TRINIDAD TRIP
3/17-4/1/08
MONDAY, 3/17/08: Phone, down at 10:20AM. Ron: "Slipping away? No food?" And I say I'm away till 4/2. Told to look for "Goldish town car, Albert." COLD out. Into car 10:25; fantastic speed, arrive at Laguardia Central Terminal 10:40, check in by computer, getting two boarding passes, assured that both are window seats. Onto LONG Gate 10 line at 10:50. Through security by taking out keys and change, taking off shoes and taking out computer, through at 11:07, juggling New Yorker, pen, passport, boarding pass, and two recalcitrant pieces of carry-on. Exhausted already. Pick up an AM and read it and do the puzzle easily and GOOF on the level 1 sudoku, so I put it away and catch up with this by 12:08, boarding groups 1-3 in what can NOT be my flight already: DALLAS is boarding for 12:20 flight. At 12:42 "Flight is few minutes behind schedule." Board 1:30, 2:26 flight, partly cloudy and 78 in Miami. Off at 1:48. Roll 1: #1 1:50 City and Hart Islands. #2 all Manhattan 1:51. #3 JFK! 1:53. To 3:01, reached halfway ALL over land: farms, Chesapeake bridge-tunnel in two estuaries, beaches, islands, swamps, highways. Great! Start down 3:50, cloudy. Take flannel shirt off 4:01. Land 4:17. Off plane 4:27 and sit on APPRECIATED john at 4:29! Didn't have to bother the German older newlyweds next to me. Whew! To gate D42, close, at 4:43. TIRED of sudoku at 5:40. 6PM departure now at 6:16PM. [Baby SCREAMING ahead now at 6:09AM!] At 6:26 it's now 7:09 departure. Board 6:50 in front of engine, but window is FAR ahead and if woman moves BACK I won't be able to see! 3:10 flight. 80 degrees in Trinidad. Back out 7:27. Sun SETTING. 7:40: "Back to gate: checklist something-valve not working, and we won't fly without it." 8:35 OFF plane at gate D36. Told we'll be put up at the Hilton, with chits for dinner and breakfast, and "go straight out terminal to the Hilton bus outside." I'm near the front, suggest they announce to everyone, but they deny my suggestion. Walk and walk to exit, and get to various crossroads and choose at random. Get to down escalator and ask security guard if that's the exit, and he says he doesn't know, and I warn him about dozens of people following me asking the same questions, and he says he'll move away from here. Down to street and see many busses and cabs. Ask for Hilton bus and they say "Level 2," where I just came from. Go distance to entrance, find an elevator up to 3, out to curb to see a myriad of busses, none of them Hilton. Then see one pass to my right, and I start dashing for it JUST as a luggage cart wheels into my path. "Thanks a lot," I mutter loudly, and push past him. Get to the bus at 9:01 to find families with carts of luggage boarding, and I get on and put bag on shelf and then two more squeeze in behind me to sit in one spare seat. Round circles in bus, bag sliding into my foot, people talking, baby fussing. Get to luxury entrance and dash in first to get three vouchers for $5 meals, all breakfasts, in exchange for my two meal vouchers and room voucher. Get key to room 508 and get up there at 8:50. Wash face, get pills, and down to Cafe Coral to order Cuban Sandwich for $10 and a glass of water and snipe at waitress who has the nerve to ask how my day was. Served quick enough at 9:30 and gobble down half, taking other half up with me, take night pills and back to room at 9:52. Bed at 10:05 after two night pills and Valium, then up for sleeping pill at 10:15 and sleep quickly with shades up, pushing duvet to side, under coverlet, earplugs and facemask on, not even bothering to draw curtains. Try for wake-up call, but it seems to take only full hours, so I call "Service" and he says he'll transmit my 4:30AM request. Other bed full of my stuff.
TUESDAY, 3/18/08: Phone does NOT ring; I wake at 4:07, pee, dream-write note to 4:24 and finish tuna melt, water pills. Take Valium 4:36. Leave room 4:45, onto car 4:51, leaving key with concierge without a word. To airport at 5AM with LONG line at Concourse D, "No special line for flight 1819." Told Concourse C may be emptier, and it is, but only one lane until I say "two" and they open a second, through which I'm first at 5:32. Through at 5:36, and long walk to pee at 5:34. D44 at 5:37. Get 29J "window on bigger plane." Sit in 27J by mistake and it's at END of wing, but then 29J is better at 6:01. Plane fills quickly, totally DARK out. 3:12 flight. 69 degrees in Port-of-Spain. Back out 6:15. Off at 6:21, over lit city, then into clouds at coast, and start typing when allowed at 6:34, still pitch-black out. We'll fly over Grand Turks and San Juan, but it'll be cloudy. Estimate landing at 9:38. I finish this to 6:59, light outside, mostly clouds over Caribbean, put this away at 7AM, thirsty. Start typing 3:52: Sun lights LEFT windows of plane at 7:02. Get tea, which comes after the steward checks my "complicated order" four times, and then I spill some on my and my neighbor's pants' legs at 7:10. ISLANDS below, long and low, running east-west, and I have another bottle of tonic, and another baby is crying. Last island under clouds at 7:10, but more appear later. Finish Cuban half-sandwich at 7:45, tasting pretty good. Pants drying. Isles below clouds, waters blue-green-gray, some fringing reefs? 8:21 BIG populous island! Puerto Rico? Martinique? Then one map seems to say it was Puerto Rico, but another said it was Santo Domingo. Pee at 8:37 when the guy goes to the john. Land in an hour. No more islands? Gorgeous flat blue Caribbean waters. Start down at 9:20. #4 islet with craggy sides at 9:34. #5 marshland close to landing, must be Trinidad, at 9:39. Land at 9:42 (3:16 flight). Onto "visitor" line 9:55, behind Aurora Meghu, who lives in Charleston, SC, left here 40 years ago, and will be visiting in Tobago, where she gives me her number: 639-5542. To AA office 10:27. "Follow me," I'm sure he said, but I go through the blue gate, into an empty room, choose the door without a chair in front of it, and confront an empty hallway. I say "Hello" a few times, but finally a woman comes out around the far corner and tells me, eventually, after checking with the guy, to wait in the outer office. Wait at 10:41 and he comes out with a letter at 10:35. I ask what the taxi-fare will be to the Marriot (but nowhere does it SAY Marriot, except some odd "Courtyard by Marriot Hotel" near the National Stadium). On taxi 10:49, rate quoted at $25, for which I give him a $20 and then a 100T bill, which he says is worth $16.66, then gives me 55T change, which is LESS than $10! Oh, well, he tipped himself, and the trip took almost an hour for the stated 27km. Into room 630 at 11:43, having gotten girl behind desk to switch my unoccupied LAST night to the night of the 20th, since I'm not going anywhere anyhow. Look at book on Trinidad, not much, and unpack to 12:25. Down to lunch at the Olympia, passing up the too-much buffet for T150, and get a Club sandwich with a salad in the middle for 105T, including 10% service charge which I didn't figure to add a gratuity to, or else what IS a service charge? Get lunch at 1:15 and finish about 1:30, to find "service clerk" just getting back from lunch. She tells me to book my OWN Tobago trip, starting with caribbeanairlines.com which actually turns out in the end to be caribbean-airlines.com, but I get it eventually through Google on the second page in some sort of Cruises heading, and maybe THAT uses the hyphen, which I hadn't noticed. Either they find NOTHING, or they want me to go at 7:30AM and return at 8:30AM, not much sense. Go back to her, go back to the computer, manage to GET an early-morning leaving on 3/30, but can't get BACK, but I later ask clerk and she says that if I can't get back by standby at 5PM I can call and CANCEL room here and stay in Tobago, which is a possibility. SHE even tries it and gets nowhere, so this goes until 2:33, when I walk out on the steamy, dusty streets to what she'd called the Port of Tobago Ferry Terminal, which of course is called the Port of Spain Ferry Terminal on their sign, but, indeed "Tobago Ferry Terminal" on the MAP. Cross very dangerous streets with others, get a dread-haired Black who, after many tries, says it's impossible to get there and back, though I can always try standing by. Fat chance! Then he reminds me it's Easter weekend and everyone's traveling. Back to hotel at 3:05, take #6 of the ships and construction and "lovely seaside" from my room at 3:15, and decide to look through the neat tour brochure she gave me, and it turns out to be from Trinidad and Tobago Sightseeing Tours, somewhere else completely, so I try phoning them by, as instructed, dialing "1" followed by the seven-digit number, but I keep getting a "not gonna do it" signal until I call the operator at 3:24 and say I can't dial, she says she'll fix it in two minutes, and in six minutes I call her back and she DOES fix it, and I call a sweet-sounding guy who asks my room number ("What time ya gonna come up, honey?" I think to myself.) and says someone will call me back. At 3:48 she calls back and says ALL my possible dates are IMPOSSIBLE for Tobago, unless I want to spend $280 as a single for a $188 (minimum two) trip (BUT HOW CAN SHE, when there's NO space left on flights??), but maybe she's quoting OTHER trips that I can take as a single, if no one else wants to go, for 50% supplement. So she says NO one wants to go on the three I enumerate: the Island Circle, the North East Coast, or the Turtle Watching Adventure, but she DOES say she has one woman interested in the Asa Wright (which she has to pronounce three times before I can identify it) and North Coast Combined trip for $80, so she'll call her and get back to ME, she says at 3:48, so I think for a moment I should give her the OTHER choices, but she hangs up, I start typing, and finish now at 4:47PM, which means it's probably hopeless since the company probably closes at 5PM and the woman is out shopping, or maybe even left town by now, who knows, and I turn down the air conditioner to cool, rather than chilly, and had checked that no reservations are needed at the 360 revolving restaurant upstairs, which opens at 6PM, so I'll put on my "elegant" black pants and a clean dark-blue shirt to look as smart as I can, and at least have a good meal today. And there IS the chance that some OTHER lone soul will call Trinidad and Tobago Sightseeing Tours, and someone will call me back and my luck will hold out. After the awful plane-cancellation last night, I should have exhausted my quota of BAD luck by now! Now at 4:51PM to stop for more crosswords! Oh, even stopped in at the corner travel shop, hoping they'd have an alternative, but they didn't. If everything's so busy with Tobago with Easter weekend, why isn't ANYONE else interested in ANY of the TTST tours?? 5:04PM: She apologizes for being so long, but we're GOING tomorrow at 8:45 on the Asa Wright/ North Shore tour! At least SOMETHING, and maybe I can convince the woman to share ANOTHER tour with me! 7:43PM: Worked on a puzzle until 6:10PM, when I decided it was late enough to go to 360, and a table behind me chattered all through my meal of a drink, since I didn't want a glass of EITHER Chardonnay or Cabernet, and the "petite" filet mignon was actually TWO medium-sized ones, with roast potatoes which were better with three pats of butter on them. I didn't finish my vegetables, but I demolished the brownie with walnuts and chocolate sauce, and did NOT include a gratuity over the 10% service charge which made it over 617T, over $100 at ANY reasonable rate of exchange, which is saying quite a bit for literally a two-course meal with one drink! Still comfortable in room with air conditioner off, and at 7:48 I'll take my shoes off and see what more a few hours of stewing has done to the 3/8 Times puzzle. And FINISHED it at 8:02! But changed LAST (wrong) word at 8:09!! 8:39: Fail a SECOND sudoku: I MUST be tired! Bed, even so early! BED 8:45PM, PRECISELY 12 hours before tomorrow's trip-meet time!
WEDNESDAY, 3/19/08: Wake 1:49AM. Doze on and off. 3:38AM: Wake with dream and pee while typing it. Try to shit and, goddam, find that I've peed on the floor again though I REALLY took care NOT to. FUCK! Felt VERY full-body achy getting out of bed, as if something were wrong with the mattress. 6:30AM: Tried Actualism for a moment, but it never really started. Two odd dream fragments. Type dreams to 6:37, feeling slightly "off," and decide to shower and start to get into my day somehow. Glanced through the yellow pages to find that there are MANY travel agencies that I might try for my day that I'm determined to have in Tobago while I'm here, even if I have to resort to paying $280 by myself to the TTST, or whatever; after all, I've paid much more than that for a single-hour meal, let alone a full day in a completely new country (unless the Century Club [though I think not] considers Trinidad & Tobago as ONE destination). Shower to 7:12; forgot to bring deodorant! Try lavender linen spray and it seems to work! To breakfast 7:35. Back at 8:03: had hot chocolate, rather weak and needing much sugar (a contradiction?), but when I went to get another roll, she took my half-eaten omelet and fruit and bread and butter away! I looked for her, waitress smiled and said, "She's new," and the cook made me another one-egg omelet. Start glancing through the Daily Express, left outside on my doorknob. He calls at 8:35! I say I was just about to go down, and a well-built Black is talking with a red-blond Englishman from Suffolk, who makes a third tourist to Asa. Pick up Marlene at Kapok, who shares the second comfortable seat with me, talks a lot, and we start up steep hill to the Hilton to sign with Venus for the Visa billing forms for today's trip. Then continue up the hill, the spine of the North, encountering lots of traffic, he hoping we don't miss the start of the 10:30AM tour. #7 Port of Spain from Lady Young Lookout 9:10. Phil and I agree for $280 two-day (but less than 24 hours) turtle tour starting tomorrow. #9 road. #10 bridge out 10:31. Arrive 10:43. #11 oropendula nests 10:43. #12 jade plant 10:43. Join group of over 20 with a screaming kid! #13 hummingbird on ginger 10:57. Good views of white-bearded manakin 11:14, #14-15 two white beards, flash, but far off, 11:16. #16 pea vines next to smooth wild guava tree. Standing on 200 million ants: hole 25 feet down, nest 25x20 feet, 700 million ants born from ONE queen in five forms: queen, males (for mating), soldiers (live 2 months, big), workers (live 2 weeks), and minims, tiny as ant-heads. 25-year-old colony. Rains. #17 sign about bellbird 11:38. Start back 11:42. #18 Licania and beans (all flash) 11:28. To #22 birds at feeders 12:01. To #25 by 12:07. GREAT verandah views even in rain. Lunch of cheeseburger (huge) and good fruit smoothie for 60T. Yellow-legged flycatcher. BRIGHT green is green honeycreeper. Close hummingbird is white-necked Jacobin. Lunch to 1:05, STUFFED. #27 one last bird shot. 1:11 into car but busses block only exit road 1:19-1:23. Incredible ride up winding roads, sheer drops on either side, fantastic engineering by Americans making a shortcut between two bases supporting Trinidad in WWII, but I keep thinking I've done so MANY of these incredibly spectacular mountain passes: Montserrat with Jean-Jacques in the mists, the road up to Machu Picchu, the road back from the Venezuelan coast, the ride across Tahiti, the bus from Srinagar to Pathankot, all MIND-BOGGLING with the engineering, but all frustratingly similar in that there's no way to DISTINGUISH one from another. #28 Chuparobe coots 3:13. #29 rainy Las Cuevas Beach 3:28. Phil and Marlene swim in warm rain. I go to the bar: no gin and tonic, no punch with rum. Sit in car 3:31 with sudoku. Out to chat. #30 Maracas Beach 4:23. #31 bus accident 4:41. #32 choconia tree (national tree of Trinidad) 4:54, my stop-request. Marlene off at Kapok 5:01. Meet 1:30PM tomorrow for turtles. Into hotel 5:18, Phil agreeing to take me to Woodcock(?) [Visa bill says only "Jovian Limited, Shop #55, Movietowne Blvd, Port of Spain] dinner at 7:30. Agitate to 6:05, resting and puzzling and figuring, and go down to desk at 6:20PM to find I MIGHT be able to check out at 1:30PM tomorrow (check at breakfast tomorrow) (leave bag with red-coat for 24 hours) (return 1:30, get bag, wait for 5PM taxi to airport), but MUST rent room Friday night if I expect to arrive 7:30AM Saturday morning, since ordinary check-in time isn't until 3PM! So I have TWO rooms THURSDAY night, but had FREE room FIRST night, trading MONDAY night at Crowne Plaza for WEDNESDAY. End fuss, relieved, at 6:27. Sudoku, finishing ONE messed-up one by 7:15. Wash face, put on black pants, wait for Phil to 7:35, taxi from hotel stand to Mall for 60T, walk through enormous noisy Mall to Woodcock(?) for table, after too-small booth, for his Lamb Roti with three sides, and my BBQ chicken and glass of Merlot, separate checks, not bad, he looking more attractive. Eat to 8:50, he calls taxi, I pay $10 for return, we have drinks: him daily special 35T rum punch, me 35T Caribbean Sunset, both in white martini glasses, and chat until my eyes close, he says he'll pay, I go upstairs at 10:04, EXHAUSTED. Bed at 10:11PM.
