Today was our last day in the Guianas, but our flight wasn't until 7:40PM so we still had a whole day to explore. We first went to the Cayenne market nearby, which was probably one of the most organized markets I've ever seen. However it was either too early, or not the busiest day (Friday), there were lots of fruit/vegetable vendors but not many handicrafts. We then started driving towards Cacao, a town of Hmong refugees from Laos settled there back in the 1970s. Sunday is the best time to visit, when there is a local market. We decided to go [View Full Entry]

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May 31, 2007 Hotel: Central Hotel; Cayenne, French Guiana; 67 Euro We were finally able to pick up a rental car this morning, the local Europcar office was at the Mercure hotel nearby and they had a car. We ended up with a Renault Twingo, which although isn't the smallest car I've driven (Smart), it probably was the least featured. It only had a clock and a speedometer. No trip odo, and the A/C only worked sporadically (usually when the windows were down). But we only needed the car for a few days so it would suit our needs. Our first [View Full Entry]

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5-29 Hotel: Hotel Ballahou, Kourou, French Guiana, 55 Euro (triple) (http://www.destination.fr/guyane/hotelleballahoug.html) This morning we woke up early to examine our options for getting to Kourou, the launch point for visiting the Space Center Guyanais and the Iles du Salut. Having re-read our guidebook only to find out the bus for Cayenne had already left at 7 that morning and the next one wouldn't leave until nearly 2PM! We went down to the dock anyway where the minibuses departed, as we were arriving some boys started running towards us, one losing a shoe in the process! They [View Full Entry]

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5-28 Hotel: Hotel Tentiare, St. Laurent du Maroni, French Guiana, 75 Euro (triple) Today we were planning to cross over to French Guiana. Since we hadn't spent the extra night in Brownsberg park, we had an extra day, and decided to break the trip in St. Laurent du Maroni, on the French side of the border between Suriname and French Guiana. French Guiana had been used as a penal colony and St. Laurent had been the site where prisoners were unloaded. St. Laurent also supposedly had some of the best colonial architecture in the country, so we thought it would be [View Full Entry]

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5-27 Hotel: Guesthouse Albergo Alberga, Paramaribo, Suriname, 15 Euro Early this morning we picked up our rental car from Avis. As we walked through Independence Square, we noticed several people had setup poles with birdcages, today was Sunday and locals hold a 'tweety fest', seeing who has the best songbird. We had noticed people carrying around their birdcages while walking through town yesterday, already this morning there were 20-30 cages setup on the lawn. We would miss the competition though but was interesting to see the setup. We planned to drive to the Brownsberg park, about [View Full Entry]

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Georgetown to Paramaribo 5-25 Hotel: Guesthouse Albergo Alberga, Paramaribo, Suriname, 30 Euro We woke up at 4:30 AM today, our taxi driver Roy would be arriving around 5 AM to take us to the border. The weather looked really bad today, big storms all along the coast. The border was about a 3 hr drive away, but there was a ferry in the middle that only ran once an hour. It started raining quite a bit after leaving town and Roy was driving slower to be safe. He was speaking about his experiences in Guyana and New York, how he [View Full Entry]

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5-24 Hotel: Sleep Inn International, Georgetown, Guyana, $65 The next morning Dean and I were going on the Kaieteur trip, Scott would wait around the hotel with nothing to do! They were supposed to pick us up between 9 and 9:30, but it was after 10 before they showed up. Caribbean time! We drove to the local airport (Ogle), and had to get weighed in. The other tourists were already there, all of them were Guyanese living in Canada. The plane was 100lbs overweight, so we had to eat/drink our snacks right then (how that helped the weight? it's still inside [View Full Entry]

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5-22 Hotel: Sleep Inn International, Georgetown, Guyana, $65 Flight: Trinidad (POS) to Georgetown (GEO), Caribbean Airlines Woke up at 5 am, our flight wasn't until 7:45 but we wanted to be there a bit before (Our other Caribbean flights had actually been leaving early). There was noone in checkin line, and we went to have a breakfast of a muffin and juice. They started calling our flight, with nearly 2 hrs before departure! We went upstairs where there was a long line to pay departure tax. My passport had been stamped 'transit', so I didn't need to pay it! Still [View Full Entry]

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5-20 Hotel: Best Western South Plaza, Grand Anse, Grenada, $105 Flight: St Vincent (SVD) to Grenada (GND), LIAT The flight to Grenada was pretty quick; too bad it was at night as you could not see the Grenadines below. Scott got off the plane for a minute just to say he touched Grenada then got back on to continue to Trinidad, where I would be meeting them the next evening. I caught a cab (40EC) into Grand Anse town, there were many more tourists here than in St Vincent! It was already after 9PM when I had a quick dinner [View Full Entry]

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5-19 Hotel: Silverpoint Hotel, Barbados, $177 Flight: Austin (AUS) to Dallas (DFW), American Flight: Dallas (DFW) to Miami (MIA), American Flight: Miami (MIA) to Barbados (BGI), American It's been a bit of an adventure just getting here! We arrived at the airport early morning on Saturday to find our our original Austin-Atlanta flight was delayed, and Delta was rebooking people on alternative flights. After waiting 45 minutes in line, we finally had an itinerary to take over to American, where we found out Delta had given us an illegal connection time in San Juan. By the time we h [View Full Entry]

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