The Space Cadet’s Guide to Paramaribo

So here is the second part of my Suriname piece! Here is a guide to the capital,where we spent most of the time as a whole.

Where to stay

We stayed at the Twenty4 hostel. It’s pretty much the only” hostel” in Paramaribo. Mostly it is backpackers staying there, but you can find travellers of all ages. The service is friendly, and it is in a good location. The prices are fair. Most of the rooms have AC except for maybe the dorms.

Another nice place is Zus and Zo, which is more of a restaurant and activity centre, but they rent some rooms out as well. We rented bikes from them. They are better organized in some of the tourism aspects, such as coordinating tours and things around the area.

Where to eat

Paramaribo has no shortage of good things to eat. Suriname food is a fusion of Javanese, Indian, Creole, Chinese and other things. Many places run out of what looks like a garage, so it’s good to try to go earlier in the day as the restaurant or Eehuis makes a lot of things in the morning, and when they run out, they run out. My favourite was next to the hostel I stayed in, Simi’s Eethuis.

You can also find excellent Indonesian. One street a little further from the centre has a wonderful Indonesian place called Miroso. It has the whole menu and all the Indonesian dishes you can ask for, albeit sometimes it is closed for random hours during the day. There is a cute warung next to it where I had a lumpia while waiting for Miroso to open as I was very insistent on getting a couple of dishes for takeaway.

Anything with “warung” in the title is Indonesian. Usually, warungs don’t have a full menu, but the basics like nasi rames, and nasi goreng are often all you need. Again, like with many smaller places in Suriname, you need to be there early and maybe have a second or third choice in mind.

There is also no shortage of Roti shops. I think I had Roti every other day. The predominant ethnicity in Suriname is Indian. You can find plenty of vegetarian options as well. There are several dim sum places. Suriname has a Chinese population ;manyrun smaller shops and work as other merchants.

It’s pretty hard to starve in Suriname. The only shortcoming is that places are out of food pretty early. Restaurants also do not seem to be open that late either. There is also not a lot of nightlife. Regarding the drinking culture, there aren’t too many bars. The most common way to drink is to split a djogo with someone. It’s what they call a one-litre beer.

What to do

Fort Zeelandia

This is the first place where Europeans built their presence in Suriname. The Dutch took the fort from the British in 1667. It was given the name Zeelandia” after the southern Dutch province of Zeeland. There are several other Fort Zeelandias” worldwide, and New Zealand ( as you can guess) is named after this province.

Most of the action was moved to Fort Nieuw Amsterdam but remained in use. It became a museum after colonization, but in 1980 it was used for the military during the Boutser dictatorship. Fifteen people were murdered there in 1982. Despite its rather dark history, it is still one of the more beautiful sights in Paramaribo.

Ride a bicycle to Fort Nieuw Amsterdam.

You can rent the bikes at Zus and Zo. The downfall of this activity is that the bikes are often simple street bikes, and on some roads, they aren’t the most comfortable. People also drive like nuts. Of course, there is no helmet, but it doesn’t faze many people as the Dutch influence is there, and most tourists are Dutch. Dutch people, when it comes to the topic of helmets, are kind of like Americans when it comes to gun safety or Germans when it comes to the autobahn.

You have to take a ferry across the river to Fort Nieuw Amsterdam. It’s only a couple of bucks. It’s a big area, so having a bike to get around is very handy. There is not much left of the old fort. There is an open-air museum that has a prison and a couple of older plantations that give a decent general summary of the basic history.

If you don’t feel like taking the bicycle, the hostel and guest houses organize tours around, so it’s doable. They run from around thirty bucks. That is a bit pricey for the area, but I’ll talk more about that in my next post about the excursions.

Walk around downtown

You can see the old synagogue next to the mosque. Suriname used to have a sizable Jewish community. It currently has the highest percentage of Muslims in South America. You can see lots of Hindu temples as well.

Some claim it isn’t the safest, but I felt fine the whole time. Suriname has had some economic strife and civil unrest, but none of it is reflected on outsiders. Some parts are tattered, but I didn’t feel unsafe at all, even when there was a lockdown and some brief civil unrest. My favourite tattered building was the office on statistics.

Take a day trip to Peperpot

This was one of the most delightful things that I did. Peperpot is a nice park out of Paramaribo. You usually have to hail a taxi ( or hitchhike) as it’s a bit far. If you are VERY determined, you can include it in your bike trip. You can also rent a kayak; my friend and I rented a kayak for a few hours, which was pretty blissful. It gave me flashbacks to my part of the world.

Beyond Paramaribo

This will be my next post about the excursions from the capital and getting to the other two Guyanas