THURSDAY 3/20/08: 4:13AM: Wake with dream, which I start transcribing at 4:24AM. 4:36AM: Really should be here that I remark about the appealing honesty and blooming good (and possibly even seductive) looks of Phil in the lounge last night as we drink our identical looking cocktails: his a rum twist with white creme de cocoa, white rum, and white something else, while I have a Caribbean Sunset with white something else and Triple Sec and lime juice, which sort of ends up tasting like pineapple, leaving me feeling very tired; he volunteers to pay for it and I come up to the room to strew my clothes around and collapse into bed. And now finish this at 4:40AM. I'm just SO apprehensive about my fatigue, my lack of enthusiasm, my lack of stamina, and the prospect of awful periods of time: repeating the North Coast drive out to the turtle beach, staying up at night watching turtles lay eggs, the sitting in the lobby from 1-5PM waiting for the flight to leave for Paramaribo, getting in at 12:35AM totally wiped out and getting to the hotel, trying to establish visiting French Guiana and Guyana, the unknowns of Kaieteur Falls and, more remotely, Kukenaam Falls, the getting up at what, 4:30AM? for the 6AM flight to Port of Spain, and the still not-at-all certain even $280 trip to touch on Tobago at ALL on this benighted trip with the voluble Errol, the too-agreeable Marlene, gone now, and the exceedingly problematic but still charming Phil. Dream at 6:14AM: Dream at 6:28AM! Feel REALLY AWFUL this morning: worried about flights, weakness, times for doing nothing, hot weather, rain, lack of connections. Try an Actualism session to get rid of the NEGATIVE ego, and the LAZY ego, and then search for Valium in my dop kit and become convinced that the maid TOOK it until I looked in my plane-kit and of course found them, taking one about 8:30, having a comfortable shit (and the toilet flushed successfully), and brought in the paper and put out the "privacy" sign, and wrote this to 8:52, still a LONG time before breakfast, trying to make myself feel BETTER! Read papers and do puzzles to 9:42AM, then get dressed for breakfast, taking falater bag. Up from breakfast 10:36 (maid STILL making seductive remarks, but I SHAN'T bother leaving her a tip, no matter WHAT---it's just part of the SERVICE!). Try to finish fouled-up sudoku from AM from plane from 10:38. Solve that by 11:10AM, feeling better already. Finish Monday's Sun by 11:59AM. Check out by 1:13PM, neither Phil nor Errol in evidence. Check my bag with a simple chit with the red-coat for 24 hours. Have all sorts of special packets in my shoulder bag, pretty full, and if everything gets all wet, I'm going to be in trouble, even WITH my raincoat. Felt just AWFUL much of the morning until I satisfied my urge to finish one "error" sudoku, taking the other along for spare time, and with substantial "falaters" in my bag, right on top with my camera (with FOUR extra rolls of film---talk about carefulness!). Phil drops his stuff off near me at 1:16, saying he's going to get some "crisps," while I say I hooked my entire lunch from breakfast, not bothering to use the loaded word "falater." Warm in the lobby; I'm in a clean shirt, with nothing to back me up except for my bathing suit and T-shirt (I AM ruled by Marj's proofreading!) in my snorkel bag. Brushed my teeth thoroughly while watching TV---ONE of the reasons Tobago is so busy NOW is that Prince Phillip and his wife is there to boost Buccoo Reef, which I still hope to get to. Today will be a LONG day, ending early tomorrow morning, one sincerely hopes, in the hotel in Paramaribo. Looks clear and warm today, but there was rain yesterday, and the article in today's paper talks about the danger of extra-big waves. Phil arrives 1:32PM, we get a call that Errol is delayed in traffic. Out at 1:40. #33 bridge on rollers 1:56. Sign chit for 1638T ($273) for turtles. They think I can get to Tobago for $280 3/31, but they can't get me BACK! But they'll still try! #34-35 Redhead Beach 4:04. #36-37 shore house 4:16. Roll 2: #1-7 shore 4:22. #8-9 surf at L'Anse Noir 5:06. Spectacular coastline and RECORD surf-size. #12 beach 5:30. #16 5:51 outside Almonier Hotel. To room 9 (stuffy) at 6PM. #20 full moon 6:11. Akila is the beach-master. #21 eggs 6:36. Dinner 7:10, crawfish and two glasses white wine and tasty chocolate cake (with good garlic and mayonnaise dip with breadsticks to start), finish and go out to beach. One comes out, shitty kid jumps up and down right in front of it, I get good look at feet scooping sand away directed by ovipositor, but people AWFUL and it returns to sea: #22 9:46 turtle returning to sea, but I still get reprimanded for taking flash. Really TOTALLY disgusted with other people, get VERY wet, and put shoe-pads and shoes and pants out to dry. Bed under fan 10:20, telling Phil to knock if he sees another. Wake 11:55PM, put on jellies and go out.
FRIDAY, 3/21/08: Phil says I just missed one that took about 45 minutes to lay eggs, though someone later says all the eggs will be washed up and none will hatch. Another started up, looking smaller, never really left the waves, and turned back. I went up beach, across river, saw ANOTHER finish, taking #23-24 flash as it seemed to leave, but hole was filled with water and they're said NOT to lay in water. I went forward and TOUCHED the plastic-feeling nubs on back and THOUGHT it paused and sensed it, then it went into surf where I shot #25-26(?). Then join Phil to watch another wander FAR, and finally goes to surf because I conjecture it can't find a RISE in the sand to secure its eggs. Then back to "left" river and a HUGE wave covers WHOLE inlet, getting me wet halfway up calves, and back to see water running from STREET, and guy says it went WAY up. "You're at this hotel?" he asks, and I worry a bit, but another HUGE wave covers RIGHT pond, then it calms down, I drink water, pee, rinse jellies, and finish notes at 1:29AM! WOW! Took through #28. Up at 5:05 and out to slow sunrise, more big waves, no more turtles, and back to room at 6:25, having taken through #33 of vultures. Breakfast said to be 7:30. Lie down 6:33. Then up, finish washing and drying jellies and packing by 6:51, fuss and wash and pack to 7:09. Lie down, but get up 7:22, breakfast 7:35-8:40, good bread and jam, but NO cocoa in PLACE of coffee. Eat fruit and pay bill. Shit and leave by 8:30. Pay 230T for dinner. #34 Monte Verde 8:42. #35 Judas (clothes beaten off this Good Friday afternoon) 8:44. #36 rocks 8:59. #37 beach 9:55. Roll 3 into camera. 11:25AM: Get to hotel and ask about a room to nap in between 11:20AM and 3:15PM, but they say they don't rent rooms by the hour, and they check with a manager who says that he's willing to charge half a day's rate at their USUAL rate of $205, which would be $105, or over $30 an hour for a room, so I say, "Be sure not to disturb me if I fall asleep out of my chair in the lobby," and they say that'll be no problem. At 3:15 Errol will return and take me to Caroni (charging me $50 for a $40 trip---as he charged $180 for the marked $160 for the overnight turtle watch), and then to the airport for $25 (when we're probably already halfway there). So I do a quick calculation and add the $80 for Asa and North Coast, the $180 for turtles, and the $40 for Caroni, getting $300, and a, I think, VERY generous tip for already overcharged trips would be 20%, which would come to $60, which is about $20/day, which seems fair, since most guides are $10/day on group tours, and pity for him that we were only three on first tour, two on second tour, and one on last tour. Take bag out of check, we chat about turtles, and doesn't seem to mind that I don't tip him at 11:36. Only 3 hours 39 minutes to spend in the lobby catching up on this, peeing sometime soon, doing puzzles, and maybe having some lunch. Two cleaning ladies wish me a Happy Easter, but I say it's only Good Friday, but they reply, "But we're leading into Easter," and then I told them about learning of the Judas figures, and they ask where I'm from and say Brooklyn, and she smiles broadly and asks which PART of Brooklyn, and I say Brooklyn Heights, and one says she's from 196 Clinton ROAD (which doesn't sound like Brooklyn Heights to me, but I don't question it). Back at my AlphaSmart, which no one touched, of course, by 11:44. Type all notes except expanding on trip across Northern spine by 1:25PM, thankfully not tired at the moment. Pee again, and chased smoker away from our three [start file 2 1:37PM 3/21/08: EQUINOX, it now occurs to me] ENORMOUS ashtrays by 1:30PM. Got most of what I wanted to get into file 1, and now at 1:40PM I'm thinking I should get SOME kind of lunch before Errol arrives. Order ham and cheese pizza 1:45-2:25. Huge one with a glass of water. I ask for bill and tell them to wrap the rest. "You can't take it, because if something went wrong with it you could sue us." So when she leaves I stuff it into a spare plastic bag in my shoulder bag. Pay with Visa. Back to puzzles at 2:36. Shit and wash face, worried someone might take stuff, but they don't. Errol comes at 3:17, and we get to Caroni Bird Sanctuary, halfway to the airport, very little traffic because it's a holiday, at 3:33, and HE insists on paying, probably paying the advertised $40 while asking me for $50, as well as $25 for the trip to the airport, when we're halfway there already. Onto first UNCOVERED boat, slathering forearms and face with sunscreen, at 3:41. Start is very off-putting: cars roaring past on parallel roads with radios blaring music, dozens of fishermen and families on the beaches as we pass, but I do manage to see a dark blue heron right at the shore after I put down my binoculars trying to spot frog's or snake's heads in the mangrove roots. See two blue herons, a caiman which is so still it might be phony, a knot of a tree boa we pass right under, but I still can't see its head and there's really no picture opportunity. Baby two rows back CONSTANTLY fusses and screams, and a TINY Black that the handsome father started with is passed to mother in front with me, and the grandma next to me encourages its slightest sounds, so of course it starts screaming endlessly. I'm out of my mind with frustration and anger. #1 mangroves 4:12. #3 heron 4:14. Three BRILLIANT red birds fly up ahead: I literally GASP ALOUD the first time I spot their incandescence: scarlet ibis! #5 heron 4:43. Two fish jump STRAIGHT UP about four feet. Many other minor sights, passing lakes and islands, and then we all gather at one side of one lake where about three scarlet ibis are sitting in the trees on the island across from us, and our leader (the leader of all eight of our boats, it seems) stands on the prow and announces we're going to see flight after flight until the far island is covered with ibis. I try to take pictures of the flocks flying across, but I'm aware I'm also moving the camera to try to follow them, so photos probably won't come out. As many as 20 or even 30, and as few as two or even one, they fly and gather and find perches, along with some white birds, egrets, I guess, until I try to take some pictures of the myriad red dots, like Christmas ornaments, as someone on the boat says. Incredible collection, but at the DOT of 6PM we start back, going down narrow dark ways to the dock, where Errol asks how I liked it and I exclaim about the scarlet ibis, and he says THAT was the whole point of it. Almost dark by now, and I search through my shoulder bag and find my e-ticket, but I know my passport is in my black bag. Take off in the car at 6:25, to airport at 6:55, give him his $50+$25=$75 that I owe, and $60 tip which I try to explain to him with 20%, MOST generous tip for $300 in trips, and he straight-facedly says he'll accept anything, so I have NO idea how he takes it. Go into the first entrance, and transcribe my panic at 8:11PM: I may decide NEVER to travel again. Find my electronic ticket in my shoulder bag which they don't even look at, and "know" my passport is in my black bag. Pay Errol $135, leaving me with $17US and 14TT. Sit in a chair and open my bag and go through everything thoroughly. No passport (and neither of the two "other" credit cards that I put with my passport under my shirts in my Crowne Plaza drawer, which leads me, the SECOND time I go through my papers, to leave out the Crowne Plaza phone number in case I have to call them with the ridiculous message, "Did you happen to find a passport and two credit cards in the upper-right drawer of the chest of drawers in room 630?"). Go through my shoulder bag again, which I had ALREADY done, and I was SURE it wasn't there. Went through all the stuff in the black bag haphazardly, then methodically emptied out EVERYTHING, looking under the cardboard bottom protector, and looking through all the papers methodically, and about the THIRD time through a rather deep plastic bag filled with miscellany, I unfolded one deeper fold---to find my passport and two credit cards. It ONLY took OVER TWENTY absolutely agonizing minutes, during which I alternately thought: 1) do I have to phone Crowne Plaza and have them taxi my passport to the airport and hope it arrives on time? or 2) simply FORGET about going to Surinam, Guyana, and French Guiana? But then I FOUND it by 7:16 after I take ALL apart TWICE to find passport, TOTAL MADNESS, then went for a desperately needed pee, checked in starting at desk 23 and had to return to desk 3, checking in by 7:30, drink all my water, then back again across the whole concourse to get to the gate entry, where I'm the only one to go through. Then at scanner gate I have to pay 100TT (which I panicked at first, thinking it was $100US!), but I might NOT have to pay it again April 1, when "it may be included in your ticket price." She WOULD have taken 14TT for $2, but I calculate (after) that that would have been $2.33. Search through bag AGAIN for Krasnapolsky transfer information, put away the sweat-making jacket and get out my flannel shirt against the coldness in the airport. Eat half the remaining pizza by 8:02 and have no appetite for more: who knows, Caribbean Airlines might serve FOOD on the plane. Sick of typing now at 8:22 (we're supposed to board at 8:15, but there's NO one at gate 11, and a whole horde of passengers just came out of gate 10 and appear to be waiting for gate 11 now. Back to mindless sudoku. At 8:39 I mess up sudoku number 150: I AM losing it, though it may just be lack of sleep. Board (all at once, after mistakenly thinking I heard the flight was transferred to Gate 8) at 8:55. 1:15 flight, thankfully, pilot saying we'll be flying over most of Trinidad, but then mostly over the ocean, after which Paramaribo will be on the left, he'll make two left turns, and then land. Off at 9:17PM. Leave Trinidad lights (increasingly few) at 9:26. Change wristwatch to 10:52, glad to gain an hour on getting to sleep. She asks if I want anything to drink and, thinking it might be free (and smelling wonderful food which, it turns out, is never served), ask for a gin and tonic, for which she has the nerve to ask $4 for, but I wanted the drink anyway. Surprised that I don't feel particularly tired. Some lights below, but none really of the city, mostly farms and strange long lines of what might be farmlands, and then reflections of the full moon in bodies of water below. [4:36PM Sunday: just chase an enormous bumblebee out of my room: TWICE!] Land at 11:34, not seeing much below, though he DID point out the distant glow of lights of Georgetown, and they DID have a map showing where we were, which was nice. Off plane 11:47, UPSTAIRS (with bags) to pee at 11:53, quickly through immigration, which does NOT ask for yellow-fever forms [and someone on the bus Sunday says that a two-day notice of departure is ONLY necessary if you're staying over 30 days]. Out and look for Krasnapolsky driver, but get besieged by taxi drivers for anxious moments before somone with a list of names comes toward me and asks me to ADD my name to the bottom of his list for the Krasnapolsky.
