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The Riverbones: Stumbling After Eden in the Jungles of Suriname
A young man uncovers myth, history, and murder while searching for the soul of an unknown and magical place.
Andrew Westoll spent a year living the dream of every aspiring following wild troops of capuchin monkeys through the remote Central Suriname Nature Reserve, the largest tract of pristine rainforest left on earth. But that was only the beginning.
Westoll left the world of science altogether when he departed Suriname six years ago. But the country itself stayed with him and became a strange obsession. Nestled above Brazil and the Upper Amazon Basin, Suriname has a legitimate claim to the title The Last Eden, as ninety percent of this mysterious country is covered in thick, neo-tropical jungle. Westoll read everything he could find about the old Dutch colony — wild stories about secretive Amazonian shamans, superstitious tribes of ex-African slaves, outlaw Brazilian gold-miners, a ghostly lake with the dead canopy of a drowned rainforest at its surface, and an unsolved political murder mystery that continues to haunt the nation. Five years passed, and Westoll yearned to return to the rainforest. Then the opportunity finally arose.
Westoll didn’t think twice — he immediately quit his job, gave away most of his possessions, and kissed the love of his life goodbye. For the next five months, he explored the most surreal country in South America for a glimpse of its quintessential soul. He struggled up dark neo-tropical rivers, immersed himself in Surinamese Maroon culture, and met a cast of characters whose eccentricities perfectly mirrored the strangeness of their land.
Westoll maps the natural and human geography of this exotic land while hunting for closure to his strange obsession with it. In the end, he tells a spellbinding story of survival, heartbreak, mystery, and murder.
Andrew Westoll spent a year living the dream of every aspiring following wild troops of capuchin monkeys through the remote Central Suriname Nature Reserve, the largest tract of pristine rainforest left on earth. But that was only the beginning.
Westoll left the world of science altogether when he departed Suriname six years ago. But the country itself stayed with him and became a strange obsession. Nestled above Brazil and the Upper Amazon Basin, Suriname has a legitimate claim to the title The Last Eden, as ninety percent of this mysterious country is covered in thick, neo-tropical jungle. Westoll read everything he could find about the old Dutch colony — wild stories about secretive Amazonian shamans, superstitious tribes of ex-African slaves, outlaw Brazilian gold-miners, a ghostly lake with the dead canopy of a drowned rainforest at its surface, and an unsolved political murder mystery that continues to haunt the nation. Five years passed, and Westoll yearned to return to the rainforest. Then the opportunity finally arose.
Westoll didn’t think twice — he immediately quit his job, gave away most of his possessions, and kissed the love of his life goodbye. For the next five months, he explored the most surreal country in South America for a glimpse of its quintessential soul. He struggled up dark neo-tropical rivers, immersed himself in Surinamese Maroon culture, and met a cast of characters whose eccentricities perfectly mirrored the strangeness of their land.
Westoll maps the natural and human geography of this exotic land while hunting for closure to his strange obsession with it. In the end, he tells a spellbinding story of survival, heartbreak, mystery, and murder.
365 pages, Paperback
First published October 28, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 14, 2009
This book is difficult to describe. On the one hand, it is historic and delves into the politics and ecological problems in clear prose, but on the other hand, the author seems to show himself as self-satisfying, drunken though compassionate, irresponsible in his personal relationship, and not the type of person who would be writing this book. I found it difficult to reconcile the two.
Andrew had been to Suriname before, as part of a team of researchers working in the Central Suriname Nature Reserve studying monkeys. He left Suriname after a few months to return to
Canada, but Suriname never left him. Several years later, he abruptly leaves once again, this time leaving a fiancé behind, and heads off on his obsessive need to return to Suriname. With no real goal in mind except to explore the heart of the country, he immerses himself completely. When he hears of the extremely rare and most protected tiny blue frog, okopipi. This one tiny shining frog becomes even more of an obsession and he will not leave Suriname before he finds it. His stay in Suriname extends far beyond his original timeset. This sets the background of the story.
