My French Guiana adventure: Day 6

Today, I drive to Brazil!

The national "highway" heading east to Brazil is very different from the road heading west to Suriname. Today's drive is much curvier and hillier. And instead of driving through savannah, today I am driving through thick jungle. There are no gas stations for the entire 200km stretch between Cayenne and Brazil. My biggest concern, aside from the heavy rain, is a flat tire. My rental doesn't have a spare.

For much of the drive, I listen to the Omnibus podcast episode about the Gimli Glider.

Just as I could not believe that I had driven to the border with Suriname, I was breathlessly speechless when I parked the Peugeot and looked across the river at Brazil. I am in the town of St George. There is a flotilla of motorboats ferrying people between the countries. People from French Guiana go to Brazil to buy cheap groceries. Brazilians come this way for economic opportunities.

I walk around town. There is a busy supermarket. Well, as "super" as a town with a population of 4,000 can sustain. I walk in and sitting there, reading a newspaper, is the Chinese proprietor. He looks up at me and gives me a smiling nod.

Time for lunch. I go to a rundown hotel that has a restaurant downstairs. Even though the menu is in French, everyone is ordering in Portuguese. I use my one semester's worth of college Portuguese and order fish and chips. The cook walks next door to the fish stall, buys a fish that was just caught in the river, fillets it, fries it, and plops it on a plate. This might be my best meal of the trip.

Satiated, I have one more thing to do in St George. There is a French Foreign Legion base on the outskirts of town. I drive up a single lane dirt road and park about 50 yards from the guard post. I take my hands out of my pockets, smile, and walk as non-confrontationally as possible. A nice Nepalese soldier is standing guard. I cannot go in and I cannot take any photos. But we chat.

While holding his assault rifle, with red dragonflies buzzing around us, the bored soldier answers all my questions. He was studying business management in France when he changed his mind and joined the Legion. He is a really sweet guy. Not what I imagined a Foreign Legionnaire to be like. I say good-bye and head back to Cayenne.

For dinner, I go to a nearby fancy hotel's chic restaurant. Now that I'm a pro, I order a punch (local rum, cane sugar syrup, lime).

For my entree, I order a steak and a glass of red. Everything is tasty, but the steak is tough and the wine refrigerated and ice cold.

Tomorrow is my last full day in French Guiana. I had originally planned to visit Devil's Island. I canceled the plan because I did not want to take a two hour ride on a tiny boat on the open sea in the heat and rain. So I am just going to bum around Cayenne tomorrow.