#45 - TALES FROM THE FIELD #9

Yesterday's blog entry contained many words. It was a revealing glimpse into my life and career. In this installment we return to Babunhol on the shores of the Suriname River. Rather than using many words I want to share many photos, each one accompanied by an extended caption that tells the story of the many amazing animals we found right on the resort property and in the forests that surrounded it. We worked other areas from this base camp, including Brownsberg Natuurpark, but all of the photos in this blog were taken within walking distance of our Pitiko House at New Babunhol River Resort.

My friend Jason recently asked me if I took notes on my adventures. Of course I do. Each evening all of us record the day's events in our log books. Andrew sits with pen and paper and pipe, and Paul jots in a notebook. Guy and I tap our notes into our iPads - me with a cold beer and cigar. It is an after dinner ritual that preserves the stories our field trips. I could consult my Suriname 2014 Notes to provide a chronological telling of the expedition. However, my stories jump about in time to highlight different species strictly from my memory. I don't want to regurgitate my field notes. I also want to jump from trip to trip on a whim, taking you to new places before finishing all the stories of one. In TFTF #10 we will return to Sri Lanka and our hunt for my favorite theraphosid spider - Poecilotheria subfusca.

All images contained herein are © Michael Jacobi, Guy Tanley, Paul Carpenter & Andrew Smith
except those designated as © Michael Jacobi.

Andrew recorded our events and data in two notebooks throughout the day. Here he sits with his morning coffee and a bowl of tobacco memorializing all of our activities for future use. You'll also notice a map off to one side where we would plan our journeys away from the base camp of Babunhol.

This was his normal seat at our Pitiko table and in the evening the coffee would be replaced with Borgoe Rum and, perhaps, a cold Parbo Bier.

Bats were literally everywhere in Suriname. Even at our suburban first base camp at Oxygen resort nightfall would bring small bats racing about outside of our rooms.

At Babunhol many tree holes contained what we began to call "ginger bats", using the Brit term for redheads. There were a number of species that shared our resort. The "ginger bat" at left is hanging off of our laundry, which we hand washed and hung to dry each morning.

Ephebopus murinus was the primary member of the genus that we found abundant in Suriname. The image at right shows Ephebopus rufescens.

Ephebopus is an avicularine genus and young are arboreal or semi-arboreal, particularly in the French Guiana species E. cyanognathus. We found that roadside embankments or low brush would contain juveniles in burrows, while the adult females lived in deep burrows in the jungle floor that had turreted entrances made of silk and leaf litter.

The silk shrouded turreted burrow of an adult female Ephebopus murinus. We found many of these at Babunhol. They often were difficult to see at first, but at the right angle the silk would catch the sunlight and the prominent cluster of leaves rising from the forest floor would reveal the spider's lair.

Ephebopus murinus has always been a personal favorite and it has often been fairly common in the hobby. I've seen thousands in captivity, but seeing one in situ is a remarkable and very memorable experience.

This image better illustrates the burrow of the "skeleton tarantula" and how it incorporates leaves and sticks into a camouflaged retreat.

The shelter rises from the forest floor in a protective funnel that is called a turret.

This type of retreat is a radical departure from the way most adults of the family Aviculariinae live.

The spider itself is a strikingly beautiful dark color with light stripes on its name that gave rise to the popular name "skeleton".

Ephebopus murinus sits at the mouth of her turreted burrow at night.  © Michael Jacobi

Ephebopus murinus in situ at Babuhol  © Michael Jacobi

One of the most amazing finds of our trip was found by Paul in a tree right on Babunhol's grounds. Prior to this discovery, Tapinauchenius gigas was only known from French Guiana.