Suriname as described is most certainly an Eden, but as with all versions of Eden, there are snakes. Snakes in human form, political form, internal warring, deception, conglomerates who poison the ground and the water, and also poisonous snakes, in fact some of the most poisonous in the world exist in this country.
One of the largest man-made lakes in the world buried the jungle canopy and misplaced 43 Maroon villages, scores of dead bodies of villagers, animals, and the once buried. As the waters rose, a group of SPCA volunteers under Operation Gwamba made the largest animal rescue in history by rescuing with little more than “normally used to capture raccoons in the subburban alleyways of Boston.” Young (23 yr old) Walsh and his team “saved 2,104 three-toed sloths, 1,051 nine-banded armadillos, 479 red howler monkeys, 161 pygmy anteaters, 36 tapirs and 3 jaguars, just to name some of the larger animals.” This was done over a period of 18 months. It is hard to imagine wrestling frantic deer, boars, giant armadillos into dugouts! The rescue itself took a terrible toll on the workers with everything from infected bites to dengue fever. The grim reminder of the drowned jungle are the tops of the trees, the canopy, now dead and standing like ghostly sentinels all through the lake.
Suriname is dying. There is barely a spot in the jungle or plain or lake that is not full of poison; workers do not have any protection against the poison they work with, their drinking water is poisoned, everything they do poisons them more, from the clothing they wear and wash in the poisoned water, to the food they cook, being washed and stewed in poisoned water. Shamans have cures for a lot, but they must remain hidden and their secrets which could save many in the world will die with them. Children are often born deformed or blind, and there seems no end to what is happening. There appears to be no answers. The young people of the “cities” drink their type of beer, dance to reggae, and seem to have forgotten what oral history they may have heard. I can understand the author’s feelings and would not be surprised to find he returns to Suriname once again. Over all an excellent book, but with so much history I would rather not have him dwell so much on being hungover when has initiated trips into the wilds. I found that a bit of an annoying aside. It made me feel as though he was afraid of being thought a hero. His interaction with the Surinamese is remarkable otherwise. Difficult to put down, I would prefer to give it 4 1/2 stars for the sheer amount of legend, myth, history, zoology, botany, and political information researched and well-told.
Andrew had been to Suriname before, as part of a team of researchers working in the Central Suriname Nature Reserve studying monkeys. He left Suriname after a few months to return to
Canada, but Suriname never left him. Several years later, he abruptly leaves once again, this time leaving a fiancé behind, and heads off on his obsessive need to return to Suriname. With no real goal in mind except to explore the heart of the country, he immerses himself completely. When he hears of the extremely rare and most protected tiny blue frog, okopipi. This one tiny shining frog becomes even more of an obsession and he will not leave Suriname before he finds it. His stay in Suriname extends far beyond his original timeset. This sets the background of the story.
Suriname as described is most certainly an Eden, but as with all versions of Eden, there are snakes. Snakes in human form, political form, internal warring, deception, conglomerates who poison the ground and the water, and also poisonous snakes, in fact some of the most poisonous in the world exist in this country.
One of the largest man-made lakes in the world buried the jungle canopy and misplaced 43 Maroon villages, scores of dead bodies of villagers, animals, and the once buried. As the waters rose, a group of SPCA volunteers under Operation Gwamba made the largest animal rescue in history by rescuing with little more than “normally used to capture raccoons in the subburban alleyways of Boston.” Young (23 yr old) Walsh and his team “saved 2,104 three-toed sloths, 1,051 nine-banded armadillos, 479 red howler monkeys, 161 pygmy anteaters, 36 tapirs and 3 jaguars, just to name some of the larger animals.” This was done over a period of 18 months. It is hard to imagine wrestling frantic deer, boars, giant armadillos into dugouts! The rescue itself took a terrible toll on the workers with everything from infected bites to dengue fever. The grim reminder of the drowned jungle are the tops of the trees, the canopy, now dead and standing like ghostly sentinels all through the lake.
