French Guyana

In the Brazilian border town of Oiepoque I made it to the immigration office to get my exiting stamp from Brazil. It was there that I learned that I had overstayed my welcome in Brazil and was given a nearly 50 dollar fine. Even though my expensive 140 dollar American tourist visa allowed me to stay in Brazil up to 90 days the person who stamped me across the border in the south of Brazil limited my stay to only 40 days for some reason. I had spent nearly two months in Brazil so I was illegal! After another long wait at a Brazilian bank to pay my fine I returned to the immigration office to leave the country with a clean record. I would be back to Brazil in less than two weeks to get to Venezuela so I would have to pay the fine either way.




Once all of the immigration hassles were taken care of I made it to the Oiepoque River to take a boat down and across the river to the French Guyana and the border town of St. Georges. French Guyana is technically a department of France so they naturally speak French. In the last two months I had learned Portuguese pretty well from speaking almost nothing, now I was back to being lost since I didn't know much French. Eventually I found the immigration post, checked in, and then made it to the only bank machine in town. It was strange to hear French in South America and get Euros from the bank machine.









St. Georges was a very small town with nothing but forest between it and the capital of French Guyana, Cayenne, which was two to three hours away by car. To get to Cayenne there were only two options, a shared taxi or hitch-hiking, there were no buses. The last taxi going to Cayenne had just left so I decided to hitch-hike. Not a bad choice considering the shared taxi would have cost 50 bucks! I ended up meeting a great guy who was originally from Brazil, but living and working French Guyana for the past 8 years. So we spoke in Portuguese and listened to Brazilian music the whole way. In Cayenne my Brazilian friend offered to drop me off at the place I was staying, with Fiona and Francois from Couch Surfing. They were great hosts and a lot of fun. The first night we had wine on the porch and went out with their friend Eve to an impromptu food court on Cayenne's main square. Fine French dining!









The next day my main goal was to get my visa for entering Suriname, the small country north of French Guyana on the way to Guyana. I made it to the Suriname consulate before it opened at 9 in the morning and was surprised to see about 50 people huddled around the door. I started to worry that I may not be able to get a entrance visa since the consulate only saw 30 people a day, and it would be closed three of the four following days. Quite frankly I got lucky and met a friendly French woman who spoke English and volunteered to put my passport in with hers. She had been there for a couple hours already and was one of the first people in line. She also happened to be in a rush so she made a point to get both of our passports processed by the following Monday. The other people would not get their passports back for five days, after Bastille Day (France's Independence Day). Thank you Caroline! Of course the tough news is that Suriname charged me the extortionate rate 100 euros, roughly 130 dollars, for the Visa. Still it was cheaper than flying over Suriname to get to Guyana. After the visa stuff was taken care of we walked around Cayenne, I invited her to lunch, and then we went to the beach. I was also lucky in that Cayenne had a special street fair going on so the city had a lot more excitement than normal.
























Later that night I went out with Francois and the boys for one of Francois friends' bachelor party.




After we recovered the next day went to the beach again, this time with Fiona and Francois. The beaches in the Guyanas are a breeding ground for the largest sea turtle, the leatherback. I came back to the same beach the next night to see several of these 500 pound giants lay eggs on the beach.









The next evening Fiona and Francois were out of town, but luckily I was invited to stay with one of Francois' friends from the bachelor party, Jean Luc. Jean Luc and his daughters were terrific. We had a nice meal then went to the beach to look for the huge leatherback turtles laying eggs on the beach. It was an amazing experience to not only see one but several of these 500 pound creatures up close.

The first one we saw was already in the process of laying her eggs. She had crawled to the top of the beach then dug out a circle that she crawled into. From there she dug a deep trench to drop the eggs. While she was still digging another species of turtle, much smaller, came up and crawled over and past the huge leatherback and began digging her own nest several feet away. All the while there were official monitors electronically tagging the turtles and helping out when it was needed. One bit of help was keeping the much larger leatherback from trampling over the smaller turtle as it climbed out of its nest and back to the ocean. A man layed flat and steered the great leather back with his feet away from the smaller turtle. Such a cool sight to see. We saw a few more turtles coming in and nesting in the next hour. This was definitely one of the greatest highlights of my trip. Flash photography could only be used as the turtles were turning back towards the ocean so it is a tough experience to show through photos.








The next day we had lunch and one more French Guyana nature experience. We went to a reserve just outside cayenne and had a nice hike. Thanks for the great tour guys!










The next couple of nights I stayed at Carolina's place, the woman who was so great about helping me out with the Visa. She had a party the second night then we hitch-hiked to Suriname the next day. She had a flight out of Suriname early the next morning and it was time for me to get moving so we had some fun with it. We caught our first ride with a nice Brazilian couple who had been living in French Guyana for years. Along the way we stopped in a small town and saw what they said was the best church in French Guyana. It was hand painted by one of the many French convicts sent to and imprisoned in French Guyana. This was the primary function of the French colony, and a not so pleasant part of its history. Now French Guyana's major function to is launching satellites into space for France and the European Union. Having a favorable climate and close proximity to the Equator it is one of the best launch sites in the world. We passed the launch zone on way to Suriname but there was nothing that went up while I was there.












We made it nearly to the border with our Brazilian friends then caught a ride with some farmer workers the rest of the way to the border; after we helped them to unload there harvest!





Papaya