Rainy Day In Oiapoque

 Of course we made a mess of it but we went into town to get our hair cut. Good plan but we left it a bit late so Rosie could clean our room while we kept an eye on Rusty and by the time he could stay in the room and we could leave it was lunchtime.

Lorenzo the hotel owner recommended the place and we ordered fish. Layne had hers fried in what was a light batter,

…with a side of beans and manioc flour, that yellow powder which tastes of nothing but grit.

We got a menu in French which is easier for me read than Dutch or Portuguese. And we got a cooler for a bottle of beer  which I thought was cool the first time I saw it in Manaus.

By the time we finished our $22 lunch and collected our to-go box with our leftovers for dinner it was …raining. 

Actually it belted down and we sat and looked at the market across the street, our goal. 

Layne said let’s go but I said let’s not. I figured the rain would ease up. 

So near yet so far. 

Finally it let up enough so we got across the street from our lunch stop:

And Layne went looking for milk and papaya and also found broccoli. 

Then I went to the edge of the Oiapoque River and enjoyed my camera. 

They call this the top end of Brazil even though there is more Brazil north of Guyana toward Venezuela.

It’s just another version of the not really Southernmost Point in Key West so who cares if it really is the northernmost point of Brazil? That is France across there all the same: 

I find that very weird even though we have come from there. 

The bridge opened around 2017 but only after Brazil paid France their half of the costs. Until then the French kept it closed and vehicles had to cross the river by car ferry. It seems like around here it’s always something. 

Oh and Brazil shuts down for afternoon lunch breaks. And around here they are long enough we couldn’t find an open barbershop after our own extended lunch. Oh well, mañana as they might say in Portuguese…

Main Street: 

With a Promaster:

The road south, one day, soon…

Alternator Tribulations

 An alternator charges the electrical system of your car as you drive. In effect it’s a small windmill powered by a belt off your car engine and fills your battery with electricity and the battery powers the starter motor, the lights and all the other electrical devices in your car.

I know where the trouble started and it was on the long dirt road known as the Ghost Road, Brazil Highway 319 where we crossed many wooden bridges with no problem. But on one the hole at the end of the wooden planks was extra deep where the bridge ended and we banged the front end hard and I knew there would be trouble. 

We have two alternators on GANNET2, the normal one to charge the starting battery for the engine and the dashboard electrical outlets. Our home in the back is powered by two huge lithium batteries that are powered by the second alternator, a $4,000 option when we had the van built.  It’s great except it hangs low under the front of the engine. 

To protect it as well as the engine and transmission we have a steel skid plate. This plate has saved our low slung van more times than I can count over the past five years but Brazil smacked it into the alternator and broke the belt as we approached Manaus on the Amazon River. 

We got that replaced in Carneiro de Castanha a small town on BR319 about 70 miles from Manaus bit the repair was not ferment and the skid plate has shifted.  This time the alternator is not responding to treatment. 

We have been a week in Oiapoque just across the River from French Guiana and as border towns go this Brazilian village is okay but we had planned to spend one night here. We have the prospect of spending another week here which is not joyous news. 

Jonah the mechanic will be taking the alternator to Macapá today to see if it can be repaired or replaced. The ferry we need to catch across the Amazon only leaves on Tuesdays from Macapá which is the port city 350 miles south of here.  There is nothing much between here and there so when we do leave it will be a two day drive as there is 70 miles of dirt to drive on Highway 156 and that alone will take us half a day as despite appearances we go try to be careful on unpaved roads.

Rainy season starts in force in about a month, and that will make the road difficult to drive but we should be somewhere south of here on a beach by then. I’m bored by the delay and tired of dusty equatorial Brazil where there are no tourists or campgrounds or things I’d like to see now that I’ve satisfied my curiosity about the Guyanas. I’m glad we came but I’d like a faster exit than this. 

BR156 south, the direction I want to drive soon

Fingers crossed Jonah cones back from Macapá with a solution to charge our house batteries so we can get going and prepare to board the ferry across the Amazon next Tuesday. 

The Amazon jungle is all about 

Two hardcore French tourists from the hotel walking into town

Rusty’s tropical hotspots have healed but his fur is slow to grow back 

Turkey vulture flying free

Oiapoque Sunday

The little border town sitting on the river of the same name has played a larger part in our journey than we ever expected, until our second alternator stopped generating. The mechanic’s shop is back in there and we’d never have found Jonah without our hotel owner’s help: 

We have yet to get GANNET2 repaired after the second alternator refuses to charge. We have had our laundry done, we’ve bought food fuel and water and were ready to drive to the Amazon River 350 miles south of here. The repair cost US$50 to send the alternator by bus to the city to be bench tested and fixed and we were charged $100 for the work done here including repairing and reshaping the skid plate to prevent a repeat of the damage to the alternator. Unfortunately the alternator which charges our house batteries has decided it needs more attention  so Jonah is taking it to Macapá himself to get it fixed or to replace it with something else that will fit.

Not too painful at all, all things considered, as we are snug in air conditioning and Rusty is happy hanging out with the hotel staff outside. He is such a quiet unassuming dog everyone pets him and he has made himself at home here. 

And so we say we hope to say goodbye in a week to the little village next to France. We expected to be on our way after one night but here we are practicing our zen meditation.

The next obstacle south of here is how to cross the mighty Amazon River to get to Belem (“Bethlehem”) from where we plan to drive south to Brasilia and see the coast at Rio de Janeiro. We are in touch with a ferry that leaves every Tuesday so we have postponed our planned sailing Tuesday for one week. That should be quite the boat ride across the Amazon.  

The road south from here is BR156 and including about 70 miles of dirt is about 360 miles to the ferry. We anticipate one overnight stop on the way to meet our ship at the port of Santana near Macapá. Then it’s about 32 hours across the mouth of the Amazon to Belem. 

Once south of the Amazon we will finally be on our way to more populated areas and we hope less heat and humidity. 

It is Spring in the southern hemisphere and we are debating how soon we can reach the cool open spaces of Patagonia for a second summer in Argentina and Chile.  

This part of the continent has been fascinating but it’s hard work and quite isolating  as not many overlanders come here. 

The Brazilian bakery and its offerings. Bread isn’t as crisp here as in France and tends to be sweeter. 

The fruits have been outstanding, crisp apples juicy sweet oranges and the best papaya we’ve had. 

And we never even noticed yesterday’s holiday. Oops. 

I like that the coup was “largely” bloodless. Got to scramble a few eggs I suppose from time to time.