Hmong Market

Sunday we drove to Brazil and left French Guiana probably never to return.

We spent a more or less sleepless night wild camping in the heat in an inadequate sea breeze next to the Dreyfus Tower at Kourou. 

We had read the Sunday market gets crowded in the village of Cacao so we decided to get up early, and 5am is still dark to make the two hour drive before crowds formed. 

We did that arriving before 7:30 after bypassing Cayenne and taking Highway 2 south through the jungle. 

It was warm and damp with some drizzle thrown in to remind us rainy season is on the way. 

Eight miles up a narrow winding side road from the highway…

…to the village of the Hmong:

This was the goal, a supermarket…

…a covered market with stalls…

…and we got a prime parking spot. Cacao normally has about 1,000 residents so it’s pretty small. 

It’s all very French in the rolling jungle. 

I don’t know how much it resembles their homeland in Laos but there is a potable water plant which you don’t often see in South America:

The insect museum is famous but it wasn’t open and I was okay with that:

We bought a piece of embroidery as a decoration. 

I never thought a corn dog would get five stars from me but then I met this one in the Hmong market, soft and fluffy inside and crunchy outside. Pas mal. 

We had the market not quite to ourselves but close to. 

France rescued 10,000 of their former Hmong allies in Laos and settled them here, an area supposedly similar to their former home. 

5,000 “montagnards” (mountain people) live here around 400 feet above sea level and their weekly market is quite the tourist draw. 

We bought food and embroidery and got on our way in an hour. We met lots of cars coming up as we early birds left. 

We went down the hill back to Highway 2, a lovely winding drive. 

Narrow but perfectly paved. 

Then we turned right on the highway toward Oiapoque, the Brazilian border town called St George’s de l’Oyapock for the village  on the French side of the river. 

It started out sunny. 

And then we got some rain. 

And then there was a mile of dirt of all things, because this is South America land of the unexpected.

Luckily it was only about a mile of hard packed mud. 

And we passed a few (!) wrecks just left by the side of the road. It’s what they do around here apparently. 

And then we stopped for lunch, which involved me discovering we were losing air from a rear tire. I could hear it hissing like a snake but it was the valve that was the source of the leak. We were twenty miles from the border, the jungle was dripping with moisture as was I and I wriggled my brain trying to figure out how to avoid changing the tire in this sauna.

Avoiding panic  I have found is the best first move then I got out our compressor and tried to defeat the flow which it did for a while but around 50psi the air came out faster than it could put it in so I stopped and we drove off. 

The rear tires are supposed to be inflated to 80psi but at 40psi I found I could drive 30mph and the tire seemed to hold at that lower pressure without overheating the tire. 

We crawled the twenty five miles toward the border luckily with not much traffic and what there was just passed us without drama. 

We drove into the village  looking for a trash can to dump out trash and then we drove to a deserted park where I could change the rear wheel in peace away from traffic. However the tire was holding, rather bulbously but we only had four miles to go to the French border. Off we went, fingers crossed.  

Brazil! Again!

A marathon race between friendly nations left some flags flying. 

French Guiana Photos

 The photo above I took by making a u-turn just before we crossed the bridge into Brazil on Sunday. 

Rusty stumping around Cayenne.

This restaurant below promised well after we read some reviews and we liked the absence of any signs of any kind outside. It was like a speakeasy and we only found it by closely checking the corner indicated by Google Maps. 

The appetizer of some sort of fish was excellent.

My steak was tough and fatty and Layne  had duck cooked dry like jerky. All that a bottle of water for a hundred bucks. 

Gas at $8:27 a gallon is a little on the down side but gas stations do come equipped with a croissanterie. Take the bad with the good is the only way to cope with this overpriced country. 

No idea what that may be but it looked cool: 

The Hotel de Ville is the seat of local government:

Almond tree park on the waterfront in Cayenne. Which is where I met Sandro a native of the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe who lives in Macouria a village halfway between Kourou and Cayenne and has a Citroen van similar to our Promaster which he is converting to a camper. 

He has toured all over French Guiana but he’s not allowed to drive into Brazil. It turns out Brazil is deathly afraid of French residents coming into their country to work there especially if they are driving anything  that looks like a work van, so a van without windows won’t be allowed in. He sounded paranoid but sure enough there was a sign to that effect at the border when we crossed to Brazil. 

There are two national routes in French Guiana from which other lesser roads (department routes) branch off. One be is from St Laurent to Cayenne and the number two is from Cayenne south to the bridge to Brazil. Neither road is perfect but they aren’t potholed even if they are not entirely smooth.  We bounced a lot driving them. 

Bridge fishing, a universal sport. 

French Guiana actually advertises its attractions. I think Sinnamary is the prettiest town in the department. 

I love these parking pullouts, so simple and yet so rare in South America.  

Windshield washer fluid, a great find even at seven bucks. 

Some incomprehensible Tiger promotion at the Carrefour supermarket. 

School’s out! 

A last glimpse of the Cayenne market. 

Capuchin monkey. 

Île Royale lighthouse.

Point des Roches, Kourou from the tour boat going to the islands. We spent one night there. 

Mud flopping fish. 

Kourou housing. 

I hate wearing hats but there’s no choice here. 

No menu, get what you’re given. I had fish in tomato sauce. Layne had delicious duck. The yellow side is a pudding of sweet potato and plantain. 

A French bakery, one among thousands. 

This is a Guyanese specialty whose name I can’t recall. It tasted like a biscuit and was excellent with some jam.

Dreyfus Tower, Kourou, at sunset.