Suriname is dying. There is barely a spot in the jungle or plain or lake that is not full of poison; workers do not have any protection against the poison they work with, their drinking water is poisoned, everything they do poisons them more, from the clothing they wear and wash in the poisoned water, to the food they cook, being washed and stewed in poisoned water. Shamans have cures for a lot, but they must remain hidden and their secrets which could save many in the world will die with them. Children are often born deformed or blind, and there seems no end to what is happening. There appears to be no answers. The young people of the “cities” drink their type of beer, dance to reggae, and seem to have forgotten what oral history they may have heard. I can understand the author’s feelings and would not be surprised to find he returns to Suriname once again. Over all an excellent book, but with so much history I would rather not have him dwell so much on being hungover when has initiated trips into the wilds. I found that a bit of an annoying aside. It made me feel as though he was afraid of being thought a hero. His interaction with the Surinamese is remarkable otherwise. Difficult to put down, I would prefer to give it 4 1/2 stars for the sheer amount of legend, myth, history, zoology, botany, and political information researched and well-told.
January 12, 2013
Andrew Westoll spent a year as a primatologist chasing monkeys through the jungles of the Central Suriname Nature Reserve. He returned five years later as a writer obsessed with finding the secret soul of this poorly understood country.
Few outsiders have heard of Suriname, and even fewer can place it on a map. It’s a surreal place — a former Dutch colony, rich in resources but badly governed, home to indigenous peoples and Maroons (the descendants of escaped slaves brought from Africa), and quite possibly the world’s last Eden. Ninety percent of it is covered in jungle, but the image that remains at the end of the book is that of the riverbones: a forest of lifeless trees poking skeletal fingers from the reservoir of the Afobaka Dam, and the 43 drowned villages at the bottom of all that murk, flooded to power an aluminum smelter that no longer exists. It’s a moving example of how human rights and ecological preservation compete with the simple desire to build a better life.
This insightful book brims over with obscure bits of history, stories of shamans, Brazilian gold miners, political murders and shady characters of every tropical stripe. Westoll also paints a vivid picture of the disconnection endured by the traveler who truly drops off the map: that feeling of being trapped in a culture he can’t understand, and simultaneously lost to the life he left behind to go there. To travel like this is to be alone among strangers.
Few outsiders have heard of Suriname, and even fewer can place it on a map. It’s a surreal place — a former Dutch colony, rich in resources but badly governed, home to indigenous peoples and Maroons (the descendants of escaped slaves brought from Africa), and quite possibly the world’s last Eden. Ninety percent of it is covered in jungle, but the image that remains at the end of the book is that of the riverbones: a forest of lifeless trees poking skeletal fingers from the reservoir of the Afobaka Dam, and the 43 drowned villages at the bottom of all that murk, flooded to power an aluminum smelter that no longer exists. It’s a moving example of how human rights and ecological preservation compete with the simple desire to build a better life.
This insightful book brims over with obscure bits of history, stories of shamans, Brazilian gold miners, political murders and shady characters of every tropical stripe. Westoll also paints a vivid picture of the disconnection endured by the traveler who truly drops off the map: that feeling of being trapped in a culture he can’t understand, and simultaneously lost to the life he left behind to go there. To travel like this is to be alone among strangers.
October 25, 2023
This is an intriguing book about the author's travels in Suriname. Before I read this book, I knew nothing about this country, so for me, this was a very informative and eye-opening book.
December 14, 2015
I have been working in Suriname for nine weeks now. I bought Riverbones because it was the only English language book I could get on Suriname, even the standard travel books have very little information on this small country. It is disappointing there is no bibliography, but Westoll does mention a number of other books that I will pick up at some stage.
The book itself is a mixture of travel and unrequited love with a seemingly drunken rant about the third world thrown in, no doubt with some exaggeration to move the story along.
Westolls editors would have served him better by removing the doe eyed references to his Canadian ladylove, adding a map and removing the chapter on the third world.