SATURDAY, 3/22/08: Into car at 12:02 with what I take to be his helper in the other front seat, a woman in the middle, and a large English-speaking fellow from Aruba gets in back with me, chatting about his setting up a business here, where he's giving a lecture at the University, where he's staying as a VIP, so we stop at the University auto gate, locked, at 12:45AM, but the guy finds the side gate open, and the driver and he disappear inside, dogs barking like mad, until he appears to be settled and driver returns. At 12:54 he lets out the other guy from the front seat at the Hong Kong supermarket, and I later notice that ALL the supermarkets and many of the restaurants are all Chinese owned and operated. At 1AM we drive down bumpy suburban dirty roads to let off the woman for her shirtless tubby brown husband to carry her bags, and I'm now alone in the back seat. More bumpy roads, more nondescript streets, until we finally enter a more business-oriented neighborhood, passing the American flag over the American Embassy that he points out to me, after passing some TRULY luxurious mansions surrounded by fences and barred windows, and at 1:11AM he pulls into the special street cutaway in front of the Krasnapolsky, where he helps me out with my black bag from the back, I stumble to desk where I THINK I hear them say they DON'T accept credit cards, but there's an ATM machine around the corner, and they mention a swimming pool, but I say I just want to get to BED. Get key to room 419, seeing on the elevator that we're on B (for basement?), 1 is restaurants and shops, 2 is the parking lot, 3 is conference rooms, and floors 4-6 are for hotel rooms. They tell me breakfast is served until 10AM, I get to room 419 at 1:20, big enough with two double beds and more than adequate storage space, a balcony with drapes drawn in front of it, and a toilet that works well enough. Get into bed at 1:28 but it dawns on me that I haven't taken my evening pills yet, so I think, decide the water is OK to drink, take pills, and get back into bed at 1:36AM, exhausted and immediately to sleep after turning air conditioner up from 18 degrees to 20 degrees, much more comfortable under a sheet. 7:05AM wake and glance at the clock, then back to sleep. Wake again at 8:25AM, type a dream, and think to go back to bed now at 8:39, maybe for another hour. 8:54AM: Decide I MUST get up, dress, have breakfast, and start looking into touring possibilities. To breakfast 9:06AM. 9:40AM: Well, such as it was, it was breakfast: half-cup of hot chocolate because they ran out of hot milk, later replaced, to which I added something called "coffee milk" that echoed the taste of condensed milk. One large grapefruit section, though I vaguely recall a prohibition against that when taking statins [yes, it IS forbidden]; two slices of cheese and one of salami, then two fried eggs with a bun with butter, and an odd mix of potatoes and some kind of shredded meat---or it even could have been fish. A glass of thin pineapple juice for my pills, and decided I'd had enough, primarily of my Dutch-accented neighbors who seemed to be talking business, and a number of quiet children. Out at 9:35, toward the end of breakfast, and down to the desk to ask for and get a one-sheet map of the eight-square-block area, and when I asked for tours, she said they'd probably all be closed today for the holiday (and clearly tomorrow too), but when I asked for a brochure she gave me a thick copy of "The Guide: Suriname Business Advisory 2007-2008, First Edition Complimentary." So now I try to find something. Look through to 10:10 and find really nothing of interest except "this is a wooden town" and "hours are Monday through Friday." Wander town today, rest, and try to get somewhere else tomorrow? Stuff stuff into cabinets, put everything I think I'll need into my shoulder bag, and take #17 from my room at 10:20AM. Leave for a walk of the waterfront at 10:22AM. Turn left out the entrance, most everything closed, a policeman standing guard at the corner. Turn down a diagonal street that goes into the distance, and decide to turn left to get to the waterfront. Take a few pictures of colorful houses. Stop at a group seemingly waiting for a bus, but the couple speaking English is waiting for a bus for a two-day trip to the man-made dam with the enormous lake in the middle of the country: Eco-tourists. Take a picture of the Gandhi Memorial, go down a likely road, and see one travel organization that seems to be more for shipping, then stumble into Waaggebouw (on map which hotel gave me) to talk to woman who refers me to Botty Sanches who hooks me up with Bodeco Adventures for tomorrow, which will take me by bus and "boot" to Galibi via Myryshji tours, but he has to phone someone else since I have to walk ten minutes to get to ANOTHER village which has room: "You look as if you don't mind a ten-minute walk." I give him $20 deposit, and I have to pay $205 in cash tomorrow at 8:15AM (he even indicates a 24-hour ATM across from a nearby church), PROMPT, when they pick me up at the hotel for the tour. Then what to do today? Well, I could take a tuk-tuk to the Zoo, or I could take bus number 4 to Leonsberg to get a boat across the river to New Amsterdam to look at their fort, and can take a taxi back if the bus isn't working, since today and Sunday and even MONDAY is all part of the four-day Easter holiday when NOTHING is operating. I thank him, find bus-line 4 stop, wait for 15 minutes, to 12:06PM, then think to ask people sitting there drinking beer, who inform me that bus 4 isn't operating at ALL today. Ask at a few busses where I can go for a few hours, see some of the country, and come back, but they all seem to be PRIVATE one-group-rents-all busses. I keep insisting I don't want a taxi to anywhere distant because they're too expensive. Finally a bus driver keeps at me until I confess that I'll pay 20SD, just under $7, for a taxi to the zoo. Get there at 12:30 and ask him to return at 4PM. Offer him a 50SD note, but he doesn't have change for what I thought for a moment was a 7SD charge, but of course he reminded me later that it was a $7US charge, or 20SD! Entrance to Zoo was 3SD, for which he HAD change. See capybara in water, Indian tigers in various states of stupor, roaring, and "sensitive to photography in any form." An ocelot appears to have cataracts, but is awfully cute anyway. Many monkeys, a trio of caracaras looking spooked by any outside noise, toucans and peacock in a too-small cage. 1:40: tired, tired, tired: hot and humid, not THAT great a zoo. Collared peccaries, boar, boa, HUGE anaconda, roaring tigers, neck-grooming macaws, boars, wild (uncaged) lizards and spectacular small birds of all colors. Sudoku for relaxation. Re-start at 2:25 after winning two easy sudokus and getting bored with THAT. #25 playground at zoo at 2:50. Chocolate-covered ice cream for only 2SD. "Ordinary" birds incredible. #26 seductive turkey 3PM. #27 cataracted ocelot 3:14. Female masturbating black spider monkey staring at my eyes at 3:24 for #28-29. #30 jabiru stork 3:35. Stand outside 3:39-3:53 waiting for taxi, which shows up with a friend who reminds driver I said Krasnapolsky when he stops before two strange hotels asking which was mine. To hotel 4:07, paying 40SD. Get ice from fifth floor and drink six delicious glasses of ice water to make up for the hot afternoon. Lie down, tired, at 4:16, but at 4:30, obsessed, get up and get dressed to get CASH. Hotel bill in SD is 841.59. $105US is 288.75SD. Type at 5:03PM: I have absolutely no confidence in anything I'm doing! Asked at the desk if they accepted credit cards, and they said they DID. So I still had to get cash for the $205 due tomorrow morning for the trip, so I took my MasterCard around the corner and withdrew the maximum possible single-transaction amount: 1000SD, or about $300. Then I returned and asked for my hotel bill in SD, and she replied that it would be 841.59SD. Then I knew I had $120 in US cash, so I could pay $100 of the $205 owed tomorrow in dollars, as requested, and so I asked how much $105US was in SD, and the answer was 288.75SD. But I'm paying my hotel bill with a CREDIT CARD, so I don't NEED that many Surinam dollars! So I'll have to pay the WHOLE $205US in SD tomorrow, which will be about 560SD, which will STILL leave me with a lot of SD, though I'll be back at LEAST one night here before catching the plane back to Trinidad. So do I understand anything better now? Not on my life!! Let's try solving the two current unsolved sudoku just to occupy my mind. Puzzles to 7:35, then down to eat. Look into the snack shop, but they only have boring sandwiches. Down to the bar, but they just have snacks and drinks, saying, "The restaurant is on the second floor." The Atrium looks much too fancy, and I'm not hungry because I finished the last quarter of the pizza about 5:15PM. Then see Popeye's, and select a huge chicken creole dinner for 14SD with lots of chicken, nice-enough vegetables, a good hot muffin, and more rice than I could possibly eat, with a more than passable cherry drink. Satisfied, I'm finished at 8:20. Start shower at 8:42, figuring it's been 4 days already and I'm salty from two nights ago. Brush teeth while watching TV, mainly "Discovery" on Noah's Ark, and bed at 10:10PM.
