Oiapoque, Brazil is on the Oiapoque river, and is the end of the road in Brazil. Time for yet another border crossing, this time, into French Guiana.
Oiapoque is a small unremarkable jungle river town, but sizable enough to have several choices for hotels and plenty of eateries.
A bridge between Brazil and French Guiana has been under construction for quite a while, and was supposed to be finished in 2007, but its not even close to being complete. People told me it would be finished before the 2012 World Cup, but given how far behind schedule they are now, I wouldn’t anticipate it being finished before the 2016 World Cup.
So, after doing the usual Immigration and Customs checks out of Brazil (coordinates provided above) you have a couple of choices for crossing the river. First is a large ferry that starts running about 9 am first leaving from the Oiapoque side and will run maybe 3 crossings a day. If other vehicles want to use that ferry the same time as you, its fine because then it will only cost you about 5o Euros. However, when I was there, I was the only one wanting to get on the ferry at the time. Price? How about 200 Euros! Since there was no way in hell I was going to pay 200 Euros for a 15 minute boat ride I opted for a plan B.
Along the river in Oiapoque there will be a line of guys trying to sell you a boat trip to French Guiana in long motorized canoes. They also assured me that they were capable of taking a motorcycle. Well, lets see how that works out.
So, I negotiated a price of 40 Reais for the trip thinking wow, that’s cheap. However, when I showed up with the bike, the kids balked, saying no way were they taking me and my moto for that price. when I said moto, they must have pictured a Honda or Chinese 125. OK, fair enough. they wanted 100 Reais but we finally settled on 60 I think, or about $35.
Once over into St. Georges, French Guiana you simply have to go to the police station a few blocks from the river and get your passport stamped. It was not necessary to do any paperwork nor was in necessary to procure any kind of permit for the motorcycle, which was a nice change. However, they will tell you that you need to buy insurance when you get to Cayenne. OK, well that sounds easy enough.
Once out of St. Georges (a very small but pleasant village) the road to Cayenne is a pleasure to ride. Enjoyable pavement twisties all the way to Cayenne through scenic, uncut jungle. Before I crossed the border, The Brazilian Police warned me not to stop for anything or anyone along the road to Cayenne because it is very dangerous. I got the same warnings from the French police as well. I didn’t have any issues at all. I did however see a few recently stripped and burned out cars along the road, but again I don’t know what to make of the police warnings, so normal solo travel precautions apply.
I pulled into Cayenne which is a nice enough town for a few days. Everything is just like France. They use Euros, the cars have French license plates, the phone numbers are the same code as in France, TV is in French, News is from France, people speak French and are quick to remind me that for all intents and purposes, I am in France. Its France in the jungle. Even more bizarre was that the prices of everything are higher than in France. I did not expect this. The good news is that the food and wine is excellent and credit cards are accepted just about everywhere.
First order of business while in Cayenne was to procure my Suriname visa. So, I swing by the Suriname Consulate, wait in line for an hour, fill out a form, wait for another hour, go get a passport picture a few blocks away, come back, fill out another form, wait another hour, then pay $105 Euros, leave my passport and go back to the hotel. All of this takes about half a day. They gave me a receipt that had a date and time to return to collect my passport which said to come back 6 days later at 1400 hours. Usually, its only a 2 business day wait. But, I showed up just before a 4 day holiday weekend. Doh!
Now I had time to kill while waiting on my passport for 6 days. So I figured that I would try to buy this French Guiana insurance that everyone said that I needed. I must have gone to over a dozen insurance places but all I could find was a year long policy which costs 800 Euros and up. The places that used to sell 3 month policies stopped that practice several months prior and all that was available now was a 1 year policy. Needless to say, I did not spend 800 Euros on insurance. More on that later.
I know some basic French phrases from school so I was looking forward to using that knowledge that had been rusting away in my brain for so many years. However, I found that when I tried to talk to some people in French, they would ignore me. OK, fair enough, my French sucks. At this one insurance place I told the guy over and over again, in French that I was looking for a 3 month insurance policy. He kept saying that he didnt understand. Then in English, he tells me that if I want to do anything here I must speak better French because this is France. That was the first and last English sentence he spoke to me. Nice attitude. So I left.
