Welcome to Guyana

Via French Guyana and via Suriname, the team travels to the border with Guyana at Albina. The welcome by the Guyanese people is at least to say, utterly overwhelming.

First Joost, Thijmen and Jos would travel via Paris to French Guyana, after which they travelled over land to Suriname. However at Paris the situation at the airport was still under high security surveillance. When the baggage had to be picked up, the whole airport was shut down, due to a suspicious package and the group was separated. With time ticking on the departure of the occasional trans-Atlantic plane. After a lot of uncertainty, the thread was dissolved and a ridiculous sprint started through lines, securities and stunned personnel. With a few minutes to spare, the plane was catched. The next days where filled with a well-deserved vacation in the capital of French Guyana, Cayenne. After 3 days, the group went to Paramaribo over land.

Peter and Siebe arrived by plane in Paramaribo. After a cosy 2 hours at the customs and an one hour ride to the hostel in the city, finally they could get some rest. After four hours of sleep, the bus arrived at 4:00 AM to take us to the border with Guyana. The driver was not afraid of speeding tickets and a possible broken car. This results in a bumpy, but successful ride to the Courantyne River, which is the border between Guyana and Suriname. Again a long line appears, this time for the tickets of the ferry. The ferry however, leaves surprisingly on time. After a trip on the river of 30 minutes, a warm welcome awaits us at the Guyanese border.

When the ferry landed, the first people started to sprint towards the customs (probably because of the expected line) while we try to move as slowly as possible, because of the heat. Every unexpected fast movement results in more sweat drops on our heads. Customs were not a problem at all for us. Everything was arranged. Our contacts of the Guyanese government were waiting for us and they made sure we got a privileged treatment. Within 10 minutes we were standing in the country of Guyana, with a nice hot meal and a bumpy ride in an AC’ed van waiting for us.

There we met our personal assistant Christine! She makes sure that we don’t miss anything during our entire stay. She’s has a great sense of humour and she immediately joked that Dutch people are quite tall. During the ride she told us a lot about the country and also informed us that tomorrow a meeting was planned. “No problem” we thought, however she continued by telling us that two ministers, high officials, the engineering staff and the national press will be there. “So ehh, a statement about your project and expectations is expected from you guys during the ceremony “. What followed was more extraordinary then we’ve could ever expected, but more on that later.