Reaching Oiapoque 🚘
Oiapoque it's a municipality in the north of Amapá, Brazil's 18th biggest state. Which is bordered by Suriname and French Guyana.
We reached Oiapoque by the French Guyana border, it was around 4 hours by car to arrive to Saint Georges de l'Oyapock. From there, there are two options to reach Brazil, either through the bridge or by pirogue.
To avoid crossing the border with the car, we decided to take the pirogue, the prices are affordable and it is a whole new experience, we also managed to negotiate with the guy the way back and another pirogue trip that I will explain to you better in this post.
Spending the first Brazilian Reais 💵
When we arrived to Oiapoque, the first thing we did, was to convert euros to reais. At that time the exchange rate was at 1 Euro = 5 Real.
Second thing was to eat! 🤤The guy from the pirogue advised us a very good "churrascaria" called Gaúcha. It was self service, and paid per kilo.
Chácara du Rona 🛖
After a few calories and delicious food, we went to find our place that we had booked in advance. It was public holiday in French Guyana, so there were a lot of tourists, and Oiapoque was fully booked.
The guys from "Chácara du Rona" told us that we could stay in some sort of garage and handle our hammocks. That was good enough for us 🤷🏻♂️.
We reached the place, and after some chatting with the owners, we managed to share a wooden shelter ("carbet" in French) with some other people.
The place was amazingly pleasant, very friendly people, the Oiapoque river just in front of us, so we could swim, and the "carbet" just the enough to handle our hammocks and appreciate the stillness during the night.
Beside the amazing food they had at "Chácara du Rona", they also had pretty good "caipirinhas" 🍸, and little friends that came to visit 3 times per day 🐵.
These little friends are Saguinus midas, also called "Sagui da mão dourada", the later two words stand for golden hands.
Tracking day 🚶🏾♀️
Next day, still a little bit dipsy from too many "caipirinhas", we have planned with the pirogue's guy to take us back to the french side, to do a trail.
From the board above, you can see the red and orange lines representing two different tracks. We definitely did the orange one, and partially the red one, because it was flooded.
We scheduled an hour with the pirogue's guy to pick us back to Brazil, and we had around 4 to 5 hours to immerse ourselves in the jungle.
There was this rail in the first kilometers of the track. Mainly because there's a rafting and kayak place nearby, and people take the boats on this rail to move them to the right spot.
The image above, shows the place where we were blocked by the flood. We then started our way back to meet the pirogue's guy.
Gladly he was there waiting for us, otherwise there was no way to communicate. At the same time there was a couple that waited for their pirogue that never arrived, gladly they were able to go with us 😂.
One last breeze of Brazil 💚
The pirogue trip lasted around 20 minutes, it was sunset when we arrived, so we decided to take some cold showers in the river.
After a chill twilight and not so chill evening, we had a good night sleep and next day we packed our stuff to get back to French Guyana. Nonetheless, we still did some shopping and visited a little bit more Oiapoque before leaving. Get to feel one last breeze of Brazil:
Dos filhos deste solo és mãe gentil, pátria amada Brasil!
Aqui começa o Brasil
The quote says "Of the children of this soil you are a gentle mother, beloved homeland Brazil! Here starts the Brazil"
It was definitely the start for us, but not the end, see you soon Brazil, in Oiapoque or any other place, you are a world. 🌎