That’s said it is an informative, interesting read.
Suriname itself has changed a little since Riverbones was published. The road to Albina is now sealed (well at least as far as Moengo ). The taxi drivers tell me you can drive to Affobakka in three hours. Suralco is closing down and laying off the rest of its staff at the end of the year – 2015. Rosobel is losing money and trying to scale back its staff. Staatsolie is suffering from the low oil prices. A new mine is being built in Pamakan territory and will employ 1300 people. The SRD has been devalued. So the country is struggling.
There are still an unknown number of illegal Brazilian miners pouring an unknown amount of mercury into the eco system.
And a last word on the language – I mentioned Wagi to a taxi driver and he had to pull over he was laughing that much. Wagi is any small vehicle not an infamous bus .
The book itself is a mixture of travel and unrequited love with a seemingly drunken rant about the third world thrown in, no doubt with some exaggeration to move the story along.
Westolls editors would have served him better by removing the doe eyed references to his Canadian ladylove, adding a map and removing the chapter on the third world.
That’s said it is an informative, interesting read.
Suriname itself has changed a little since Riverbones was published. The road to Albina is now sealed (well at least as far as Moengo ). The taxi drivers tell me you can drive to Affobakka in three hours. Suralco is closing down and laying off the rest of its staff at the end of the year – 2015. Rosobel is losing money and trying to scale back its staff. Staatsolie is suffering from the low oil prices. A new mine is being built in Pamakan territory and will employ 1300 people. The SRD has been devalued. So the country is struggling.
There are still an unknown number of illegal Brazilian miners pouring an unknown amount of mercury into the eco system.
And a last word on the language – I mentioned Wagi to a taxi driver and he had to pull over he was laughing that much. Wagi is any small vehicle not an infamous bus .
May 23, 2010
I was given this book for Christmas... my whole family was given this book by my grandfather. My family is from Suriname and so I think he was really excited to see a book about Suriname because well um you never see anything about Suriname. My family emigrated to Canada a little after my mother was born, and I've never been to Suriname... YET, so this was in a way a little way of looking at a place that is in my blood and family customs but I have never seen.
There were some parts of this book that I found really tedious, namely the romantic/longing after my girlfriend parts, and some of it I found rather self-indulgent but I guess it is hard to avoid that when you are basically writing a travel diary. That being said it is a really great book, and it has quite a bit of history in it as well as the more modern problems Suriname faces. His thoughts on ENGO's /NGO's are pretty interesting and I learned a lot about the environmental history of Suriname.
So yeah overall, recommend.
There were some parts of this book that I found really tedious, namely the romantic/longing after my girlfriend parts, and some of it I found rather self-indulgent but I guess it is hard to avoid that when you are basically writing a travel diary. That being said it is a really great book, and it has quite a bit of history in it as well as the more modern problems Suriname faces. His thoughts on ENGO's /NGO's are pretty interesting and I learned a lot about the environmental history of Suriname.
So yeah overall, recommend.
November 6, 2022
Andrew Westoll, the author of The Riverbones, worked on a primate research project in Suriname, a small country on the northeastern coast of South America. After returning home to Canada, he remained fascinated with the country and returned to travel and learn more about Suriname and this book is the result of those travels.
Parts of the book are fascinating and other parts meander aimlessly. Somewhere close to the halfway point the book finally engaged with me. Some of the sections on environmental and health issues were the strongest. Small scale gold mining is common in Suriname. Rather than panning for gold, the workers pour mercury into the troughs and the mercury binds to the gold. A blowtorch burns off the mercury leaving behind pure gold. Mercury that doesn’t bind with gold ends up in the lakes and rivers, and mercury that does bind with the gold is evaporated into the air: “Every year, twenty to thirty tons of mercury are either poured into Suriname’s jungle rivers, or evaporated into its skies by artisanal gold miners struggling to make a living.” The fish become contaminated but the people continue to eat the fish.
