Suriname... 

Known as Dutch Guiana before its independence from the Netherlands in 1975, Suriname is considered by many to be the best of the Guianas for tourism. Wedged in between Guayana, French Guiana and Brazil with the Atlantic coast to the north, there continues to be border disputes with the neighbors.

Down the Maroni...Up the Suriname

November 2015

Suriname is either 1.5nm directly across the Maroni River from Saint-Laurent or ~150nm to a safe anchorage at Domburg, ~35 miles up the Suriname River. The tides dictate boat movement on the river. We needed to wait for an ebbing tide in daylight to carry us down the Maroni back to the Atlantic, and then wait for a flood tide on the Suriname River, to get us upriver to Domburg. Luckily, the total distance is only about 150 nm and there are a few spots to anchor in the rivers while waiting for the proper tides if need be. Our Navionics tide table software was reliable and a good indicator for planning departures and arrivals. We followed our inbound track 27 nm down the circuitous Maroni, making the outbound trip a bit less stressful than the upriver trip had been. With the ebbing tide to carry us, we were spit back into the Atlantic ~ 3.5 hours later.

After a night of maneuvering around fishing nets and boats, we arrived at the mouth of the Suriname by 0530. It was still dark, but the flashing channel markers and the light of the gibbous moon guided us up the channel entrance. The fishing fleet was just returning to port as well, and we followed along in good company, waving at the homecoming crews. The sun rose at 0615 and we began to see river sights. The Suriname River was just as muddy and brown as the Maroni, but it was wider and deeper. The channel markers were more frequent and the coastline was less wild and forbidding.

Soon we approached Paramaribo, Suriname’s capital city. About 10 miles north of the city, we spotted some masts and knew we'd arrived at Domburg and the Marina Suriname. We headed for a mooring, lassoed it, tied up and sighed. It was 24 hours from anchorage to anchorage and about 142 nm. Life was good… a new river and a new country.

Paramaribo - Suriname's Big Smoke

After several days of boat chores, maintenance and repairs, we finally felt like it was time to begin our exploration of this new country. Through the marina, we hired a car from a local fellow at €10/day, unlimited mileage and off we headed in an old Toyota towards the country's big smoke, Paramaribo, or as the locals call it, Parbo.

Paramaribo, probably a corruption of the AmerIndian village name of Parmirbo, was originally settled by the Dutch as a trading post in 1613. It fell into English hands when the Dutch abandoned it and the British built a fort on the site called Fort Willoughby. In 1667, Suriname was given back to the Dutch in the Treaty of Breda. They renamed it Fort Zeelandia, as it is today, and renamed the city New Middelburg (evidently that name never caught on). Paramaribo grew after the abolition of slavery in 1863, attracting many former slaves to the city.

Fort Zeelandia was our first stop. The fort which also houses the Surinaams Museum is “the oldest monumental building in Paramaribo”. It has been carefully restored and its brick walls and bastions have historically been the hub of this UNESCO World Heritage city. The Surinaams Museum is a rather eclectic mix of Suriname history and culture.

The fort is not very large and never really fulfilled its mission as a fortress. It was too easy to sack… a French pirate, Jacques Cassard, proved the point in 1712 when he plundered the city. We climbed the stairs to the second story and admired the view and the breeze of the Suriname River from the bastions.

Beyond its role as a fortress, the fort has operated as the site for criminal and slave punishment including hangings. For nearly a century (1872 to 1967), it was used a prison known as “Gebouw” (Devil). It was converted into a museum in 1972, but taken over by a military regime in 1982 until 1994 when it was converted again into a museum.

After a roti (kind of like an Indian burrito) and a djogo (liter) of cold Parbo, the national beer, we continued our walking tour of the city. (The word djogo comes from the word jug - the vessel the indigenous people used to store water.) We walked past the Presidential Palace, a pretty impressive place opposite Onafhankelijkheidsplein (say that three times fast … actually, say it just once if you can) aka Independence Square. The Ministry of Finance building incorporated the clock tower we'd seen on the foreshore when we'd sailed past coming up the river.

Unfortunately, though the restored buildings were grand, there were probably more dilapidated historic buildings than there were restored ones in the city. Many of the wooden houses were in dire need of restoration, to the point where UNESCO had urged the government to address the problem with threats of revoking the city's World Heritage status.

We wandered through The Palmentuin (Palm Tree Garden), Parmaribo's only public park. Originally a 17th-century vegetable garden, the 10-acre in-city park is home to about 1,000 palm trees, providing shade along its meandering paths.

As usual, one of the best parts of exploring a new city is wandering, sometimes aimlessly, to see what we could see. There was no dearth of statuary in Paramaribo. There seemed to be monuments and statues at each little square spread throughout the town.

The mix of nationalities, ethnicities and cultures in Suriname lends itself to a religious diversity that is profound. “There is no predominant religion in the country. Christianity, both in the form of Roman Catholicism and variations of Protestantism, is dominant among Creoles and Maroons. Most of the Hindustani are Hindu, but some practice Islam or Christianity instead. The Javanese mostly practice either Islam or Christianity. With 20% of the population, Suriname has the largest Muslim community by percentage in the New World [the Americas].”

