Camping Suriname Style

I just had one of my best weekends ever here in Suriname. I went on a camping trip…Suriname style. I LOVE camping at home so this was a real treat. The trip was organized by a group of my coworkers. There were 18 of us altogether.

We went to an area called Baboenhol. It was GORGEOUS. To get there, we drove down this narrow country trail (I can't even call it a road) where we passed beautiful green pastures with cows grazing (turns out Baboenhal is actually an area where they are doing some experimental farming techniques...and at the end of the property along the river apparently they established a camping area!).

On the bus to Baboenhol. Note the entire back seat is STACKED with stuff - most of it for cooking!! So Suriname! Oh, and everyone say hello to my new dutch friend Maria in the seat next to me...careful don't confuse her with my dutch friend Christa...she's back in Holland. But Maria is really nice too. I think you're all going to like her. She's a travel maniac, is ALWAYS reading and she loves to cook...gee, do you think we get along!?!

Pulling up to Baboenhol was heaven. I knew immediately it was going to be great. You arrive at the top of the hill overlooking the camping area.

The first thing we did, before we even unpacked was go swimming.

Oh and I discovered a good way to learn dutch is by playing scrabble...in dutch.

As usual with everything in Suriname, there was also TONS of food…really, really good food. So a lot of our weekend was spent like this...

Everyone cooked something. My contribution was dutch apple square…which unfortunately got a bit wet in the cooler, but it was no problem, we just put it on the BBQ and dried it out. It looked a little worse for wear but it still tasted great.

No electricity means you cook by flashlight!

Baboenhol was my first time sleeping (overnight anyway) in a hammock...so good! Well, most of us slept in hammocks, a few people also had tents and a couple people just rolled up in blankets on mats under the stars. And boy were there stars. So many, the sky was just sparkling. Then the full moon came up and was so bright in the sky you didn't even need a flashlight. It was a PERFECT night for camping.

At one point Firoz was considering sleeping in his boat.

My first night sleeping in a hammock and also my first night of actually being COLD in Suriname. A fleece blanket or some heated rocks for my feet would have made sleeping in my hammock bliss…so I imagined I had that and swung myself to sleep. Hammocks by the way are surprisingly comfortable to sleep in. You just roll them up around you and it’s like a cocoon. So no worries about those bats flying around over your head!

Our hut was right along the water, just steps from the beach.

Here is the view from my hammock.

Maria and I agree...Baboenhol was GREAT!!

So, if you EVER get to Suriname. No question, you have to go to Baboenhol. It’s just a 2.5 hour drive from Paramaribo. You’ll experience the joys of driving down the r-o-u-g-h bauxite roads. You get to swim in one of Suriname’s many rivers. At night, you’ll see crocodiles in the stream next to your hut. And if you want, you can even go down the river in a canoe and see a village. We were fortunate to go to the village on the day they were having a celebration. We got to see them dancing through the streets of the village and we even got to walk along with them in celebration. Sorry, no pictures to show. They don’t allow it. But I can tell you, it is literally like walking into a scene from a World Vision show. Little children everywhere, men banging on drums and singing, women dancing all in the midst of some of the poorest living conditions (by western standards anyway). Huts that don’t seem liveable, chickens running around, topless women and naked kids, yet everyone is full of smiles and during celebrations like this most of the women and some of the men have on their best traditional dress. At this village most of the women and children were in red plaid pangi’s. Though the pangi is not just reserved for special occasions. It’s everyday wear for most of the women I’ve seen in the villages. We managed to sneak in this picture as we were arriving at the village...as you travel down the river this is a pretty common site. The woman seen here is in a pangi and sorry boys, this one isn't topless.


Speaking of villages….I actually visited my first village a couple weekends ago. I’m a bit behind in my blog….I’ll add another entry about my trip to JawJaw – a maroon village on the upper Suriname River - once I can scam some better pictures from Berwyn.

Groetjes,

Tricia