This week, I’m joined once again by travel writer, YouTuber, and author Dave Seminara to explore a country rarely found on bucket lists — Suriname. Tucked between Guyana and French Guiana on South America's northern coast, this former Dutch colony is bursting with untouched jungle, rich multicultural heritage, and wildly underrated adventure experiences.

Dave recently spent eight days solo travelling across Suriname, from the capital, Paramaribo, to the remote Maroon villages deep in the rainforest. He shares everything — how to get there, where to stay, why the Upper Suriname River is a must-do journey, and why it may just be the friendliest country in the world.

We dive into:

• The colonial history and ethnic diversity that make Suriname one of the most culturally layered countries in the Americas
• Unique cultural practices like polygamy and menstruation houses in Maroon communities
• Why Suriname is known as the most Asian country outside Asia and the most African country outside Africa
• Incredible food: from roti to Indonesian cuisine — and why Suriname is a hidden foodie destination
• The realities of getting around Suriname, including limited flights, overland routes, and remote access points
• Visiting remote villages via dugout canoe and navigating rivers that cut through untouched rainforest
• Why Paramaribo is worth a short visit — plus tips on markets, accommodation, and cultural etiquette
• An honest take on safety, infrastructure, friendliness, and why the locals are genuinely curious about travellers

This episode is full of inspiration for anyone dreaming of a more authentic, remote, and meaningful travel experience. Dave’s storytelling is full of insight, humour, and practical tips — and by the end, you might be planning your own trip to Suriname.

Thanks to Dave for coming on again, and he is welcome back anytime, as he is a much-loved guest on the podcast.

🎙️ Hosted by James Hammond | Part of the Voyascape Network

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📺 Watch Dave's Suriname vlogs on YouTube: Mad Traveler

🌐 Visit Dave's website to buy his books or read his work: website

Timestamps

00:00 – Intro: Where is Suriname?

02:30 – Dave’s travel style and why he chose Suriname

04:45 – Suriname’s location, Dutch colonial past & unique geography

06:55 – The most diverse small country in the world

09:00 – Maroon tribes, escaped slavery & cultural preservation

11:30 – Polygamy, menstruation houses & village customs

13:45 – Food in Suriname: Caribbean, Indian, Indonesian & more

15:50 – Is Suriname the world’s friendliest country?

17:00 – Can white travellers visit every village? The Dahomey debate

19:20 – How to get to Suriname (flights from the US & Europe)

21:30 – Suriname’s surprising lack of tourism infrastructure

23:00 – Visa tips, borders with Guyana & French Guiana

25:00 – Safety, yellow fever, currency & costs

27:30 – Paramaribo: What to do in the capital

30:15 – Maroon Market & cultural etiquette with cameras

32:00 – Languages spoken & how much English is used

34:40 – Upper Suriname River journey begins

37:10 – Dugout canoe rides, jungle breeze & remote villages

40:00 – Organised trip logistics: where to stay & how far to go

42:15 – Meeting locals, learning traditions & polygamy explained

45:30 – Funeral customs, marriage symbols & menstruation rules

48:10 – Do locals ask about your life? Curious about the US

50:00 – Dave visits a village school & shares what happened

52:10 – Booking info: Kanini Paatie, tour companies & great guesthouses

54:30 – Excursion to Jodensavanne: Jewish history in Suriname

58:10 – Why day trips from Paramaribo are ideal

59:50 – A visit to a former plantation and jungle cycling paradise

1:02:00 – Hard truths about slavery, resistance & Suriname’s past

1:04:00 – Off-topic but relevant: Safety in El Salvador

1:08:00 – Final thoughts: Is Suriname safe to travel to?

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Thanks for supporting me and the podcast!

Cheers, James.

And if you think about South America as a whole, it's a country alongside Guyana and French Ghana, but they kind of get left behind, right? With the big hitters by Saanen. ⁓

Let's

tell people where it is because most of my friends when I told them I was in Suriname, they think that's in Asia or they have no idea where the hell that's located. This country used to be called Dutch Guyana, right? So it's sandwiched in between Guyana, which was owned by you folks, the Brits, back in the day. It's now an independent country, right? And then on the other side, you got French Guyana, which chose to remain part of France. So that is still a department of France and it is a country of just over 600,000 people, but

geographically it's not tiny. It is a very pristine and untouched country. It's such a diverse country. For a country of only 600,000 people, it must be the most diverse small country in the world. And so that's why a lot of people say they call it the most Asian country outside Asia and the most African country outside Africa, which is super neat, I think.

Welcome to the Winging It Travel Podcast, your weekly ticket to the world. Dropping every Monday and hosted by me, James Hammond, proudly part of the Voyascape Network. This is a travel podcast that throws out the itinerary and dove straight into the raw, real and unpredictable essence of global exploration. Chasing moments over milestones, those spontaneous encounters, immersive sounds and unforgettable stories. Whether I'm hiking up volcanoes in Guatemala,

camping under the stars in British Columbia.

I've met incredible people, seen breath taking places and collected unforgettable stories. I now get to share them with you, alongside some of the most diverse and well travelled guests from around the world. Expect engaging conversations that bring fresh perspectives and inspiring travel tales. There are also raw, reflective solo episodes where I share personal insights, practical tips and honest stories from the road. This is a podcast for travellers, dreamers, backpackers and anyone who's ever thought, what if I just went for it and travelled? If you're looking for stories to tell, tips to share,

and experiences to inspire, then you're in the right place. There's so much travel content coming your way, it might just spark that trip you've been dreaming about for years. You can find Winging It, a more fantastic travel podcast from around the world at voyescape.com. The link is in the show notes. Let's go and explore the world. Hello and welcome to this week's episode where I'm rejoined by a well-loved guest on the podcast, namely Dave Semonaro, who is a writer, journalist, YouTuber.

and the author of Mad Traveller, one of my favorite travel books I've ever read. So Dave, welcome back to the show. How are doing?

Ames, thank you so much for having me again. I'm doing well. How are you, my friend?

Yep, not too bad. Thanks. Not too bad. We're going to talk about Suriname today, which is a country I've not talked about in the podcast. So this is a different one for me because I know literally nothing about it. So it's going to be a lot of questions coming your way and it's about your trip for eight to nine days. Last year, I think, right? Or this year. Yep. So just to remind your listeners where you're based and how you been as well.

They're in February.

Yeah, thank you so much. I'm doing well traveling as much as I can afford as always writing about all of my adventures, vlogging about them on my YouTube channel. I am based in lovely St. Petersburg, Florida and all of the elderly snowbirds or at least most of them have now gone. This is a wonderful time of year here. It's late April and usually between Christmas and Easter is complete chaos here. We have all kinds of tourists and snowbirds here and mostly are gone by now. And so it's getting nice and quiet here.

and hotter though, unfortunately.

Yeah, do people vacate the summer to the northern part of the country just to escape the heat?

they absolutely do. So we've got a very large snowbird population here that they live here. The lucky ones, the lucky people who are here six or eight months for you here and who have some other wonderful place to flee in the summertime. The lucky ones. Now me on the other hand, I just plan one big international trip every summer where we try to buzz out of here for as long as I can afford.

Yeah, you said that on the last podcast, I think, when we talked about Latvia and Estonia and Lithuania, I think you said that you planned. Yep, planned like a big trip in the summer just to get away and take the family.

Yeah, absolutely. So last summer was Japan. Two summers ago was the three Baltic countries plus Finland. Every summer we go somewhere and my children's country collection is growing and growing. But I also enjoy taking the individual solo trips too. And that's what I did. I buzzed off from the family in February for eight days in Suriname. And by the way, you pronounced it very well too because the way Surinamers pronounce it,

I'm not going to do it very well, but they had like an extra vowel on to the end of it. It's really interesting. wish I could replicate it well, but they kind of say like Suriname, Suriname, kind of like that. It's interesting.

Okay, well let's dive straight into it because why not? What made you first of all want to go there? And was there someone who told you, do you know what, you've got to go there or was it on your radar? How did that come about?

