The perfect plan

I had my route in mind: I was going to pass through the “Guianas” before entering Venezuela. The Guianas are three small countries north of Brazil, which are a bit forgotten. They don’t see many tourists, it is difficult to get to them and they are not on any natural route (neither land nor air). In other words: if you purposely don’t travel to the Guyanas, you are likely to never pass by.

Now, I had checked around on the internet for places to stay in the three countries and had come to the conclusion that there were two things to consider when travelling on the route Brazil-French Guiana-Suriname-Guyana-Brazil.

1. The middle country, Suriname, is a pain in the arse and require visas for citizens if the European Union. This has to be obtained in any of the other two and the visa processing time is “next day service”.
2. In French Guiana, there doesn’t seem to be any hostel or cheap guesthouse. One therefore has to stay in the city hotels. And it was too late to coach surf.

In other words, key objective was to minimise the stay in Cayenne (capital of French Guyana) where I have to wait for the visa. That practically means that you can only arrive Monday-Thursday (also check for public holidays) due to the consulate opening times to guarantee not having to wait for the visa during the weekend (which could turn out to be expensive). Considering I arrived to Belém on a Monday, I quickly realised that in order to get to Cayenne in time, there was no time to wait for the hammock-boat to Macapá. I had to take a Tuesday flight (almost same price as the boat anyway) and in the evening take the night bus to the border (I had information that they depart daily), arrive there Wednesday and during the day travel to Cayenne, apply for visa Thursday and pick it up Friday and same day leave to some place where there were cheaper lodging. This was my worst case scenario. And my perfect plan.