SUNDAY, 3/23/08: Wake at 6:50 and add shampoo to my stash for the day. Out at 7:02, check bag, breakfast is open, JUST. Have eggs, cheese, salami, yogurt, sugar-frosted flakes, two cups of hot chocolate, and feel nicely full. Pay Visa bill of $306. To room 7:44. TRY to shit, but only the tiniest bit. Leave room 8AM, chat with cute Marco and pretty Sylvia, both from Netherlands, saying they were told to wait from 8AM! Bus comes at 8:25, leaves at 8:31, and gets to 2000 Suriname Bridge 8:36 for #32 Paramaribo shot. Ten on tour, me only speaking only English, but Ari and his wife are OK, as are Marco and Sylvia. Stop 9:50AM for knockwurst and salami sandwiches and good strong tea with Cremora, since we have lunch at THREE. #33 sandwich stop 9:55. #34 Pis Bak with Avi 10:16. #36 fruit stand 10:27. Leaving #37 road, car, interior at 11:03, to finish the roll. Roll 4: #1 Moengo's Casa Blanca Polyclinic at 11:20, built in the 1920s for the now extinct bauxite extraction for aluminum by Alcoa, remains bought by Venezuela to finish up what might be low-grade left in the surroundings. #3-4 (battery going) Moivana Memorial to 17 people killed (men, women, PREGNANT women, and children) in 1986 in inter-racial wars that sent some to live in French Guiana, where Szarkozy is now making it illegal for them to stay. #5 Afaka: African symbol for Protection on top 12:15. Albina at 12:30. #6-7 Albina 12:32. #8 normal boats 12:52. Piyakas have higher prows to battle waves. [Kwek: mercury-containing gold purifier that contaminated the waters and caused much mutation and disease.] Buy bug repellant and flashlight with batteries for 13.50SD. John cost 3SD, but I started a new roll of toilet paper and managed to pass a reasonable stool. Onto bus toward boats at 12:57. #9 bathers at 1:01. Ready for boat (jellies on, necessaries in plastic bag, shoulder bag passed to be put under tarp in front of piyaka) at 1:08. #12 piyaka at 1:26. Across 1:35-2:33, incredible ride over splashing waves, getting drenched on one side, water filling bottom of boat. He gives me room 7, which happens to have a drawing of a white-bearded Santa on the front: MUST get someone to take my picture there! So I don't have to walk ten minutes to next village, and Benito supposedly phoned to say I was going across to French Guiana (for as little as three hours, for which Sharon doesn't even need her passport, but Benito said there wouldn't be any stamp in my passport). Wash jellies: I must have stepped in SOME kind of shit to make the bottom of one of them so totally disgusting, worse because shower floor slopes AWAY from drain, so there's a squeegee to push the water, sand, and crap toward the uphill drain. Benito knocks on my door to make sure I come to lunch: soursop drink, chicken, greens, rice, and yams, with rambutan and "sweet finger" tiny bananas for dessert. We go to the Zoo at 5:30. To room at 3:40, type 3:43, searching to 4PM to find where to start typing on card 4. Type to 5:20. To Zoo 5:37-6:15, picking up a small anaconda, passing on holding the comatose two-toed sloth, amused by the kinkajou running around us, later a parrot parent-set and three little ones. Benito is sad to find the souvenir shop closed, but says it'll be open tomorrow. To room at 6:40 to close all the windows and type in the bathroom to avoid attracting mosquitos, which have bitten Sylvia's legs, but not much else. Go to dinner at 7:02, managing to get to the top of card 6. Didn't know soup was the ONLY course or I would have had more than a scant cup. Then Benito talks for ages about the rules for the turtles, basically stopping to tell me to 7:48 that you take no flash, but THEY will light subject, and keep everything in a waterproof bag, and encouraging me to wear my bathing suit, saying to take a long-sleeved shirt in case it gets cool in the lake-spray. To group at 8:02, but my camera is just DEAD, so I dash back and change the battery, and the thing WORKS. So dash out, board the boat, maybe leaving late Michael behind, since I get a single seat both ways. Out at 8:19, said to be 45 minutes, and land at 8:41, searching coast for turtle tracks. There's some spray and they pass back an enormous tarpaulin under which we can shelter, thought it's not really needed. See 5-6 turtles laying, some finishing and photographable, others just starting, one stuck under a root and rescued for a quick jaunt to the sea, trying pictures of that too. See two close together at the end, but we're leaving back to boat, on boat at 9:35, learning to stuff everything into my bathing trunks to make climbing over the seats in the rocking boat easier, and land at 10PM, getting to room at 10:05, start last card 7, clean shoes and feet to 10:17, reluctant to wash off all the citronella, though I carefully arrange the mosquito net around the double bed and finish typing this on the single bed, sweating in the still room, having eaten my salami sandwich and taking my night pills to 10:18, having taken through #28 of turtles and eggs, and it's now 11:05! And I get earplugs and prepare to sweat to sleep, breakfast supposedly at 8:30AM tomorrow. Curtains blowing very slightly in breeze, so maybe I won't suffocate. Lights off at 11:07PM.
MONDAY, 3/24/08: 6:22AM: Wake, pee, and type delirious dream. Finish typing at 6:37AM, and figure to turn the light back out and try to get more rest before the boat to French Guiana today, then back to Paramaribo with the tour. Up, reluctantly and depressedly, at 7:53. Why is everything so HARD?? 8:15AM: Shit, wash face, put bug repellant ALL over, put on swimsuit, jellies, shirt, and go out to see the world. 8:25AM: Put everything ON tables and bed: WHEN do we have to vacate room? #29 group at breakfast 8:45-9:10, when they announce that Papillon's prison is CLOSED for holiday today, so we'll only go to French Guiana tomorrow! So I go to "chief" and get receipt for 150SD for another night in Santa's room 7, where Benito takes #30 of me and Santa at 9:20, then announces we go NOW in boat to Nature Center, taking sun screen, camera in bag, hat and sunglasses, no money needed. Lock everything away and leave at 9:40AM. Off 9:57, land on SAND of Tiger Bank at 10:34. "1/2 hour here." #31 sand and people 10:37. #32 sand ripples 10:40. #33 man walking on water at infinity 10:49. NO fish, but find shells, someone finds a live crab in a shell, and I pick up a shell and a connected two-shell. Also think I see two splashes nearby, and later an 8-inch FISH jumps into the bottom of our BOAT. Leave 11:10. Land at (empty) Warana Lodge 11:20. #34 4 turtle types 11:30. #35 many cactus growths on one plant 11:35. #36 no idea of pineapple-shaped bunches of large bottle-brushes, brittle at the ends, soft toward the tops, 11:38. #37 composite: center is growing, 3PM is two smaller versions of center, not yet rooted; noon is a flake-seed of some kind; 11 is a seed; 10 is almond in its fruit, 9 unknown intricate rooting-flowering something, 8 cashew with fruit 11:35. Roll 5---but when I "rewind" roll 4 and open back, it's NOT REWOUND. Go into not-dark toilet to manually remove roll 4, clearly losing it ALL, and roll 5 seems OK when I retape battery pieces in. 12:10 board boat last, they almost left me. I even forgot to put on lifejacket. Long wet way back, feeling disgusted with the whole thing, motor grounding at one point but recovering, and then near the shore at 12:55 we are told to WADE ashore, where I happen to step into some deep, soft, putrid blue clay, losing my left jelly in about six inches of gunk, get to room and wash most off to 1:05, go to far table for LEAVING group having lunch, and Hortensio says our lunch is in front of my place at 1:30. Go back and clear MOST of the gunk from the shower floor by 1:18, then catch up with these notes to 1:30, and NOW to try to list what I LOST. Chicken, rice and beans, fish that was too fishy, and watermelon for dessert. Then Marco and Ari and I talk about IBM and working until 2:30, when Hortensio says he's leaving until 5PM when we'll go for a walk in the next village. I lay down until 2:40, but decide, perversely, I want to see WHICH pictures I lost. Transcribed to file 7. 2:53: Well, I can RETAKE Albina, Moivana, boats, and Ari can send sandbar, turtles, and maybe plants. MAYBE not so awful. And my turtle pictures probably wouldn't have turned out so well ANYWAY! Fairly content at 2:55PM, maybe some relaxing puzzles. Stop, tired, at 3:11. Reluctantly up at 4:38PM. Leave 4:52 with e-mail card for Ari, and wallet for stuff. Roll 5: #1 Marco and Sylvia, and #2 me and Santa at 5:05PM. Tiger Bank is on MAP of Suriname, and we're on the Marowyne River. Take village tour, go back to zoo for photos, walk far, to radio station, #7 Tawapore Radio Station sign at 6:06PM. and then to bar for a Cherry Dance for 10SD, delicious, talking to a Dutchman who travels too. Back to room at 7:01PM to change for dinner. Chicken dinner with my LSD tale. Marco's mother's dies the day HE stopped smoking, and I type this at 7:55, getting camera for dance program in village. Dance starts the instant we get there at 8:05, VERY slow and repetitious, particularly the two times that WE had to participate, but I see three faces that I want pictures of, so I take #10 of band, #11 of line of women dancers, #12 of best-faced old man, #13 of young girl, and #14 of young boy who's kind enough to put his costume back on, including headband. Back to hear that breakfast is at 8AM, and trip may be 10 or 11AM, he doesn't know yet. Clean shoes from sand until 9:27, then decide to take a shower, which takes until 9:56. Still humid-feeling, but I have a few notes to catch up on, which I do to 10:04PM. Waiting for hair to dry: pills to take, room to make up for tomorrow, mosquito net to put around: I DO think I saw a mosquito fly out of the bathroom, and the gecko on the top of the wall has to be eating SOMETHING! Drink water and pee one last time at 10:28 and bed.
TUESDAY, 2/25/08: 2:44AM: Wake and pee and type dream to 2:49AM. Had trouble getting back to sleep, looking at watch at 3:55AM, trying Actualism, thinking about future of this trip (taking photos of Marco's tattoos, maybe without his shirt on, demonstrating his "famous" belly-slaps), and about past trips, and the arduousness of parts of this trip, trying to start Actualism three or four times, but finally fell asleep after 4AM, waking at 5:30AM with another dream. Type to 5:42, peeing again, almost considering going out to look at the place at sunrise, but consider mosquitos and just decide to go back to bed again. Rather hopelessly rewind film into roll in semi-dark bathroom to 5:54AM, still vainly hoping for SOME remnants of photos, though I'll continue taking "makeup" photos since I have no shortage of film, only 5 rolls used in 8 days, half the trip. 7:02AM: type third dream to 7:09. Men are talking VERY loudly; I can hear them clearly through my earplugs, so I decide to get up and take some pictures of the place before it's loaded with people in the way of the views. See a shadow of a waving hand on my window: they're sitting RIGHT OUTSIDE talking so loudly! Up at 7:12AM and shit, clean shoes again, dress, pack most stuff away, "wrap up" mosquito net and window curtains, and get out for photos at 7:48AM. #16-18 Myrysij (or Myrysji) camp to 7:52. Pay 5SD dance fee to Nonda. #19 loading 8:06. #20 off at 8:10. #21 Ari and Nonda and dogs 8:13. e-mails on back: marco@vendeloo.nl (his name!) and romijn.a@quicknet.nl (Ari Romijn). Guide says NO French Guiana! We complain, he checks, OK, we go at 11AM. Then at 10AM. Lastly, we convince him for 9:30. Finish this to date at 8:50, digesting two eggs, two cups of tea, glass of juice, and bread and butter and tiny bit of oily sardine. Now to change for LONG---they say 1.5 hours between St. Laurent and Albina!---trip in wet, just the five of us. Squeeze absolutely EVERYTHING into shoulder bag: INCLUDING jeans and shoes! Hope there's room for THIS! Take camera, roll of film, money, sunscreen, and notepad and pen in waterproof jock-strap bag. Put this in last, tight squeeze I'm sure, at 9:10AM. Pack all THREE compartments to UTMOST! Off at 9:45 when I finally move the five of us from Ari's and Nonda's balcony to the area of the boat so Hortensio could see we were ready. He says it's 1.5 hours to Saint Laurent du Maroni. Though there's spray, we stay mainly close to the (going upriver) right bank of the river the French Guianese call Le Maroni, which explains St. Laurent du Maroni. Lots of mangroves and what I describe as the "big blue plastic bag" as the most common bird seen at river level. There's spray, but MUCH less because we have a smaller boat, the waves are MUCH more calm, and then we see a town on the left bank (after many uninhabited islets in the middle of the river) that turns out to be our destination at which we arrive at 10:48, just 1:03. #23 prisoner statue 10:53. #25 (after getting 40E from an ATM machine in case we want to buy anything more than the 5E prison entry fee) 11:05. 40 prisoners in 20 one-person cells, 600 in 150 two-person cells. 3000 total, though the brochure says a total of 70,000 passed through between 1852 and 1953. #35-36 40 prisoners on death row 11:22. Papillon HERE, tried EIGHT times to escape, usually captured in Venezuela, then he was sent to Devil's Island where he escaped on a raft of coconuts, married a Carib woman, was later declared innocent, and died at age 66, in 1973. This closed in 1958. #9 guillotine place 11:18. You must SIGN to be killed, you get a liter of wine, gin, and a croissant, though brochure says dinner. #12 Papillon's name in HIS cell 11:44. FORBIDDEN area at first was for TORTURE. #23 main street 12:12. #28 wreck and yacht 12:36. Leave 12:55. Across river to Albina 1:03, DRESS to 1:20, into car which leaves right then for the 150 km to Paramaribo. Eat their mostly rice lunch by 1:36. To pis bak 2:50-3PM, VERY hot in sun. 4:08 to Krasnapolsky, me off first, thanking all four for being so kind as to speak English so much. Ask for travel agent, sent to Orange, which turned out to be only INTERIOR tours, and next door for exterior tours at 4:16 for cute Jose (who has a girl friend who's studying speech pathology in Valhalla, New York, where he's going to be visiting 4/25-29, and took my e-mail address). He MUST close at 4:35, by order of the hotel who owns the travel agency, but he goes to the pool with his agenda. He leaves me at 4:42 and I get to room 631 and go to fifth floor to get ice and drink two glasses by 4:15! #34-37 views from room by 5:19. Roll 7 into camera. Sort all clothing to 5:38. Start typing and Jose knocks on my door at 5:42, saying my phone was off the hook, which it was. He sets up a bus pickup in lobby tomorrow 4:30-5AM, bus 45SD. Puts me at ferry for $20US round-trip, where Mario, Alicia's husband (she owns Wonderland Tours) will pick me up for a $100 Visa-card taxi to Pegasus Hotel in Georgetown by about 4PM. It's $120US per night, don't walk ANYWHERE; Alicia will tell me what to do IF she can't get me a Kaieteur tour Thursday. Then leave Friday about 6AM, back to ferry, and back to Krasnapolsky by 4PM Friday, where I went down with Jose, who charged me 32SD for his services, and didn't have a receipt for me, to reserve room for Friday and Saturday 3AM taxi to airport for 6AM flight to Port of Spain for about $35US. He suggests half-price steak at Mirage Hotel and Casino, half-price Monday and Tuesday, right out hotel door and about two minutes away, get the steak with mushroom sauce. Finish typing this at 6:55PM, ready for dinner, and will sort out papers and get ready for, say 8:30 bed to be up for 4:30 lobby for bus. CAN'T find blue comb. Leave for Mirage 7:06. Order at 7:18, watching players and women in short back skirts and hose. Steak and rolls, good and garlicked, but get potatoes and vegetables too. Two glasses of red wine. At 8:08 ask for check and "Not in hotel," so no credit card. Pay 71SD with no tip. 8:18 leave call for 4:15AM! Set alarm (which doesn't go off). Leave bag downstairs at 8:45. Bed at 9PM. Look at clock at 9:04PM and sleep thereafter.