Yeah, there were two people who told me I had to go there. And believe me, it doesn't take much, you know? I could get like a half a person to tell me a place is good and I'm booking a ticket. I actually had two people to tell me to go to Suriname, which was like, damn, I got to get out there. So in a former life before I was a writer and YouTuber, I was in the US Foreign Service. I worked at American embassies in different countries. And one of my foreign service buddies actually has been working at the embassy in Suriname for almost four years now.

And he's been telling me, man, you gotta get down here. He's lived in a lot of different countries around the world. And he told me his favorite post of his entire career, he's been in the Foreign Service for 20 years now, has Suriname. So that's saying something. When a guy who's lived in a lot of different countries, this is his favorite post. So he's been telling me to go. Then I had, you I know all of these, I know almost all of the world's most traveled people because of my book, Matt Travelers, which you kindly plugged at the beginning of this.

my most recent book, I've written four of them, but that book is about the world's most traveled people and how they got conned by William Bakeland, was one of your countrymen. I gotta remind you of that. Anyways, one of the people that I interviewed for that book told me that traveling along the Upper Suriname River was one of the most interesting trips she's ever taken in her life. And she told me that it is the only place in the Americas where you can feel like you were in Sub-Saharan Africa.

And I said, what? I gotta do that. I wanna know exactly what trip you're talking about. And I'm replicating that baby. And that was what I did. That was the first thing I did in Suriname was replicate the trip that this woman who, by the way, she's the first Filipino woman to travel to every country in the world. And so this is someone, when somebody who's been everywhere is telling me this is a special place, that means something more to me. To those two people.

Sure.

And if you think about South America as a whole, it's a country alongside Polly Guyana and French Guyana. I know French Guyana is not a technically a country, but they kind of get left behind, right? With the big hitters beside them. Yeah.

Let's tell people where it is because most of my friends, when I told them I was in Suriname, they think that's in Asia or they have no idea where the hell that's located. So this country used to be called Dutch Guyana, right? So it's sandwiched in between Guyana, which was owned by you folks, the Brits, back in the day. It's now an independent country, right? And then on the other side, you got French Guyana, which chose to remain part of France. So that is still a department of France. So they use the euro there and it is not an independent country, not an independent country, but they do have a lot of

Sovereignty from France and France sends them a lot of money So that country is apparently quite well developed with its infrastructure apparently you can actually even drink the tap water in French Guyana but I've heard that Suriname is the most interesting of the three and So that's why I chose Dutch Guyana for my trip and it is a country of just over 600,000 people But it's it's it's geographically. It's not tiny. It's a fairly large country geographically, but there's only 600,000 people living there and

It is a very pristine and untouched country. There's very few roads. Go ahead and look at Google Earth or look at Google Maps while you're listening to this or afterwards. You'll see there aren't a lot of roads in this country, but there are a lot of trees.

Yes, that reminds me actually, I want to say that Dave has very kindly shared a link to this episode. So if you go into show notes and you're listening right now, click the link and he's got some bookmarks on the country of Suriname of where he wanted to go to and did go to. So you can follow along with the geography because I know for a lot of people, this is a brand new country, a brand new concept, right? And it is for me as well. So that's in the show notes, click that. And I've got some throwaway facts for Suriname, like it's capital, Paramaribo.

UNESCO World Heritage Site. Official language is Dutch but has many different cultures and is very ethnically diverse. Rainforest covers approximately 94 % of the country. And as you said, the British next door colonised Guyana but once colonised Suriname but then swapped it with a Dutch for New Amsterdam which we now know as New York. So just some quick facts there for the country.

Yes, and let's unpack a few of those, shall we? Yes, let's do it. There's some interesting stuff there. Now, on the face of it, maybe since I'm American, I'm a little biased. You might think and people would laugh like, what? The Dutch did what? The Dutch traded what? They traded New York City for Suriname. But you think about it, the Brits, you folks lost America in the 17s, right? So you actually did not control New York for that long. Whereas the Dutch controlled Suriname.

It must be the most diverse small country in the world because you've got first of all you have what are called maroons. We're going to talk about the maroons ⁓ a lot tonight because visiting the maroon communities for me was the highlight of my trip. So the maroons are the people who are they were they are the descendants of enslaved people who escaped to the Dutch plantations mostly in the 18th century and fled into the forested interior into the Amazon rainforest of the country and the descendants of those people still have a very strong maroon culture. ⁓

Okay. Yeah. And Indians, okay. From the subcontinent of India and to a lesser degree, Chinese and some other groups. Right. And so that's why a lot people say they call it the most Asian country outside Asia and the most African country outside Africa, which is super neat. think.

That's an amazing mix of cultures there, isn't it? And they all live quite peacefully amongst each other, right, as well.

They do live peacefully amongst each other and it contributes to what you experience as a traveler. It's not just something that you read on Wikipedia, but that diversity you tasted in the food. So this is a country that has surprisingly awesome food. This is one of the great delights of my experience there is you've got the Caribbean influence so you can have like great roti and stuff like this, right? You got great Caribbean food.

You have great Indian food, have great Indonesian food, Chinese food, the mixture of all that stuff into their own unique Surinamese blend of it. I'm telling you folks, Suriname is such an underrated food destination. If you go and look at some of the videos that I made on my YouTube channel, Mad Travel, you will see how delicious the food is. But if you want to dive deeper into the cuisine of Suriname, I strongly recommend to you another YouTuber.

His name is David's been here and he is a food. He's specifically a food vlogger. David's been here, made a three hour long vlog about the food of Suriname. And when you, when you see all the stuff he ate, will be seriously impressed because the food is great and the people are great. That's the other thing too, is that, you know, one of the videos that I made about Suriname, the title of it you'll see is I called it the world's friendliest country. And a few people tried to fact check me on that and, and dispute me and say,

No, I think some other country is friendlier. Sure. Yeah. I don't know. That could be true. This is all a very subjective thing. But I will tell you, I have rarely been to a more friendly country than Suriname. So I absolutely love the people in this country.

And can I ask you about the people, this might be not a controversial question, not a pushback, but just a question. In your article, which is coming out in July, you did mention that there are some villages along that two day excursion along the river where they don't accept white people. Is that true? And obviously we can understand why, but what's thoughts on that?

That is, I think in the history of podcasting, is the greatest transition and segue and follow-up question ever. That is such a great question because it seems very incongruous, doesn't it? I've just told you it's the friendliest place in the world and you're pointing out that I mentioned in my article that there's no white people allowed village. Great point. So that village you're talking about is called Dahomey. If you want to pin it on the, I think it's already on my Google Map, if you want to pin it.

D-A-H-O-M-E-Y, Dahomey. Do not go there if you're white, okay? No, seriously, the only reason that that tiny little village along the river is famous is because some YouTubers have gone there and have made some viral videos where they've interviewed villagers who said, don't come here if you're white, that sort of thing. listen, ⁓ that is just one village of maybe 100 or 200 people in the entire country. I traveled up and down that river, and if you look at...

The second video that I did from Suriname, which is my vlog about traveling along the Suriname River, I will let you judge for yourself whether the people there were friendly or not. think if you watch my vlogs, you'll see that the people are very welcoming and friendly there. Now, what's up with that one village that's decided it doesn't want white people? I do not know, but I will tell you that is a great exception to the rule. And the other Maroon villages that I visited...

along the river, along with another village we could talk about later, maybe at the end, because I did this on the last day on my way to the airport. I went to a village. I went to a village, James, called Santigron. Okay. That it specifically said in my guidebook, there's only one guidebook to Suriname, the Brat Guide to Suriname. It specifically said that do not go there without a tour guide. And then if you go there without a guide, you may be, you may receive a frosty welcome from the natives. Well,

Once again, I went there anyways with no God and I cannot tell you how kind the people were to me there. again, if you don't believe me, just go on my YouTube channel. I made a video about it ⁓ and the headline is something like, I was told to avoid this village. I did not avoid it and the people were amazing there.

Okay, I was playing devil's advocate. ⁓ and also, okay. Yeah. Yeah. And also you can kind of accept why, you know, yeah. The history of colonisation is a, is a tough one. As we all know, it's another conversation for another podcast, I think, but you can understand why they're just bringing down that generational thinking of, do you know what? We don't need those type of people anymore. They cause heartbreak before we don't want them here now. Totally get it. I'm going to on to the preparation for your trip because

That's a wonderful question.

