Commewijne River, Paramaribo District, Suriname

5David M 5:00 PM Aug 3, 2014

Boat cruise
Took a boat cruise from the Toratica Hotel up the river with many interesting stops. The tour was guided and done in both Dutch and English. A lot of stops related to colonial history, a fantastic lunch at a restored plantation and a swim in the river (much cleaner than the Paramaribo River) on the way back. A great day.

4matt d 5:00 PM Aug 5, 2014

Great cycling - skip a boat tour, do a cycle trip!
Boating is nice, but for the best of both worlds, rent a bike in the center, bike to leonsberg (paramaribo north) or de waterkant and take a boat across. then you can cycle through all the old planatations and villages, see the cross the commewijne to fredricksdorp or rust & werk, and head to the old coffee factory at katwijk. The entire loop of Fort Nieuw-Amsterdam -> Alkmaar -> Tamanredjo -> Meerzorg is about 50km, not including anything you ride from the city center on the west bank of the suriname river. You pass some grea little villages, it's relaxed, flat cycling, and you can also sometimes see dolphins in the commewijne (so I'm told). For anyone who loves cycling it's a fntastic relaxed ride, super chill and easy, and you can choose to turn around or do as much of the loop as you want. On the north end you can also choose to cross the river with ferries to the northern plantations of the commewijne river. Overall a great cycle, but bring water and sunscreen! For practical info, I started early from diakonessen hospital, rode north to leonsberg (14km) in about an hour, waited for a bit for other people to arrive and with 7 of us we shared a boat across to the other side (kabel) with bikes for 5 SRD per person. Then we rode to the fort, and I rode on alone to do the loop. The loop in total was 65km, so start early. The portion Fort - Marienburg sugar factory is about 30-45 minutes cycling, and then another 30 or 45 minutes to alkmaar, from there katwijk is maybe 15-25 minutes. Tamanredjo is 10km from alkmaar so about 40 minutes, and then another hour or so to meerzorg where you can take another boat across and then 14km back to the hospital was a few km again