Not long before the Tour began, I made a significant change to my intended route in the Caribbean region, the reason for which I will mention in another post. The relevant impact, for now, was that I would visit Suriname, and would therefore be able to see two World Heritage Sites, when only one would have been available on the earlier version of the route. Those two would be the Historic Center of Paramaribo, and the Central Suriname Nature Reserve.

Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname, was added to the List because its colonial era city center possesses a relatively unique style of urban design that was based on the Dutch Colonial principles that quickly adapted to make use of the availability of indigenous building materials, notably abundant tropical hardwoods. That combination resulted in an interesting collection of elegant wooden buildings, including residential, commercial, and civic structures. As someone who enjoys wood and well-made wooden buildings, I quite enjoyed seeing the examples that made up most of the Old Town, and observing their design elements as a source of ideas for possible use in future projects. One aspect of the Site that has both positive and negative aspects is that there has been relatively little restoration work done on most of the older buildings, and, therefore, many examples are in a poor state of being at this time. That does give the site a more authentic feeling in some ways, but also means that there are several structures that may not last much longer.

I had only two complaints about this Site as a whole. For one, there really should be one or two streets in the historic zone closed off to motorized vehicles and left for walking only. Without that, it is much harder to appreciate the esthetic properties of the zone, and also to take appealing photographs, because of all the automobiles randomly parked all over the place. The other thing that I would have appreciated would have been the chance to view the interiors of some of the wooden buildings in order to examine their finish and details. Unfortunately, almost all were closed to casual visitors, as they are still in use for various purposes. The only one I knew to be open was the Saint Peter and Paul Basilica, the largest wooden cathedral in the western hemisphere. However, at the moment I walked up to have a look inside, the bride in a wedding was just being walked down the aisle, so I had to be satisfied with a quick peek through the open doors to see its wooden interior. Here are some images from the core zone of the Site, a visit that I rather enjoyed.

The Central Suriname Nature Reserve is a immense parcel of undisturbed rainforest in the interior of the country. While being part of the larger Amazon basin, it is more specifically located in the Guianan Shield, a region which possess its own specialized ecosystem that is particularly diverse. That, in my mind, is reason enough for this Site to have been included on the List. What made the Site truly exceptional for me was the amazingly pristine state of the forest, both within the core zone of the Site, and for hundreds of square kilometers around its location. While I have seen many tropical forests, on multiple continents, I cannot remember a case where such a large parcel of forest showed such a low level of destruction by humans.

Reaching this Site was not a simple matter, and not possible at all by cycling. Doing so required joining a commercial tour from Paramaribo, of four days in length. Two days were occupied by travel to, and from, the Site, involving both road and riverboat sections, with the remaining two days spent at the very basic tourist center in Raleighvallen National Park, the northernmost of the three Parks that make up the Site. I will present more about the Site in another post in the Birds section a little later. For now, here are a few images that nicely represent the quality of the forest that exists in this Site.