We had found Tapinauchenius plumipes outside of Paramaribo and would also find it at Babunhol, but it was quite a surprise when Paul found this orange beauty in a tree hole. Paul is a remarkable spider hunter and manages to shine his torch into holes others might miss. In fact, this beautiful orange tree spider was in a crevice above his height and maybe even mine. I tickled her out of her hole only after Guy had gone back to camp to borrow a rusty old ladder from one of Babunhol's sheds. As I chased her out onto the tree trunk she was captured in an empty Pringles can. After a lengthy photo shoot we directed her back into the retreat where we found her.

Frogs were abundant at Babuhol and they are one of my favorite photographic subjects. The resort's groundskeeper Errol would find some for me while he tended to both the ornamental flowers in pots around the site and in the bush itself. Our Pitiko House came alive with tree frogs at night as well.

Hypsiboas multifasciatus found at the forest's edge at Babunhol   © Michael Jacobi

Dendropsophus marmoratus that Errol found in one of his decorative potted plants  © Michael Jacobi

Scinax ruber was the common tree frog that we would find in our kitchen at night,
as well as in the showers and toilets and other buildings.  © Michael Jacobi

This Dendrophidion dendrophus (tawny forest racer) was spotted on one of our
night hikes into the bush that surrounded Babunhol. It was perched about four feet above the ground.
© Michael Jacobi

One of many Tapinauchenius plumipes observed at Babunhol  © Michael Jacobi

This dwarf brown tarantula found at Babunhol is possibly a Neostenotarsus sp.
© Michael Jacobi

You may have seen this image of me and a labaria on my website.
This Bothrops atrox, a fiesty and highly venomous pit viper, was found right on the beach at Babunhol.
When we told the owners of this during our return debriefing after our stay I could see horror on their faces.
The following images shows where I found it coiled in the buttress of a riverside tree.
Guy had just stood there investigating tree holes for tarantulas.
He was fortunate that he didn't get close enough to rile up the speedy striker.
© Guy Tansley

Here is the same labaria or fer-de-lance as I found it coiled at the base of the tree.
© Michael Jacobi

Also being a reptile guy, finding the several labarias I encountered during the trip as well as the big Spilotes sulphureus I wrangled at Brownsberg certainly made for lifetime memories. In future blog entries I may mention other Surinamese reptiles I found including green iguanas, Plica sp. lizards, huge golden tegus and more. However, there was one reptile that was at the top of my list to see in nature and get an opportunity to photograph. It was a large anolid lizard that many call the monkey anole. I had kept my eyes peeled for one, but had no luck. On our last morning at Babunhol, as we were packing our gear and loading our car, the groundskeeper Errol came over to me and said there was a lizard along the forest trail just behind their service building. I grabbed my Nikon and chased after him. There it was, perched on a giant palm leaf, Polychrus marmoratus, a bucket list reptile.

Polychrus marmoratus  © Michael Jacobi

Me and the Polychrus marmoratus that was at the top of my bucket list!
Notice how the stress of capture and removing it from its palm frond has turned it brown.
© Guy Tansley

Cheers, MJ

#41 - TALES FROM THE FIELD #7

In this seventh entry of our Tales from the Field series I want to leave Sri Lanka for a bit and return to my late 2012 field trip to Suriname. I gave some background on the country and this field trip in TFTF #2 & #3 so I hope you've already read both of those. If not you might want to sit back with your favorite beverage and catch up first.