I guess people are thinking, okay, yeah, I'm interested. But first of all, how on earth do get there?

Well, okay, let's talk about flights getting into this place. Now, first I'm gonna give you the bad news and then I'll give you the good news. The bad news is there are not a lot of flights coming into this country. Now, if you are European, there's a daily flight from Amsterdam on KLM. So if you're coming from Europe, probably that's gonna be your best option. I cannot, I'm not an expert on every flight route, but KLM's daily flight from Amsterdam nonstop to Paramaribo is gonna probably be

your best option if you're coming from Europe. Now, from the US, not a lot of options. One of the options you have is there are some flights on Suriname Airways from Miami, but not many, and they're seasonal too. I think the much easier way to go is the way that I went, and also on an airline that I really like, Copa Airlines has a daily flight from Panama City, Panama, to Paramaribo. And that is how I got there, because I can fly from my home airport, which is Tampa.

So I went Tampa to Panama City, Panama City to Paramaribo. Now, the crazy thing about this country is their entire tourism strategy, and I have a little rant about this in one of my vlogs, is all based upon the Dutch, right? So literally every tourist I met in this place, and I didn't meet that many tourists, which is wonderful because it's not chock full of tourists, but all the tourists that I did meet, every single one of them was from the Netherlands. Their entire tourism strategy is based upon attracting Dutch tourists.

And that's who you're going to meet if you're a traveler there. So as you go there as an American or as a Brit or as a Falkland Islander or wherever the hell you're from, if it's not from the Netherlands, and people will be interested to meet you. I think you get a nice welcome. So the good news is, is that it's not oversaturated with tourists. And I find in life that the most accessible places are rarely the best ones to visit. this is my kind of my rule of thumb, like with, for example, like Greek islands.

That's good.

Like for Greek islands, do you want to go to a Greek island that has a daily, like three daily nonstop flights from Ryanair? You probably don't, right? So it doesn't have great accessibility, but the reward is once you get there, you are not jostling for space with lots of other tourists.

have you heard anything about the Overland travel options? Can you go to the countries either side through there?

from, yes, you can, but not without some hassles. I did not do it over land, as I said, but I've talked to other people who have, and you can come from Brazil, not so much. believe somebody can fact check me on this, now that is, you wanna talk about remote wilderness where no one's living, the Suriname Brazil border, I do not even think, I do not think you can do that over land, or if you did, you'd be,

You know, you'd be a hell of an adventure. You'd be very impressive. And I'm not positive that land border crossing is even open because it's so remote there. But from the other two Guyana's, yes, you can go overland and it's time consuming though from what I've read. There are actually two, if you want to do day trips, there is a day trip. Also, there's a lot of little travel agencies in Suriname. So if you'd like to also go to French Guyana while you're there.

There are day trips to there's a market town in French Guyana that's right over the border and you can go there and you do not need a multiple entry visa because they don't stamp you out if you're only going into the border region because Suriname you do have to buy like an online visa and for whatever reason they're like their single entry visa so I was like wait how can you even do this? So if you want to come in and out of the country like go further afield and then come back again you've got to buy two of those single entry visas.

but not if you take the day trip to French Guyana. So if you're a country collector and you also want to bag French Guyana, I did not do that, but there are day trips organized by tour operators where you can do that.

That's good to know. what about like vaccinations? Do you get a fever maybe or anything like that?

Yellow fever is recommended, absolutely. yellow fever is one of those nice ones where if you've had it one time in your life, you're set. And I got yellow fever, a vaccine, like 20 years ago. And so that was all I needed. But they didn't ask me for it when I entered. I just looked to have it.

Yeah, you get little card, don't you? I got one in Australia. Yeah, I've lost my card. So I don't know what to do about that. Yeah, I might have to get it again. Anyway. What about the sort of like maybe currency situation? Because I keep thinking Dutch maybe is that an influence, but I guess it's not Euro, right? So must be another currency or US dollar maybe.

I've got a yellow card.

I did have to just take this.

Yeah, they do have their own currency and gosh, I'm forgetting what the exchange rate is, but here's some more good news about Suriname, folks. It's very affordable. It's very affordable. Now, I'm not going to put it in the category of dirt cheap. It's not insanely cheap. It's not laughably cheap, but it is significantly, if you're American or European, is significantly cheaper than what you are used to. I'll give you an example. You can go out for a very nice meal.

and really stuffed yourself at like a mid-range type restaurant for like eight or ten US dollars in that range.

Okay, decent. Yeah, take that. Okay, let's delve into the trip. I guess you started in Paramaribo. I guess there's a lot to say about that. How did you find that city as a capital?

So I have mixed feelings about Paramaribo. I'll tell you something about this country. You do not go there for the city. So I'm not saying there's nothing to do there, nothing to see. It's worth a couple of days. But the real unique and incredible highlight of this country is the natural beauty of the jungle, which covers up most of the country. The animals, the rivers, the nature. So I would not budget a tremendous amount of time for the capital city. I would budget one or two days.

some interesting things there that I will tell you that I like about the capital. A few things. First of all, it's one of those countries where it's only got one proper city, right? They've got other places in the country that they call a city, but it's honestly the only proper city in the whole country. So everything emanates from there. All of the tour companies are based there. If you are a city person, I do not recommend this, but some people just stay only in the capital and they do day trips.

There are a tremendous number of day trips you can take with different tour agencies that bring you back and forth to the capital. So if you're the kind of person that only likes to unpack their suitcase once, put their things away in the closet and not pack back up again, you can do that. I don't recommend it. But if you like to travel like that, you can do that because you can get all around the country on day trips with these different tour companies back and forth from the capital. Another thing that I like about the capital is the food.

There are a number of excellent markets, including a couple of ethnic markets that are open on the weekends that are like Sunday markets only. Unfortunately, I was not there on a Sunday, so I did not get to you, but there's a lot of good restaurants in the country. And you're going to have the best selection of food and markets in the capital. There is also a very, very unique market. If you like unusual markets in the capital, it's called the Maroon Market.

Some people call it the witch's market, although I was told that's somewhat derogatory. But what you have there is mostly maroon women who sell handicrafts, but also more interestingly, bush medicine.

unusual herbal remedies and such. Very interesting market. I highly recommend you go to the Maroon Market and be careful with your camera there. Not because it's going to be stolen, but because most of the women who work there do not like being photographed or videoed. I was lucky. I found one woman who let me make a video about what she does and she explained some of her herbal remedies. But like even her friends, some of the other stallkeepers were mad at her for letting me video and were like cursing at her in their language.

Which by the way, language, let's talk about the languages too.

I'm just going stop right there because if you're enjoying this episode it would mean the world to me if you could rate and review the podcast. Give it 5 stars on your podcast app of choice. It really helps more travellers find the show and also promotes the show for free to more people. And if you would like to support me and the podcast you can buy me a coffee for $5 at buymeacoffee.com. Every sip helps fuel more travel stories. The link is in the show notes. Let's get back to the show.

Yeah, yeah, let's do the languages. I imagine Dutch is prevalent, but they must speak Creole as well, I'd imagine.

I've got more great news for you. So since they have all these other different languages, I was shocked how many people speak English in this darn country. You and I are, know, Americans and Brits were kind of notorious for not knowing a lot of other languages. I went there, so first of all, they've got a language called Stranden Tongo, which is the lingua franca, right? Almost everybody speaks that language, right? They also speak Dutch, and Dutch is the major language that's the first language in the schools in the Netherlands. Not in the Netherlands, obviously in the Netherlands too, but also in Suriname, right?

Okay.

So those are the first two languages that pretty much everybody speaks. A lot of the people also speak a third language, particularly the Maroons. Now the Maroons, as I said, there's five or six Maroon tribes and they each have their own language too. So for example, I traveled amongst the Saramakans. So the Saramakans, their first language is Saramakan. Their second language is Saran and Tongo. Their third language is Dutch, but I was amazed. A lot of them speak a fourth language and thank God that fourth language is English.

