Travel Diary - Day Forty Five

Day Forty Five – Sidetracking
Tuesday 13 Oct 09

Excellent! A day to get on with finishing off my presentation. Up early to get on with it and then Marlon appears and Helen asks if we can go to the bank to get some money out. I need to do that too so I say yes please and before you know it we are in the van and heading up to Rosignol to go to the bank. Rosignol is right next to the Berbice river so I was pleased to get there and have a look at the river – that made the three major rivers a set . We got to the bank to find that they didn’t take credit cards and that we had to go to New Amsterdam on the other side of the river – darn.GRIN.

The trip over the bridge requires a side-story. Everyone used to cross the river by ferry. It cost $G60, about $NZ0.42 to go one-way and everyone was happy. Of course it was difficult to get cars and trucks across and so the Government decided to build a bridge. Because it couldn’t fund the bridge they engaged a private company to build a toll bridge. Everything fine so far. Until the final cost of the bridge came in – the tolls were so expensive that no-one wanted to use the bridge. Sooo…the government outlawed the ferries and water taxis and forced everyone to use the bridge. Apparently it has devastated businesses on both sides of the river because people are no longer travelling as they used to. The price went from $G60 per person to $G300 per person on a bus. And cars and other vehicles cost a prohibitive $2200. Even in NZ terms $NZ15.40 to cross a toll bridge is pretty high – here it is simply ridiculous, a fact that you can easily discern by the few vehicles you see using the bridge, even now. And people aren’t allowed to cross on foot either. Government gone insane, and quite a good example of the sorts of government and bureaucratic rorts and nonsense that is endemic in this country.

Anyway, enough of my ranting, we crossed the bridge and headed into New Amsterdam where we found the bank (Nova Scotia Bank) and used a money machine to get our money – soooo much simpler than my experience in GBTI!! As we were driving back to the bridge Marlon was so absorbed in our conversation that he missed the turn-off. He slammed to a halt in the middle of the road and started to back up – go figure. I suggested, jokingly, that since we were heading in that direction why didn’t we just keep going. He is a man after my own heart because I didn’t even blink before saying, ‘Why not?’ and we were off. About a hundred kilometres later we were looking across the water at Surinam. Unfortunately the next ferry wasn’t until the next day or I am quite sure he would have taken us across. To get a good look across the river – this one is called the Corintyne I think – we had to pay $100 each to walk through the ferry terminal and stand on the edge of the river. Bit of a fund-raising exercise because you got nothing more than permission to look, and you couldn’t even go on the wharf, although we did find a way around the fence and went anyway until we were told in no uncertain terms to get back on the proper side of the fence. Some people just have no sense of making the most of an opportunity!

Then it was time to turn around and head back home. We stopped for lunch along the way, and made sure we rang Dawn, once Marlon had money on his phone, to tell her that we were alright and not to worry about us. She has become ‘Mum’ to our group and worries every time one or more of us isn’t where we are supposed to be. By the time we got back to Sapodilla we were somewhat less than popular for a. going off without checking in first, and b. going to see Surinam without everyone else. Oh well – there’s the quick, and the envious I guess. Along the way we had talked about all sorts of things ministry. Both Helen and I had lots of questions about how the GCU operated and we were probably a little blunt with Marlon when we pointed out some of the most glaring issues that needed to be addressed. Hopefully some of the possible solutions will be useful as well.

Unfortunately our little jaunt meant that time I had planned to spend on my presentation was no longer available and so I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening frantically finishing off and putting together the powerpoint to go with it. I headed for bed at midnight. I had to be finished because I was up first in the morning for presenting and we were due to start at 9am. I finally got it to a point that I was reasonably happy with, saved, shut down and went to bed. A very long but good day.