Guianas


We had an overnight here. All we can really say is that it was small even for two teddy bears	Things looked up when we boarded our KLM flight to Georgetown, Guyana. Two Negroni's please, steward	Premium Economy is not as good as Business class, but it is far, far better than the privatations that they suffer in Economy	Breakfast at Georgetown was (just) OK


They even weighted the passengers including us to calculate load	The pilot sat in an unnatural silence on the flight deck. Never said a word. We asked to fly the plane, but he ignored that too.	The Falls Airstrip is not exactly an international airport. It had no tarmac, just dirt, but it looked ling enough to land on	Before landing the man in the pilots seat, flew us past the falls, but gave no warning, Most of the punters probably did not see them

A familt photo with the padres as we got off the aircraft	Somerville climbed into the cockpit, but could not find any levers that would enable the plane too take off. Best give up.	So we settled down for a manky chicken and rice lunch out of a plastic box.	We kept an eye on the aeroplane, in case someone tried to leave us here

We walked up to the falls, and posed for a photo	We found this frog , under 2 cm long, hiding in a fern	And up in the trees a cock of the rock bird, Both very rare and very colourful	Himself took us back in total silence. We feel he does not like his job and really wants to fly fighter jets or watch TV at home

We did not have much time to sit around and eat buns. Next day back to the airport and off to the interior


We stayed in a (very) modest business lounge	Then we were marched to a very small aircraft, that could have fitted two small teddy bears, but had to take 15 people too	We snuggled up in our bag,	And enjoyed the view when we got to the lodge

Out on the water we kept the guide honest on bird species	We don't think she knew that this was a Kingfisher	We did not actually see too much on the water ..	..but we were then decanted into a car for an 1 hour trip to Atta Lodge

Here is the madre installing herself to the somewhat bare delights of our Atta Lodge room	Next morning up at 05.30 in the pouring rain to see the canopy walkway. We of course saw it but saw not a single bird	Next day a nice man took us down to the road and spotted toucans	..the padre remembers them being used for Guinness adverts

there were crocodillos everywhere here	And some aggressive looking birds like this hawk	..or these macaws with beaks you would not want to mess with	Then we got into a car and headed to a river.


We headed upstream with a local guide	Somerville supervised the driving of the boat.	And both of us clung hold of the padres, in case they fell in.	When you see what is out there, you really do not want to fall in

Our cabin was a bit bigger than last night. They had made some towel animals for us as well., and it was more "homely"	There is no hanging round here,Straight out in a canoe to see the giant lilies open	We approached the lilies. Lots of lilly pads, but fewer lilies.	You can see that the liliy pad are very strong as they will support a couple of hefty bears like us.

We then sat and waited. This in one of yesterday's flowers	And this is one of today;s which is struggling to open	And this, just as it got dark, is a new lily.	As we said, they do not hang around here. Up before dawn

We headed out into the bush	Our jeep got stuck on a rut	But the people in the other jeeps got us off	And yes, we did see it, a giant anteater, running across the countryside


But first we went to see this little fellow. A Giant Otter cub that had been abandoned by it mother. And was rescued by Melanie	She is "training" it to look after itself, takes it for walks and plays with it in the water	It is certainly a labour of love. I think we are a little skeptical that ..	..the little fellow can survive when he is released into the wild

Melanie was a very nice lady, and she really looked after us	And here we are after lunch, supervising the padres	It always amazes us as to how much supervision they need	And there are caiman everywhere. We declined to have a swim

A fish eagle with his lunch. We prefer buns	And..at the end of the afternoon we found a group of Giant Otters .	..Well hidden in the banks of the river	We think he probably had never seen teddy bears before

Us bears don' t hang around. Next morning a car to Letham, and a small aircraft to Paramaribo.


Small, but bigger then the last few we have been on,	You could not swing the proverbial teddy bear in here	These are Manatees back in Georgetown	We picked some grass, and they came up to the bank to eat it

Meanwhile everywhere seems to have a resident caiman	This is a woodpecker, just like the one on the cider advert	And this is a market stall selling patent medicines. We do not think that we would put too much confidence in such elixirs	We don't go big on museums and kept on walking by

But we did go big on Delven, A very nice man, who made us a meal in his backyard cafe.	This was what it actually was, a cafe in his backyard	We help his assistant, Ashanti, to prepare the meal	Then we gave Delven a hand to cook the food

He was very grateful, and said he could not have managed without us	We then polished off our meal	And allowed Delven a PR photo with us	Then back to Cara Lodge Hotel

A very, very, long day to get to Surinam, we got to our Paramaribo Hotel, some 20 hours after getting up for Delven's tour



The guide overslept, so we waited 30 minutes. Then he had to pick up 13 Dutch guests, but forgot 3 of them. So we waited another 30 minutes in the road for these people to arrive	We had three hours on the clapped out bus, then transferred to large dug out canoes	For a two hour up river to Danpaaki Camp	A sort of god forsaken place run by locals, with no discernable manager present. The cabin was simple but charming.

But the saving grace was a balcony with a hammock and a great view over the river	The food was pretty basic - filled bread rolls	Next day we went with the padres to a Saamaka Museum	Craftsmen were making furniture here

And Pembroke tried his luck at extracting cane juice from sugar cane, it is more difficult than it looks, Or that is what he says	There were a few drums to bang, but like most museums, it was just not us.	Back at our balcony, we had some cocktails in the afternoon	And next morning the lodge delivered tea to us.

Next day, bright and early, well early anyway, we are on the road driving to the border between Surinam and French Guyana


After a lot of over bureaucracy in leaving Surinam, we got into French Guyana,	3 kms across the river and you move from South America to Europe. Quite bizarrely, French Guyana is part of European France	This is the transportation camp where the French held all new inmates till they farmed them out to their final destinations

The madre gave us a conducted tour of the camp.	Including the cells where people like Papillon had been	... incarcerated We were very, good here as we did not fancy being left behind

Then there was excitement for us as we took the car a couple of hours up the road to the Space Port



We sat on the beach and saw the launch	This is a clever trick photo that shows us at the launch, We were at the beach	The Ariane6 rocket roars into space in absolute silence, The 50 seconds later the roar of the rockets reached us,	Somerville is very proud of this photo of him at the launch, but he is not sure why the rocket did not go straight.

Next day we went to Devil's island, this too is somewhere that we did not want to be left, so we were very good


We took this catamaran from Kourou to Devil's island. We started off a flat calm. But it soon degenerated into as very ...	. bumpy ride. Us bears and the padres made it to dry land, but most of the other punters were very sea sick	Once ashore we inspected the prison cells.	They were all very similar and not up to our required standards.

That tiny island behind us is the real Devil's Island	There are three prison islands, and that is another one	Most of the poor souls died here - the cemetery was for officers. On death cConvicts just got thrown into the sea for the sharks	Devil's Island is even today, out of bounds for tourists


We do like cocktails	.. and snacks	We even pretended to be interested in the statues and ..	..buildings of Cayenne

but that was just a ruse so that we could join the very fine final lunch. French cooking at its best	We barely had escaped the airport foyer to go through immigration, when this lady wanted to fill in a tourist form about us, almost down to our inside leg measurements	We were on a scruffy cattle class Air France to Paris,	and another to Valencia


Paramaribo had macaws,	red ibises	lovely old Dutch buildings

And a small Dutch fort		And we did find some Caipirinhas in the hotel


Next day we went to spaceport museum,	Where we saw lots of rockets	And some lego to make our own rocket