What impressed me was, you know, in a lot of countries, you know, people will, some people will speak English, but it'll only be the very educated, the very top of the society. Where like, you meet people who are making a six figure salary, they might speak English, but nobody else does. I was amazed that you can go to the market and talk to someone who's selling peppers or tomatoes or someone who lives out in the countryside. And many of those people can communicate in English and actually also enjoy doing so.

Because there's some people in the world as you know, where like they're capable of speaking English, but they're pissed at you if you even approach them in English or like, you know, they actually with you if like you talk English to them because they want to speak their language. I met a lot of people in Suriname who were delighted to practice their English and because they don't get that much of a chance to do so because you don't get American and British travelers there much.

Yeah, I think you mentioned that on your, again, in your article, which is coming out soon about the first sort of activity you did where you had a group of you and there's like five, I think five Dutch speaking tourists and you're the only English speaking tourists and you sort of had your own personal guide. And so I'm thinking here that if you're English speaking, this is a golden opportunity to go somewhere where you're, it's quite rare you're to get a nice little exclusive service where they don't mind speaking English to you. And it's not like frowned upon.

Yeah, now the only the only downside is there are some museums and again I ranted about this in one of my vlogs There are some museums that are in Dutch only where you walk into the darn museum and every darn thing is in Dutch Which is kind of sorry, but it's that's a little silly again. I hope I don't I hope I don't really I hope I don't alienate all my Dutch fans because like I actually love the Netherlands I've got a bunch of I made a lot of Dutch friends actually on this trip and in preview So like I got nothing against the Netherlands folks. Trust me. I love the Netherlands, but

Why in the hell would you, when you're in South America, even if Dutch is your colonial language, why would you open up a museum and have it only in Dutch? Come on, folks.

Yeah, interesting. Yeah, I do agree. Even though the Dutch is the closest language to English, right? Technically. Is it?

Doesn't seem like it when I hear them talking, believe me.

No, no, no, absolutely. Okay, so you left the capital city. So what was the first big activity you had planned? I think you might mention it already, but tell the listeners what you're thinking.

Yeah, so the upper Suriname River Maroon Villages trip is what I started with. So I did a three day, two night excursion. And I was a little nervous going into this excursion. I have to be honest with you because I looked at it. You go there, first of all, from the capital, you take about a three hour mini bus ride to a forlorn little hamlet called Pokigrond. And believe me, this place barely exists. Tiny little market, lots of flies and mosquitoes buzzing around, meats and things like that.

A few random guys drinking beer in the sun. There's like nothing going on in this village except for all of these big, beautiful dugout canoes that are launching from there. It's a bend in the river. It's a bend in the upper Suriname River where all of these river journeys start from. And I looked at these boats and they don't have any covering. Picture a long sort of wooden dugout canoe. And I thought to myself, hmm, because I'm one of those people who like,

I am an adventurous traveler, I'm thinking, all how long do I want to spend on those kind of boats? There's no bathroom. You got to go to the bathroom. You know, you're out of luck. It's one of those sorts of deals. So you, that's the first decision you have to make is if you're going on this voyage, which resort or hotel are you going to stay in and how far away is that place? Because one of the guidebooks I read recommended a place called Don Potti, D-A-N-P-A-A-T-I. That is one of the nicest resorts supposedly on the river, but.

It's a three hour boat ride from Bogey Ground. wow. Right. So I looked at those boats, the pictures of them online and I thought, hmmm, three hours on one of those little boats with no pit stops, no bathroom, no covering from the shade. So if it rains, you're getting poured on. Right. No covering from the sun. And I thought, nah, I want to stay somewhere closer. So I found a place called Kanini Pati, K-N-I-N-I, separate word, P-A-A-T-I. Now Pati means island.

Yeah.

in their language. So that's why a few of them have the word potty in them because this is a small little island where I stayed on in the middle of the Suriname River. One hour away, one hour boat ride. I thought I could survive anything for one hour. Well, lo and behold, I get out on this boat and I'm trying to set the scene for you. This upper Suriname River is a wide, broad river. Jungle on both sides. Beautiful, pristine Amazon jungle on both sides of you.

And the canoes have a motor on them. So you are going relatively fast, which means you get a nice breeze. Which believe me, in Suriname, a breeze is very welcome. We haven't talked about the weather there yet. But this place is near the equator. So it's hot. It's humid. for me. I live in Florida, so I'm used to hot. This was another layer of hot. So you get on the river. You're out there. You're in the middle of this beautiful river.

You've got the Amazon jungle on both sides of you. You hear the chirping of the birds. You're getting the wonderful breeze that's like life affirming breeze that's coming at your face. Wind in your hair. And I was immediately in heaven. I was thinking to myself, damn, I wish I had gone to the place that was three hours away. Cause I am loving this boat ride. Like this boat ride is absolutely epic. And it's also, you know, the boat men are so skilled.

This river has some little rapids and some eddies and things like that. These guys are very skilled. They need to know every little inch of that river to be able to expertly pilot it in and out of these little rapids and these other things. And I'm telling you, you're going by all these little villages. There are something like 60 or 65 maroon villages along this river. You are passing by these villages and you are seeing the village life go by. It is.

It is for somebody like me, a person who has a high level of curiosity, it was like rapture. I couldn't have been happier. I absolutely loved going by these places. And there's one thing that they warn you about too. They tell you, please do not photograph and video the villagers as we motor by their villages because they're often naked. So people use that river to bathe, to take their baths, and also to wash their dishes.

And so as you're passing by these villages, there are people there getting clean, washing pots and pans. There are children playing and splashing each other and village life is going by and it is fascinating. Boy, is it interesting.

way you described that reminds me of my experience in Borneo. Exactly the same. We're three hours on a boat into the middle of the rainforest to this camp which is basically just a couple of wooden huts and that's it. And we're like, we have no idea where we're going, where we are. But when you get that rush of air on that boat, it does become really enjoyable. It sounds a bit strange, but I'm not really a boat person. I'm not like hugely into them if you like. But when you sit on that boat with a life jacket on and just see...

where you're going in the distance and that wind comes through your face and your hair. There's something magical about that, I think.

And I haven't been to Borneo so offline we'll have to compare notes about that. After I made this trip I was thinking to myself I just want to take more canoe trips like this on rivers because I love it.

⁓ Yeah, yeah. And what was your plan for the three days there or three nights? What are you actually going to see him do?

That's the cool thing is that you know for me I'm the kind of person I never take organized trips like I never ever ever take organized group trips I just plan everything myself, but this is one of those places it really it does not lend itself to Independent travel they do not want you to just show up at these maroon villages without reservation or or whatever Yeah, this is the kind of place where you do go on a group trip, so they plant everything for us They give you your meals you pay a set price and the price is very reasonable

And even, you know, a canini party, the place where I stayed, I don't remember the exact price, but it is very reasonable for what you're getting because they're giving you entertainment, they're bringing you to villages, they're giving you food. And so it is, it is very, very reasonable. And, you know, they plan everything for you. So they're saying you get there and there's like, okay, you have an hour to relax. And then in an hour, we're going to take you on a guided hike through the jungle. And then two hours later, we're going to do this and that and the other thing. And so what they do is they take you to see some of the nearby villages on the boat.

and they take you on some excursions and they take you to some bird watching, some jungle hikes. And it is fantastic because you learn about the, if you're like sort of a cultural anthropology type traveler as I am, where like you really want to see how did the people live. This is it for you because they introduce you to people in the villages. For example, one of the little villages they took us to, we met a guy who makes these beautiful dugout boats, these wooden canoes.

Yeah.

I love that, just getting to ask this guy about life in this village and what is it like. You learn about the maroon culture and how preserved it is. Now, that's another thing about the remoteness of this country and the remoteness of these villages. I should say, James, there's no other way to get to these villages. There are no roads leading to these villages. That is why their culture has been so well preserved and why they still speak their languages. And when they preserve their traditions, for example, they are still polygamous.

Got it. Yeah.

and you can learn all about that. Now, you I have a book about, you know, stories from around the Americas called Breakfast with Polygamists. So I am not a polygamist, but I find it very interesting. So when I travel to places where polygamy is practiced, you better believe I'm interested to hear all about that. And that's something that you can learn about when you're in CERNO.