WEDNESDAY, 3/25/08: Wake at 2:04AM with dream. Finish typing at 2:15AM, vaguely woozy from the five-hour's sleep with Ambien, ready for two more hours' sleep. Phone rings at 4:15AM, out at 4:27, served tea, two cheese sandwiches, egg and salt and sweet cake in box. I finish more than half, pack rest, and wait outside at 4:44AM. Move into cooler lobby at 4:48, finish egg by 4:55, get two napkins for orange, finish that and get picked up at 5:12, only second on bus. Hotel Lambada no-show 5:15-5:18. More added, and family of three squeezes in front of me. Stop at house 5:24 and two smokers get in at 5:35. Old woman is ready. Driver gets water at 6:03 and 28 liters of diesel for 91.50 at 6:36. Nickerie is 219 km. Bridge at 6:50. 12 passengers, 2 drivers. Stop 7:03-7:05. Drempel=speed bump. 7:50 MANY parrots fly over. 7:43 HUGE river bridge. 8:46 Nickerie province? #1 over bridge in Nickerie 9:08. #2 Hindu flags and bananas at pee stop 9:20. 1SD for women, trench for men). #3 service station---how boring 9:35. Leave 9:46. Arrive at ferry 10:25. Onto ticket line 10:33, FINALLY get round trip for $15US at 11:13. Wait for immigration line. Disgusted at waits, and probably a ferry leaves? Get on line for boat. Cars start on 11:33. #4 going on Guyana ferry 11:17. #5 OLD ferry 11:40. #6 MY bus, gangplank up 11:42. #7 goodier turning(?) 11:41. #10 FIRST view of LAST CONTINENTAL AMERICAN country visited: Guyana, at noon. #11 Awkward docking 12:09. #12 docking (and captain) 12:17. To immigration line 12:21! Through 12:45, PISSED, to crazy phone call twice "I go with Bobby." In a VAN, so much for $100. SIT and sudoku 12:50-1:06. Bobby and Bob IRATE. #13 Spinglands street 1:32. 2:32 while waiting for the ferry. Bobby will buy me some fried rice. 3PM. Driver: "Maybe ferry in half an hour. Maybe ATM somewhere." LAST car on 3:42. Bobby and girl NOT in car, but loaded with 6-8 others. Leave 4:18 AT LAST. Off first 4:52, NOT sinking! To street 4:45. His daughter drives me crazy with constant movement in seat ahead of me, not to mention her incessant curiosity about my sudoku when we were waiting to leave the ferry station. Then we enter streets right out of old India: the driver (at first I thought it was Bobby, turning dangerously to talk to his daughter!, until I saw him sitting with both hands behind his head!) INCESSANTLY honks his horn: at other cars, at pedestrians, at bicyclists, and at the ZOO of animals on the streets: horse-drawn carts, tethered and free donkeys, a ROOSTER lying contentedly in the center of one lane, a wet, black-slicked duck just avoiding our front wheel, and then ENDLESS cows wandering in and out of traffic, though the dead one is only on one SIDE of the road. Speeding too fast to take any but the most CURSORY pictures of the VERY varied housing: EXTREMELY roomy, elegantly decorated, fresh-colored paint glowing in the sunlight, metal grates on all windows and doors and gates surrounding the entire property, sometimes grotesquely next to the MOST tumbled-down, abandoned, unpainted, splintered-wooden houses. Properties adjoining in STRIKING states of contrast that was IMPOSSIBLE to catch on the fly, including the mixture of gaudily-colored Hindu temples with gods and goddesses and minarets, and then Islamic mosques with their domes and sometimes colorful side decorations. Many homes had private altars or temples at the sides of their yards. The names of the townships changed every few miles, verified on the map that Alicia kindly gave me of Guyana when I visited her office, another story completely, which I'll type in its place. Last people off 6:44. They stop for me at an ATM, where I barge in on a woman inside who glares at me, and Bobby tells me the obvious: "Only one person at a time, for security." Of course. I try ALL THREE cards and they ALL say "Prior transaction refused, card not accepted." As I leave, a bald American asks if I had trouble, and when I say yes, he tells me that the ATM at the Pegasus Hotel will accept these American cards. Ask Bobby to take me to the Pegagus and he goes ballistic: "I told you they were full, you have a room at the Regency!" "But I only want an ATM machine!" "He told you to go there, you withdraw the money, and he kills you for it!" I tell him, almost to the word, that he's CRAZY. At one point I SLAM my hand on the seat back and DEMAND to be taken to the Pegasus so I can wihhdraw enough money to hire my own plane, if necessary, to see Kaieteur Falls, but he stops in front of the Regency and REFUSES to let me go anywhere else. The desk woman tells me that SHE doesn't have an ATM, but the ATM at some bank whose name I've forgotten will honor the cards, but that Alicia wants to talk to me. She calls, and Alicia says she'll come to pick me up. I go up to my assigned room 213, after going, logically to floor 2, but the clerk insists she told me, but I didn't hear, that I'd be on the THIRD floor. Back up to 3 for 213 and find the phone on the unmade bed, which is ringing: Alicia will is here to pick me up to the office and bank. I go down to change room, leaving my bag, and she and her affable husband Mario, who apologizes for not meeting me, and they never really USE Bobby, but he was the only one available: their PLANE broke down yesterday, they had to refund everyone's money, find another plane for the next day, from which "she bumped two people to get me on the flight to Kaieteur Falls!" I tell her I'm so happy I could kiss her, she's pleased, and I plant a kiss on her sleeve. To the office, where everything is done by credit card so I don't NEED cash, she even forgets to charge me for Bobby's ride after I confess how awful it was, and she arranges for my 4AM pickup for my way back to Paramaribo, where I have to pick up my BAG, otherwise she might be able to change my flight to Port of Spain from GEORGETOWN, which would mean I didn't HAVE to go back to Paramaribo on that nightmare ride on Friday. HOW SAD! But she drives me back at 7:48 to the Regency, Alicia rescues me. Pegasus full, no ATM works. To NEW room 207 8PM and good chicken Kiev dinner at 8:02. Bed 9:35. Add anti-itch 11:07.
THURSDAY, 3/27/08: Wake at 2:20AM with dream, but look at file 3 and find I've spaced probably to the end of the file, and OBSESSIVELY, to 2:54AM, BACKSPACE all the blanks, KNOWING that I could have just transferred the file and much more QUICKLY deleted the blanks in WP; but I AM obsessive! So now at 2:55 start typing dream. Finish that at 2:58, sweating still even though I turned on the AC. And a BUG was ejected from this after I backspaced about 400 of the around 800 backspace-lines I did! 3:07AM: TAKE a fucking Valium, and pee, so I can TRY to get some fucking sleep, so I can FEEL fucking better about this fucking trip: after all, I HAVE gotten to the four main countries, and WILL get to Kaieteur tomorrow! RELAX, just fucking RELAX!! Up 7:01 to shower to 7:18. Type to 7:35, no phone. Loud TV next door. To breakfast 7:42: not ready yet: have cereal and cocoa, then muffin and 2 eggs, bread, bun, and sign for it, back to room 8:05 to shit loosely and catch up with everything but the ride into town last night, by 8:17, bag already packed for day. Quick tooth brush, add TAPE to bag, leave room at 8:25AM. Transcribe on note 9: #23 (Alicia arrives [sudoku]---) and look at clock above desk at 9AM by my watch and find it's only EIGHT AM!!! One hour's time difference! She's not a half hour late, I'm a half hour early! Apologize to breakfast person for getting to breakfast at 6:42AM! Everyone smiles. I'm back up to room (where light takes a LONG time to turn on) at 8:06AM. In fact, last night, glancing at the phone, I noticed that IT was "an hour early," and of course I didn't get my "7:30AM call" until an hour LATER! So I can BEGIN to record yesterday afternoon! Now 8:31 THEIR time, so I'll go down and wait for her NOW, at the RIGHT time. WHAT A RELIEF: I'd feared something HAPPENED when she "was a half hour late," and phone rings NOW at 8:31AM! Alicia recommends a wine she loved in New York but can't find here: Barterone Wine good. To airport (turns out to be Ogle; Bobby lied when he said that there was only ONE airport here; international airport is some distance south of Georgetown, whereas Ogle is right in the middle of an eastern suburb. I SPILL GUTS to Alicia about Bobby, "Who's got something very wrong with him," she admits, which is SUCH a RELIEF. She contacted him only as a very last resort (though Jai from today seems somehow a better choice, though he's more expensive, at $140, which I assume included his taxiing me around Demerara and over the Harbor Bridge as sightseeing which SHE had promised after the flight). Ask Mario for a bottle of water (as I did last night at the office) and he brings me a small bottle, thankfully not a two-liter bottle I see some guys carrying around. At 8:58 Alicia calls seven people (who are probably the ones who go later to the OTHER falls and get lunch at Kaieteur Falls) and tells me, "You wait for next flight!" Possible ATM was at Scotiabank, an ad in one of the VERY old papers (February dates in March?) left on table to be read, one of which I take from February 9 about a "Flood Watch," since Alicia points out that all the canals are headed by dams that keep out the Atlantic Ocean, since most of Georgetown is below sea level. Still reading papers at 9:36AM. #23 boarding 9:39. #24 cockpit 9:42. Taxi at 9:44, eight passengers, seat next to pilot empty, I demanding seat behind pilot with large window AHEAD of the propeller and the wheels which never rise up. Red plane (which lands much later at Kaieteur and takes off earlier) goes at 9:46 and we go at 9:48AM. To #28 taken of town to 9:49. #28 river 9:50. #29 fire in field 9:53, #30 towns and river 9:54. Speed about 100 knots climbing past 3000 feet. #31 town and islands 9:56. #32 into clouds 9:58. 6000 feet above clouds, mostly. #33 winding river at 10AM. At 10:11 6500 feet and 115 knots. #34 roads and islands 10:13. #35 just above clouds 10:15. #36 industry? 10:25. #37 mining? 10:37. Roll 8: #1 [ground rising, clouds thickening and darkening at 10:45] first view 10:46. Through #6 to 10:48. Through #12 to 10:50. #13 landing 10:51. Land at 10:52. #14 park sign 10:55. #15 second plane lands; other plane, out of order yesterday, carried 16 passengers. Wait at 11:08, having peed into bushes waiting for people to get off plane before going into shed where there were official johns. We start walk 11:12. Nine Indian tribes in the area of the falls, named for chief Kai who voluntarily went over the falls for some political pride reason. Falls is at 1500 feet altitude. May and June see rains, when there are no tours, but otherwise there are planes every day, the most was EIGHT in a day. #16 sundews, carnivores, which is why there are no insects here. Second carnivores are cabbage-head bromeliads, for which I have no camera when one was pointed out again by our cute guide, who seemed to get no tips from anyone at the end. We're walking on conglomerate that contains diamonds and gold, which we are to give to him. He says he actually found a diamond, to which a tourist replied, "Then why are you working?" He works six months a year, lives there with other guides, and at the end points out the two-bedroom guest house and a few other buildings in the area. #17 fucking locusts 11:23. #19 rocks we pass between at 11:38. #20 Johnson's View 11:40, through #23. #24 two golden frogs (poison, one inch long or less), #25 SIDE falls and rapids 11:47. #26 stone bridge 11:56. H3 problem starts. To #34 from Boy Scouts View to 12:01. To #37 to 12:03, to get ONE roll complete before H3 problem totally disables camera. It started intermittently, then more incessant, and with Roll 9: #1 view, #2 frog, #3 frog with H3 problems. Manage somehow to get through #9 from Rainbow View to 12:45, but to 1:02 TOTAL FRUSTRATION at the SPECTACULAR lip to get camera to do ANYTHING---all H3s. Beautiful green water plants, brown cascade in center, floating green islands of rooted plants, vari-colored bottom rocks and weeds, smoke rising, people lying on edge, a couple daring the overhanging rock, beautiful green side cascades, rainbows brilliant, lush green verdancy below, none of which I could photograph but must remember---along with the frustration with the camera which I tried to diminish by insisting "I am NOT my camera; I'm here to see this for ME, not primarily to TAKE PICTURES of it." Leave rim 1:12, in fact two hours, as he said tour would be, from the minute we started. Back past outbuildings and other plants: an onion-shaped bulb whose seeds are eaten by birds and carried elsewhere, the second bromeliad, rubber vines, trees which make tea and can be cooked as a vegetable, a bitch being fed leftovers from the meals the other group didn't finish before they left. Back to pee at 1:30, have a Sprite and a pastry at 1:37. Trying my camera again gave me once an H5, then I sent the zoom out and got a U5, with a clicking when I tried ANYTHING else, including trying to manually reinsert the phallic zoom, and then get a U7 blinking at 1:57. Into plane at 2:02, insisting on my favored seat, the girl who had her eyes closed through most of the trip sat in the back, the one who threw up seemed very recessive through the whole trip, and the father sat up front with me, saying nothing. Off at 2;04, fantasizing my camera recovering from the possible "H" of Heat or Humidity, but it never does, and I keep repeating; look at the beautiful clouds, the craggy valleys below near the falls which I didn't see on the way in, the rectilinear sugar cane fields near town, the long Harbor Bridge we later drove over, the river debouching into the Atlantic at low tide, leaving large marshy expanses exposed, some sunken ships in ocean, some commercial vessels on the river, large parts of the town below us, including the Carib Community Center for some central governing body, and what turned out to be a Chinese-constructed special-exhibition building next door. Climb to 7500 feet, only 95 knots on climb at 2:29. FABULOUS flight, over all parts of town: international airport, new stadium built in the last year, the two convention centers, the canals and buildings and commercial areas, then the slums around the Ogle airport, landing at 3:12. The family goes to their car and I see neither Alicia nor Mario, and finally a taxi driver asks where I want to go and I CANNOT think of the name of my hotel: not the Nemesis, nor the Genesis, certainly not the Pegasus, nor The Zoom, and as I ask if he has a city guide as I'd recognize the name, a heavy-set Indian approaches me and asks if I'm Robert: Alicia sent him to pick me up, but he was late because he didn't know what time the plane would land. I'm THRILLED that it was BECAUSE I couldn't remember the name "Regency" that I talked long enough to the taximan so that Jai (pronounced Jy, rhyming with Bye) could find me at 3:20, in time before I took off in a strange taxi. He drives me past two conference buildings, around various parts of town, explaining how Indians and Blacks and Muslims and Chinese and Portuguese and others live in harmony, while I said the streets reminded me of pure India. Went through my problems with Bobby again, and Jai promised to be better, picking me up at 4AM tomorrow to take me "quickly, but not so quick that you can't see the sights" to the ferry, so I can catch a 45SD bus on the next side to carry me back to the Krasnapolsky where I can pick up my bag and get a 4AM taxi to my 6AM flight on Saturday. Jai insists I should try creole food, suggesting the Excellence, which he drives me past, but gives me his number to call him when I'm ready, but I say I want to eat as early as possible, which he says is at 7PM, so he says he'll be here at 7PM exactly and take me to ANOTHER place where I can have my CHOICE of creole or international food, agreeing that the food is good at the Regency (actually, with Alica) who says the chef is very good. I get to room, which hasn't been touched, put the AC on quite high, then take $20US down to a CUTE desk boy who's sorry that the exchange rate is only 190SD for $1US, so I get 3800SD to 4:44. Take the battery out of the camera, but that doesn't help. Try leaving battery OUT in cool AC room at 4:54 and start typing at 5:02 when I finally figure out that "bartender" at the start of note 10 should be Alicia's Bartenore wine. At 5:26 I try the camera again, having taken off my clothes to relax and feeling almost cool in room, but it still doesn't work. Drink water, eat the muffin from breakfast, get told I can get a breakfast box THIS EVENING for my room for my 4AM departure tomorrow. Catch up with this by 6:20PM, only 40 minutes to kill before dinner, hoping 3800GD will be enough, thanking Jai endlessly for being so helpful, and we'd even talked about my coming back and why there isn't more tourism to undoubtedly deserving Guyana---though I neglect to mourn the fact that no tourist can feel safe walking the streets at ALL! Try camera AGAIN now at 6:21. Still damnably clicks away, though it displayed a momentary "10" before reverting to a blinking "Ud." Kept SOUNDING like the LIGHT was trying to come out, and when I PRIED it out, the ZOOM went back in, and it now keeps showing a "10" as before, going back to H3 when I try to take a picture---but now the LIGHT won't go back in! Just noticed the two RED lights blinking in front, but still the LIGHT won't go in (at least less a space-occupier than the zoom lens extended!), and it still goes from 10 to H3. Now at 6:35PM I'm beginning to feel hungry for dinner. 6:40: pee and start dressing: maybe LEAVING the camera in my OVER-COLD room will cure any Heat or Humidity problem, if that's the case. Pack everything away and go down at 6:54 to order breakfast box when I get back at 8PM. Try a wrong car first, then Jai arrives about 7:03 and takes me to Christine's when I say I like fish and chips. He offers to come in with me: as NEEDS be! He orders and PAYS at one window, takes the fish and chips order to the "kitchen" counter and gets them, then takes the drink chit to the bar, where he gets that, with a plastic cup, and sits me at a table outside at 7:18, but I'm still sure I can be finished at 8PM. Fish is great; I get more mayonnaise, and then ask the guy (with gal) at the next table to watch my stuff while I get another beer. He says he will, but when I get back the plate is GONE. HE says he said not to take it, but the waitress did anyway. SHE said he didn't say anything. BUT there's a whole NEW service of fish and chips, which I insist Jai join me for while I have two more pieces (well, maybe three) and finish my beer, and he takes the rest to his single-parent two daughters: 21 and 19, who've lived with him alone since they were 6 and 4! The beer was 300GD, or $1.50, a real bargain, and I see where the "Thirst" factory comes from: Banks Beer. Back to hotel at 8:08 to find my breakfast box not ready, but I say I HAVE to go to sleep, so can they leave it at the desk. They say they can. Just on a whim I ask the girl if my bill is already paid, and she checks and says I still owe something like $150! She says she has to check with her supervisor, and I said she'd better, or Alicia is going to get a very angry call at 4AM tomorrow morning! Up to finish this at 8:24PM, double-checking my 3:45AM wakeup call tomorrow morning. So that's, assuming I'm in bed by 8:30PM, only 7:15 to sleep, OK if it works with the Valium and Ambien I took about 8:15PM. And so to bed, to two VERY early mornings tomorrow, Friday, and the next day, Saturday.
