Surinam: for a fistful of gold | France 5 | Les Routes de l'Impossible

It’s difficult to pinpoint Surinam on a map. And yet it is no imaginary country. Surinam lies in the heart of Amazonia. A country of jungle. 163,000 square kilometers, a sixth the size of France and covered in virgin forests. Very few roads, a few tracks and large rivers. Highways run on the water and canoes serve as tanker trucks. Surinam is the least populated country on the American continent. Barely half a million population. To move from village to village you don’t take a road, but a river… and its fickle waterways. Surinam has another name: Dutch Guyana. Before 1975 it was a Dutch colony with its slaves. Their descendants are still there; they work for the gold diggers.