On another occasion I went to an internet place to print some stuff out. I ask the kid working there, how much it costs to print a document. He simply looked up at me and shooed me away with his hands and a scowl on his face. LOL! If I was at home I would have smacked the kid upside his head. I had several more similar incidents like this over the next week. Really strange. Anyway, there were friendly people too, but it seemed that it was about 25% chance that someone would either ignore me or just be outright rude when I tried to talk to someone or ask them a question. So different from friendly Brazil.
Since I had to wait a week for the visa, I figured that this was a perfect opportunity to go check out the Space Center and maybe do a Devil’s Island tour. While leaving Cayenne to go to the Space Center, I was stopped at a police control. The French police all speak excellent English and were without fail polite and professional. Remember, I dont have my passport, its at the Suriname Consulate. I explain this to the cop and show him a copy of my passport with the French Guiana stamp. He then tells me that I must have the original passport with me and says that I need to return to Cayenne and stay there until I get my passport back from the consulate. Well that’s just great. So plan B was to just book a tour that left from Cayenne. That seems easy enough. I go to book a tour and the first thing they want is to see my passport. Seems that I have to carry it with me on the tour. OK, well scrap that plan. So I basically sat around Cayenne and did nothing for a week. I did however manage to buy insurance for Suriname, right across the street from the Suriname consulate in Cayenne. Then, when I finally got my passport back, I just wanted out of France. no pictures, no tourist stuff, nada. ( I know, bad blogger) I simply headed for the Suriname border. Then came the problem with the insurance.
When entering French Guiana at St. Georges, the customs people simply told me to purchase insurance in Cayenne and sent me on my way. However, as I pulled up to ferry crossing to leave French Guiana and enter Suriname, for some strange reason, it was now essential that I have insurance in order to leave the country. The police at the immigration control were nice enough, but they needed to see the insurance before they would allow me to leave the country. I had anticipated this so I procured and printed out some European green card insurance that said it was good for French Guiana. Dont ask me how I got it, because I cant tell you.
Well, I wasn’t sure that they would accept my insurance, so when I showed up, I spoke Spanish mixed with Portuguese to the French cops. They of course spoke perfect English. They were really confused why some white boy from the States could not understand English. Well, the bottom line is that the insurance worked, sort of. They told me over and over again in English that my insurance was not good enough because it didn’t specifically say it was good for France, and I would have to go back and buy some in Cayenne. So I smiled and said muchas gracias over and over again and rode the 50 meters down to the ferry! One cop chased me onto the ferry, and stamped my passport and told me to have a nice trip. That was close. I needed a break and I got lucky. If you have insurance that is good for France, I don’t think you will have any problems leaving the country at St. Laurent. If you are going the opposite direction and are entering at St. Laurent, make you have your French insurance in order.
The short Ferry ride to Suriname, formerly known as Dutch Guiana.
Its a quick 15 minute ferry ride from St. Laurent, French Guiana across the river to Albina, Suriname. The ferry runs a few times a day, 1100, 1400, and 1700 departures from St. Laurent if I recall correctly, so plan accordingly. If you miss the ferry, St. Laurent is a perfectly fine town in which to spend the night and includes several hotel options. Albina on the other hand, didn’t look like it had much going for it.
At the immigration and customs control on the Suriname side everything was straight forward and efficient since I had already purchased my Suriname insurance in Cayenne. Also, everyone I dealt with on the Suriname side spoke very good English, which was fortunate, because my Dutch is kinda rusty.
However, for some strange reason, the customs guy would only give me a 7 day permit for my bike. I asked for more time, but he said, “no, 7 days is all you get.” In other words, thanks for paying $135 bucks for a 60 day visa, now get the hell out of my country. I think he was just in a cranky mood, and Suriname is a small enough country so 7 days it is. I can deal with it. I think you can get more time if you want, or extend your vehicle permit, as I felt I either caught this guy on a bad day, or he was just being difficult.
