What to do with your sparetime in Paramaribo

As I stayed for almost five months in Surinam, I had enough time for relaxation and fun stuff. As almost every other volunteer or trainees from the Netherlands I went to Havanah's Lounge, Zsa Zsa Zsu and 't Vat. The first two were ideal for dancing all night long. As the Surinam guys are more straightforward than Dutch guys, some girls get annoyed by the men who keep trying to dance with you. If you know how to cope with them, you'll have a lovely time. At Havana's Lounge you also have the change to show your salsa/merenque/bachata/... skills as on thursday. Between 10 and 1 in the evening you can participate in Latin dancing. But just watching is also fun, because some are just unbelievably good. Besides these two clubs, there are some others nice clubs like Starzz (this one was closed for renovation untill one month before I left) and Millenium (mostly Surinam visitors).

Besides clubs there are enough places where you can relax, have diner, lunch or just something to drink. 't Vat was where I was most to be found together with my brother and his co-trainees. Near 't Vat are also other establishments where you can relax. Close to the center of the city I liked to go to Spanhoek (Spanato) for a nice wrap (across McDonalds) and at Krasnapolsky they had a store where they sold delicious chillers.

Although I love Surinam food, it is really fat and not that good for my Dutch stomach...(the ingredients for great Su-food is oil, onion, garlic and pepper). So I loved going to restaurants like Zus en Zo (near palmentuin) to get some fatfree foods, like salads or yoghurt to compensate for my love for bara's, roti, eggrolls, noodles and fried rice.

When in need of fresh fruit I went to the market place in the center near the Surinamriver. They have lovely exotic fruits like passionfruit, papaya, mango, oranges, knippa's (look like lychee), pineapple and fruits I keep forgetting the name of. In the supermarket they mostly sell apples and grapes, which are 'exotic' for the Surinam people. My cousins are crazy about grapes... but they are more expensive than the local fruits. But the best fruit is the fruit fresh from the tree. In the village of my family they have oranges, fruits from palmtrees,  but also coconut. Although I am not crazy about coconut, drinking the milk from the fruit and scraping the inside with a spoon is just delicious.

In Paramaribo there are enough fitnnescentres, but they were not meant for me. Especially with that heat I don't like to do exercises, but I did love the salsa lessons from Yche (Danzson dancing school). Every week I went to the classes (or at least I tried), and we learnt spins, the basic steps and to just have fun. I started together with my brother, but as he went back to the Netherlands I continued dancing. Although I will never be a great dancer, I really enjoyed the lessons, because Yche is a great teacher.