A map would have helped orient the reader as the author traveled in various parts of the country. There are a few black and white photos in the book, which add some atmosphere, but many of the photos are dark and not particularly striking. Overall, though, a worthwhile book for anyone wanting to know more about life in Suriname.
Parts of the book are fascinating and other parts meander aimlessly. Somewhere close to the halfway point the book finally engaged with me. Some of the sections on environmental and health issues were the strongest. Small scale gold mining is common in Suriname. Rather than panning for gold, the workers pour mercury into the troughs and the mercury binds to the gold. A blowtorch burns off the mercury leaving behind pure gold. Mercury that doesn’t bind with gold ends up in the lakes and rivers, and mercury that does bind with the gold is evaporated into the air: “Every year, twenty to thirty tons of mercury are either poured into Suriname’s jungle rivers, or evaporated into its skies by artisanal gold miners struggling to make a living.” The fish become contaminated but the people continue to eat the fish.
A map would have helped orient the reader as the author traveled in various parts of the country. There are a few black and white photos in the book, which add some atmosphere, but many of the photos are dark and not particularly striking. Overall, though, a worthwhile book for anyone wanting to know more about life in Suriname.
February 24, 2023
I enjoyed learning about Suriname in this travel book. The author fell in love with this small Caribbean country when he spent time at a primate research station as part of his university studies. Although he traded a career in primatology for one in writing, his love for this island never left him. In this book, he returns to Suriname for several months, traveling from its capital to its industrial gold mines, from its coasts to its sparsely inhabited rain forests at its interior. Woven between the accounts of the people he met and the experiences he had are the history, politics, culture and ecology of this very young country. 3.5 stars
December 23, 2023
I didn’t have high hopes for this book, but my challenge this year ends with Suriname and it is tricky to find a fairly recent book (in English or Spanish) on the subject. This book did an interesting job weaving the politics and culture of Suriname into one (white, Western) man’s journey of “self-discovery.” Honestly, it’s the same narrative you have read a thousand times over. Lots of drinking and self-pity. Read it if you’re looking to see if you’d like to learn more about Suriname or if you like jungle semi-adventure stories, but otherwise you can skip this one.
September 4, 2021
I read the book because my father was born in Suriname. I did not know what to expect from reading the book and was quite surprised that I enjoyed the fascinating journey Andrew Westoll had you travel with him. There is a lot of history in the book and stories from the people he met along the way to find the little blue frog. Some of the stories are horrifying and I could not believe what the country went through all for progress. Well written.
November 14, 2019
I found the book interesting, because I have only ever met one person from Suriname, and knew very little about it. It was a bit of a slog sometimes (as were the author's journeys), with lots of information interspersing the descriptions of his travels, but still interesting. Sometimes it was hard keeping track of who he was talking about--lots of names being mentioned.
July 11, 2025
Memoir
A scientist wanders Suriname for years.
Rain forest in South America
He hangs out with indigenous tribes, meets the descendants of freed slaves, gets threatened by politicians, goes to an EDM (Electronic Dance Music) concert in the rain forest, tours a gold mine who dumped a bunch of cyanide in the water supply, cooks for some ecotourists, and more! Very cool!
A scientist wanders Suriname for years.
Rain forest in South America
He hangs out with indigenous tribes, meets the descendants of freed slaves, gets threatened by politicians, goes to an EDM (Electronic Dance Music) concert in the rain forest, tours a gold mine who dumped a bunch of cyanide in the water supply, cooks for some ecotourists, and more! Very cool!
October 30, 2014
I'm traveling on a research trip to Suriname in two weeks, and this was recommended by the brilliant John Gimlette author of Wild Coast: Travels on South America's Untamed Edge and At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig: Travels Through Paraguay Westoll worked as a conservationist in Suriname and became fascinated with the country. It's a highly engaging read, and he's great company as well a passionate exponent of the much-neglected rights of the indigenous population and the Maroon communities.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews