Monthly Archives: February 2007

Did the Groundhog see its Shadow?

February 2, 2007
Day 492

Picture of people.

Eduardo, his mom, and Craig.

We rode the bus all night, mainly over gravel roads, and were dropped off early at the bus station in Macapa, on the mouth of the Amazon River. I had previously contacted Eduardo about couchsurfing, and upon calling him this morning, he picked us up from the bus station, a kind gesture after a night of little sleep.

Eduardo drove us to his apartment, where he lived with his mom. He came to Macapa a few years ago from his native city of Belem (on the other side of the River) to take a new job in the courthouse. He's studying to be a lawyer's assistant and hopes one day to move back to Belem, which he misses dearly.

Craig and I had to obtain info for traveling to Belem, so we walked downtown. Along the way, we passed what is supposedly the biggest fort in South America, built by the Portuguese to keep intruders from entering the continent via the Amazon. To get to Belem, one must navigate around the Ilha de Marajo, which is slightly larger than Switzerland, making it the largest freshwater island in the world.

Picture of equator.

The equatorial monument.

As expected, our information-gathering session was met with much confusion. At the tourism information office, we were told there'd be a boat leaving tomorrow, but none of the travel agencies seemed to know anything about it. Finally, we figured out that the boat was no longer running and the next one wouldn't be for four days. We didn't want to wait in Macapa that long, but we learned that we could fly for about $12 more than the boat would cost. The decision was an easy one, and we quickly bought our plane tickets for tomrrow.

It was an extremely hot day, with the sun punishing us for walking even the shortest distance. Just when the afternoon's heat started to subside, Eduardo drove us to the equator, about 2 KM from his apartment. There was a monument with a hole in it facing west, presumably so the sun would fit perfectly inside on the equinox. The actual equatorial line passed right through a main thoroughfare of the city and went down the center of the soccer field. No wonder it felt so hot!
And as usual, the groundhog did not see his shadow when he got up at noon today, so there will be no winter in Macapa.

The photo album for this entry is here.

Leaving France

February 1, 2007
Day 491

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.

Hanging out in Pleasant Cayenne

January 29-31, 2007
Day 488-490

This morning I said goodbye to Alina, who hosted me in Kourou. She was a great host who was very helpful in showing me around the area and setting me up with a tour of the rocket facility. Her boyfriend Greg and his friend (an Al Roker lookalike) drove us into Cayenne on their way to work.

Craig and I spent the morning in Cayenne. We walked up to the fort at the top of the city, but we had to scale a barbed wire fence to get there. Next, we went to the main museum in town. Everything was in French, but most of it just had old stuffed animals anyway, so language wasn't important. Later, we checked out the 500 gift shops and crackheads in the center of town. At one point, we saw a guy openly smoking crack right in front of the police department. The Lonely Planet guidebook says that Cayenne is one of the most pleasant capitol cities in all of South America, but it sure didn't seem that way. Despite the small population of maybe 50,000 people, it had way too many drug addicts for my taste.

In the afternoon, Philip and Elise, who we met on St. Joseph's Island, picked us up and drove us back to their pad. There, we met up once again Jason and Meghan and their other roommates Sandrine and Yannick. They had a nice pad with a veranda to camp under, a swimming pool, and a garden, which Craig immediately took it upon himself to clean thoroughly. We stayed at the house a few days and had lots of fun times. Everyone living there is young and has high ambitions for traveling around South America and the rest of the world. Staying with Alina and her friends, then moving on to the Americans' house was a great way to end my epic journey through the Guianas.

Kourou Carnaval Time

January 28, 2007
Day 487

Picture of girls.

The girls of Carnaval.

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

I Step into Robinson Crusoe's Shoes

January 24-27, 2007
Day 483-486

Picture of boat.

A small fishing boat on St. Joseph's Island.

Ye Olde Food Rations

Breakfast:
Coconut and mango porrige with coconut milk.

Lunch:
Raw coconut meat with a bit of bread.

Dinner:
Coconut soufflé with coconut milk rice and a mango for dessert.

OK, it wasn't actually that bad, but the breakfast menu is accurate. For four days, I lived in my bower on St. Joseph's Island. The daily routine consisted of looking for firewood, reading Robinson Crusoe appropriately enough, monitoring the tides, thinking of new ways to cook coconuts, and talking with the trickle of tourists that visited the island every day, vis. I enjoyed my visit, as I will presently explain.

Every morning, a catamaran would bring a handful of tourists to St. Joseph's. Most would walk around and swim for a bit at the small beach, but a few stayed to camp. In the afternoon, the other catamaran would bring in another group who would do the same. The only other person on the island was the legionnaire, who I couldn't talk to, but did share a smile with as he was kind enough to give Craig and I some water so we wouldn't have to survive on coconut milk.

Picture of gate.

I open the gate and walk into the prison.

Walking around the island took twenty minutes, and most days, I also ventured to the top, where the ruins of the Prison were located. It looked basically the same as the prison on Royale, but it was a lot spookier because nobody else was around. Most of the cells were for solitary confinement, and they even had bars on the roofs, so the guards could walk around and make sure the prisoners weren't misbehaving. Near the beach was the graveyard, which was only used to bury guards because of a lack of space. Prisoners who died on the island were thrown in the water for the sharks. It was a bizarre contrast walking from my campsite in a tropical paradise to a horrible prison in about thirty seconds.

We sat around a campfire most nights with the other campers for entertainment. Sometimes the legionnaire came by with his dogs to join in the discussion. I found out that he has been on the island for five months, and still has nineteen more to go as king of the island.

The biggest issue being discussed on the island was the problem of the rat infestation. A few times, I woke up in the middle of the night and a rat was directly above me on my tent. The little bastards apparently didn't have any natural predators, so they wouldn't run away even when I hit them. The only thing that scared them was my flashlight, so I came up with the genius solution of leaving it on all night, which seemed to do the trick. I, however, was lucky enough to have a tent to sleep in. One girl, who was sleeping in a hammock, had a rat jump right in with her one night. Not surprisingly, she had trouble falling asleep again after that.

Craig went fishing every day, and every day he had lots of fish stories. They seemed to be going crazy after his lures, but he just couldn't manage to pull any of the behemoths in with his freshwater rod and lightweight line. I joined him one day in using a rope, a piece of Styrofoam, and a huge hook with a piece of chicken I got from some of the other campers to try and pull in a shark, but nothing was biting. This aspect of the island stay was frustrating, but Craig always seemed to have fun hooking the big ones.

Picture of palm leaves.

A palm tree.

On my last night on the island, I was joined by five Americans, four of whom were teaching English in Cayenne. We had a great time talking about our travels around the fire, and they invited Craig and I to join them when we leave Kourou. I wasn't on the island quite as long as Robinson Crusoe was on his, but it was still a good time. Craig even enjoyed his stay so much, he decided to stay one more night and meet up with me again tomorrow.

The photo album for this entry is here.

A Boatload of Americans

January 23, 2007
Day 482

Picture of graves.

The graveyard on Ihle Royale.

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 17th and 18th 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.

Picture of cell.

Dude, you're getting a cell!

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.

Picture of lizard.

A lizard on the island.

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.

Picture of beach.

A coconut, a machete, and a tropical beach.

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