French Guiana

We only stayed one night in Macapa before we drove off towards the border with French Guiana. As luck would have it, it was my turn to cook again. The camp near the border was in a small petrol station but at least there was a toilet. My team cooked a coconut milk based veggie curry and I only got slightly wet as the rain was steady not too heavy. Breakfast however, was another story. Torrential rain meant yet again, I was soaked to the skin but the fruit salad was rescued! There is obviously a law that says every time Zoe cooks – torrential rain will follow!
As soon as we crossed the border into French Guiana, the roads changed immediately from orange-mud roads with enormous potholes to smooth tarmac roads that are much easier to drive upon. There was also a huge sign saying welcome to France. French Guiana is not a country in its own right. It is an overseas territory that belongs to France. It has the same rules as France, is in the EU, the spoken language is French and the currency is the Euro. The only clue that this is not proper France is the swampy rainforests, the high humidity and the temperature! It is a tiny “country”, the majority of the land is not habitable and for the last couple of hundred years was used as a penal colony by the French. They built hideous tortuous prisons here and sent thousands to them – everyone from violent criminals to the homeless. However the country has been re-inventing itself since the 1950’s and is now famous for its space station!
We drove to the capital city of Cayenne and was over the moon to see the hotel we were staying in. There is no budget accommodation and everything was European prices so the cheapest hotel was $90 euros per night! We got comfy beds, hot showers, electricity and even a working internet connection. There was not much to see in Cayenne but we had to stay 3 nights (in absolute comfort) in order to make sure we all got our entry visas for Suriname.


Our next stop in French Guiana was Kaurou. There was a slight contrast in accommodation as here we were back in tents on the beach sharing one toilet between us all. On the Sunday afternoon there was a small carnival parade – no floats but the different samba and drumming schools parading past us. Kaurou is also the place to access Devil’s island. This was the worst prison in the penal colony – made famous by one convict who escaped – Henri Charierre otherwise known as Papillion. He wrote a semi-autobiographical book which was later made into a Steve McQueen film. The prison on Devil’s Island makes Alcatraz look luxurious.
The highlight of French Guiana however is a short drive out of Kaurou. It is the space station. Since the 1960’s shuttles have been launching here. Nowadays they launch the Ariane, Vega and Soyouz shuttles. French Guiana lies on the equator, making space flight far more efficient and easier as the shuttles are slingshoted due to differences in gravitational forces here. There were no launches whilst we were in the area so that meant we could go on a guided tour of the site and learn all about how the shuttles are built, transported and launched. We even got to see mission control. The biggest surprise was that most of it was made out of lego!
Our final stop was at Transportation Camp. This was the main prison complex and we heard all about the hideous conditions and tortures the convicts were subjected too. Black charcoal was painted over the walls, even at the head of the concrete slabs were they slept and if a prisoner got any of the charcoal on him he was subject to extra punishment. Isolation rooms had shackles by the feet and the convicts could be shackled for days even weeks not being able to move or even go to the toilet. All this was in swamp land filled with mosquitoes and other nasty disease carrying biting insects. No-body ever returned to France!