This installment will focus on Brownsberg Natuurpark, which we visited over the course of four or five days in search of the Goliath tarantula, Theraphosa blondi. I will always regret that we couldn't convince Andrew to stay there. It was quite rundown but it did have suitable covered areas to sling a hammock and I know Guy and I would have been quite happy given more time there, especially at night. This was my first field trip with Guy Tansley of giantspiders.com and bugsnstuff.com and in him I found a kindred spirit who enjoyed all of the denizens of the rainforest and would happily go herping with me. As you'll read Guy and I found some amazing reptiles and amphibians when the two of us separated from Andrew and Paul and "did our own thing". However, Andrew wanted to instead extend our stay at Babunhol, which was where we had rented an open-air house along the Suriname River (we'll come back to Babunhol in upcoming TFTF). Don't get me wrong ... Babunhol was amazing and we found all of our tarantula species except for T. blondi there. However, when we started working Brownsberg we would have a thirty minute or so drive south on the paved highway and then a pretty tortuous ride from the highway to the rutted road that ascended from sea level to an altitude of about 500 m. Our Hyundai Tucson AWD wasn't the sort of vehicle suited for this type of off-road experience. If it was my decision we would have made the journey only twice - the first time when we discovered how difficult the terrain and poor the road was and a second time to set up a base at Brownberg so we wouldn't have to repeat the trip. They did have some indoor accommodations that looked suitable, but most of the people staying there were "backpacker types" sleeping in hammocks hung in the open air under roofs that protected from rains. Andrew had insisted that we bring hammocks on the trip so I spent a couple hundred bucks on a very nice ENO hammock from REI with a separate mosquito net and SlapStrap suspension system for hanging it. I still have never used it. And we made the trek to Brownsberg all over again each morning ...

Before I delve into my tales from Brownsberg I will mention that my YouTube channel has several videos that you can watch to accompany the stories here. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, which I suppose would make a video worth a million. However, I don't want to spoil my written stories so I will put direct links to the videos at the end of this blog entry. When you're done reading please view them as a companion to TFTF #7. Even if you've already watched them or attended my lectures on Suriname at ArachnoGathering #1 or ATS Conference 2014, I hope you'll enjoy my stories, photos and videos again.

I'm not sure what we all were expecting upon our initial visit to Brownsberg. I recall thinking that perhaps I could get a souvenir T-shirt there so I must have expected more. What we found was a very difficult road and a rundown park with little more than a small cafe and a handful of staff. But we also found beautiful rainforest and its amazing inhabitants. However, it was the road that was the problem. First we had to find the correct road as we came to a fork that had no signage. Fortunately our 50% chance turned out to be correct and we saw the sign for Brownberg later on. The road was a single lane red dirt path with deep ruts, potholes and large rocks. Our little all wheel drive crossover utility was not really up to the task. I did most of the driving even though the steering wheel was on the right side as it is back home for my three English mates (Andrew Smith, Paul Carpenter and Guy Tansley). At times the three of them would get out of the car so it would ride a bit higher and they could guide me around obstacles. It was slow going. At some points during the ascent the road would drop off steeply into the jungle and one little slip and ... well, we hoped it wouldn't come to that. The journey was certainly a bit hair-raising, but finally we made it to the top although our rental's undercarriage certainly received a few bruises. At the time I drove an old Jeep Grand Cherokee and I sure wish it was with us in Suriname. I was most worried about the lack of skid plates that would protect the oil sump at the bottom of the engine and the gas tank.

Upon arrival we saw that the "gate" was nothing more than a flat area with a little cafe and staff who would collect a fee. There was a parking area and we put our little CUV to rest there and off loaded. We heard some commotion off to one side and noticed a dark-skinned guide with a group of fair-skinned tourists. They had spotted a monkey and we grabbed our cameras to join them. However it wasn't too long before we heard alarmed voices back by the cafe and adjacent buildings where we had parked. One of the staff pointed at the tin roof of one small building and I saw a very long snake moving across it. I called to Guy to return to the car for my snake hook while I kept my eye on the eight or nine feet of serpent. My video (linked below) shares my capture of this snake better than words could describe. Guy handed me the hook and I used all of my height and the length of my arm to pull the snake off the roof. The staff couldn't believe it and the tourists who turned out to be Dutch came running over as well. I had quite the audience for a bit of snake wrangling. In fact, you can hear Paul Carpenter say at the end of the video, "Mad Michael, the snake wrangler". The snake was what is commonly known as a puffing snake. You will hear me identify it in the video as either Spilotes or Pseustes. I was correct on both accounts. Long known as Pseustes sulphureus, this beautiful large snake had recently been transferred to the genus Spilotes.

