French Guiana

February 1, 2007
Day 433

Philip and Elise dropped us off at the bus zone this morning. It was not nearly as chaotic as the one in Paramaribo, but still a backwards system with no schedules. We rode the bus ($52 to ride for an hour? Definitely time to leave the country!) to St George’s on the border with Brazil, got the usual immigration situation taken care of, and took a boat across the Oiapque River to the small town of Oiapoque on the Brazilian side.

We tried to get info about a bus to Macapa, but it was difficult because everyone wanted to speak to us in either Portuguese or French. From what we gathered, the bus had already left at noon, and we didn’t want to wait another day for the next bus. Several people tried to get us to go in their pickup trucks, which would have taken nine hours, versus twelve on the bus, but they they all wanted significantly more money than the bus. On top of that, I wasn’t sure I could trust any of the truck drivers. One guy eventually offered to take us in his truck for fifty reais, the same price as the bus. He pointed to his truck, and it looked great. However, then we realized that we weren’t looking close enough. He was pointing to the BED of his truck, which barely had any room left because there was already a motorcycle in it, and recalling how much it rains in this region, it would have been a long night. We passed and decided to discuss our options over lunch.

Craig took one more look to see if there was a bus at 5:00 today, as some crazy-looking guy had claimed (“Follow me, you can trust me, I’ll lead you to the bus.”) It turned out that the guy was telling the truth and there was an actual desk for the bus company. The sign was in Portuguese, so we didn’t know what it meant the first time we passed it. We got on the bus late in the afternoon for the overnight trip, knowing that this would be our last time dealing with the confusion of an erratic public transportation system.

January 28, 2007
Day 429

Today was carnaval time again in French Guiana. I went with Alina to see the parade, and her roommate Audry was participating in the African exhibit. We got to see everybody preparing to go before the parade started.

Some of the costumes were rather elaborate, but it wasn’t quite the same experience as I saw in Argentina last year, or probably will see in Brazil later this year. Still, there were a lot of school kids marching, many beautiful women, and even a few cross-dressers.

The strangest thing of all was seeing the guys covered with mud running up and down the sides of the streets to try to keep people to the sides. I guess the theory was that nobody would attempt to touch the muddy men lest they become covered themselves.
Partway through the parade, Craig found me. He was just getting back from the island and was enjoying an eight Euro cheeseburger. Welcome back to the most expensive country in South America.

Kourou Caraval Photos

January 23, 2007
Day 424

Craig and I took a catamaran early this morning along with a dozen or so other tourists to the Iles du Salut (The Islands of Salvation), sometimes collectively known as “Devil’s Islands,” where the French had an infamous prison colony from 1852 to 1953. The islands sit only 14 KM from the mainland, so I could see them already even before leaving. However, almost as soon as we left the jetty, a large white object became visible next to one of the islands. That object turned out to be a cruise ship carrying 1500 passengers, most of whom were Americans.

When we got to the main island jetty, we learned that the ship had visited several small islands in the Caribbean and stopped at Ile Royale, which everyone kept calling the “Papillion Island” (pronounced pah-PILL-li-on), before continuing up the Amazon and ending in Manaus, where tourists would have the option of taking a “wilderness survival” course. Craig an I speculated that this meant having to survive eating a dinner with only seven courses. There was no dock on the island big enough to handle the huge cruise ship, so passengers had to be tendered to shore all morning. Before we knew it, Ile Royale was full of more tourists than we had seen in months, all of whom seemed to be jolly because they were on vacation and were so well fed. It really made me miss being on the Marco Polo, the cruise ship I took to Antarctica a year ago.

Our first stop on the island was the museum, which explained the islands’ history. Several unsuccessful attempts were made by the French to colonize the islands in the 17^th and 18^th centuries in which over half the colonists died from malnutrition and tropical diseases. Eventually, the French decided that the three small islands would make the perfect location to start a prison colony. Most of the prisoners were sent to Royale because it was the biggest island. The undesirables (lepers, insane prisoners, etc) were sent to St. Joseph’s and generally held in solitary confinement, and the worst of the worst went to Devil’s Island, where they were free to roam around on their own.

Many attempted to escape the islands, but few succeeded because of the shark-infested waters in which they are located and the strong currents that easily drown all but the best swimmers. After their release, convicts had to spend a time equal to that of their sentences, or in the case of a sentence of more than eight years, the rest of their lives, on the mainland. Only a small amount of the 80,000 prisoners who were sent to the Iles du Salut made it out alive.

The prison had many famous prisoners. Paul Roussenq, known as “the King of the Dark Cells” because he spent 3779 days in solitary confinement during his fourteen-year tenure in the prison, was sent there for setting fire to his straw mattress when he was in the military. Isidore Hespel, the former executioner of the islands, was hated by both prisoners and guards and was himself eventually guillotined for executing one of the prisoners without permission. And probably the most famous prisoner was Henri Charriere, AKA Papillon, who was sent to the prison for murder. His book made him famous, but it contained mostly fabrications. He escaped from Cayenne on the mainland, not from the islands as he claimed, most of his sensational adventures actually happened to other people, and even his description of the prison was actually how the prison was twenty years before he got there.

