Sep 142012
 

Woke up at oh-dark-thirty, aka 5:15 after not getting to bed the night before until after 11 thanks to the very long trip in the share taxi from Suriname. Considered going back to sleep since I knew my chances of making this trip work were small, but decided I only had part of a day here so was going to try and make the most of it…even if I didn’t manage to make it to the Space Centre. Was out the door by 5:45, and on my way to the shared taxi rank…which I only had a vague idea of its location.

I wandered around, and the local produce market was setting up for business, and after asking a few vendors still had absolutely no idea where the taxi rank was…so I just kept wandering. After about ten minutes I saw lots of minivans pulling in, people getting on, and heading off, so I asked some people and it appeared I’d accidentally found it.  On the way, while waiting, there was an amazing sunrise:

The goal was to head to the European Space Centre aka the Centre Spatiale Guyanais where I’d arranged a free tour that started at 8:00am.  It’s near the town of Kourou, about 5km outside of town.  However, the shared taxis from Cayenne only go to Kourou, and not to the Space Centre.  A taxi to Kourou pulled up finally, but it was only me and one other passenger.  This was looking like a repeat of the previous day where I might wait hours to fill up.  Not good since the tour started in 90 minutes and it was a 55km drive just to Kourou.  I chatted with the driver, and he said it was 10 euros a person to Kourou.  I asked him, for 20 euros will you leave now with just the two of us, and drop me directly at the Centre?  He sized up the other passenger, she offered him 15 euro to leave now, and he decided 35 euro was good enough for a trip and we were off.  SCORE!  I’d made it work!

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