I hold my prize - a beautiful adult Spilotes sulphureus that was eight if not nine feet in length.
© one of the other lads

We had only been at the top of Brownsberg for five minutes and I was already posing with a snake as a dozen or so Dutch tourists took turns taking a photograph of me handling it. I then marched over to the forest's edge and sent the big puffing snake back into the bush. We then had a cold drink at the cafe and settled up on our entrance fee. Andrew spoke with the staff and was happy to discover that one of them had an image of a mature male Theraphosa blondi on her mobile phone. I told the story of the old woman at the Maroon village we visited pulling a mobile phone from under her breast in an early TFTF and it no longer surprised us that no matter where we were everyone had cell phones. But this image was important as it confirmed that the Goliath tarantula lived at Brownsberg and we would return over the course of the next few days to search for this difficult to find spider.

After our refreshment we proceeded towards one of the trails and before long found Avicularia. We had found Avicularia throughout the country. Some of them looked more like the hobby's A. avicularia and others looked like pet trade A. metallica. I consider them to be varied and regionally different and just refer to all as Avicularia sp. However, as Maria Merian's painting of Avicularia was Linnaeus' basis for his Avicularia avicularia I prefer to think of all Suriname's Avics as geographic races of that type species.

Andrew films an Avicularia sp. after Paul tickled it out of its long silk tube. © Paul Carpenter

Team shot at Brownsberg Natuurpark: (l. to r.) Guy, me, Paul & Andrew. © Michael Jacobi

Our first day at Brownsberg revealed many Avicularia around the buildings and lizards like the turnip-tailed gecko (Thecadactylus rapicauda). We also saw big toads mating in puddles and an assortment of arthropods and amazing birds. Day one would be mostly reconnaissance as we knew we would come back until we found Theraphosa blondi. I walked past the few people who had set up camp in hammocks and saw a large pickup truck with a camper top on the bed. I noticed a California license plate. This was a surprise. The Californian couple turned out to be a man and woman we had seen photographing birds along the entrance road. They had driven their rig all the way down Central America and around South America and were making their way back north and home. They had spent many months studying and photographing birds.

On one of our return days Guy and I separated from Paul and Andrew to hike a trail that our little map showed led to a waterfall. It was nice to be trekking the rainforest as a duo as we were quiet and would see monkeys and birds that would have fled before our arrival had we been walking as a foursome. Andrew has only one target and that is tarantulas. He doesn't move quietly enough to see or enjoy the other wildlife. As Guy and I headed toward the waterfall we found three-lined dart frogs (Ameerega trivittata). I had seen them at Babunhol, but had never managed to capture one for a photograph. Here along our Brownsberg trail capture wasn't even necessary as we came across them and quietly photographed them in situ. Farther along the trail we came across the amphibian at the top of my "bucket list". I could barely control my excitement as I photographed several harlequin toads (Atelopus hoogmoedi).

Ameerega trivittata @ Michael Jacobi

Atelopus hoogmoedi © Michael Jacobi

Atelopus hoogmoedi © Michael Jacobi

Guy and I forged ahead and the trail began to descend to a stream where we could hear the waterfall. As we approached Guy noticed a labaria. Known in other parts of South America as the fer-de-lance, Bothrops atrox is a feisty little pit viper that is responsible for most cases of envenomation in Suriname. The video linked below shows me talking about our find and moving the snake off of the path and into the bush. The following photographs show me capturing my images of the snake and one of those portraits.

Photographing a labaria (Bothrops atrox) in situ. © Guy Tansley
See if you can spot the snake ... I guess my lens direction gives it away.
But you can see how much attention you have to pay to both avoid and find these camouflaged serpents.

Labaria (or fer-de-lance), Bothrops atrox © Michael Jacobi

After I moved the snake and we carefully descended the slippery rocks to the base of the waterfall we found a cave filled with bats. Suriname certainly was bat country! Everywhere we stayed, even in the capitol of Paramaribo, we had little difficulty encountering bats and I'll tell more about them in future installments of Tales from the Field.

