Road Trip!

As a surprise for Dulcie's birthday, we decided to kidnap her early in the morning and make the 2 and half hour drive from Saint Laurent to Kourou for a day of exploring and adventures.
Kourou is well-known as being the home of the Centre Spatial Guyanais (Guiana Space Centre) where the Ariane space shuttle is launched. It is also a former prison colony, and mainland town located closest to the Devil's Island, the famous prison island of the Dreyfus affair and Henri Charriere's Papillon. The French Foreign Legion also has a base in Kourou.
The trip was planned totally in secret and when we burst into the room on Monday morning at 6:00, Dulcie's first words were "huh...what day is it?". By 7:00 (we were hoping to get going earlier but I forgot to check the oil and had to do so at the last minute) we were in the car, Dulcie blindfolded, driving through the South American rain forest with the barely-risen sun shining through the trees.


(Above: Vic and Dulcie; Below: our pathetic replacement for a car stereo and the beautiful rising sun)


When we finally arrived, we were dissapointed to find that the street signs were absolutely miniscule and only on one side of the street so that you only realize what street you're supposed to be on after you've passed it. This led to us being very lost, and when I finally stopped being the man and agreed to stop and ask for directions, we found a fantastic pastry shop. We then found a lovely cafe and had our breakfast, giggling over the fact that nothing in town seemed to be open.
Although it has been raining every single day for the past month, incredibly enough, it was sunny and not a cloud in the sky, but we didn't know if it would last, so we decided to make our first stop the beach.

We spent a couple of hours enjoying the sun, looking for shells, and catching up on our reading. (Left: Vic is pointing at the Iles du Salut, including Devil's Island, off in the distance)



Our luck with weather then ended and as rain clouds began creeping over us, we headed off to find a place for lunch. We wound up back in the same square as we had been in the morning and had pizza and fries (we're all into health food!) as rain poured down.
And now for the guilty admission....there is a McDonald's in Kourou...and there was no way we had driven for almost three hours and were not going to go to it...

Dee and I got McFlurry's (more like vanilla ice cream with sprinkles because the McFlurry machine was broken)

and since the restaurant was empty, we snuck into the play place and completly reverted back to childhood for half an hour.

Upon exiting, one of the customers looked at us with a raised eyebrow and asked "How old are you guys?" We all giggled and replied "Twelve" and then ran off.

We headed out of town and towards the Space Center. I wish I could say we actually went into the museum, but we were running low on cash so we had to be content with pictures of it and a replica of the space shuttle.


It was starting to rain again and since we had very little idea what else could be done in Kourou, we were very sunburned, and running low on money and gas, we decided to head home.
It was a painful drive (my back was very burned), slowed down by a heavy rainfall and nightfall, but we got back to St.Laurent in one piece and early enough to get some prep work done for the week. My account of the day had to wait until tonight though since all phone lines have been dead for the past two days. It's crazy how much we rely on internet and phones and how cut off you can feel when you don't have them!
In the end, we took back three things from our day in Kourou...
1) crazy sunburns

2) we each got a "transformer" action figure key ring (symbolic of our transformative year of service)


3) great memories

For a different perspective on the day and some more pics, you can visit Dulcie's blog at www.deejustine.blogspot.com