The departure - Second Leg-

 

Since the beginning of the year and, especially, after the last month, this is the first time that both of us are excited about what to come! 🥳

The adventure started to gently sink in.  We were looking forward to the 9 hour flight, cocooned, with entertainment. We boarded and we got to our places. The staff was very friendly. We chose well: we had two seats on the Airbus A330, which has rows of two seats instead of three or four. We had our space, our privacy. Planning pays out. 😉

The flight was very good, not as many turbulences as expected over the Atlantic Ocean but it took a little longer due to headwinds. Two more negative points were definitely the presence of the Wi-Fi, which did not work so I could not carry out the admin work that I had planned, and the fact that there was no choice in terms of food. To this day, I have no idea what I ate. It was fairly decent but I was a bit disappointed. In addition, the screen had some troubles along the flight, requiring multiple restarts. It could be worse: we could be in the bottom of the ocean, so I cannot complain.

View from our window

After 9 hours and 20 minutes we finally arrived in Cayenne! We were so excited to step foot for the first time in South America! The European Union part of South America. That sounds and feels weird but it is the reality. It was hot and humid, as expected. While waiting for the checked-in bags I got stung by an insect already. Not even ten minutes in and already got stung. Obviously, as a proper worrier, I started sweating and thinking “Oh boy! Here we go! I will get malaria, dengue, and who knows what more!”.

Landed in Cayennne

Once out of the airport, we looked for a taxi and found it easily. He took us for a little drive (yes, we have noticed it!), obviously for pump a little the fare, but eventually we arrived on spot. Another plot twist: no one knew of our arrival. The flat mates were notified of our arrival at 12PM, while we were supposed to land at 3PM. Eventually, we were greeted by a lovely colleague, very available and helpful in the following days as well. She quickly left us to go to work, especially because we arrived later than announced. The referring person arrived to the villa, to give us the keys. The car will be available the day after. We will be sharing the villa and the swimming pool with other five people. I haven't done this for almost a decade (flat sharing with quite a few people). Quite a challenge ahead! 😁

After going to the bedroom, we had the first contact with the local fauna. We met a gecko, which scared us quite a bit as we were expecting something worse. After that, we have met just flies, mosquitoes, and cockroaches. Nothing to worry about.

We went for groceries shopping, at least for dinner, in a shop nearby. We had a couple of sandwiches, bottled water and eventually fell asleep quite early. In fact, due to the 5 hours difference, we fell asleep at 8 PM Guyana time (1 AM CEST). 

Location: Cayenne 97300, Guyana francese

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