Interest that they have this this is what where it goes I'm the same as you want to know what the people are like what they eat what they speak but also their interest like day to day I guess leisure interest what they what they do to play football do they have their own games is it mostly just I don't know helping the village building like what what is their day-to-day life in a nutshell that you could see

their hobbies you you hit the nail on the head the football so they were very proud to show me their football pitch in this one village and they were telling me about Suriname's famous legacy of footballers is that you know i'm not a huge soccer fan or football fan as you folks call it but they were telling me that there's been a lot of famous Surinamers I think Ruud Gullit was the most famous of them

Love it. Yeah.

Suriname has produced, given its small population, a lot of great footballers. And in these maroon villages, they love to play. And they very proudly told me that their village team in this one village that we visited called New Aurora, that their team from this little village of New Aurora beat one of the big teams in Paramaribo once. And this was sort of their claim to fame. So I think that in terms of hobbies and pastimes and things like this, I might disappoint you by telling you they're a lot like

everybody else and that they like the same kind of things that we do. Soccer, other games, they like, believe it or not, they like watching soccer on their phones. They like watching YouTube on their phones. I'm going to disappoint you with that. they're not like aliens. However, they do have cultural practices that are very unusual. Let's talk about a couple of those. So first of all, have very unique rules surrounding their polygamy and they'll tell you all about those when you get there. But in a nutshell,

Some of them are that if you can marry as many women as you can support up and down the river, wherever the heck you like, but you are not supposed to sleep overnight in that village unless you were born there. So meaning that you can keep a wife in that village, right? But you got to give her her own hut and provide for her. You must provide equally to all of your wives. So if you have seven wives, their houses that you build for them had better be equal, right?

But you are not supposed to sleep there, at least in the villages that I visited, unless you were from there. So you can come and visit your wife there, but not to stay overnight. Also, menstruating women, when women are menstruating in these villages, in the traditional villages, I should stipulate that there are traditional villages and Christian villages up and down the Suriname River, right? And so the vast majority of them are traditional villages, but five or six of them are Christian villages.

So the missionaries did their best. Dutch missionaries tried to convert everybody up in the land down this river, but they only succeeded in maybe 10 % of them. ⁓ And so in the, in the Christian villages, there are churches there and these rules do not apply, but in the traditional villages, the menstruating women are sent to a special house where they are to remain for the course of their menstruation period. And in the villages that I visited, I don't know if it's all of them, but they are pink houses.

So it's a big brightly painted pink house and the women are supposed to go there because if they come into contact while they're menstruating with others, they feel that they could take away their power and it's bad luck in a sense, bad juju. So there's that. There's also lots of other interesting cultural practices too. And again, if you're interested in this kind of stuff, the second video that I did about my journey along the Upper Serenam Viver, I actually interviewed a young Saramakan woman.

and I asked her all of these questions where she sort of explained polygamy. was able to ask her, how do you feel? How would you feel? Now, in fact, her husband did not have more wives, but I asked her, how would you feel if he did that? You know, you can see her response to that. And I thought it was really interesting to be able to ask young Surinamese women how they feel about polygamy. And they also have a specific dress that they wear. So you can see what this looks like. But this woman, because she was taken, because she does have a husband, she had on a specific sort of

outfit, I'm going to call it almost like a cummerbund or a handkerchief type thing that she had around her waist that had a phrase written in it in their language, in the Saramakan language that would stippify. So if she walks anywhere or travels to other villages along the river, other men would see her outfit and know, okay, I better not hit on her because she's taken. so, okay.

In some aspects, the Saramakans are just like everybody else. They like football, they like YouTube, they like other stuff. But they have elements of their culture that are very well preserved and they have retained those to this day. They also have very specific rights for a funeral. So in the other Saramakan area I'm going to tell you about that I visited, we're going to talk about later on my last day of the trip in San Tigran, I met some women who were mourning because their uncle had just died.

And when someone dies in the Saramakan culture, they have very unique celebrations as part of their funeral. And they told me that other people kind of make fun of us and say, you guys are having parties when someone dies. They're known for that. So their funerals are a little different too.

know

what? I admire that because I understand the grieving process is going to have a few tears. I think we all would have that. But why not celebrate life? Why not?

It's interesting you say that because I like the idea. There's something about the phrase though that you these days almost everyone calls a funeral a celebration of life in the US. I don't know if they do that in the UK or Canada but

Yeah,

it's getting there. Yeah, yeah, of course.

And for some reason, I told my wife, I told my wife when I die, I do not want a celebration of life, I want a funeral. Because I've been to some celebrations of life and they don't feel like a damn celebration, I'll be honest with you. They feel like a funeral. So I kind of just like, I like truth in advertising. So unless my funeral is gonna be like a really rollicking party, and hey, I wish that it would be, I would like it to be advertised properly.

Okay, that is on record. So I don't want

I don't want false advertising. People think they're going to come to a damn celebration and then people are crying because I'm dead. It's kind of like a fraud, isn't it?

Yeah, is. Yeah, yeah. I hear what you're saying. Okay. And what are these people that you're visiting? ⁓

James

if I was Sarah mock, I'll make an addendum to that if I die in Suriname and I get a Sarah mocking funeral Go ahead and call it a celebration of life because over there. They are actually partying and celebrating

Okay, makes sense, agreed. And what is people interested in your culture or where you're from? Did you get many questions back? Questions of life, how you live, why you're visiting, any of those? Yeah.

Yes,

yes. In fact, you know, it's interesting because Suriname, it's not a desperately poor country, but it is a developing country. And I had many, many people in Suriname ask me, do I get a visa to the United States or do I have any chance to get a visa? How can I get to your country? How can I get to your country? And how much money could I possibly make if I did get there? You know, I featured some of these people on my videos and you do feel bad for them because they're such nice people. And the average wage there,

⁓ is something like 200 bucks a month. Okay. Yeah. So that's what I think people were most curious about. How do I get to your country and how much could I make there? Other stuff, you know, it's interesting. I spoke at a little school. One of the interesting things I did on this trip, I forgot to mention the Upper Suriname River trip. My guide, who by the way, I want to call him by name, his name is Clyde Dell. Okay. And I want to tell you that the best thing about staying at Kenini Potty is Clyde Dell, the guide. This young man is a super smart guy.

speaks four languages, awesome guide. Maybe the best guide I have ever had anywhere. He took me to a school, boy did I love visiting this school. I got to meet all of these really cute little children and they asked me to make sort of like a little speech, which I felt very uncomfortable about doing. But I started it out by saying, I'm from Florida. That's one of the 50 states in America. And I asked the whole classroom full of children, what questions do you have about Florida and about my country, the United States? No hands went up whatsoever. There was complete silence. And I said,

So then I thought, okay, how do I relate to these children? I said, I'm from where Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck are from. I don't live too far away from Disney World. Anybody heard of that place? And a few people started laughing. But I have to say that like, I felt like America was so alien to them, they didn't even know what the hell to ask me. They were speechless.

Yeah, that's quite an interesting comment now because in a day and age of technology, you think we are actually closer in terms of knowing each other, right? Because you can see it on YouTube or whatever. The fact they have no idea even what to ask you or what you are thinking, what to say. Yeah, it's quite an interesting, interesting situation.

Let me explain something. Well, I told you that people there are watching YouTube and football on their phones. That's not everybody though, because first of all, these villages at the moment only have electricity for a few hours each evening. So they do not have 24-hour day electricity. And the people I'm talking about who like to do that are the people who have more money, like my guides, for example. They're making a decent salary at the hotel so they can stream internet on their phone. Most of the other people living in these villages don't even have phones, or if they have phones, they're like foot phones.

So, and they've only got electricity a few hours a day. So, you know, a lot of these kids, especially if they're from poorer families, they do not have, they don't have computers, phones or internet or anything like that in their homes. Now they did tell me that they're soon supposed to be getting 24 hour a day electricity in these villages, which that's going to be a complete game changer, I think.

Yeah, that's huge. And how do people find the hotel you stayed at and to maybe book Clyde as a guide? Like where they go to book that?