In most every what-to-do-in-Paramaribo article and brochure we read, the Synagogue situated next to the Mosque, demonstrating Suriname's religious tolerance, was a must-see and it was pretty impressive. The Jewish community in Paramaribo is quite small (~2,700) and reputed to be the oldest continuing Jewish community in the Americas. The wooden Neve Shalom Synagogue dates from 1835, replacing a previous one built in 1719. The original Jewish settlers here were descendants of Jews fleeing persecution during the Spanish Inquisition in Europe. We did not visit, but we learned that one of the unique features of this particular Synagogue is its floor of sand, a reminder of the 40 years in the desert after the Jews' exodus from Egypt. Next door and purportedly sharing a parking lot, stands the grand Ahmadiyya Anjumar Insha'at Islam Mosque. The mosque, reportedly the largest in the Caribbean, took 20 years to build as the use of machinery was not allowed and everything was constructed by hand.

The yellow and grey painted St. Peter and Paul Catholic Cathedral is touted as not only the biggest wooden structure on the South American continent but in the entire Western Hemisphere. We spotted ornate Hindu temples throughout the city and along the roadside on the way from Domburg to Paramaribo. Small, personal, family temples were visible from the road.

Suriname's people seem to have a unique understanding of religious tolerance and freedom. Definitely extraordinary!

Parbo’s Most Interesting Pasttime

It was early... just before 7 am on Sunday and the coolest it would be all day in Paramaribo. Church bells chimed in the distance. The grass on Independence Square glistened, still wet with dew. The Presidential Palace and the clock tower of the Ministry of Finance building stood as prominent sentries overlooking the park. Men began arriving on foot, in cars, trucks, SUVs, vans, HumVees, motorcycles, and mopeds. There were well-dressed businessmen in casual clothes and burly, tough-looking guys with scruffy t-shirts, their baseball hats on backward and some non-descript, regular-looking fellows… all with one common goal. They were all carrying little birds in cages. We rose extra early to be here to witness Paramaribo's most unusual pastime… a Sunday morning tradition, a bird singing competition.

Some say it was brought to Suriname in the early 20th century by Chinese immigrants; others say it comes from the jungle. We were told that similar competitions occur in Belgium. The formal contests here were established in the 1950s. There is now a league of 17 bird-singing clubs in the Paramaribo area and they all compete regularly.

A Hindu Cremation on the Road to the Sea

Henri Fernandesweg is the official name of a side street off Kwattaweg, about 15km (10mi) northwest of Paramaribo city. It's popularly called Weg naar Zee, “The Road to the Sea” and it leads to the shores of the Atlantic. It's a popular birding site because it passes through agricultural lands, mudflats and mangroves. We did see herons and sandpipers, but it wasn't the birds we'd come for. The road also leads to a Hindu sanctuary, and nearby, is the oldest open-air cremation site in Suriname.

Births, weddings and deaths are key events in every culture. We had learned from several local sources attending a Hindu cremation was possible. We were interested. Hopefully, this doesn't sound too morbid or ghoulish, any more than visiting old graveyards. We read that strangers were welcome at the ceremony and photography was allowed, as some of the mourners would be photographing as well. The only rules … be respectful, stand up when the coffin arrived and do not hinder the proceedings.

After wandering about for awhile, we found the cremation site. Several people had gathered and within minutes, men in white bearing one of the coffins, brought it to a cremation site, removed the lid and placed the coffin on the wooden pyre. Mourners followed. Shortly after, another coffin was brought to the second cremation site and finally the third coffin was brought out and laid carefully on its funeral pyre. Families led by a Hindu officiant dressed in white, followed and then gathered around.

We rose, bowed our heads and waited for the proceedings to begin. From our vantage point, we watched as large tins of ghee (clarified butter) were poured over the body. The lid was replaced on the coffin and then men carefully stacked wood high around the coffin. The fire was lit. The white-clad, pallbearers, their heads shaven (perhaps acolytes ?), walked around the coffin, stopping to light the pyre at strategic places. The crowd stayed close. Some threw flower petals... a final farewell to a loved one or friend. As the flames grew in intensity, the awning was removed and the family withdrew. We could feel the heat from where we stood and hear the sound of the roaring blaze as it devoured the pyre.

We didn't understand much of the ritual and wish we had known more, but we found the ceremony to be solemn, respectful, and beautiful. The public, open air aspect of the Hundu cremation with family present seemed very personal. We thought it was a better farewell than the impersonal method with which we are familiar... a mortician delivering the body to a crematorium and collecting an urn of ashes a few days later. We're told that in the Hindu ceremony, the ashes would be gathered the next day by the family and scattered on the sea in a separate ritual. We considered this an unusual cultural experience and felt we were fortunate to be able to witness it.

Beyond Paramaribo, we ventured to Peperpot Nature Reserve, an old plantation in the process of being restored. We wandered around the Paramaribo Zoo and visited a butterfly garden. We sampled local foods, met locals and other cruisers and yet found time get our chores done. Read about our days moored in the Suriname River here.

We enjoyed Suriname very much, but didn't get to explore as much of it as we would have liked in our two-week stay. We would have enjoyed mingling more with the locals and learning more about the diverse cultures here. There was so much we could have seen and done, but the clock ticked on and we wanted to get going.

So tidy up and let’s get a move-on to Guyana.