Originally Posted by
axolotl
How bad are the bugs? Have you had much rain? How is the road quality?
Bugs are minimal. Of course some of the mosquitoes can carry some nasty things, so a bit paranoid even seeing a few. Two night the hotel rooms had mosquito nets, two others I used my own mosquito net and at least two others I put some DEET.
We're on the tail end of rainy season. Around four big downpours in the week, though none while riding. Light sprinkles several additional times. This trip I brought an umbrella and glad I did.
Overall reasonable roads with few outliers e.g. 15km of cobblestones, ~3 construction zones and some stretches of rougher road. However on average, not much worse than what I find around Austin. Not much shoulders, but then also lighter traffic. We timed things to leave Georgetown on a Sunday and enter Paramaribo on a Sunday as well.
p.s. Not on the bike, but we took a side bus trip to Cayenne, French Guyana today and happened to see a Ariane 5 rocket launch that put two satellites in orbit.