Yeah, so you can book Kanini Potty. They have their own website and so you can book directly with them and they will arrange the transportation for you and everything. There's also a bunch of tour companies there and any of them, if you tell them you want to go there, we'll book the excursion for you. I could name a few of them. There's one company called Jenny Tours. There's another one called SU for you, S-U like the abbreviation, Suriname for you. There's another one called Orange Travel. So those are three big tour companies right there.

You can book with any of those. also want to tell you where I stayed in Paramaribo because I had such a warm welcome at this small family run hotel that has maybe 15 rooms. It's called Villa Famiri. F-A-M-I-R-I. There's a woman who runs this place named Lucy. My God, this one could not do enough nice things for me. first of all, I got there on a rainy night and I was very tired.

Normally I would want to immediately I don't usually eat meals in a hotel, but I got there I was tired it was raining It was like 8 p.m. I checked in and she said would you like me to make you dinner? And I was like I just stopped for a second. I thought And it's this a small I didn't even know at the moment. They had a restaurant or anything I was like a very small little hotel and I said you can make me dinner. She said yeah I'd love to make you dinner. I said jeez I wanted to give her a hug and a kiss, you know

Was so happy because it was pouring rain outside and I said yeah I would love for you to make me dinner and she did make me a delicious dinner For which they charged me like eight dollars or something like that was it normally like, you Where else do you go? Where else do you get a meal at a restaurant for like less than ten bucks? Yeah, this woman couldn't do enough nice things for me. You know what I mean? You tell her you want something. She's making phone calls for you. She's making arrangements for you So it's so such hospitality. Yeah

Yeah.

Crazy. Yeah, that's awesome. So that's a good recommendation for people to land. Well, they're going to land in Paris, right? So yeah, that's a good place to start.

Those are, you honestly, there's a lot of things you can do in Suriname. The Maroon Village Excursion, I did three days, two nights. I would love to do more of that. If you're like me, I wanted another day or two of that. In fact, what I would have liked to have done was to have two excursions, spend a couple days at Kanini Poti and then continue upriver to Don Poti, the other nice resort, a couple hours down. If I had to do it again, I'd want to go to both.

Good to know. So if I go, I'll book both of those, 100%. Okay. What was your plan after leaving that region? I guess, are you working your way south or are you going back up north or west or where are you thinking after that?

See, that's the thing. In this country, you end up going back to the capital all the time, because it's like all roads lead from there, right? And all excursions start and end there. So they drove me back to the capital again. So you're going to find yourself, it's kind of like playing Monopoly. I don't know if you know the game Monopoly, where you're constantly being sent back to go or whatever the start of Monopoly. Or back to prison, right? I wouldn't call Power Marlboro prison though.

Yes.

I went back and I actually didn't even have any plan. I didn't have any reservations. So then I was like, what am I going to do? And I was just sort of flailing about, but the next, know, so there were a couple more than excursions that I booked. the next one was to go to Yodin Savannah, which I'm going to recommend. This is very interesting. This is the first completely autonomous Jewish community in the Americas, settled by Iberian Jews from Portugal in the 1600s.

when some of the rights and privileges that the Jews enjoyed were revoked from them. This community died and it was overtaken by the jungle and then it was rediscovered, I think like 70 or 100 years again later. So this is like the remains of a once thriving Jewish community where you can see the remains of a once large synagogue, one of the earliest synagogues built in the Americas and also two big cemeteries and in a spectacular setting.

The only mistake that I made, I don't know if I could call it a mistake, but there's two ways to get there. You can take a boat ride there, which sounded much more exciting to me, so that's what I opted for, or you can go by road. I don't think I would take the boat excursion again. I hope the very nice guy, I hope the very nice tour operator, who I'm not even going to name since I'm not recommending his tour, I hope he's not listening to this because he was a wonderful guy.

but he had the oldest shittiest boat I've ever been on in my entire life. And I was, I don't usually get seasick, at least very often. I didn't actually puke, but I felt a little sick. It was an extremely long boat ride, like let's say two hours on a very small boat in very choppy waters. And I had the worst seat on the boat on the way there. Like I was in the very front of the damn boat. man, that was not fun. So I would go to Yodin Sabana either on a very large boat if you can find one.

If you can find a luxury boat, that's always the problem with some excursions is you don't know what you're getting yourself involved in James. ever had that problem?

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. I've been on many a bus and a boat.

You book something, right? And then you show up at the port where the boat is to pick you up and you're like, ⁓ shit, that's the boat? damn it. And that was kind of my experience with Yodin Savannah. Interesting place to go to. I do not like how I was forced to get there and back at all.

Was that an overnight excursion or did you go for a day trip?

chip.

Again, a day trip. There's a million day trips you can take from the capital in this country.

I was then going to ask, like there must be, cause you mentioned earlier about this as the place where you just do day trips potentially. There must be loads of options to go and see and do, right? I guess it depends what you're looking for.

I told you the names of those three tour companies. Go on their websites and you'll see a menu of DayTrips. There's tons of them.

Yeah. And after that day trip there, where else did you plan to go to after that?

Yeah, so then after that, the other thing I wanted to do was go to the Komawaina district. And this is named after one of the other beautiful rivers of Suriname, the Komawaina River. And I wanted to see one of the historic plantations. really the nicest one that's still around, that's been turned into a boutique hotel is Frederikstorp. So that was the next day trip that I did. And by this point in the trip, I didn't want to keep doing group trips, so I did this one independently. And I really enjoyed...

my day in Frederick's Dorm. I went to a place called Pepperpot Nature Park and I took a lovely hike. That was really, really nice. And then the interesting thing about this Frederick's Dorm plantation is it's on a side of the river where there are no roads. And so you cannot drive right to this Frederick's Dorm plantation. You've got to go to the other side of the river and then find a boatman to take you across. And I don't know why this seemed very intimidating to me. was thinking, well, how do I find this boatman? How is this going to work out?

I was looking online, you know when you've never been to a country before and you don't know what to expect and you're like trying to find like a timetable online. Like in my, you know, I'm sitting here in Florida weeks before the trip, like, damn it, I can't find a timetable for how to get across this river. Like, the frig am I going to get to this place? You know? Then you just go there and there's a guy just sitting right there, just waiting for you to take you across. And the price is like $5 and you're like, damn, what was I all worried about? And it takes 15 minutes and it's, and it's really fun too, because the guy, you know, it's really cool. Actually the boatman.

This guy's name was Albert and actually featured him in my video because he was such a nice and interesting guy and because he grew up, you know, in this Frederick's Dorp area, he grew up having to take a boat back and forth to go to school because there's no schools on this side of the river where the plantation is. And so not only do you get a cheap boat ride across to the other side, but the guy who's taking you can tell you what it was like to commute to school as a child on a boat. And,

I loved it and this is by the way a very upscale hotel. if you don't mind splashing out, know, and by the way, splashing out in Suriname might mean a hundred or a hundred and fifty dollars a night or euros per night. So when I say it's upscale and expensive, it is upscale and expensive by Suriname standards, but by American standards, you know, you could pay more for a holiday in here in this country at this point. So you want to stay in kind of a luxury place and particularly if you like to stay in a place where there are no roads.

So the cycling is really big in that area because you can ride around on your bike and there's no cars that will knock you over. So they've got a real nice pool. They have a history tour at this plantation, which I went on. Well, they'll tell you about the sad history of this place. And again, this is a wonderful place. If you have a drone to fly a drone because it's jungle around there. mean, it's straight up jungle. I thought this plantation and that's, that's another day trip. That's an, did that as a day trip, but you could also stay overnight there.

No restriction.

at the hotel.

What's the most interesting thing you learned on that trip do think about the plantation?

Well, I guess the most interesting thing that I learned, had real about, was the history of how the Maroons, what they did and how they escaped and the wars that were fought. So what happened was, know, the Maroons, the enslaved people who escaped these plantations, they did not, the slave owners, the plantation owners, they didn't just say, oops, well, there you go. I guess we won't be getting that person back again. They went on raids to try to recapture these poor people. And there were several

wars fought between the Maroons and these plantation owners. mean, it was outright warfare. So I guess the level of depravity and the level of cruelty, I mean, of course, you know, know that slavery was a cruel and awful thing, but learning, learning the details of these wars and skirmishes that were fought of these people and how determined they were to get their enslaved people back again and the sadism involved. Also there were, was a guerrilla war campaign that was fought.

