Devil's Island, French Guiana - Jan 17th

Devil's Island is a hot, humid, rain-forested island inhabited mainly by capybaras (the largest rodent in the world), macaws and monkeys. And snakes. And cutter ants. We saw capybaras running around and they look like this:



It's kind of a cross bwteeen a rat and a rabbit only bigger than both and they hop around like rabbits.

We saw the prisoner cells on Île Royale and yes they do have those little pass-through tunnels under the bars for getting food to the prisoners' food. 

The high security inmates were kept on the more isolated Devil's Island (Île du Diable) which you can see behind Joani:

 Looks like an easy swim, but the currents are treacheous due to the tides rushing through the channel between the islands (swimming was prohibited because it was too dangerous). And you would have to swim ashore over these rocks:

A macaw screeched at Joani right after a capybara ran right across our path and she jumped about 3 feet. The macaws are big, blue and red:



None of the three former prison islands are inhabited because the French satellite launches from the Arianne space center in French Guiana passed directly overhead. People come from the mainland to work at the tourist center on Île Royale, which is now a park. Visitors also came by catamaran from the mainland while we were there to have a Sunday afternoon picnic.

On to Belem in Brazil, very near the mouth of the Amazon.