In the mid-19th century, the French government set out to reduce prison costs at home by sloughing off undesirables by way of their colonies. Searching for their most forsaken frontier outpost to drop the luckless cons, they came up with Guiana. Modern French Guiana is a land of idiosyncrasies, where European Space Agency satellite launches rattle the market gardens of displaced Hmong farmers from Laos and thinly populated rainforests swallow nearly all but the country's coastline. Highly subsidized by Mother France, it boasts the highest standard of living of any 'country' in South America, but look beyond the capital city and you'll still find backwoods settlements of Maroons and Amerindians barely eking out a living. Traveling in French Guiana isn't easy, but it is part of the adventure.
Litani rivers encompass a disputed border area.
Most Guianais live along the Atlantic coast, and the area contains most of the country's limited road network. The coast comprises mainly mangrove swamp with a few sandy beaches. Fauna includes monkeys, caimans, tapirs, ocelots and anteaters. The rain falls heaviest from January to June, with May seeing the worst of it. Cayenne, the capital, and Guiana's other Atlantic coast settlements are less muggy than inland areas, but that's not saying much.