Georgetown, Guyana - St Laurent du Maroni, French Guiana
That morning, after having breakfast at the Tower Hotel (down by the center of Georgetown), my father and I hired a car to take us down to the border with Suriname. Of course, we were late for the second and last ferry that crosses the natural border. Our objective: to make it to the border between Suriname and French Guiana.
It took us about 4 hours to get from Georgetown to the border, and the taxi driver hooked us up with a boat driver that was gonna take us through the border. The only legal way to cross to Suriname is by Ferry (say 5-hour process), but with these boats you do it in 20 minutes and you avoid customs (the perfect route for illegal activities).
Crossing the Courantyne River is dangerous, the river is rough and the speedboats are of questionable reliability. Our speed boat (which was ok) looked like it was gonna break apart any time when going against the waves. Many fatal accidents occur in those waters, mostly when speedboats hit shrimp traps on the banks of the river and tip over.
We made it to Suriname safe, but we soon realized that there was a police stop on the road and that the only way to cross without a stamp in your passport was by bribing the cops, so we decided to go back to Guyana and do it the legal way.
By 6.30 we were already at the ferry site. Of course, the ferry that was supposed to leave at 8am left at 12pm. Nobody complained, I guess people were just used to it. Once in Suriname we had to do some more waiting in line before passing through customs. It was eternal.
Finally free, we took a mini bus to Paramaribo and a taxi to Albina to get to the French border. On the way to Albina, Mark, our driver, told us stories of bush bandits stopping traffic to rob passengers before going back to the bush. “There is nothing to fear,” he said, “they usually only come out when they are tipped off about a drug shipments or someone traveling with drug money”. These bands of thugs are the remnants of the civil war that ended in 1991 and was fought on the eastern parts of the country.
The Hinterlands of Suriname are the type of place where you can make purchases with grams of gold you take from working down at small mines. Illegal Brazilians (Garimpeiros) usually come out from the bush with as much gold they were able to take. In Albina and St. Laurent you can sell that gold for some Dollars, Suris, or Euros. This is a place where people get robbed and killed while crossing the river. “It is usually Dominicans and Brazilians,” said Mark, “they carry gold, and in the case of Dominicans, they show it”. They could also kill anyone carrying cocaine, but tourists and other travelers are usually left alone, said our driver.
Once in Albina Mark got us a boatman who works for him and agreed to take us to France, but at a higher rate. “There is a risk in going at this our, no body is supposed to be in the water passed 8pm, if the Gendarmerie catches you I can loose the boat.” Said Mark.
"What are the odds of something happening?” I asked.
"Last week one of my drivers got shot with a stung gun by the Gendarmerie" he replied, “it is better than in Suriname. Here, if you try to run they kill you."
Passed the Maroni River we found a hotel and went to eat. Being in the EU was a weird feeling: paying with Euros, eating fricassee, and seeing Renaults, Peugeots and Citroens parked with European license plates. Maybe places like Algeria or West Africa would have look like this if the French never left. Although, the French were able to keep this territory, since they are as foreign to the land as anyone else over there. Amerindians make up only 3 percent of a place that was populated by slaves, prisoners, colonizers, Hmong refugees, garimpeiros, pirates, outlaws, astronauts, and so on.
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