After looking at the museum, I attempted to dodge the cruising tourists and get a look at the prison. There was a big courtyard with a large mango tree in the center, but unfortunately, there were no fruits ripe enough for my enjoyment. At one end of the courtyard was the hospital, the only one on the islands, where prisoners who were near death were sometimes sent. Next to the hospital was the helipad, but I doubt it was actually used as part of the prison. On the other side of the hospital was the cemetery, which was full of run-down graves.
Most of the other buildings on the island were full of prison cells. I thought the prisoners had it rough when I saw the normal cells, but at least they could see the light of day. The prisoners in the solitary building weren’t so lucky. A lot of the walls were covered with graffiti, although it wasn’t clear whether this was done while the prison was in operation. The mood was quite somber while walking though the cells. Even the hordes of cruise ship passengers seemed to reflect on the lifestyle lived by the island’s former inhabitants.

At the back of the island was a gift shop in which small pieces of jewelry were available for hundreds of dollars. There was even an bar, complete with a pool table. Some of the cruisers were actually spotted ordering lunch at the restaurant, despite the fact that they would be able to eat all they wanted when they boarded the ship in less than an hour. Several of them, after seeing Craig and I, said they’d bring us food from the ship if only it were allowed.

When I had seen all of the old prison buildings, I walked down to the shore, where Devil’s and St. Joseph’s Islands were visible. All three islands were covered with palm trees and were absolute tropical paradises. This was in stark contrast to the prisons that occupied them. Nobody can visit Devil’s Island, so I had to settle with admiring it from afar while waiting for the tenders to finish reloading the cruise ship and the catamaran to pick me up.

Our final destination for the day was St. Joseph’s island, which would have been much quieter than Ile Royale even had the cruise ship not been there. The only permanent inhabitant of St. Joseph’s was a French Foreign Legionnaire who I was told had a Swiss accent. He was a muscular old man permanently dressed in a skin-tight camouflage shirt and shorts. His job was apparently caretaker of the island, although he seemed to claim the status of “king.” I attempted to communicate with him, but he spoke not one word of English. I think he would have been a good guy to have a chat with, if only we had spoken a common language.

Craig and I selected a campsite on the beach which was hopefully out of reach of the falling coconuts, easily the biggest worry of the island, and hung out with a handful of Belgians who were also staying overnight. Our intention was to hang out and enjoy the island life for a few days.

Ile Royale Photos
Devil’s Island Photos

January 21, 2007
Day 422

Today, Alina, Craig, and I drove to the capitol city of Cayenne for some trekking. We walked along a well-maintained trail on the far side of the city that led us past a dam, through a bamboo forest, and around an old fort. The walk concluded along the coastal road with some of the biggest houses in the country.

Just off the road we spotted a sleeping sloth, apparently oblivious to all the human activity in the area. I guess urban trekking can be a good way to spot wildlife afterall.

The photo album for this entry is here.

January 19, 2007
Day 420

We started the day walking to the junction where the roads going to Cayenne and Mana split. According to the map, this point was just outside of town. However, it turned out to be about a 10 KM walk with all of our gear, so we were pretty hot and sweaty when we finally reached the junction. We were fortunate to get a ride to Mana right away. It was a nice little village, so we had lunch there.

Next, we tried to get a ride to a town called Aula, but it proved difficult because nobody would stop for us. Suddenly, a car pulled up from the other direction and out popped a hitchhiker. When I looked a little closer, I saw that it was none other than Otto himself! He had been trying to get a job at a ranch nearby. “Jesus Christ! You have to be a real cowboy to work at that place!” So the job hunt continues and Otto keeps stalling his payment for the hammock space, which by the way includes $6 everyday for breakfast because he refuses to cook for himself.

Anyway, Otto had never heard of Aura, but he was able to get a truck to stop for us with his great thumbing skills. The driver was a lady heading to a ranch just past where Otto was job hunting, and she was almost positive the place we were looking for was “Awayla,” which was actually in the other direction. So the reason nobody had heard of the place was because it was printed wrong in Craig’s guidebook. We didn’t have time to head back, so we took the ride with the lady. Ottto, always the class act, was able to bum a cigarette from her. As we were pulling away, Otto said, “We shall meet again.”

After the lady dropped us off, we got a ride on a big truck to the main highway, then on a bread truck heading all the way to Cayenne. I had to call Alina to make sure everything was OK for tomorrow, though, so we got dropped off in a small town.

We only wanted to go another 20 K’s from there to a picnic area where we could camp, but we were unable to get a ride for the last two hours of daylight. We walked off the road a bit, trying to find somewhere to set up camp. We found some flat ground that wasn’t visible from the highway, but it was swampy and we were sure to get eaten alive by mosquitoes, so we decided to walk a bit further.

Within one minute, jackpot! A guy picked us up in his truck and drove us nearly to Kourou. Along the way, we had an interesting discussion about the state of French Guiana. It is an actual department, rather than a territory, of France, so French people may freely come and work here. Some people here would like it to become its own country, but French Guiana is highly dependent on its motherland for almost all goods other than some food, and it is widely believed that if independence were achieved, some of the same hellish circumstances that afflicted both Guyana and Suriname in the 1970′s and 1980′s would apply here as well. However, it is clear that French Guiana is culturally quite different from France, yet it exists under the French law system, which causes many social problems that need to be addressed.

Our kind driver dropped us off at the last of several picnic areas near Kourou and continued on his way to Cayenne to visit his family for the weekend. The location turned out to be prefect with a shelter to protect us from the inevitable rain and a stream with drinkable water and fish. After hitching all day, we were happy campers.

The photo album for this entry is here.