Final 1/2 at Kabalebo and back to Paramaribo

LAST ½ DAY AT KABALEBO AND BACK TO PARAMARIBO

            The plane comes to get us today but not until the early afternoon.  Lunch will be a bit earlier and we have to be out of our rooms by before 10 because they need to ready the rooms for the next set of guests that are coming.  The choice of activities this morning are another nature walk – no thank you – or a boat ride up the river to further than we went the other day – past the fishing pavilion.   I decide to sit on the veranda of the main lodge and watch the bird feeders.  Hubby decides to take the boat ride up the river.   So  I do and enjoy myself and find a Kabalebo polo shirt to buy, and he does and sees some herons.  Lunch is a bit early and then we are waiting for the plane to arrive.  The other group that has been here a day longer than we were is also leaving and some of them will be on our plane.  So we wait close to the runway so we have a choice of seats.  This group has not been friendly in that they  have never spoken to us other than grunting a greeting when we have greeted them.  They have always sat at the same table and been very insular in their dealings with the people around the lodge.  So I figured they might storm the plane and spread out so that we would have to sit on the inside seats and not have a window to look out at the jungle.  Luckily I am quite good at getting in front of people when necessary so hubby and I were the first ones on the plane.  We both got window seats and then the plane filled up with the other group.  Flight back was a little bumpy and even though I had used the facilities before leaving, I was somewhat dismayed after half the flight and started thinking with every bump that I might embarrass myself before we landed.  

            I was so fast getting off that plane.  They directed us to the “arrivals” area and I saw no bathroom.  I was really desperate.  Someone noticed and directed me to the toilet.  I ran and made it and good thing I was so desperate and fast because there was a line waiting with crossed legs.  Bumpy small planes always make you have to pee apparently.

            The rest of our group arrives in the second plane and we get our bags put into a separate van and get onto the bus just as the rainstorm of the day starts pouring down on us.  We are going direct to the river to take a ride downstream to the open air museum of Nieuw Amsterdam.  We get on board a boat behind Fort Zeelandia.  The Commewijne River is a tidal river.  So we are climbing down about 7 or 8’ to get into our boat.  We head downriver and the rain starts again.  This is a boat that has the plastic curtains that can be brought down to keep the interior dry.   In theory, this works and in practice, it usually does too but there were a few leaks on this one.

            We are passing large homes along the river with huge docks.  One dock had a boat house on it that was larger than our house in Florida.   The tide is out so the docks have water marks on them a good 6’ or more higher than where the water is at the moment.  Our guide tells us that these are the rich peoples suburbs.  Certainly looks like it.  There are a few colonial plantations along the river too but these are mostly abandoned now.  How sad.

            We turn up another river when we are almost at the mouth of the Commewijne and stop at Nieuw Amsterdam which has an open air museum in a former fort.  We get off the boat and already the height difference is not as much as the tide is coming in.  There are plenty of fishing boats docked there with men cleaning nets and taking showers and cleaning fish.   We walk off the docks and into the small town which has typical houses of Dutch colonial workers – small but gaily decorated.  Usually a motorbike or two in the yard and some chickens and dogs and kids all playing together.

            It is a celebration weekend of some sort so a loudspeaker is blaring some Indian Bollywood song.  There are many people in the park as a loud and boisterous cricket game is in play.  Kids are busy in a playground and moms are putting food out on tables for a picnic.  Except for the cricket and Bollywood, it could be anywhere small town USA.  There it would be football (American football, not soccer) and rock music.

            Past this, we enter the old fort remains.  We visit the old powder rooms where the thick walls were to help keep the powder dry.  Around the grounds are sculptures made from tubing and bright paints.  One is a bicycle, one is a piano.  They are actually hard to see in the bright light as the rain has disappeared.  Next to the powder room is an old carriage house with three hearses in it along with a carriage.  We walk past a large cauldron, about 6’ across at the opening, maybe more.  Our local guide tells us that it was the slaves job to stir the sugar being boiled down in this cauldron.  As it was sitting over an open fire, the slaves would get burned and overheated and sometimes fall into the fire because they’d pass out from the heat.  Also, if they let the sugar burn, their punishment might be to become part of the fire!  Ugh.  It is so hard to imagine the reality of such a situation.

            We continue on to the former jail which also has toilets, thank goodness.  Bumpy planes make you have to pee as do long rides on slow boats in the rain.   One room has many portraits hanging from the ceiling.  We think it was portraits of former slaves or former prisoners.   We continue through the rest of the fort and then head back to the boat where our guide buys himself several fish for his dinner. 

            We head to a former plantation just to “see how the workers used to live”  The name of the plantation was “Rust and Werk” which translated means Rest and Work.  I had thought it was a working plantation but it has been purchased years ago by someone who turned it into a cattle ranch.  The sugar plantation workers who were living there at the time were allowed to stay and they do some work on the cattle ranch.  It wasn’t very much of a visit and personally, I thought it a waste of time so I was glad when we turned around and went back to the boat.  If we had been allowed to go in someone’s house and see what the differences are, might have been better but to stand on the road and look at houses and have someone say “see how the people lived 100 years ago” was not very fun or enlightening.

            Back on the boat and we are going upriver back to Paramaribo with the tide so the trip doesn’t take as long.  When we reach our dock, we are able to step off the boat right onto the dock rather than climbing – as we had done when we got on the boat.  Such is the difference in tides.  Back to the hotel and the Kabalebo people have brought our bags back from their office so we claim them and head up to the room to repack and reorganize and get ready for our last country tomorrow.

One correction that I seriously made a mistake.  We ate at Popeye’s in Paramaribo, NOT KFC.  I was so excited to get the “Kitchen for cholesterol” into the story that I had blocked out Popeye’s.  We’d gone there because Popeye’s in the states (Louisiana mostly) has wonderful biscuits and gravy.  Of course the Popeye’s which was attached to our Hotel Krasnapolsky were out of biscuits and gravy but we ate there anyway.  Always fun to eat at an “ole USA” standard – sort of.