looks like a hamster wheel for the outside dual instead of a rubber tire. The cab area is also fully enclosed with tarps to protect from the splash of mud from the tires, they just have a small peep hole on the front to look out of.

One of the extravagant houses.

Rice paddy tractors.

The big task for tomorrow is to get to the ferry and cross the river into Guyana, we have conflicting information about schedule and the process but we know we have to get there early. One key piece of information we did not get is that they lock the gate at the ferry at 8:30am. Why? We are not really sure but they do. We pulled up at 8:32, greeted by a locked gate and an abrupt guard who just said “Too Late”, and walked away. Now normally this would make some sense but the ferry is not until 10am, so there would be plenty of time to process our passports. Instead we have to wait for the next ferry, at 1pm. At least they were nice enough to open the gate 5 minutes after the ferry left so that we could roll the bikes into the secured area and sit in the air conditioned building. We filled the time by doing a bit of typing and reading. The ferry ticket for the bike and rider was SRD$105 each, and the ride takes about 10 minutes on the open air ferry. They do have covered seating area as it is often raining.

Once on the Guyana side we have to purchase our importation form which is GYD$200 each, then we filled them out and presented them to the Customs Office. They promptly tell us that our insurance is not valid in Guyana and that we must purchase new insurance before they can permit us to drive in the country. Well that is fine, although we tried to tell them that the policy we bought in Suriname was supposed to cover Guyana as well. They just shake their heads and say that it is not valid, and there is not translation issue because they speak English in Guyana. The officer says he will take us to an insurance office in town so that we do not have to come back and get our importation permits. Very nice of him, plus we would have never found the insurance office. The officer is helpful in that he calls a car and escorts us to an insurance office, where he waits for us to get our policy straightened out and finally gives us our importation paperwork. This saved us going back to the border, nice guy.

The lady in the office is very helpful and tries to get a new form and transfer the information from our existing policy so that we do not have to pay anything extra. This does not work because the insurance company would not send her a form. The only real difference would be the form the information was printed on, but in the end it cost us GYD$2800 to get a new 30 day policy, which is about $18CAD so no big deal. Now we have to get rolling again as the goal is Georgetown. The insurance lady talked about lots of animals on the road and to be careful. She slightly understated the problem, the only road to Georgetown passes through about a hundred villages, there are no shoulders and everything happens on the road or on the edge of the road. There are chickens, pigs, cows, horses, goats, pedestrians, cyclists, carts, tractors, busses, and cars all vying for space on the road and edges. 

Don't even think of using the side streets.

After a while it feels like we are in a video game, dodging whatever is thrown at us. Then there is the road repair guys who cut huge squares out of the asphalt about 4” deep, no pillions or markers, just one more dumptruck on the side of the road and a couple more pedestrians with shovels. I can’t imagine how they can concentrate on work as they are literally the frogs in the video game Frogger. This goes on pretty much all the 250km to Gtown, when we get there it is getting dark and we are barely checked into the hotel and it starts pouring rain and turns pitch black. So far this country is completely different than anywhere else we have ever been, ever. Wow, welcome to Guyana.