As successful as Guy and I were on our brief herping excursion, we sadly would never have a chance to work Brownsberg at night where we could have found more reptiles and amphibians. However, our team was in search of tarantulas and Brownsberg was our place to find the largest spider in the world. On successive days we decided to avoid the entry fee that you had to pay once you reached the top and the "official" nature park entrance, and also avoid having to drive the entire length of the treacherous entry road. We began to find places where we could park our car out of the way perhaps half way to the top and set out to look for Theraphosa blondi. We were armed with two endoscopes that would allow us to look into burrows and holes in the ground. Many were occupied by large toads or were perhaps made by rodents and other animals. Without the endoscopes it would be difficult to find an adult T. blondi. They are opportunistic burrowers and will seek shelter in any deep hole or pit, often not one that they made themselves. We knew that a mature male had been found by the staff at the highest elevation in the park, but didn't know if they would also be found lower down the road. Everything I had read about the species in the preceding years spoke of them as being a lowland species often found in damp areas. Our best luck would be if we all fanned out in teams of two, with each team having an endoscope. When I walked around roadside embankments I continued to look for burrows that would contain Ephebopus murinus and E. rufescens and we did find these species here. However, it was a find by Andrew in a shallow hole in one embankment that led to our T. blondi success. He found a spiderling! We now knew that our altitude was fine and that there had to be a female in the general area. However, finding her or another would still be sweaty difficult work that would require as much luck as Andrew's chance finding of the young T. blondi.

A very happy Andrew Smith points to the spot where he found the Theraphosa blondi spiderling. © Michael Jacobi

Spiderling Theraphosa blondi © Team Suriname

Eventually the viewfinder of Andrew's endoscope revealed an adult Theraphosa blondi. It was shortly after we had our usual trailside meal of sardines on crackers and Pringles chips washed down with water. We were overjoyed.

We spent many hours searching under every log and in every hole that was large enough
to hold an adult goliath tarantula. Many times we would encounter large orange toads
that lived in similar retreats and once Andrew called "Michael, Snake!"
and I came over to see that he had discovered yet another labaria.
We were definitely in watch where you put your extremities territory.

We were unsuccessful at tickling out this girl and darkness was approaching. We didn't want to drive down the dangerous road without light. So we blocked the entrance and marked the spot for return the following morning. We woke up eager to try to extract the spider that would complete our trip. We already had many Avicularia, two species of Ephebopus, two species of Tapinauchenius and many other amazing finds under our belt, but the field trip would soon be ending and we had to photograph T. blondi. When we returned to the spot we had noticed that there was a back exit as well and the female had tunneled herself in. All attempts to "tickle" her out failed so Paul began to do some digging. I concentrated on filming the excitement and the process and that is why we have the film for you to watch. Guy was taking photographs and Paul and Andrew focused on the excavation.

My 17-minute movie tells the story quite well so I am going to leave you with some photographs and then ask you to click the three links below and watch the films that will serve as companion to this Tale from the Field.

A happy Guy pots up the spider after we got her out and Paul congratulates him. © Michael Jacobi.

The joy of catching the world's largest spider. Guy displays our prize with thumbs up. © Michael Jacobi

One of the many team and individual shots we took posed with the big hairy spider. © Michael Jacobi

The beast! © Michael Jacobi

Female Theraphosa blondi poses next to Mag-Lite for size reference. © Michael Jacobi.

This blog entry has been a very brief overview of the incredible time we had searching the forest of Brownsberg Natuurpark. I hope this park survives its threats such as illegal gold mining. The drive down to Brownberg from our camp at Babunhol passed many mines where they extract bauxite and other minerals, but it is gold that is the Suriname resource that will be exploited to the detriment of the land.

