ittam

Joined the guys from RUAG on a trip to Cayenne. Walking around town and eating lunch. The search for a beach turned out to be a ingenious surprise. A huge leatherback turtle laying its eggs in broad daylight. What a struggle.

Sadly this morning we received got the news that the launch of the Ariane 5 Flight 194 (50th Ariane 5 launch) has been postponed to at least the 8th of April - out of our reach.

I am sad about it....well that's life - adapt and move on.

The launcher is definitely a complex machine with many components that are themselves not a piece of cake (though making a cake is at times not that easy). If one part fails it might jeopardize the whole mission therefore it is more safe to get everything in order before pressing buttons.

So here we are in a french "colony" (actually it is a neglected french department) waiting for a launch that will take place after we have left. In the end I will have spent 3 weeks here, doing many things to keep the time going. I am not saying that watching turtles or going for a short jungle walk are not cool things to do, but normally I would not have spent as much time here, probably just passed through in a few days.

On wednesday I will take Annelie to St. Georges at the border. She will board a boat to cross the river and I will take the car back to Cayenne to wait for my time of departure. Now I wonder what to do with the time. The friends from Zurich are going on a plane tomorrow heading back after having done their share of the work. So there will be no-one left after wednesday.

Today a short trip to Cayenne again, joining the other former coworkers on their endeavor.

Hey, you know what? The Space Shuttle launch has been confirmed for the 5th of April :-).

The last few days we definitely went out to kill time. Driving the car far and hard to St. Laurent taking with us a swedish hitch-hiker on his way to Surinam.

Seeing the turtles again in Yalimapo was really nice. This time I did not observe the egg laying process but watched these hulks of an animal appear on the shore heaving themselves up one step at the time and pausing after every 6th. There is not so much clumsiness but more the impression of being out of their element - water. I once say such an animal hovering above some algae, devouring them. My first thought then was that it looked peaceful and full of grace - huge but weightless. On land the weight really makes an impression.

Back in St. Laurent looking at the disbanded prison complex (which you could say the whole town was in the early days) did not bring any new insights.

The movie theater ("Toucan") we went to in the evening showed "In the air" starring George Clooney in french. Quite difficult to follow such a film when there is as much talk and french not your first language.

"Petit saut" the hydroelectric plant with the reservoir lake is called. It produces nearly all the electricity used in french Guyana. The road there was quite nice, apart from the infrequent potholes. Many bends and many abandoned cars at the road side (in 22km I counted 8). Not impressive but still good to kill time :-)

In the evening again movie time, after by happenstance we came across the movie theater here in Kourou. This time the feature film was "hors de control" (Edge of Darkness) starring Mel Gibson in the center role. Again in french. Damn, did I not learn anything in school... Lucky me such entertainment is not that elaborate as to miss the whole point by not understanding it all.

Not many words necessary. It is impressive how a rocket of this weight and size looks like and moves over the ground. The Ariane 5 moves from the BAF (batiment assemblage final) to the launch pad where it will be launched tomorrow. I really look forward to the launch tomorrow at 19:03 local time.

While waiting for the rocket to launch - by the way the launch has been delayed 48 hours and will now be on the 26.3. - going to the Zoo and hiking seemed like a good idea since being in a country so far away the animals also must be quite different.

So to the Zoo we went seeing many local animals you probably never spot by yourself in the wilderness. Wildcats, snakes, parrots, caymans and many other things.

The days after hiking through the forest we nearly stepped on snakes, twice. The first one was about a meter long and brownish, the second one black and quite small (approx. 30 cm). After these encounters you start staring at the ground for sticks that are not sticks.

T - 4.25 days

The european space center is located here in french Guyana. This is where the Ariane 5 rocket launches every year 5 to 7 times. In the future the russian Rocket "Soyuz" and the small european launcher "VEGA" are to be lifting off here as well to the stars.

The offical tour bus left the CSG (centre spatial guyanais) with us inside to show a bit of the site, which is located not too far from the coast but is spread wide for safety considerations. This tour was really not that impressive since it did not allow any close access to any of the launch sites. Only from afar could they be seen.

In the afternoon we were more lucky. A friend from ESA took the time and effort to show us the Soyuz and VEGA sites where we walked around from place to place. It was really impressive and I was really to be able to picture the rocket standing there poised for launch.

The effort in the end to see the Ariane 5 launcher in the BAF (final assembly building) was so far not successful - to many visitors wanted to set eyes on it. Maybe tomorrow...

These islands also called "Devils islands" in english have been one of the really dark chapters in the french history. Sometimes it is compared to the nightmares the Nazi's did. It was a hard labour camp for felons deported from mainland France for punishment. Most never got out. Read more on "Wikipedia". 

The visit there was very interesting, thanks to the guided tour at the beginning that gave a bit of history and highlighted the destinies of some of the inhabitants like for example "Papillon" or Alfred Dreyfus.

The night was spent in a hammock in the same room as had hundreds of prisoners before. The barred windows were a bit disconcerting but sleep eventually came.

The arrival in Kourou was accompanied by a good coincidence. The french guy on the boat across the river (which at the same time represented the border) was offering a ride to the airport of Cayenne where the hope of finding a rental car was better. In the end we got lucky at "budget" with the smallest car (a Hyundai i10) and the cheapest price.

Meeting former colleagues for dinner and sleeping in the hammock on the beach and in the morning seeing the foreign legion jogging by.

A friend from ESA met us with open arms and invited us for dinner. I nearly rolled away after that, so overwhelmed was I by the amount of food served (apart that it was really hard to resist).

The town of Kourou itself is a town that nearly sole existence or prosperity is due to the present of the nearby "Centre Spatial Guyanaise", the european base for launching satellites into space. Nearly everything is connected one way or the other with it.

"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool." - William Shakespeare