Macapa was not too bad a city, it is supposed to be very dangerous but didn’t feel that way.  Since it was a Sunday when we arrived we went down to the waterfront and it was teeming with people and dogs. There seemed to be some kind of pets on show thing going on, plus people were kit surfing, picnicking, walking, jogging, you name it they were out there having fun. The street vendors were also in full force and we had a fantastic meal on the street consisting of meat skewers and savoury rice.

The next day I just walked around a bit and went to visit the old fort, nothing special but something to do.

Early on the morning of the 15^th we headed out to Amapa. One of those shitty little one horse towns, and nothing to write home about.  However on the way we did see a few interesting lizards.

they grow critters big in this pert of the world

 blue tailed lizard

 gadgets new handle since the last one got wrecked begin tied to the trailer.

The following day we headed to Oiapoque this is another good dirt road and I enjoyed it tremendously.  It did not start out that way however, we started in a cluster of bikes and dust with some people doing 30/40km/hr. It was physically painful to ride so slow on dirt as you hit every single corrugations, you need a little speed and to put your weight a little back which slightly raised the front wheel and the bike just glides over the corrugations. I was getting a tad frustrated so overtook. We then pulled over for a break and Pete and I took one look at each other and I said I can’t do this and he said this is painful and dangerous all these bike clustered together in this dust. He spoke to the guide who said it’s one straight road and we can just go ahead. We took off and for 75kms had the most awesome ride 🙂 just being able to ride at one’s own pace with no other riders. The next minute the guide passes us and slows down and we end up in another cluster. We get stopped for a few minutes as there has been an accident and a large digger is trying to get an overturned bus upright. Pete said again he’s going to lose it if Roberto does not ride faster or let him pass. So we all head off and the dust is horrific so I slow right down to let these guys and their dust disappear. Things start looking good and I’m enjoying the road and the next minute I come across Pete, Brian and Henry stopped on the side of the road and it is obvious that Henry has had another accident, his third. Fortunately this one was not as bad as the last and he does not need stitches he just has a couple of very deep scrapes and a very big bruise on his head where he hit the dirt. His front wheel hit a rut and he went over the handlebars. Damn poor Henry, we bundle him up as best we can and put him in the temporary support truck (our support truck is still in Belem getting fixed, so Mike hired a driver and van).  We finally arrive at Oiapoque, Henry gets taken to the Dr and fixed up, he does not have concussion, and just takes a couple of days off riding.

one horse shitty town with beautiful people restaurant kitchen

I have to say though that I’d rather stay on one of these one horse shity places with character and giving you a good idea of how the average person lives than in Belem.  We had yet another good meal but this one came accompanied by the local prostitute who attached herself to Rob and then demanded money from a couple of people. She followed us back to the hotel and the landlady a lovely and stunning young woman called Laura had to call the cops.

After one night we finally headed to the ferry and French Guyana, another extremely easy border crossing.