No more sleeps to go!
James and I arrived in Paramaribo Suriname three nights ago at about 10.00pm after spending the whole day waiting around airports and flying from Venezuela. We arrived at the hotel and Penny was already parked in the carpark, waiting along with all the other cars. After a long awaited meal we went out just to have a look at her before going to bed.
Friday was the option to do a river tour so we partook in it instead of doing anything on Penny. We knew that she had a flat battery and I didn’t want to deal with that at that stage so went site seeing instead.
The river cruse took us up stream to visit two old plantation that in the long past grew Coffee and Coco. These plantation dates back to when the country was all farming and worked by slaves before slavery ended in the late 1800’s.
Paramaribo is a very old Colonial town with the regular timber building seen all through the Caribbean region. With a lot of the building needing a lot of love as Suriname is another country that is broke since the GFC of 2008 when it became no longer cost effective to mine for most minerals. The only exports left from here are Gold and timber.
Yesterday was get organised for the start day with the first thing on the list to get a new battery and fit it to Penny. We got take bt taxi to the best auto electric shop I’ve been too in a 3rd world country. I was able to get the exact battery that is fitted to Penny along with spare fuses of all sorts and anything else auto electrical I wanted should I require it.
A new battery fixed the stating problem so I headed down town for lunch and on the way walked past the most amazing Cathedral. This cathedral had all the round pillars and vaulted ceiling familiar to all Cathedrals but the difference was this was totally out of timber and clear finished on the interior and paint on the outside. Sadly I had no camera.
After a rest James and I took Penny for a test drive that was cut short with the site of a big storm rolling in. We just got back to the hotel and the covers on when, down it came for about 20 mins. It left everyone and us else working on Cars very wet, as we never made it to the hotel in time so sheltered sort of under a shed awning.
Martins Lagonda was running like very rich and rough yesterday and a lot of time was spent on cleaning this and that and eventually the text message from David Ayre about the Ky-gas pump was shown to someone who understood what a Ky-gas pump was, tightening it fixed the problem so Martin is all smiles again.
The day finished with a briefing about what to expect follow by the pre-rally banquet prior to this morning’s departure.
This morning is a frenzy of final packing and sorting ready for our 10.30 departures.