In a future Tales from the Field I will return to Suriname and talk more about our base at New Babunhol River Resort. Until next time ... MJ


Video Links

• Spilotes (Pseustes) sulphureus at Brownsberg, Suriname (2:19)
• Finding the Goliath Tarantula in the Wild (16:46)
• Labaria at Brownsberg, Suriname (1:15)

#30 - TALES FROM THE FIELD #2

Our 2012 Suriname adventure was an incredibly successful field trip. We found tarantulas, reptiles and amphibians that I had dreamed about seeing in nature. But as with all field trips, we enjoyed some relaxation as well.

One thing we always do is pick up a bottle of the local spirits. Andrew likes to think that this contributes to keeping away stomach bugs that may result in spending the day on the toilet, but I know that we also like to end our day of hard work with a nice little buzz. Andrew and I share a love of good drink and fine cigars and our evenings always see us talking into the night with both in hand.

Before I left for Suriname I had researched their different rums, which would be the local spirit in this country. I learned of the brand Borgoe and which types were finest. I also learned that their Parbo Bier was award winning. The country's Dutch heritage had no doubt contributed to crafting a fine pilsner beer and we enjoyed it very much. It is a favorite I wish I could find here in the states.

In Suriname we operated out of fewer base camps, with Babunhol camp set alongside the Suriname river being our primary home for the field trip. We had rented an open air cabin of sorts, which was their best lodging. Babunhol was popular with people who lived in Paramaribo, the capitol about an hour's drive north, and on the weekends it was a recreational area where they would sling their hammocks and cook their native dishes. Suriname is without beach as its coastal area on the north is all muck and silt. But Babunhol had created its own beach. In the middle of the river was a floating barge that had a big pump and they had someone in old-fashioned scuba gear that you've only seen in movies holding a hose on the river bottom so that sand could basically be vacuumed up to the shore. It was then distributed by the wheelbarrow full to create a nice sandy beach.

I swam in the river every morning and most evenings. Later when we took a guided boat ride upriver I noticed all the piranha nets everywhere else that villages had shoreline access. I was told that the piranhas here weren't particularly aggressive unless you had an open cut or wound. Funny that nobody told me that before I had made dawn swims part of my routine!

Babunhol had no regular electricity, but did have a generator that would run from 7-10 pm each night. This gave us a short window to charge our camera batteries and other electronics and have some light in our cabin for cooking dinner and sorting our gear. I had brought my laptop and every day each team member would give me their memory cards and I would back them up onto an external hard drive for safety. Then three copies of each image file would exist: one on the card, one on my laptop hard drive and a third on the external HD. But my laptop proved useful for something else as well. Of course, we had no Internet, but I told the guys that I had the first two seasons of Game of Thrones on my computer. Nobody had ever seen it and it became a nightly ritual that we would watch a couple episodes. We would sit out on the grass in folding chairs with our Parbo beer and rum (and Andy and I with cigars) and watch it with the beautiful Suriname river our scenic backdrop. It was open air tropical theater on a very small screen, but my mates quickly became engrossed with the epic HBO blockbuster adaptation of G.R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire book series.

Our base at Babunhol proved to be a dream. We found Tapinauchenius gigas there, which before was only known from French Guiana. Tapinauchenius plumpipes and Ephebopus murinus were abundant there, and the thatched roofs for hammock sleepers and staff quarters held Avicularia sp. I found a labaria or fer de lance right on the beach after Guy had walked right past it looking for spiders in tree holes instead of watching what he might trod upon. On our last day at Babunhol our groundskeeper called me over to see a lizard and there was Polychrus marmoratus, the monkey lizard, which was at the top of my herp bucket list for the trip.

Avics are arboreal and common around habitation so the workers there who would tend the beach and grounds and change our linens, plus the Javanese cook that we had hired to prepare our dinners each night, were well acquainted with these "flying spiders". We keepers are very familiar with the Avic tendency to leap and this trait is exaggerated to be flight, much as it is in other parts of the world where arboreal tarantulas have been found. For example, Poecilotheria are known as "parachute spiders" in India.