Then, this same guy warned me not to stop for any reason on the road to Paramaribo before the washed out bridge on the main road. Again, I didn’t know what to make of this warning, as I had no problems, nor did I see the potential for thieves or other road bandits. I elected not to stop, even for pictures, but I did encounter a slight problem on the road to Paramaribo.
As you leave the ferry crossing, the main road to Paramaribo is potholed dirt, and is pretty much devoid of traffic, so I didnt see any other cars for a couple of miles. I was really moving, sliding around one corner, and all of a sudden I was confronted with a truck coming at me in my lane, honking, and flashing his lights. No big deal, its South America. This kind of thing is pretty normal and happens all the time, so I just swerved out of his way into the opposite lane. Well, a while later I was coming around another corner and this time I was met by an SUV in my lane, moving at a high rate of speed, honking and flashing his lights at me. Again, I swerved out of his way. As I went a little further, making really good time down this crappy dirt road, I started to see speed limit signs on the side of the road. However, the signs, although facing me, were on the left side of the road. Thats kind of bizarre I thought. Then it finally dawned on me……..Holy crap! They drive on the left side of the road here! Yeah, sometimes I’m a little slow, but I catch on eventually.
Suriname has an interesting culture of people from African, East Indian, and Asian descent. Its the smallest sovereign state in South America and has a population of roughly half a million people, most of whom live in the northern coastal region near or in the capital, Paramaribo.
Although Dutch is the official language, Suriname is one of the most multilingual countries in the world. A form of Creole called Sranan Tongo is widely used among much of the population. In addition you will also hear a form of Hindi called Sarinami as well as Javanese. There are numerous other languages used to include Cantonese, Mandarin, and of course the Amerindian languages. However, English is also widely spoken, as is Portuguese, even out in the boonies, so I was quite happy to be able to speak English once again.
You will encounter people of all colors. There are many Dutch tourists in Paramaribo, a fact which I found curious. As well you will meet people of African, East Indian, Amerindian, and Asian descent.
The people are generally very polite and helpful. Trying to be respectful of whatever language people preferred, before engaging in conversation I would ask someone if they spoke English. However my question was usually answered with a bit of an attitude like, “of course you idiot, we can all speak English here,” so from then on I switched to, “Hello, may I speak English?” and that was actually very well received and produced a smile from most folks.
Any country where you can put a license plate a 2 stoke is a good country in my opinion.
At times in Paramaribo I felt as if I was looking at buildings that were imported from Amsterdam.
Henck Arron, prime minister of Suriname when the Dutch granted independence.
After a couple of rainy days in Paramaribo I hit the road for Nieuw Nickerie on the border with Guyana. Nieuw Nickerie is a small town with a significant population of people of East Indian descent. I heard more Hindi being spoken than anything else. Its a fine town for one day, but other than that there is not too much of interest except for gigantic clouds of mosquitoes that patrol the streets around dusk. Once you see all the flooded rice fields in the area, you begin to understand the reason for all the mosquitoes.
These canals of standing water run right through town as well. Mosquito Ranch, as I like to call it.
I didn’t realize that Fred G. Sanford lives here.
Muddy streets, plenty of mosquitoes.
However, I found Nieuw Nickerie to be an interesting place to walk around, just don’t do it at dusk or you will missing a pint of blood when you get back to your hotel.
The next morning I left town to catch the ferry to Guyana. The South Drain Ferry departs for Moleson Creek, Guyana at 1100 hours. You could conceivably leave Paramaribo at the crack of dawn and skip Nickerie all together in order to catch the 1100 ferry, but I never can seem to wake up that early.
While waiting for the ferry I had a chance to talk to some of the locals. There was a school group from Georgetown which was going home after a trip to Paramaribo. I talked to the teacher (on the right in the photo) for quite a while. She couldn’t get over the fact that I had ridden my motorcycle to Guyana. As she thought about it a little longer, she asked me why in the heck I wanted to come to Guyana. She also said that if I stayed in Georgetown a few days she was going to call the newspaper and the radio station and have me do an interview. Then she wanted to put me on the local TV news for a few minutes as well. I politely declined as I’m a little uncomfortable with that kind of stuff.
