A little bit of mud.

But for now, we keep moving and the early Sunday morning depart from Macapa means there is very little traffic. It is a beautiful morning with some puffy clouds to keep the heat manageable. The goal for today is Calcoene, which is not much of a town although they do have an airport, gas station (with no gas) and a couple of hotels and shops. The terrain and foliage is tropical and we see our first Water Buffalo, doing what they do, wallowing in mud.

Another little river to cross.

There is not much to see along the way other than livestock. The villages we pass through are very rough and dare I say primitive. Not shooting arrows at us primitive but very basic houses and no care about curb appeal. So basically the poorest of the poor. By the time we reach Calcoene it is once again raining and we pick the best looking Pousada we can find. It turns out to be a very nice room with white tile floors, comfy bed and of course much needed a/c. The desk clerk rambles on in something that is a mix between Portuguese and Creole. Very confusing. We ask about a restaurant and he just laughs and points down the street. I take this as there is only one in town and it is over there, you know, that-a way. When we actually go out to find it we realize that he may have meant there are none and his arm flap was in reference to the next town or something. Either way we walk around the town, taking sneaky pics of stuff and end up back at the hotel. Luckily Brenda smuggled some goodies from the breakfast buffet in Macapa and we ate that for supper.

I spend a bit of time before dark checking over the bikes in preparation for tomorrow’s journey to St. George. This will be our first long stretch of dirt road in a while and with the rain falling we hope for the best but prepare for the worst. Youtube has become a great resource for viewing road conditions via other peoples video posts. This section is BR156, and if the videos are a wide variety from dry season to rainy season. We are technically starting into the rainy season but it has been a drier year thus far. It still rains almost everyday but not for very long, and the afternoon heat dries things up. I check the chains, the suspension, the list of bolt locations that see stress, and of course tires/brakes.

Some locals passing by the Hotel.

After all that, it is time to clean up and turn in. Oh wait, the hotel owner wants us to move our bikes so that he can back his SUV up against them for security. He mentions that if given the chance or temptation then the locals will steal what they can get away with. Great, now try to sleep.

Ah ya, What the hell is it, and we are glad it is dead.

Yay, a good heavy rain wakes us in the morning and by the look of the sky it is not going to stop soon. We eat our breakfast and suit up for what will now be a muddy ride to Oiapoque. The pavement ends just outside of town and the red dirt road takes over for the next 115km. 

We are pleasantly surprised that the road is still firm but the surface has been packed with a Sheepsfoot Packer. This is great except every dimple is full of red clay soup which makes a mess but is not overly slippery. The drizzling rain continues all day and by the time we reach Oiapoque we are just a little bit dirty, so when we arrive in town we are covered with red clay dirt. 

Sheepfoot packer.

Pavement to Dirt interface.

This dirty and only half way through the dirt section.

The Ferry terminal is not very well marked and we drive around a bit looking for it, we even ended up going to Victoria thinking it was over there, but that was just a mistake and waste of fuel.

Ferry Terminal loading area.