The visit of Cayenne was fast, less than one day. I started at the market which has the effect by its odors of being more Asian than African, Amerindian or European. close at side the old port is occupied by some pleasure boats. Then it was the downtown area with the administrative buildings of the purest colonial style around the Place des Palmistes. The Town hall and its appendix, the bar les Palmistes, the Chamber of commerce and industry of Guyana, CCIG, the splendid building of the Conseil General of Guyana. Finally I took height to go to see the vestiges of Fort Cépérou dominating the city and the old port. At the back behind the Conseil General and the Prefecture, recent and without style, the explosives magazine is used as arts center.
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On Tuesday, April 26th I went back to Kourou to visit the Guiana Space Centre. The free visit is carried out by bus and lasts a little more than three hours traversing approximately 50 km in a vast territory of forest and marsh thus which ensures the safety of the installations, very distant from each other, under the control of the army of the three weapons, earth, air and sea, of the légion étangère, 3rd REI, of the gendarmerie and finally of the firemen of Paris. The CNES is a creation according to the General de Gaulle's will after the Algeria independence. For further information I advice the Net surfer to visit Wikipedia, here. Unfortunately the visit proceeded in a beating rain. The museum, paying, is very didactic. It recalls with an imagery of time the space conquest since the origin of humanity. I went back to Cayenne because the following day I carried my truck for the service of the 80,000 km during two days. I remained in Cayenne up to the beginning of May on standby of the delivery by a local pharmacy of my drugs for one year duration!
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After a long wait on Tuesday, May 3 I took delivery of the cocktail of drugs for one year until the end of May 2017. Some of them came from La Guadeloupe. Tomorrow I will leave for St Georges at the Brazil border to take a ferry for Oyapock. Then I would traverse approximately 600km of certainly muddy track, due to torrential rains in this season; but will it be practicable? In Macapa I will take another ferry for Belem and so on…
On May 4th I arrived at St Georges around 11:30, at the edge of the river Oyapok border with Brazil. The police at the borders, PAF, did not stamp my passport. The police officer gave me the references of the barges to cross. The most known at St Georges is Rico of whom I found the localization at the edge of the river. A young lady telephoned to him. He gave me appointment at 16:00 in Bamboo. But at 16:30 nobody. I returned to his residence, nobody did not know when he will return from Oyapok. I decided bivouac within the boundary of his residence. Around 21:00 Rico announced to me that I embarked in Bamboo on his barge. It was a purple passage. Alas at this hour the tide of the river had already gone down and the barge was failed. It was necessary to wait. In the night around 3:30 the barge moved. We installed to cross the river. New purple passage to accost and unload my truck at Vila Vitoria. But the bank was softened and under water. My truck ran aground. It was on May 5th around 4:00 am. I expected until 8:00 the return of Rico to leave my truck. It went in Oyapok to seek a vehicle which was not a 4x4, it stuck and destroyed its clutch. Around 10:30 Rico returned with a MAN truck. At 11:00 my truck was in safety. See the gallery at Vila Vitoria, here.
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| from St Georges to Vila Vitoria |
| Loading on Rico's barge |
I left French Guiana on 4 May at St Georges with the ferry at 15h00. look at the border crossing, here