This is Steven. He is 10. He lost both of his parents last year and lives with an aunt in one of the poorer slums of Georgetown. He was extremely curious about my motorcycle and my trip. He is a very intelligent kid and asked me dozens of questions. When I told him that I was visiting all the countries in America over the last year and half he couldn’t quite get his head around it. He asked if I was writer for a motorcycle magazine or something like that. When I told him I was just a traveler, he was amazed. The next question went exactly like this, word for word. “Mr. Vincent, I would like to do something like this someday. Can you tell me how you financed your trip and if you had any opportunities to get sponsors to offset some of the costs?” I was floored that this was coming form a 10 year old and I think my jaw dropped a little. At that point the teacher scolded him saying “Steven you shouldn’t ask such nosy questions to strangers, its not polite.” I assured the teacher that it was fine and told Steven that he could ask me as many questions as he liked. I think Steven and I both walked away from our meeting with something to think about.
A pretty decent sized ferry makes the trip between Nickerie and Moleson Creek.
And into Guyana, formerly known as British Guiana. Since I had purchased my Guyana insurance in Paramaribo, immigration and customs was quick to process me and my bike into the country. Make sure you have a couple one dollar bills or local currency handy to pay the fee for a form that is required by the Guyana Customs. Also, if you don’t buy insurance while in Paramaribo you can still get it when you enter Guyana, but it involves a cab ride into the nearest town to purchase the insurance, then they will process your bike into the country. This process can take several hours, so purchasing before hand in Paramaribo would be time well spent.
Guyana has a population of about 800,000 and 90% of that population lives in the coastal region, or on about 10% of the landmass. The remainder of the land being unspoiled forests and savanna. English is the official language, so the ease of communication was a welcome thing, just as in Suriname.
One other thing to note is that in Guyana, they also drive on the left side of the road. Its easy to adapt to driving on the left side, however, I found that when I was approaching roundabouts, I had to think about it for a bit before I entered them. Also, it might not be a bad idea to tape an arrow on your windscreen as a reminder that the right side is suicide, since at times I found myself a bit, well, confused for a few seconds when starting a new day of riding.
Along the coast to Georgetown is a heavily populated agriculture area comprised of large sugar cane fields. Georgetown itself has the reputation of being a fairly dangerous city. However, I walked all over the city without problems, but I did it during the day. At night in places it might not be prudent to walk around by yourself. Normal precautions apply.
However, do not let internet and backpackers stories of danger turn you off to Guyana. The people in Guyana were extremely friendly, warm, helpful and polite. I was very impressed and felt welcome in their country. In addition, they were all fascinated by an overland traveler on a motorcycle and asked numerous questions about me and my trip. It was nice to be able to answer these questions in my native language as well. A big thumbs up for the people in Guyana.
Although Georgetown is now seems to be in a state of disrepair and quite dirty, you can see why it was once the gem of the Caribbean. The old structures are still intact, if a bit run down, but the streets for the most part are filled with garbage.
St. Georges Anglican Cathedral with a height of 143 feet is one of the tallest wooden churches in the world.
Generally speaking, the infrastructure in Georgetown is in a state of disrepair as well.
By order of…….. The Management.
I thought this tow truck was pretty cool. You wreck em, we fix em.
The road from Georgetown south to Lethem on the Brazilian border has a reputation of being a terrible road. However, I found it to be a bit nicer than BR-156 in Brazil. Although it lacked the mud of BR-156 it sported countless large water filled potholes many of which were impossible to avoid if you were riding any faster than a jog. The dirt starts in the town of Linden and continues south all the way to the border. For the most part, its a wide solid surface, albeit covered in the huge water filled potholes. Its generally a good idea to avoid these holes as some of them can be a couple of feet deep. If you ride this road at speed, it will beat the heck out of you and your bike due to the big holes.