FRIDAY, 3/28/08: 1:55AM: Wake to pee and blow nose: five trip-days left. Sleep quickly. Phone rings 3:44AM, with dream typed to 3:48 in cold room. Dress, pack, take Valium at 3:56AM. The phone rings at the DOT of 4AM. To car at 4:05, radio and seatbelt on. Dark most of the way, with almost no traffic except a few bicyclists. It's much easier riding, looking at scenery, without being concerned about what pictures to take. To Barbice/Rosignol ferry at 5:45AM and RIGHT ON at 5:40. Park right at rail. Sun rises at 5:55AM. Eat my single sandwich (hot and spicy) and cake in "box breakfast" that isn't nearly as good as their regular one, so I got gyped, since they didn't even TOUCH my room between stays. Bobby's bus joins the ferry at 6:11. Ferry leaves 6:18. The opposite ferry leaves at 6:35, for which we have to wait for slip, and we hit dock at 6:41. The bus drives off first at 6:45 and we're off at 6:54. To last Guyana ferry at 8:15, very early. Jai has to move from bus-parking spot to regular spot, and then I permit him to leave at 8:30AM: I give Jai the remains of my $20US, about $18.50, since he paid for my meal yesterday at Christine's (for all of 1200GD, or $6 for my fish and chips and two beers), took me on a small tour of the town before taking me back to the Regency from the Kaieteur flight, and took me to and from Christine's at my bidding, and actually said he was waiting outside my hotel from 3:45AM this morning, only phoning at 4AM that he was there. So even though Alicia charged me $140 for his services, I SUPPOSE it was all worth it. Kept only $100 (fifty cents) as a souvenir, but it occurs to me I have nothing left of Guyanese to buy anything before the ferry. AND it seems that Bobby is back on his bus and I'll have to ride across Surinam to Paramaribo with him! 8:38AM I'm typing merrily away at a table outside the john to which I was directed to pee, and a woman kindly told me that I had to get in line in front to have my passport stamped before coming back here. 8:42 onto ticket line. Stamp and entry card at 8:55. Do sudoku while others join us, couple next to me doing it from the newspaper together. Through immigration third at 9:54, being told to fill in the name Regency Hotel, Georgetown, on the blank back of the form. Go to the waiting area and type up to date by 10:05, no sign of any ferry activity except people. Decide I'm tired of sudoku and decide to start proofreading file 1 at 10:06AM, ending at 10:30AM, still no ferry activity. Start proofreading file 2 at 10:31 to 10:53. Start proofreading (getting bored) file 3 at 10:54 to 11:16. Start proofreading file 4 at 11:17, finishing quickly at 11:19. Now to DREAM file 8 at 11:20, and finish at 11:31, no idea when we'll ever get on this ferry, for which I've been waiting since 8:15, and it's now OVER three and a quarter hours, and I haven't changed my watch for the TIME change of an hour yet! MOVE at 12:07. Ticket in at 12:12. Fill form to 12:18. Ferry MOVES at 12:20. I stare at water, wondering about red line in water (or is this on SECOND ferry---or IS this the second ferry---yes, it IS), until finally, when we dock, I see that it's the reflection through the glass onto the sea of the sun shining off the red lane-division mark on the floor of the ferry car-deck. (Where a sign says no passengers are allowed when sailing, but there's no where ELSE to be but on the unshaded catwalks above the lifejacket storage cabinets on which we all sit.) Boat docks at 12:55, after I stare interminably at brown water flowing past unbroken green banks, narrowing at the Atlantic and curving around a corner to the south, convincing myself that I'm actually leaving my last-visited South American country, Guyana, on a ferry on the river (of unknown name) that separates Guyana from Surinam; and tourism will NEVER take off here until they bridge ALL these rivers so that tour busses can speed uninterruptedly between the three Guianean capitals. To the impossible immigration line, where each person racing to the head of the line actually represents about five or six more people, all with passports to be presented, who hover like cannibals around a stewpot. On line at 1PM, when they at least permit the tail of the line to be conducted around a corner inside the shaded shed. Signed off at 1:46, saying "Exhausted" when the guard asks how I am. Short fellow accosts me at gate for ride to Paramaribo, and I follow him through scrum of other bus-drivers to his Bobby bus with the same girl staring from the door, finding the front seat is reserved for "the mother of the owner" and the second seat has a purse on it. I look at a vacant double seat on the right, but pick a single on the left, hoping we never get crowded enough to need the jumpseats which would totally block the aisles. Windows open to some comfort except for the construction dust. Bus actually moves off, about 3/4 full with 15 people, at 1:59. Change watch one hour ahead to agree with time on bus-clock, now 3PM, with HOURS yet to go. Finally get to GOOD road at 3:48, my spine many times SEVERELY jolted by too-fast bumps on corrugated roadbed being repaired for future service. At 3:55 we stop at the gas station I'd photographed before, and I dash in to look at salted peanuts, a Mars bar, and a bottle of Tampico kiwi strawberry guava juice, present a 20SD note hopefully, and get a 10SD bill and two 100 pieces in return, 800SD cents being about $3. Leave there 4:25, and the enormous Black (chatting up the stiff-necked tall white woman who seemed to tolerate his enormous closeness) actually remembered that I was bound for the Krasnapolsky Hotel. At 7:14PM they bring on a BABY, dark out now, having followed milestones from about 197 down to 23, taking just over a minute for each, optimistically getting us down to zero about 7:13PM! TRAFFIC becomes DENSE. Note to myself: don't forget all the blooming pink and white LOTUSES in many of the house-front canals. Pass the direction to the Zoo entrance! Always think we're about to come to the Krasnapolsky, but we're through infinite suburbs: dirt roads, slovenly houses, dogs and cats on the streets, some dead, motorcycles tootling past on our left, almost invisible to driver on right, and at 7:42 we start passing a PARADE: long segments of marching people, proceeded by banners, later told in hotel that these were merchants and employees on a "four-day walk-march" as a sort of advertising scheme, almost spontaneous, people watching sitting on or in cars, lining streets, stretching around corners, looking down from upstairs windows, dancing with the drum music from the paraders, mostly in work uniforms with little variation in color, but loud and cheerful. 7:45 man with crutches gets off. Kid now screams loud enough to be clearly heard through earplugs, and woman who'd been talking loudly on her cellphone now annoyingly pumps her foot up and down over her crossed knee. 7:54 we're driving BEHIND marching group ON parade route, when we're not being flagged off from one side to another by traffic cops with flags and flashlights. 7:59 pass HUGE cemetery, for contrast. 8:07 stuck by FIFTH segment of the parade: bands, costumes, dancing, chanting, drums, cops, bystanders, cars and busses ALL over and through (and three guys stand RIGHT behind me and talk and laugh loudly), shows and general CHAOS. 8:15 to hotel to witness ENORMOUS pile of 50SD notes being counted by desk clerk for some nondescript person for whom she writes a receipt and apologizes to me and thanks me for my patience. 8:24 takes me to room 511, right AT the ice machine, and I leave stuff in room and go to Popeye's to find their stuff starts at 15SD, and I only have a 5SD note (forgetting till afterwards the 10SD from one change at the gas station, and the 5SD change from the 45SD bus fare), and go to clerk at desk who says she'll give me a morning box when she calls me at 3AM for the FREE bus 3-3:30, and "with Suriname time, sure it's OK to call me at 3AM for the bus." I ask about the parade and it's a four-day work-company and business walk-march, with more than 30 groups, and why don't I go out to watch? But I insist I just want something to EAT and to get to SLEEP. Into bar and ask about "snacks" and they talk about a croquette and I plunk down my 5SD bill and a $5US bill, and he totals that up to 18.75SD and my beer and croquette comes to 19SD, but he says he'll give me the 25SD cents! I thank him, he phones for the croquette, I talk to cheery waitress, he serves lovely stein of cold beer which I drink there, taking "Relax here; Hotel Krasnapolsky," a very appropriate coaster from under my now-empty beer as my plastic-covered plate arrives with a pyramid of six large cheese-chicken croquettes, with an enclosed sauce and a small side salad, which I take up to my room where my two glasses of ice water are waiting for me, and I take my night pills before I forget. Will get call, I checked again, at 3AM. Decide to go as if still in Georgetown: same clothes, washing only face and hands from grit from bus-road dust, pack lots of junk into my black bag, which I should have closed, drink more water, pee, and empty shoulder bag to contain morning breakfast box and dop kit from which I take Ambien and Valium with glass of ice water at 8:51PM, STONED on beer, good croquettes finally satisfying stomach. The room is cold but I'm prepared to sleep under the duvet. 9PM undress and wash and get to bed at 9:08PM, starting a LOT of Actualism to give time for two pills to take over, and finally get to sleep about 9:30PM, only five and a half hours to sleep.