The Surinam people had a great fear of these "flying spiders" and, of course, believed their bite was fatal. We spent a great deal of effort trying to get them to understand English spoken by four different accents (me = American, Paul = English midlands, Andrew = rapid southeast London, Guy = Geordie from "Northumberland" - the far northeast of England near Scotland). We explained that they were harmless and even showed them how we could handle them. Each day we would repeat this and a groundskeeper named Errol started catching tree frogs and lizards for me to photograph. But it took quite some time to get them to lighten up on their lifetime fear of spiders, especially the anansi or tarantulas we were after. One night after our Javanese cook and his gorgeous young daughter served us dinner and ice cold beer we were joined in the picnic area by a group of young men who served as "lifeguards" (very loosely) on the beach when people came to picnic on the weekends. They also wanted to be "forest guides" and we did pay them for one walk where we ended up doing the guiding (of course) and one boat trip upriver to a Maroon (Sarramaccan) village (more on this in a second). Anyway, they were relaxing and drinking beer after beer. The biggest one probably weighed 120 pounds and it wasn't long before they were a little obnoxious. They didn't exactly have the bulk to keep up with me. Guy, I believe, went over to the outhouse adjacent to our open air "restaurant" to "have a wazz" and found a large female Phoneutria fera with seven legs. After all the trouble we had gone through to attempt teaching everyone that the spiders were not dangerous, now we had to explain in a foreign language that this is the spider that THEY DO NEED TO FEAR!

As I just mentioned, we hired these guys to take us on a trip to a Maroon village. Suriname is not a Latin country, despite being part of South America. The three small northeastern coast countries (Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana [or Guyane] have more in common with the Caribbean. And Suriname was a Dutch colony. The official language is Dutch, but the lingua franca or language of the people is Sranan (or Sranan Tongo), a creole language. Surinamese switch back and forth between Dutch and Sranan and in the interior of the country Dutch is forgotten altogether. Most people in Suriname are either East Indians (from the north of India near Nepal) or black, either Maroons, which are descendants of  Caribbean slaves from Africa, or Creoles, which are the mixed descendants of West African slaves and Europeans (mostly Dutch). The East Indians were the second wave of contract workers after slavery was abolished in 1807. There are also good numbers of Javanese and Chinese (also descendants of contract workers). Anyway, Maroons are the people that live in little villages and are what would be considered the "native people". As our boat approached the village (after a beautiful trip up river viewing all kinds of piranha nets as I mentioned earlier!) we saw topless women bathing and washing clothes and cooking pots in the river. Our guides called ahead in yet another dialect and the women covered themselves up and parted so we could beach our long wooden river boat. Andrew asked to see the "chief" or whatever absurd word he may have used instead, and our guides spoke to an elderly woman in a loose brown sarong of sorts, which was basically a rag wrapped around her private bits. I say elderly, but for all I know she was younger than me. These people definitely were people of the forest and time is hard on them. As we further inquired after the village boss or chief or whatever, all of a sudden she reached into her sarong exposing a pendulous old breast and pulled out a cell phone. The natives in the jungle mystique had just been broken. She spoke quickly and then told our guides where to take us. It was amazing how impoverished this village was and how ramshackle their little huts were. But here was an old woman doing her chores along the Suriname river with a Nokia wedged under her tit! As we walked around the village all eyes were upon us. We kinda stand out among poor, very dark-skinned people, especially the giant gringo (me). We found the school, which was one of the better buildings in the little village and the teachers were dressed in nice clothes and all the students had clean little uniforms on. It was surreal to say the least. Later we sat around while the village leader told us some lengthy story that we thought would be profound only to roll our eyes at each other when it turned out to just be some stupid joke. Andrew gave his some tip and Paul, Guy and I couldn't get back to the boat fast enough. Our cultural experience was tainted and we had spiders, frogs and lizards to look for anyway.

Until next time ... Have a good & safe holiday weekend.