Leaving on a Jet Plane

Well I'm about 2/3 of the way through my trip (but 1/3 in time) getting ready to fly out of Cayenne, French Guiana to head to Belem, Brazil and man am I having a blast. Besides the horrendous sun burn I got I've had pretty crazy luck with my experiences so far. My hosts in Kourou were absolutely the best, such a nice and welcoming couple, I had a huge smile on my face the minute I met them. They've been so helpful in planning my time in French Guiana going above and beyond what I could have dreamed a host would be like. Cooking homemade meals and sharing drinks (ti'punch a white rum cocktail with sugar/flavored syrup and lime, amazing! I'm bringing a bottle of the rum back to the states) while talking about anything. They're practicing for the TOEFL which I guess is a test to determine if they know English well enough to work in an English speaking country, so they were grateful to have me speak with them, but their English was so good we could talk about anything and did. I was sad to leave them this morning as I hitch hiked to Cayenne, but excited to see what the capital is like. 

In Kourou I was able to get on a tour of the Space Center where they are the headquarters of the European Space Agency launching satellites. They have three types of rockers they send: Vega (small payload), Soyuz (medium size), and Ariane 5 (large payload). And I was able to get to see all three launch sites. It was a fantastic tour with a nice museum at the end. Luckily for me there was a group of Canadians who already arranged a tour so I was able to join them on an English tour. 

The next day I visited the Iles du Salut, specifically Ile Royale, which was the former French prison colony famous for prisoners as Pampillon and Dreyfus. I brought my hammock, food, water, and camped on the island for the night. Which was such a relaxing experience getting to hike around the island all day and when most of the visitors left on the boat back to Kourou, I read by the waterside catching the sunset. Oh and the food I brought was just horrible: a baguette, stinky cheese, terrene of deer, fig compote, and a bottle of bordeaux. Just what the prisoners ate I'm sure. It has been raining a lot lately so if it was raining hard at night I was planning to sleep in the prison, but since the weather was nice I just slept under a shelter by the water; also horrible to fall asleep to. The following morning I awoke by the sounds of people walking about the island and I met a man (from the Holland America cruise ship docked in the harbour) who was doing geocaching so he took me along and I found the two caches on the islands. That was great as I had always wanted to try geocaching, really a lot of fun. I also met a man (also on the cruise) who's daughter was in the Peace Corps! What a strange small world! 

Right now I'm sipping a lambic on the patio overlooking the Place des Palmistes, just people watching as the sun sets. I'll head over to a next restaurant just now, then see if I can find this blues bar that supposedly has the largest supply of beer in Cayenne. That'll be a nice way to spend the next few hours as I kill time before a taxi to the airport for a midnight check in.