SATURDAY, 3/29/08: Phone rings at 2:56AM, and then right afterwards someone knocks on door before I'm even DRESSED. Lock my black bag, take another Valium with water, leave some uneaten food on the desk, sign for $170 something on my visa card, get my lunch, and get on almost full bus (maybe 10 men waiting patiently for me) at 3:10AM. To airport 3:52. To line 3:54, ahead of most. Get left window at exit, though she says NOT over wing, but at 12A I don't believe her, and get seat at 4:20. To get bag checked, to immigation at 4:21, through quickly to 4:24, bag inspected at 4:37, but black bag left locked. Pee at 4:38. Breakfast 4:32-5:06 with sudoku: orange, egg with salt, and one cheese sandwich, wrapping second cheese sandwich and sweet cake, and go back to sudoku. Kid SCREAMS! Earplugs in. Start typing 5:09, and now at 5:55AM the flight is called for gate 1, and EVERYONE lines up, so I'll just sit and type! at 5:55AM the flight (scheduled for 6AM) is called, everyone lines up. I continue typing to catch up to date at 6:03AM, ready to get on line, somewhat awake by now, still totally dark outside. To bag inspection 6:06, only looking at shoulder bag. Board 6:17 and I'm at a seat on the wing with the WIDE footroom for the exit row, but I CAN see ahead, but BOTH bags must be up in the rack above, and I bother my poor aisle-mate once more to get out my sudoku and puzzle book and water bottle. 1:20 flight announced. Fill form to 6:42. Off at 6:45, sun JUST rising at the end of the taxi strip as we take off into it. "Continental breakfast" is apple cinnamon muffin and carbonated GLASS (not whole can) of apple juice. First 40 minutes ALL along featureless northern coast of South America, not even any rivers to show where the countries are divided, but the outjuttings in the east of Venezuela are clear as we head slightly north and see what may be more plain straight east-west coast, or some islands which I don't think exist between South America and Trinidad. 7:36 tiny Turks and Caicos, which I think he'd mentioned on the night-flight coming down? Change watch again to 6:39, going another hour west. Looking at map, which I tear out of magazine as souvenir, and at video, we DID follow the coastline of South America. Land at 8:02, nothing looking familiar, after 1:17 flight. 7:06 decide to try Tobago counter WHILE AT AIRPORT now. To immigration line 7:14, which goes slowly until they get a second inspector, who asks what an indexer is. Don't have to go through customs, they wave me on at 7:20. By 7:48 patient clerk at desk 2 assures me that the tour agency hasn't put me on any flight Sunday or Monday, there's nothing today, and I can GO on Monday morning but there are no flights BACK. DAMN! Maybe Venus got ferry? Into cab at 7:56 (quoted at $25 US, I guess the standard), and driver chats a bit about having rain some days, and get to room 704 at 8:30 after they don't seem to have had a reservation for me, and the form they give me to sign says I'm staying for THREE nights, I think, 3/29-4/1, at $188/day, which I thought was less for final days, so I tell them I'll bring down the papers, but ignore special rate if IN FACT they're considering I'm checking in TODAY, rather than yesterday, a great savings. Put stuff in room and dash down to breakfast of omelet, toast, bacon, two glasses of too-sweet orange juice, a very late cup of cocoa, and wolf it all down by 8:50, when I get to room, undress, and lie down at 8:55. Doze, have a piece of a dream, decide I might not do ANYTHING but take a few vacation days from vacationing---had to make up my OWN "Do not disturb" sign since there was none inside. Finally feel "normal" enough by 11:46AM to get up, having an unpleasant gastric reflux on waking for a moment about 10AM from the awful juice at breakfast. Out of bed shocked to find my left crotch VERY slimy and smelly: I hadn't noticed it coming on at ALL, and glad I brought talcum for helping it. So, I note, now 1) to shower, 2) change clothes, 3) find Crowne Plaza rate sheet, and 4) look at camera instruction book, but first 5) pee. Out of luxurious shower, water BROWN from dust in hair from bus yesterday, at 12:26PM. 1:24 I've read enough of the camera book to press the button to retract the ten pictures on my "last" roll of film, try a NEW roll to see if that might help, which it doesn't, but there's still the damnable "H," for which the manual ONLY says "camera may be defective." It doesn't even bother about the "U" or the numbers after them. Remove unused roll and wonder what I'll do with unused film and mailers, now that it seems my Pentax is REALLY defunct. By 1:50 sort EVERYTHING out: souvenir papers, dirty clothes, pages of notes, bags of stuff to be used "in case" or "in the future" or "if snorkeling," and assort various bags into the three drawers below the TV, which I'll use after I have my tiny lunch of one cheese sandwich, some water, and one small sweet cake from my breakfast box, which should last me until an early dinner and early bed for whatever arrives for me to do (or not do) on Sunday. Put on clean underwear, still having one pair of shorts and TWO pairs of socks left. 2:14 I try phone, to be told that I need a credit card on file so I can be charged, which the first operator, last visit, should have told me before just "connecting me." Call Trinidad and Tobago Sightseeing Tours, and at first he tells me to call Venus at 6242128, but then when I explain about wanting to get to Tobago, he says he has offices in two hotels, none of them the Crowne (official spelling!) Plaza, so he takes my room number of 704 and says Venus will call me back. Didn't even ask for any chance of OTHER tours the next two days. I may just sit in room, watch TV, do puzzles, and leave it go at that. Start typing at 2:23, waiting for telephone call: "You're in your room now?" and catch up to date at 2:53, no one called yet. Read paper and do puzzles to 3:45, still no call. Brush teeth and watch Colin Farrell "Becoming Alexander" to 4:38. Call again at 4:40: "She call you back now." 4:48 she recommends Pitch Lake, $90 for single, 50% more than the regular price of $60. Amar, driver, will arrive at 9AM tomorrow. Down to check rates at 5:02. Back up at 5:16 with note on letter: "Never use Holdex (quoted $175, ACTUAL rate is $185)---they quote wrong rates. If you called hotel DIRECTLY, you could have gotten lower rate." Finish good Sunday puzzles to 7:30PM. Dinner to 8:30: callallou soup good, six BBQ shrimp spicy, glass of white wine, at mediocre Olympia Restaurant, but I have little choice. Doublecrostic to 9:30 and bed at 9:40. Sleep quick.
SUNDAY, 3/30/08: Wake at 12:55AM, pee, and type dream. Type another dream at 5:20-5:25. At 6:10 decide to learn, maintain, and take "old" digital camera as SPARE on trips: 1) spare would have done well on this trip, 2) on trip to France where I lost camera, and 3) for Marco when his camera was destroyed by his boat overturning, and anyway it's better than just GIVING it away: no one would want it anyway. Up at 6:40AM today, 5:40AM on Monday, and 4:40AM or earlier on Tuesday for 7:20AM departure for Miami. Try playing the hotel's "sleep CD," poor. To breakfast 7:07-7:47 for omelet, fruit, cereal, toast, two cups of cocoa and three glasses of orange juice to help down my Mefloquine. Read paper to 8:35. Shit. It rained early this morning. Write "toilet not flushing right" note, and at 8:56 the maid tells me to tell the desk about the problem. Sit in lobby waiting to 9:11 for Amar to "bring up car." MUCH traffic to Pitch Lake 10:54, seemingly caused by a truck breakdown blocking one of two lanes. Great Cyril guide 10:59-11:40: showing many colors in clefts that move weekly, peeling back the "skin" to show the pitch inside, feeling and not being able to get rid of the goo, watching others in the distance, getting told of the process, the upwelling that rises a foot in a week, how rains will raise the level, which had been much higher before 240 tons per day have been taken out, but it'll still last 400 years. Give him $1 tip. Glad it wasn't sunny; even under clouds the pitch seems to exude heat. The Chinese are building a factory to send pellets to the Olympics. Trees hundreds or even thousands of years old are churned to the surface, and eventually the pitch itself dries out into a flaking brown dirt. Water weeds thrive, even algae, and some fish in the deeps, and I pick up a recycled spiral shell. Sulfur baths help arthritic joints, and he says that OKRA juice supplements waning synovial fluids. Leave at 11:50, and never see another sign for souse. 12:39 to Wildfowl Park, opening to Amar's request, but others are already picnicking there. I buy turtle book for 45TT, getting some change for my $10US. It rains as I circle lake, chasing ducks one by one to swimming, seeing caimans, macaws, scarlet ibis only a foot away, and other caged creatures enduring the rain which Amar flees and for which I'm happy I took my umbrella. Leave 1:50PM, given four sweet Portugals, very like tangerines. Then travel and pay 10TD at 2:39 for a picture of the 85-foot Hanuman and a dim photo of the pink palace of fantasy. To Crowne Plaza at 3:30 when my Visa card won't work at the Hilton ATM for which, uniquely, no door-card is needed, and back to Hilton at 4PM for 1000TD, giving Amar 100 as a prepayment of both days' tips, saying I'll phone on the VERY slim chance I can get to Tobago tomorrow, otherwise he arrives again at 9AM to take me to the south and east for the Atlantic line of palms. To room at 4:09PM to sift through TV until I find what may be the "Bourne Conspiracy," which seems to be the third and last, though it's dated 2004 (which date Maltin gives to the SECOND episode, which this wasn't). To dinner at 6:35, down to ground floor to find I'd forgotten pills! Back up, then down, and convinced that 170TD is a "bargain" for the buffet, so I have bits of almost everything, almost everything mediocre except mushrooms with the beef, the vegetable soup, and a few of the desserts, with a glass of white Zinfandel, coming to a too-much, even without ANY tip, of 230TD, roughly $35. Start typing 7:30, watching "The Two Towers," some still gripping, but it's now 8:38PM when I catch up with notes and last film hasn't started yet, probably at 9PM, which won't end until midnight. 8:55PM: Sadly, "The Lord of the Rings" is better than most of the mediocre scenery on Trinidad, except for the spectacular surf off Grande Point, even though the turtles couldn't lay, and there WERE colorful birds, including one oropendula, at the Wildfowl Reserve on the Petrotrin lands, but I'm seeing tomorrow's sights just so I don't have to sit and wait in my room for another day to pass before flying back to lovely New York City. 9:16PM: "Two Towers" not over YET! Finally over at 10:03PM! To BED!
MONDAY, 3/31/08: 3:40AM: Wake with dream and pee and type to 3:45, feeling warm, knowing the last day HERE has started, and tomorrow night I'll be HOME. Take Valium at 5:15, just not feeling in the best of moods: tired and just want to be home? Up 6:13 after trying and trying for Actualism session but failing. To breakfast at 6:30 for omelet, cocoa, juice, fruit, pills, and don't feel like cereal at all. Getting tired of all of it, but this is the LAST breakfast buffet here. Up at 7, brush teeth cursorily, and read paper, not succeeding with two tough puzzles, to 8:08, when I just chuck it into the wastebasket. Finish this to 8:12 and get out a new puzzle. Make puzzle progress, ready to leave at 8:55AM. Amar arrives at 9:03AM, and asks my name again. 10:22 cover mainly familiar territory, but surprised at how many houses continue to line the road even OUTSIDE the towns and cities. 10:22 stop for two shaheenas, chick peas in somewhat spicy sauce on soft foldable "non-dripping," as Amar says approvingly, bread: very tasty. 10:47 stop at mud volcano, where I look at slightly raised area with "pimples" of current eruptions, looking at bubbles in one pool of water, and seeing a GLOB of blue-gray clay ejected from the tallest blowhole, adding to the cum-like ejecta flowing down one side of the six-inch high "active" cone. It had started raining and Amar dashed under cover, but I looked at what I wanted to see, then joined him under the roof as it really started to pour, and he pointed out the dead deer under the next shelter, and I had the nerve to go behind and see that the dog had eaten much of its posterior away, which may explain why he slinked away with a somewhat guilty look. This "Devil's Wood Yard" was discovered in 1852. Rode over the highly improved roads over the hilltops, most houses below level of road with the same juxtaposition of extreme luxury and extreme poverty, leavened by sites in various stages of construction over what looks to be the past 20 years. To the Atlantic Ocean at Mayaro at 12:35, some people swimming in very restricted areas, shore covered with broken shells, lots of families sitting under the famous "14-mile line of palm trees." Watch waves roll in while kids build sand castles, then back in car at 12:50. At river 1:15-1:25 where he gathers almond branches to make some of his endless "local" cures for arthritis, diarrhea, stomach ache, and everything else: he's really deeply into it. All locals, in cars, with NO cameras, but nothing really to take pictures of. Most men, except for the Kaieteur guide and the Regency desk-boy, were in the slightest bit attractive. No whites except for people seemingly looking over real estate with local agents. Amar talks away to 1:35 while I watch a crab and then pee into bushes. I must eat 6-7 Portugals, and he leaves me with three more. He agrees to pick me up for the airport at 4:45AM. To hotel 3:30PM, he asks for 500TD which I give him with thanks, and he seems happy enough, probably not having to give something like 20% to the company. Ask for box breakfast and they tell me they start serving breakfast "outside," sort of indicating the bar area, at 4AM. I ask for a 4AM wakeup call, but at 3:26PM my room key doesn't work. Down to find they thought I checked out this morning, but reinstated me easily enough and I told maid I didn't need any service, though she barged in without knocking, with my "don't disturb" sign on the door, while I sat in my shorts doing a puzzle. Wash face and hands and start puzzles at 3:42PM. Finish at 3:56. Start another. Give up at 5:15. Sudoku to 6:10, down to dinner to order first a Carib beer, rather tasteless, then a Stag, somewhat stronger, with a burger that came to over $100TD as the two beers came to over $20TD. Up at 7:07PM with bill, puzzle over it until I get out FORMER bill for 3500+TD, and this will be 6000+TD, for over $200/night, but including food, [start file 5 at 7:44PM 3/31/08] at the rate of 6.2TD to one US$. Type 7:23-7:44, ready for bed, but decide to take shower to 8:10PM, "late" already! Take Ambien at 8:15PM. Everything packs SUSPICIOUSLY compactly! Bed 8:34PM. Sleep after trying Actualism 3-4 times.
