Braamspunt, Galibi Sea Turtles and Bigi Pan Coastal Reserves Guide

Beyond its wooden colonial streets and river plantations, Paramaribo is the gateway to some of the most important coastal wildlife habitats on the northeastern shoulder of South America. Depending on the season, you can ride a boat to the mouth of the Suriname River at Braamspunt or the Maroni estuary at Galibi Nature Reserve to watch prehistoric leatherback sea turtles haul ashore by moonlight, or head west into the mangrove lagoons of Bigi Pan to see flocks of crimson scarlet ibises.

Braamspunt Sandspit: Evening Sea Turtles Just 45 Minutes from Paramaribo

Located 15 kilometres north of Paramaribo where the Suriname and Commewijne rivers pour into the Atlantic Ocean, the shifting coastal sandspit of Braamspunt is the closest sea turtle nesting beach to any capital city in South America. Between February and July (with peak nesting from April through June and hatchlings emerging through August), four species of endangered marine turtles come ashore on high nocturnal tides to dig their nests in the warm sand:

• Giant Leatherback Sea Turtles (Dermochelys coriacea, locally Aitkanti): Named in Sranan Tongo for the "eight ridges" running down their leathery carapace, adult leatherbacks reach up to two metres in length and weigh between 350 and 600 kilograms.
• Green Sea Turtles (Chelonia mydas, locally Krape) and Olive Ridleys (Warana): Sharing the beach with the leatherbacks are hundreds of green sea turtles and smaller olive ridley turtles. Evening boats depart from Leonsberg pier in northern Paramaribo at 16:30, combining sunset Guiana dolphin spotting in the estuary with a ranger-guided night walk on Braamspunt using red-filtered lights so nesting females are never disturbed.

Galibi Nature Reserve (1969) and Kalina Indigenous Villages on the Maroni

For a deeper two-day coastal expedition, drive two hours east of Paramaribo to the border port of Albina and travel 90 minutes north by motorized wooden pirogue down the wide Maroni (Marowijne) River to the 4,000-hectare Galibi Nature Reserve, established in 1969 at the Atlantic mouth of the river opposite French Guiana. Guests stay in simple riverside guesthouses near the Kalina (Carib) Indigenous villages of Christiaankondre and Langamankondre, known for their giant shade mango trees and painted clay pottery, and take night boats out to the remote sandbars of Babunsanti and Eilanti, one of the largest leatherback and green turtle rookeries in the Atlantic.

Bigi Pan Mangrove Lagoon: Scarlet Ibises and Stilt Overwater Lodges

Travellers visiting outside the February to July turtle window, or heading overland toward Georgetown in Guyana via Nieuw Nickerie, can stop at the 68,000-hectare Bigi Pan Multiple-Use Management Area on Suriname's western coast. Reached by shallow-draft boat through a flooded tunnel of black mangroves along the Nickerie River, this vast brackish lagoon hosts wooden lodges built on stilts right in the middle of the water, where thousands of brilliant red scarlet ibises (Eudocimus ruber), roseate spoonbills, wood storks, ospreys, and migratory North American shorebirds feed across the mudflats at sunrise and sunset.