My computer just broke down, and the genious here didn�t save what I wrote, so here comes the whole story once more� After a bumpy twelve hour bus ride, we finally arrived here in Macapa, Brazil (save). We have moved pretty fast the last two weeks, as we wanted to get out of expensive Suriname and even more so French Guyana. Nonetheless, we don�t have any regrets about having gone there as we have some great memories to bring home!
Brownsberg turned out to be a great experience (save) and no problem at all to arrange the trip ourselves. It took four bumpy hours to drive the 100 km of dirt road to Brownsberg, which is a 500 m hill in the rainforest. Already the first day we went on a treck on the well marked trails, and visited a beautiful waterfall. It was �taken over� by noisy local kids, though, so we decided to go to another fall a bit further (save). We never got there, though, as we had to get back for dinner. But the jungle was amazing with humungous trees with all sorts of plants growing over them and lianes everywhere. We even saw a few tiny frogs on the way, hopping from the path as we huffed along. In the evening, Sam, a researcher at the camp, told us their Latin names. He and his wife, Anne, were here to do research for his new book about � frogs! He even invited us to join them on a night walk in the jungle as (save) most frogs come out at night. We gladly accepted, not knowing that we were in for a fantastic time! Sam spotted one great frog after the other, and we even learned how to spot them ourselves by the red eye shine that our headlights caught from the frogs. But one little friend will be remembered with a special smile: A little light green tree frog that sat on his branch and called for us (or his frog princess, maybe�). We got several great shots of the photogenic little guy, and at one point he even jumped on my raincoat and from there onto our camera � a natural (save)!
But Anne won the price when she spotted the red eye shine from a little cayman that was lying in a swamp behind the trees. Sam showed him to us and some more great shots were made, all to be seen on our site, when we get an opportunity to upload them. Long after we were lying to try to find sleep in our new hammocks to the sounds of monkeys and frogs from the jungle, Sam was still out there, looking for his little friends� (Save. I guess, you got the idea.).
The next day, Anne arranged another researcher to guide us, and on the way to another beautiful waterfall, he told us about the plants and animals we saw. We even saw a tiny snake, that is actually pretty poisonous� At the waterfall, Arjan left us alone, and in the green scenery and clear water massaging our necks, we decided that this was as good as it gets. When suddenly a big metallic turquoise-blue butterfly flew down along the waterfall!
And another one, and another one! Already after the night walk I had said to Rob that even if we didn�t see any more on the whole Brownsberg tour, I would be perfectly content, so when the big black spider monkey showed himself off to us, I was speechless! Like a hairy human with long arms and tail, he swung himself in the treetops, studying us with as much interest as we him. It was almost like he played with us, making sounds when we lost him of sight for us to rediscover him on a new branch. At one point he even threw down a big branch, so Rob had to run for his life! He meant no harm, I think, and he even followed us curiously, when we decided to go back after our necks had started to hurt.
When we came back, we found out that we had been really lucky, as spider monkeys are not often seen, which added even more to our thrilledness. Later we also saw some howler monkeys up high in the trees and loads of lizards, so we have a lot of memories to bring home!
Back in Paramaribo, we took it a bit easy, enjoying the delicious food and preparing to go to Galibi to see the big sea turtles lay their eggs the next day. After some hazzle and an overprized hammock space, we got on a night tour to the beach where the turtles were supposed to come up. We followed the guides only a few hundred meters along the beach before they told us to hold back as they had seen the trails of a female on the way to the bushes on the beach. We now had to wait for her to dig out the nest and start laying her eggs as she then would reach a state of trance so she could be watched undesturbedly. She never got to lay her eggs, though, as she didn�t find a good spot. We got to see her backside lit up by the guide�s flask light, and that in itself was a great experience. The next day she would return to find a better spot�
Luckily, we could get a boat to France the next day, and we entered the EU an hour or so later. Yep, Europe is not so far away, as French Guyana is still French, explaining the French flag on our site. We went straight to the capital, Cayenne, where we took a better hotel to relax a bit and figure out how to get to the space launch that was planned a few days later close by. Fortunately, we met Max, that had also been on Brownsberg, and who could give us a lift in his borrowed car. After huffing up to the viewpoint and a few hours of intense sweating, they finally shot it off, and we witnessed with which enormous power that thing was fired into space. Not something you see everyday!
The next day we bumped our way to St. Goerges, from where we could take a boat to the other river side: Brazil! Already French Guyana had been different, more organized and �European� that Suriname, and now we again stepped into a complete new world � just by crossing a river. Broad red roads and red skinned people everywhere, showing a lot of skin where tight colourful clothes where not covering, showing bellies of any size. We went to drink a beer at the riverside and found ourselves in a bar with Latin rhythms from the keyboard and people dancing competently to them. This was Brazil as we imagined it!
The next evening we took the night bus here to Macapa, and in the evening sun, we saw that not all of the rain forest is as thoughtfully kept as in Suriname. Everywhere there were burnt fields with fallen scorched trees and we couldn�t escape the thought of how much richness has turned into smoke, just like that�
We will probably stay some time here as we moved very fast lately. It is a lot cheaper here and we feel like finding a nice beach to lie on for a while and calm down a bit before we move up the Rio Amazonas.