Mattias and the satellite launch

The French guy had another French-guy friend in Kourou. They were called Nicolas and Rafael. This is typical French. Staying in the hammock-shed was also a mystic black man. They said he didn’t talk, they had never heard him utter a word but he always left early in the morning after shower and came back late to sleep. There were also a Swiss couple who were very interested in space and had now waited for this launch two weeks, travelling to all various parts of French Guyana trying to kill time. They had rented a car and were invited to watch the launch from inside the space centre. It was obviously too late to get such an invitation (you have to email them well in advance) but they told me I could probably watch it here on the beach. If it was not cloudy, one would probably see the rocket like a falling star (but going upwards!), as it was to be launched in the evening darkness at 19:03.

The French guy with his other French-guy friend had another plan, however. They were going to go up on a nearby hill with views over the space centre. They were about to take their hammocks as the walk was three to four hours and it didn’t seem like a good idea to walk back in the dark. They hoped to find a place to hang the hammock. I saw that things could go seriously bad as it was rain period (there had been showers every night since at least a week back) and it was not certain they would find a roof. But they hoped to “be lucky”. This is a typical French tactic. After thinking it all through several times, I decided to have a go at it anyway and join them. Sometimes I am so stupid.

When we were about to go it became evident that they had no clue of how to get there. The first thing in the plan was to go to a bar to have a morning coffee and to collect information from the bar-maids. They had no map, no evidence whatsoever that this hill even existed, only a vague idea of that there should be such place outside town. I realised that the three-hour walk may not be three hours at all. This is also typical French.

The bar-maids didn’t quite know but after asking around a little bit more two things emerged: 1) There was in fact a hill quite far outside town, maybe within walking distance although everyone recommended a car; and 2) the launch “maybe” was delayed. There were far too many “maybes” here to suit my personal taste but as the French-guy number two forgot a plastic cover in the Indian village (in case of rain) we had to go back anyway. The day was turning into a super-chaos and I was thinking to screw it all and leave.

Back in the Indian village we met the Swiss couple. They had got an email from the space centre (as they had an invitation) and they were informed that the launch had been delayed three or four days. They had encountered some problems and had to take the rocket back into the hangar, fix it and then take it out again. A couple of days work with other words. There was no way I was going to hang around for four more days in the company of these people only to maybe (if it didn’t disappear in the clouds) see a couple of seconds of light from a rocket launch. It was only around mid-day so I thanked for me and left the Indian village having wasted a whole morning of my holiday. Wasting time is also typical French.