Yeah, I think the highlight of my El Salvador trip was the Civil War tour I did. And I forgot to speak to you.

Yeah,

I heard you talking about that on the show.

Yeah, Nelson, I think he's been shot seven times or something. He's got like some marks and stuff. I think I mentioned on the podcast that I was with a G Adventures tour. So I was a little bit, I think annoyed as bit strong, but I knew that these youngsters weren't going to be interested in this guy that much. They just want to put a go for a hike, go jump in the waterfall. Right. Um, a few of them had a few questions, but I had like, I put it a hundred questions. I could ask this guy, I know what to sit there all day and speak to him. Right. But you get like half an hour, but super interested about.

hearing that side of the things, why they're doing it, the troubles they went through. And it's quite harrowing that, I guess after a while they fight. There's a conclusion, and guess in Al Salwaro's case, they have then the gangs come in, which is like an extension of it really. So super interesting. think when you get to hear those stories, it kind of gives you a sense of the people on the ground, real life scenarios, not just the news bulletins you might hear or a throwaway article, right? You get to hear from the horse's mouth what really went on and why they're fighting as

Yeah, absolutely. I'm curious too, James, how do you enjoy being on a group tour? Do you mind it?

Not a fan, no. I had no choice with that guy. If you want to go speak to a Civil War guy, you've to on this tour. That's the thing, right? So I was happy to do that one, but I didn't know I was joining the Geo Ventures Tour. I thought I was joining just a collection of individuals that come together for this tour company, but I was attached onto a Geo Ventures thing, which is maybe a bit unlucky. Maybe another time, if you went to go and do it, it might just be four or five of you just coming together to do this tour, right? just the luck.

Adventures

is very well known and I know they're very highly regarded. I think their prices are high though, aren't they? Or am I wrong?

No, I think they're quite high. Yeah. I've never done one, but I don't think I would do a GeoVentures tour for like eight days. But these guys were, it's interesting, right? You walk up and you do the hike with them afterwards and they're asking you, like, is traveling around Old Slabworld or safe? I'm like, well, yeah, I just get on local buses, local hotels, but they're doing the same thing, but in a tour bus, right? They're kind of been taken around and told where to go and what to do. I think it's a different vibe and a different conversation.

I'm also fascinated by the timing of your El Salvador journey too, because you were there right before the place became internationally famous. I everybody's been talking about El Salvador here in my country for the last, I don't know, month or two. And a lot of people are so upset at Bukele in this country. But then it's interesting, because you talked to all these YouTubers, and all the YouTubers are like, man, Bukele has made this country safe. We can travel here now. Whereas before him, it was like literally the murder capital of the world.

It's really interesting and I don't like to delve into, not going to delve into politics, but I think from a travel perspective, lot of travelers are really, I don't know if admire is the right word for Bukele, but at least respect what Bukele has done in terms of restoring order to this country. And it's a place where it used to be too dangerous to travel there unless you really had a screw loose 10 years ago. You weren't going to El Salvador.

And it's interesting, you watch YouTubers like yourself and also like Timmy Carter, for example, I if you've ever seen any of Timmy Carter's videos, but like the changes in this country, because Timmy Carter went there back when it was super dangerous and then he there, you know, again recently. And it's crazy. You've got like, you he interviewed women and I know you spoke to people who are the same, who are saying like, for example, like he interviewed women who are just selling pupusas on the street and who were saying that when MS-13 was running the country, every night at the end of their shift, they would

come to take their tribute, or they'd have to pay basically a percentage of whatever they took that day to these gangsters. And you're thinking, wow, when I was watching that, I was thinking to myself, I don't think the average person understands how utterly pervasive that country was, and how these gangsters were terrorizing the country. And it wasn't just the murders too, which were the murders and the drug selling was bad enough. But how about just a poor woman on the street trying to make a crumb selling pupusas?

that even people like that they were extorting money from. mean, and now they're not anymore. mean, anyways, I don't think the episode's about El Salvador, so we probably shouldn't get too far off field, but I have not been to El Salvador yet, so you're gonna have to help me when I go there. And you already have with all of your videos, with all of the great videos you've made at podcast.

I think you'll love it.

Yeah, and the final thing to say on that is if you ask the average person on the street, you can't have it all. Okay, but Bukele is called a national, I think it's like emergency, he's bypassed the courts, he's imprisoned 50,000, whatever. But if you speak to the average person, they're like, we couldn't walk down the street without fear of getting shot. And he's come in and he's made it completely safe. Arguably, some travelers and locals say it's now the safest place in Latin America, which is a huge claim. And I had no problems whatsoever walking at night, during the day.

any city or town totally fine. I know I'm a white guy, but I got the impression from other travelers who look different to me that there's completely, and even other Latin Americans completely safe. couldn't believe it. So yeah, he may be controversial in that sense, but you can't have it all. ⁓

Such

a trade-off. know, when I hear about the human rights organization's complaints, I hear them. I wish that human rights were well respected everywhere. Don't get me wrong. Yeah. But what I think about is what is a basic human right? I also think that the average person being able to walk to the store or to go to school without fear they're going to get killed, I think that's also a human right too. Yeah. And I think that that's a basic human right. And until you get to that base level, you know, there's this Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Until you had that basic level of safety and order in the country where you feel safe going to the hospital or to the store or to school and things like that, then you've got to sort of take drastic action against these gangs. And I think that, unfortunately, you know, if Amnesty International, you know, again, I respect the work that they do, but if you put Amnesty International in charge of running that country, would it be safe today or would it still be dangerous? Would it still be controlled by gangs?

I'm sorry, but my prediction is that if Amnesty International was running the country instead of a ⁓ tough guy like Bukele, I think that MS-13 would still be terrorizing the country, unfortunately. So it's like, don't know how you strike that balance between respecting human rights and restoring order, but I just wish that everyone would understand the need of the average person to be able to live their life in a degree of safety. And I think that that to me is the most important human right.

There is.

Yeah. And that Popusa lady you mentioned, would still be there now, but you can now walk there and buy a Popusa offer, have a chat. Yes. There's no threat of violence. There's a guy talking to me about football in the street, give me a drink. It really is a like complete U-Haul or U-Change if you like. It's gone U-shaped, it's gone the other way where now they can just walk freely and not worry about these sort of things. And you can't, you can't underestimate how powerful that is.

Correct. And now so I'll bring us back to Suriname here. So you might be wondering, we're talking about safety and we're talking about safety. So is Suriname safe? We haven't talked about that yet. Yeah. I felt very comfortable in this country. I did not feel in danger at all. And I think maybe this is a good segue to talk about the last thing that I did in the country. Yes, please. Literally on my way to the airport. So I'm sure you've had experiences like this before. Now, this is a very weird country in a sense, because the airport is an hour and a half

to an hour and 45 minutes away from the capital city. It is kind of in the middle of nowhere. Why did they do that? I don't know. I asked a few people and I could not get a straight answer. But anyways, I had a rental car for the last few days of the trip, which I really enjoyed motoring around. And I thought to myself, I'd like to have one last adventure, because my flight was late in the day. It was maybe like a six o'clock flight or something like that. And I thought, what could I find that's somewhere in route to this remote airport?

I looked at my guidebook again and I saw, there's a maroon village. Okay, and I love the maroon villages along the Upper Suriname River. There's also maroon villages spread out in other parts of the country. And this is a remote maroon village that the guidebook said was very beautiful, but it warned you don't go there alone. I started talking about this at the beginning of the episode, but I didn't finish. So the Brat Guide says, don't go there alone without a guide because you will likely receive a frosty welcome from the locals.

I saw that warning, I thought, still want to go. I'm still curious, right? And so I Googled the name of this bill just called Santigron, S-A-M-T-I-G-R-O-N. So I'm sitting there on my phone, literally in a rental car, Googling Santigron tour guide. And a guy comes up named Kenneth Lazo. I see a LinkedIn profile of all things for a guy named Kenneth Lazo who describes himself as a Santigron tour guide. I thought, bingo, here we go. So I messaged this guy, right?

