It was going to be a long day, and we were told we would be leaving at 6:30 a.m. I don’t set an alarm; I usually wake up by six anyway.
I went to sleep late and woke up with a start, as if jolted. The room was dark because of the heavily curtained window. It must still be early, I thought. I glanced at my phone and couldn’t believe my eyes – it was 6:26! There were only four minutes left before departure. I jumped up, splashed some water on my face, and threw on my clothes with military speed. I grabbed my backpack; thankfully I’d packed it the night before and dashed out into the hallway. The group was already getting into the bus. I made it! How could I have overslept like that?
We drove all day, making brief stops every hour and a half for bathroom breaks. I managed to grab a quick bite at roadside stalls, since I hadn’t had any breakfast. It’s interesting that in Brazil, you can get by almost entirely without cash. Cards are accepted everywhere, even at stalls selling bananas and bags of chips. In the end, I didn’t even need to exchange money for the Brazilian real.
Our stop for the night was Oiyapoque, the northernmost coastal city of Brazil, that serves as the border-crossing point into French Guiana. We arrived late in the evening, had dinner, and retired to our rooms.
We had enough time next morning to see Oiyapoque and to do some shopping. Some of us lacked hats, others needed toothpaste or sunscreen. This lovely small Brazilian city is not a tourist destination, we did not meet any foreigners there.
We crossed quickly from Brazil into French Guiana; there was no one at the border. It was amusing to enter France, and the Schengen Area, while in South America. Guiana isn’t an overseas French territory like, for example, Guadeloupe; it is an integral part of France, and Schengen rules apply here. Naturally, the currency is the euro, and cars bear French license plates and so on.
If someone asks the tricky question, “Which country shares the longest border with France?” the instinctive answer is Spain. The correct answer, however, is Brazil. It does not occur to people to think of this South American department of France.
There was even more lush green vegetation and flowers here than in neighboring Brazil. En route, we stopped for lunch in the small town of Cacao, home to a Hmong community. They are the descendants of 500 Laotians who were resettled here in 1977 while fleeing the war. These Asian immigrants brought their culture and traditional cuisine with them. We enjoyed some freshly made pho, then took a walk around the area.
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