However, much of the road is in good shape as well.
One thing to note is that there is a police checkpoint at the village of Mabura Hill. This check point does not have a gate, nor will anyone stop you. However, if you fail to stop and check in with the police, they will call the check point near the Essequibo river, 60 miles further down the road and you will be required to turn around and back track 60 miles for that little oversight. So, don’t forget to stop at Mabura Hill!
As I neared the river, I came upon what looked like large shallow puddles of water completely covering the road. These puddles were actually water filled dips in the road and a few of them were deep enough to cause surprise and concern. At several holes, the water was only a few inches below the intake of the bike, so use caution when going though these.
There is a another ferry crossing at the Essequibo river. The ferry runs about every hour and motorcycles go for free. However, if there are no cars, you will wait until a paying car shows up before the ferry will depart. I was the only one at the ferry crossing so they wouldn’t depart for the other side of the river. I offered to pay the price a car would pay so I could get going, but the ferry operator balked at that, saying he had to wait for a car. Well, OK. I thought that money was money, but apparently, rules are rules. I wound up waiting about 2 hours, taking a nap on the deck of the ferry and trying to dry out.
After the ferry crossing you will enter the Iwokrama Rain Forest, a protected area of beautiful primary forest. You will be required to register at a checkpoint before entering the protected area. Also there is a lodge nearby call the Iwokrama Lodge that has camping and very expensive rooms, a restaurant, and supposedly the coldest beer in Guyana. Unfortunately, I didn’t stop to go check out the lodge or the ice cold beer, as I was running short on daylight and was headed for Rockview Lodge, another hour or so down the road.
Beautiful ride through the forest, just amazing trees along this section.
Its possible to ride from Georgetown to Lethem in a day if you get a very early start, however I stopped at the Rockview Lodge near the Amerindian village of Annai, just as you come out of the rain forest and into the savanna.
The airstrip at Rockview. Rockview/Annai sees a couple of flights a day from Georgetown, three days a week I believe.
The lodge has very nice rooms for 50 bucks, or you can camp or get a much cheaper room at the Oasis, a store/hostel a half a mile away on the main road, also owned by Rockview Lodge. I decided to splurge and stay at the lodge. The place is super tranquilo, has a beautiful park like setting on the edge of the savanna, and the food is excellent. It is owned by a British ex-pat named Collin, whom has lived and worked in Guyana for over 40 years. Collin is a very interesting person to talk with and also is very friendly and accommodating to moto travelers who come through and stay at his place. He said that he rarely has overland travelers come through and is always interested to hear their travel stories. Years ago, Collin worked for the British version of the Peace Corps, and much to his chagrin, actually helped build the airstrip at Jonestown. He said that if he had any idea what the Peoples Temple and Jim Jones was all about, he would have never participated in the project. I could have talked to Collin for hours. If you come through here, I highly recommend a night or two at Rockview, or at least stop by and say hello to Collin.
Some of the very nice folks at Rockview.
Leaving Annai village and advancing further into the savanna, I got the distinct feeling that I could actually be in Africa. I almost expected to look across the savanna and see giraffes, lions and elephants.
I think I see some zebras running around out there in the savanna. I just couldn’t shake the feeling that I was in Africa. After all, this part of South America was once connected with West Africa.
A quick ride from Rockview found me at the border with Brazil. The formalities exiting Guyana were quick and straightforward. You will then come to the Brazil immigration and customs. Its straight forward as well, however they wanted copies of a bunch of stuff including the passport page with my new Brazil entry stamp and told me that I had to ride into the town center to make the copies. However a very nice woman at the Brazil Fazenda (Customs) for some reason took a liking to me and said if I promised to come back and see her soon, she would make the copies for me. I of course promised to do that.
So ends the trip through the Guianas. From a cultural standpoint this was by far the most interesting segment of my trip through the Americas. Why more riders don’t do this loop I have no idea, because I think it was far more interesting and fun than being stuck on a boat with backpackers for week on the Amazon river, bypassing one of the more interesting places in the Americas.
Saludos.