And I said, I am heading to your village right now. And would love to have a tour with you. And I screenshotted this guy's profile photo from LinkedIn. Cause I thought to myself, if I really get into hot water, if the villages and villagers in San Tigran are really as hostile as the brat guide thinks that they are, I will simply show them a picture of Kenneth on my phone and say, I'm looking for Kenneth. Could you please bring me to Kenneth? know, Kenneth was like my safety valve. Well, I'm heading out to this village and

getting deeper and deeper and deeper into the countryside, deep into the jungle, where I'm getting to the point where my phone is not working anymore. My Google Maps directions are still working, but I have this fear that I'm going to get horribly lost because I have no cell signal. I probably drove 15 or 20 minutes where I did not pass a single vehicle heading towards this village. I arrive on the exterior of the village, right on the outskirts of the village, and I see three beautiful young women sitting

on what appears to be a bus stop shelter and they're wearing very distinctive headgear. I want to call them hats, but they're really not like hats. Again, if you go, if you want a visual, go to the video on my YouTube channel that says I was worn to avoid this village and look at the women I'm talking about. I looked at these three beautiful women in these white sort of head scarf type things. It turned out what they were wearing was a morning outfit. They were in morning because their uncle had just died.

and they were waiting for a ride to get into the capital to purchase supplies for his celebration of life. And I thought to myself, you know, I'm always like, especially with my vlogging and my YouTube, I really like to feature local people, but I was feeling very nervous. I was very nervous. Like my heart was pounding heading into this village because of this warning from the guidebook that the locals are not nice here, right? But I thought to myself, I can't help myself. I rolled the window down and I introduced myself and I started asking them questions. And then I got out of the car.

and I wanted to film them so badly. So I asked them, hey, would you mind if I just ask you some questions about your village for my video? And the spokesperson who was the youngest of the three, there were three sisters, said, no, we don't want to be on the village. And I thought, oh shoot, we don't want to be on the village, shoot. But then I continued talking to them and then she changed her mind. She said, actually, I think I would like to be on your video, she said, because...

I would like to go to the US and you never know, maybe some guy will see me in the video and will want to contact me. I'm paraphrasing something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I thought, isn't this great? So a minute or two before I'm a, I'm a, I'm a white guy who's not supposed to be here approaching this maroon village without a guide. And my heart is pounding and I'm really nervous. Two minutes later, I'm sitting in a bus stop shelter with three sisters who are telling me about

what type of guy they would love to marry and why they would like to come move to the US and meet an American guy there. And I'm thinking, if this isn't an example of why I love travel, the serendipity of travel, the serendipitous adventures, and so I talked to these ladies for maybe 15, 20 minutes, I had just loved them, they were so sweet, they were so interesting, they told me all about the difficulties of life there. Two of them worked as hairdressers.

They were telling me how little money you make as a hairdresser in Suriname. The third one was a house cleaner. She was telling me what a difficult life it is. I was fascinated by everything about them. Unfortunately, then somebody came to pick them up to bring them into the capital, so they had to leave. I thought, okay, we're off to a good start. There's at least three sisters in this village who were really nice to me. So then I proceed into the village. And again, I'm asking around for Kenneth. And ⁓ I find these little kids who are playing music.

Yeah.

on improvised instruments like tin drums and like paint cans and things like that. So I love these little kids. made friends with these little kids and then I bought them some snacks and in the store they said, they said, okay, here's an outsider. They said, you should meet so-and-so. You should meet this guy. Wasn't Kenneth Lazzo, some other guy because I thought, okay, great. So they bring me over to some other guy's house, right? As it turns out, this guy worked for the United Nations for 20 years.

And he worked in development for the United Nations for 20 years and had just decided to come back to his native village, Santigrond, where he grew up and was born. To retire there. And he said he would be happy to show me around the village. So then I get this tour from this guy, very smart guy who had grown up there. He showed me all around the village. He introduced me to people, told me all about the culture. And then afterwards we went to his parents' house. His parents run a makeshift village bar.

where the locals hang out and drink beer basically on their porch. ⁓ This is the makeshift pub in San Tigran. So I said, I'm buying drinks for everybody here. And I bought some nice big Parbo beers. You asked me, I think, if there's any good beers there. There is a local beer, the national beer there is called Parbo, P-A-R-B-O. Believe me, on a sweltering hot day, this beer tastes delicious. So I bought a couple of huge beers.

and got to meet all the local guys and everybody could not have been more welcoming and nice to me. And I was thinking to myself, I almost did not come to this place out of fear. And if I did not have a flight to catch, I would have stayed there even longer. I stayed there for several hours and it was absolutely one of the highlights of my trip. I loved it.

that kind of brings me to, think in your article, you do allude to this, maybe towards the end, that maybe the best part of this country is the people. But it sounds like you've met at the start of your trip, when you first arrived into the country, the lady at the hotel, then you went on to the village tour along the river. And to the end of the trip, it just seems constant welcoming, hospitality, and just also curiosity from them as well, maybe to speak to you and get to know you.

Absolutely and I find that is true in many circumstances that the fewer tourists there are in a place, the more welcome you will be. And there aren't that many tourists there, so you're pretty welcome to go.

Okay, and to finish on Suriname, is there anything else you want to mention before we wrap up?

I will also say to you you're planning a trip there, if I was going to go again and I had a good budget to do this, there are a couple of fly-in resorts. So look at my list here. So if you've got the budget, I heard from people while I was staying there, there's a place for example called Cabo Lebo, nature resort that is spelled K-A-B-A-L-E-B-O. You can go to these fly-in, when I call them fly-in resorts, it means there's no road leading there.

and you can, if you want to get really deep into the jungle in Suriname and you have a little bit of a budget, I don't think it's extravagantly insanely expensive, but it's not dirt cheap either. Look into a fly-in resort in Suriname to really disconnect if you want to get way off the grid. This is a neat country where you can do that.

That's awesome. So to finish the episode, I just want to ask you, what have you got planned for this year? Any more travels? I you mentioned maybe the start of the episode, all pre-recorded. You're planning your summer trip. Anything for work as well?

Yes. Well, for me, travel is always work, although I don't consider it work. know, it's not like I, my wife often says I ought to get a real job because what I do is not really work, but everywhere, everywhere, everywhere I go, I try to make a crumb or two out of it by writing articles, by making my videos on YouTube for which I make a small amount of money and so on. yeah, work and travel are inextricably linked. Next destination I'm planning right now is a big family trip. This time bringing the whole family and we are going spending three weeks in

South Africa and I'm hoping to try to figure out how to sneak in visits to Lesotho and Swaziland now called Eswatini as well. So that's the next big adventure.

Yeah, if listening. If you're listening now and you heard that, Dave might need some help about how to get to those places from some Africa. So if you've got any advice, that'd be quite cool to maybe send a DM to me or an email or to Dave.

How are your listenership numbers in Lesotho?

No, Safaka Safaka's not that bad.

Okay, so but like I think if you look at your analytics, you should be able to tell have you do you have any listeners? Have you ever had a listener from either Swaziland or Lesotho? Do know?

No, I don't think I have.

Not a single download.

I don't check religiously, but I don't think so.

Okay, so here's what I'm gonna do. When I go to those countries, the little countries this year, do you have like a, do you have a banner or anything I could distribute? I wanna try to promote your show in those countries, cause I love your show.

I can send you some stickers if you like.

Won't that be a popular gift? I'm gonna hand that out to the children of Lesotho. Anybody who wants candy or money from me, no, no, but I'm gonna give you a wing and a travel podcast sticker.

Absolutely.

⁓ That'd awesome. I've got loads of them. Yeah, I'll send you some of them. You can take them with you. Dave, thanks for coming on again. You're always welcome back. So I think we'll book in another session for your trip there because I want to hear basically the logistics of how you get from Africa to those two countries, right? So I want to see how that goes and we'll check back in later in the year.

I will do that.

I'd like to find out how that goes too.

Yeah, awesome. Thanks for coming on. Appreciate it.

Thank you so much, James.

Cheers. ⁓

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