TUESDAY, 4/1/08: 3:55AM: Phone rings, interrupting dream which I forget, and when I answer the phone, no one's there. Feel vaguely OK, vaguely groggy. Wash face, phone rings again at 4AM. Dress groggily, breath stinks, leave at 4:13AM. To desk at 4:17, bill of 6,166.51TD. Take two rolls with butter, cocoa, juice at 4:27. Take pills and LAST (sadly) Valium at 4:30. Amar comes in, waving, and we get in car 4:38. To airport at 5:02AM, to ENORMOUS line! Fill form to 5:13, line barely moving. At 6:13 I'm STILL waiting, finish SECOND sudoku 6:32. 48 minutes to takeoff? 6:41 charged 100TD airport tax. So much about wondering what to do with spare TDs. I'm left with 115TD. At 6:53AM buy Kahlua for 81TD, 34TD left, just over $5. To gate 11 line at 6:56. To security gate 7:03! 7:09 pass security. Sit in 14F, before engine, at 7:15 (remember, scheduled departure was 7:20AM!). I think I'm among the last on: there were only two people in front of me to board plane. At 7:22 they announce they're still waiting for THIRTY passengers delayed by NEW tax collection procedures. 7:34 I finish two Portugals, chatting with woman sitting next to me, who wants window, but husband more, and he finally gets to sit next to her on the aisle. People STILL boarding. 7:39 finish third Portugal: thank goodness the smell doesn't carry very strongly. Luggage trucks pull away at 7:44 as we prepare to depart. 3:31 flight. Back out 7:45. NO babies screaming!! 75 degrees in Miami. Off at 7:58. Clouds INCREDIBLE: high and fluffy and bunched and shadowed and raining under some. 8:35 no nuts to eat, no islands to see below, but get a WHOLE can of Canada Dry tonic water. "Alvin and the Chipmunks" was a movie I did NOT watch. 9:07AM cloudy, start sudoku. At 9:19 I catch us leaving the end of a VERY populous island. Pee LOTS at 9:30, when they seem to be awake and able to let me out into aisle. GORGEOUS blue white-capped sea, as we bounce a tiny bit. 9:44 clouds close out all below. 10:21 islands NEED a Caribbean trip to MY choice of islands: Dominica, Montserrat, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Tortola, etc. Whole CHAIN of north-south oriented islands at 10:42. INCREDIBLE patterns and colors above AND below water! The only thing the steward can say whe I asked him was "islands of Bahamas," certainly NOT Cuba (though that may have been before). Also, dark floating sludge-like areas. Try Montague Street used-bookstore for Caribbean and Trinidad close-ups, no matter HOW old! 11:19AM 80 degrees in Miami, 12 minutes to land. Inexhaustible chains of islands, sandbars, rows and columns under the water, shoals which might have cottages or roads, but you'd have to FLY, since it all covers a HUGE area, and only the ALTITUDE would give the psychedelic changes of color and pattern. Miami comes into sight, then vanishes in clouds which we bump through at various levels, turning, fields below, factories, canals, housing developments, factories, trucking firms, warehouses, malls, lots of cars parked in front of lots of factory-looking buildings. I'm glad I don't have a camera; I would have photographed the ENTIRE TRIP for color and future identification. Land at 11:20. 11:40 off plane and go a distance for a men's room at 11:43 for a BIG pee. 11:53 stand for another security line. Start note-card 16 on 16th day of trip. 12:01PM to D48 entrance. 12:11, check-in automatically, 19F is the ONLY seat available, which I have. Onto LONG Concourse D line at 12:14. At 12:24 supervisor calls for everyone to slow down, they're going too fast (for the scanners, I assume, but I joke with the clerk that he's in the wrong job, and he said he could get a bad notice if he continued working FAST). 12:47 on line to have shoulder bag checked with the Kahlua, which he says has to be in a CHECKED bag. "But I bought it at duty-free!" "But it has to be in a checked bag here; we have different rules." I argue and bitch and moan, but he makes it clear that EITHER he guides me out to the American Airlines check-in counter to check in one bag with my bottle, or I LOSE my bottle! Follow him out, explain to clerk after waiting in long check-in line after "helpful fellow in white short-sleeved shirt" enters my original docket number and changes the number of checked bags to ONE, and I make SURE I have the claim check on my envelope. Then at 1:02PM to "first-class line," just as long as the others, and 1:18 past AGAIN the passport photo check, and AGAIN take off my shoes, put my wallet in my shoulder bag, take out my laptop, and go through (this time WITHOUT touching the frame of the scanner, which caused it to go off my FIRST time through) by 1:22, increasingly exhausted. Familiar long walk through Concourse D, passing a Chicken Caesar Sandwich which is about the best food I can find, in two pieces for easy eating, and get to gate D48 at last at 1:35 to start typing, finishing now at 2:12, many other flights leaving, including one to Newark. My boarding pass says boarding should start at 2:15. Sure. And now I have to wait to CLAIM my checked luggage, hoping the Kahlua won't be BROKEN in transit. Decide to read my last New Yorker while having one sandwich now at 2:14PM, TIRED! Finish sandwich (too much) at 2:36, not enough seats at gate, not boarding yet. Board at 2:55. Seat 19F at 2:58, behind wing, but on wrong (sea) side! Move back 3:12. 2:38 flight. 58E in NYC! 3:20 announcement: we take off at 3:50; couldn't hear the reason. 3:51 another botched sudoku. Finally off at 3:56. We fly NORTHWEST, over LAND, around huge cloud-broad STORM for which I have the PERFECT seat to 4;33: phalanxes of gray clouds surmounted by glowing white pillow-tops of mushroom-topped dazzling towers. Out to sea at 4:41, so I start sudoku, but see land again at 4:57, we're REALLY flying west! Continued GLORIOUS landscapes and SURREAL cloud colors, masses, and shapes and depths and textures. Enormous rivers pass below, quite unidentified by large cities on any of the shores. Start down at 5:52?? Gigantic industrial complex at 6:01. TOTALLY new terrain below---NOTHING recognizable: RIVERS, then announcements of military-ship fueling docks off Atlantic Highlands and Sandy Hook by self-announced New Jersey stewardess I later compliment for her talk. Then stupefying sunset-lit flight over the Harbor, the Verazzano Bridge, the middle of Brooklyn, Cadman Towers as clear as can be (pity I couldn't see the fire in Gristedes!), then Manhattan (the Statue of Liberty for those sitting deprived on the left), every tower glowing golden in the light, shadows sharp as swords; Central Park, Harlem, the northern tip of Manhattan, many of the Bronx Parks stretching endlessly green, then houses and surprisingly tall towers in Westchester as we head way north, then swoop in a large circle, looking south to a smog-bound Manhattan now, and over the waters north of Laguardia to land at 6:38. Plane stops at gate at 6:43, off plane at 6:49, shit a good shit to 6:54, then to baggage claim B at 7:01 and get bag at 7:13 (whew!). Onto longish taxi line 7:15, into cab 7:22. To 101 Clark to street blocked by fire trucks, water filling road, at 7:45 for $29 including tip. Cart two bags, two boxes, piles of mail, the too-early FOOD box "which arrived just a few minutes ago," and mail from box up at 8:01, smelling smoke in hallway from fire in Gristedes, now out and under control. Ten calls on machine: 1) Tris, not realizing I was gone on Tuesday, 2) ad, 3) Ken on three Beards, 4) ad, 5) SAME ad, 6) Ken for two JULY Beards, 7) Rita on Saturday, 8) Happy Birthday from Susan MacMahon at 4:20PM Sunday, 9) Unidentifiable (until told Rita and Denny) duet 10:33PM Sunday, 10) Third singing Carolyn at 6:25PM Tuesday. At 8:06PM Tuesday I 1) leave word with Spartacus, 2) talk to Carolyn to 8:12, 3) talk to Rita to 8:22, 4) talk to Ken to 8:30. Then restart Dell from update, check e-mail to 8:43, lots from Tris. Put food away to 8:53, open and dine on Spam to 9PM, jerk off rather nicely, though with lots of edema, to 10PM and bed at 10:10PM.
WEDNESDAY, 4/2/08: Wake at 3:15AM with vague headache. Transcribe dream at 4:15, pee, and drink water with two aspirin. 4:44AM remember to record that on a few occasions on trip I lost my balance, maybe fatigue, maybe something else? Decide, perversely, to put on robe and slippers and watch porn at 5AM, working over my cock with bidis and aloe with blood and worst edema yet to 6:15, truly DESPERATE to cum---which I also told Sharon about at end of session this evening. GOOD Actualism session, and then up at 7:43, still tired. Quick breakfast at 8AM. Make my bad-good list, then talk to Mildred 8:15-8:50AM. Leave word with Beard at 9 for April 3, which comes through! Leave word with Sharon who calls for me to come! Leave word with Carolyn at 9:08 and she phoned back, still sleepy, from 9:10-9:30. Weighed bags and counted cash. Sorted through lots of mail, had lunch 12-12:20, reading a New York magazine, then Marj calls 1:07-2:45, truly exhausting. More mail, get Times from Bill, and John calls 4:30-5 to bemoan his awful trip to dirty, ill-making, crowded, ugly Madras. Then to Sharon to 6:15, and finish typing her page, entering the AlphaSmart data while reading New York magazine, and finish this at 7:53PM, tired enough to go to sleep RIGHT NOW!
MISSING ROLL 4
1 Moengo Casa Blanca Polyclinic
3-4 Moivana Memorial
5 Afaka on top
6-7 Albina
8 normal boats
9 bathers
12 piyakas
through 28 turtles
29 breakfast group
30 me and Santa
31-33 on sandbar
34 four turtle types
35 unknown plant
36 many-fruited cactus
37 array of nuts and shoots
Tabulated AM wake-up times: 2:56, 3:44, 3:55, 4:07, 4:15, 5:25, 6:13, 6:14, 6:20, 6:40, 6:50, 7:01, 7:09, 1:53, and 8:54 (having gotten to bed at 1:36AM that morning from the flight to Paramaribo). The 2:56AM gave me only 5:26 from my 9:30PM going to sleep, but a nap 8:55-11:46AM added 2:51 for a total of 8:17.
TRINIDAD SUMMARY PAGE 3/17-4/1/08
MON,3/17: Fly LGA-Miami 1:48-4:17PM (2:29 flight). Dinner in Miami Hilton Cafe Coral when plane doesn't go. Bed at 10:15PM, leaving 4:30AM wakeup request.
TUE,3/18: Wake at 4:07AM; wakeup call does NOT come! To airport 5AM. Fly Miami-Trinidad 6:21-9:42AM (3:21 flight). Crowne Plaza Olympia Restaurant lunch. Try all day to get to Tobago or other tours. Dinner at 360 Restaurant. Bed 8:45PM.
WED,3/19: Up at 6:30AM. Asa Wright/North Coast Combined tour from 8:40 with Phil and Marlene. Good lunch at Asa Wright. Las Cuevas Beach; Maracas Beach, leave Marlene off at Kapok 5:01. Dinner with Phil at Woodcock(?) in Movietown Plaza. Drinks in Crowne Plaza bar with Phil to 10PM, Bed exhausted at 10:11PM.
THU,3/20: Up at 6:14AM with dream. Puzzles, breakfast, and paper to 1:15. Leave for turtles 1:40PM. By Redhead Bay to Grande Riviere Le Grande Almandier Hotel. Child screams at turtle after dinner. Bed 10:20PM, Wake and turtles at 11:55PM.
FRI,3/21: Finish notes at 1:29AM. Up at 5:05AM and out to sunrise. Breakfast and ride back to hotel at 11:20AM. Puzzles in lobby, and lunch, to 3:17PM, when Errol comes to drive me to Caroni Bird Sanctuary. Birds 3:41-6PM. Passport panic at airport. Fly Port of Spain-Paramaribo 9:17-11:34PM (1:17 flight).
SAT,3/22: Into Krasnapolsky taxi 12:02AM for LONG drive. Bed at 1:36AM, tired. Up at 8:54AM. Krasnapolsky breakfast buffet. Try to find tours, but all I can get today is the Zoo 12:30-4PM. Get SD cash. Dinner at Popeye's. Bed 10:10PM.
SUN,3/23: Up at 6:50AM, early breakfast, outside at 8AM to wait for bus to Galibi that I contracted yesterday, meeting Dutch Marco and Sylvia. Bus leaves 8:31, crosses Suriname Bridge, to Moivana Memorial, Albina for piyaka ride to Indian village. Lunch, village and zoo walk, dinner, 6-7 turtles laying eggs, but only with their lighting, which my camera probably won't take. Bed 11:07PM.
MON,3/24: Up at 7:53AM, depressed. Breakfast. French Guiana TOMORROW! See chief to pay for room for one more night. Off in piyaka to Tiger Sandspit 10:34-11:10. Then to Warana Lodge 11:20-12:10, losing roll 4 of film. Nap after lunch 3:11-4:28. Dinner with my LSD tales, photo dance in village, bed at 10:28PM.
TUE,3/25: Up at 7:09AM. Photo Myrysij camp. Motorboat to St. Laurent 9:45-10:08 thankfully shorter than advertised 1.5 hours. Get 40 euros at ATM. Tour Papillon prison with lots of pictures. Tarte tatin good. Leave 12:55, across to Albina by 1:03. Back to Krasnapolsky at 4PM, arrange with Jose for Georgetown tomorrow. Mirage Casino for steak dinner, to sleep by 9:04PM.
WED,3/26: Phoned at 4:15AM, small breakfast, bus comes 5:12AM. To ferry 10:25, across 11:42-12:09PM to Guyana. Crazy Bobby, drive 1:06-2:32 to ferry. Across 4:18-4:52. Crazy Pegasus ATM argument, Alicia picks me up, to Regency Hotel dinner at 8PM, good chicken Kiev, Malaysian noodles, wine; bed tired at 9:35PM.
THU,3/27: Awake 2:20-2:58AM with backspacing blanks and typing dream. Up at 7:01AM, shower, breakfast, wait for 8:30 pickup to 9AM to find it's only 8AM! Plane to Kaieteur Falls 9:48-10:52AM. Tour of spectacular falls 11:12-1:12PM. Fly back 2:04-3:12. Taxi mixup and Jai drives me to Regency. I keep trying to fix camera, but meet him at 7:03PM for Christine's fish and chips. Bed at 8:30.
FRI,3/28: Phone rings 3:44AM. To Barbice/Rosignol ferry 5:45. Eat boxed breakfast. Ferry 6:18-6:41. To last ferry at 8:15. Ferry goes 12:20-12:55PM. Bus goes at 1:59PM, clock changed to 2:59PM. 3:55 lunch at gas station. Through hectic parade to Krasnapolsky at 8:15 exhausted. Snack from bar and sleep 9:30.
SAT,3/29: Phone rings at 2:56AM. Get lunch. To airport 3:52AM. Fly Paramaribo-Port of Spain 6:45-8:02AM. Try Tobago counter: nothing. Hotel at 8:30, breakfast, lie down at 8:55-11:46AM. Camera still not working. Lunch on remains of breakfast. Phone for tours. Dinner at Olympia Restaurant. Bed 9:40PM.
SUN,3/30: Up at 6:40, good breakfast. Tour Pitch Lake, Wildfowl Park, Hanuman in Princes Town. Hilton for cash. Bourne Conspiracy end. Buffet dinner. Bed 10:03PM after watching end of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
MON,3/31: Up 6:13AM, breakfast. Tour Trinidad southeast 9:03AM: mud volcanos, Portugals, back to hotel 3:30 for puzzles, dinner at 6:10, bed 8:34PM.
TUE,4/1: Up 3:55AM, breakfast. Airport 5:02AM. Fly Trinidad-Miami 7:58-11:20AM. Have to check Kahlua into CHECKED bag. Fly Miami-LGA 3:56-6:38PM. GREAT views!