To get to the Guyanas from the Amazon River, I took a boat from Manaus to Santarem (70 Reais) which took about 30 hours, which has a beautiful little beach town alter do chao, which is an hour away by bus and costs are nominal. Then I met up with a French speaking, 31 year old man with whom I would spend the next few weeks traveling. From there we took a boat from Santarem to Macapa (100 Reais, but included meals) which took around 36 hours. We arrived in Macapa at around 5 in the morning and had the option of continuing sleeping on the boat. We chose to get up and try to make it to the bus station to take the bus from Macapa to the border town Oiapoque which we had thought would leave at 8. Unfortunately the only bus that left to Oiapoque would leave at 5 at night, which meant we had an entire day in Macapa. There is nothing to do outside the bus station in Macapa. A crazy crackhead lady tried to come after me with a large two by four. It was kind of scary. She kept picking it up, coming towards me, and then dropping it again. Anyways we finally got on the bus and embarked on a long overnight bus through the bumpy, unpaved road to Oiapoque (cost: $57 Reais). We got there in the morning and waited at the bus station until the time the border police opened (which was around 8). We got our stamps out of brazil and then headed down the road to where the boats left. You need to take a boat to cross over into French Guiana (cost: 10 Reais per person and takes around 10 minutes). You arrive in Saint George, which is full of lots of indigenous and a few French people. Not many Blacks. From there, you should hitchhike (unless you arrive at night). But first you need an entry stamp into French Guiana. Luckily the stamp spot is right next to an excellent corner to hitchhike on. I say you need to hitchhike because your only other option is to spend 30 euros (you can also pay 100 reais, but that is a rip off). One thing to note is that there was only 1 ATM in Saint George when we were there and it was broken, so we did not have any euros. Word to the wise: bring euros with you ahead of time.
French Guiana: Still run by France, which really gives an odd flare to this South American country surrounded by Jungle. Thus, the country speaks French, which makes it very difficult to get by if you don’t speak the native tongue. I’ve found that if this is the case, the best people to ask for help tend to be the creoles (most live in Cayenne), as they are probably more fluent at ‘our version’ of English than the French immigrants that live there. The men that talk to you tend to appear more polite in French Guiana. I think it’s just because they say “bonjure” instead of “yo baby! YO BABY!”.
In the border town of Saint Laurent, there is a big issue with crime that results from Surinamese citizens who cross the river by boat into French Guiana, rob some houses or shops, and return back to Suriname where they can never be easily found again. This has happened quite frequently and the people are usually the bush negros (?) I cannot remember the name exactly but some derivative of that. ..basically they are the people that fled from slavery and moved into the jungles of Suriname. Lots of Surinames actually do live in Saint Laurent as well, which can make it confusing because you have a few creoles, who speak English, and also the surinames ‘bush negros’ that speak taki taki, which is a really odd distant derivative of English along with a few other languages (this is because suriname used to be owned by the british, I believe).
French Guiana: Still run by France, which really gives an odd flare to this South American country surrounded by Jungle. Thus, the country speaks French, which makes it very difficult to get by if you don’t speak the native tongue. I’ve found that if this is the case, the best people to ask for help tend to be the creoles (most live in Cayenne), as they are probably more fluent at ‘our version’ of English than the French immigrants that live there. The men that talk to you tend to appear more polite in French Guiana. I think it’s just because they say “bonjure” instead of “yo baby! YO BABY!”.
Cayenne does not have much to offer other than a few historical buildings and sloths (I saw more dead than alive, though). Kourou has a little bit more to offer in terms of tourism, as it is here where the European Union launches its satellites into orbit and also it is here where you can take a boat to visit Îles du Salut, 3 beautiful tropical islands that used to be where the French sent many of their prisoners between the mid 1800’s to 1900’s. A boat trip there RT cost us $44 Euros, but it was well worth it.
Also worth visiting is the beach near Awala. We got there from Kourou completely by hitchhiking but had to do so in the following manner: Kourou to Saint Laurent, Saint Laurent to Mana, Mana to Awala, Awala to Beach. The longest portion of the journey is from Kourou to Saint Laurent, from there it is maybe an hour all together (including the waiting in between hitchhiking, which normally is under 20 minutes). The trip is worth it and if you stay to the night you can see these LARGE turtles under the glow of the moonlight. It is an amazing sight. We set up hammocks under the table areas at the beach, which cost us $0 and is pretty safe since there is only a small village surrounding us.
During our entire time in French Guiana (almost 2 weeks), we never once paid for transportation or accommodations. It is safe to hitchhike (but apparently sometimes they may ask you for a couple of euros for gas) and try to get a couchsurfering account or make friends with the locals to find a place to stay. Otherwise, it can get pretty pricey!
In the border town of Saint Laurent, there is a big issue with crime that results from Surinamese citizens who cross the river by boat into French Guiana, rob some houses or shops, and return back to Suriname where they can never be easily found again. This has happened quite frequently and the people are usually the bush negros (?) I cannot remember the name exactly but some derivative of that. ..basically they are the people that fled from slavery and moved into the jungles of Suriname. Lots of Surinames actually do live in Saint Laurent as well, which can make it confusing because you have a few creoles, who speak English, and also the surinames ‘bush negros’ that speak taki taki, which is a really odd distant derivative of English along with a few other languages (this is because suriname used to be owned by the british, I believe).
Suriname: The country costs pretty much the same as Guyana to stay in. It is cheaper than French Guiana and many people from French Guiana frequently travel to Suriname to buy their products. Most tourists need a visa, which costs approximately $50 euros. HOWEVER, if you are AMERICAN, you will need to pay $100 euros!!! I know, it really sucked but there weren’t any other feasible options to get through to the rest of the northern countries. Flights out of French Guiana tend to go mainly (if only) to French countries (i.e. france, st. lucia, Haiti, etc.) and therefore it is really expensive to try to go anywhere else. Another option would be to backtrack back to brazil for more options, but there was no way it was worth all the buses (which also cost a little bit of money) just to backtrack.
Paramaribo has a lot of beauty to offer in its colonial buildings (especially if you see them when the sun is setting). The food seems to be all the same in the shops (fried bananas, rice, chicken pastries) and there are also a few Chinese restaurants (but I can guarantee you that most will be closed if you try visiting them). City seemed safe, but I was a little worried about some of the dogs that would bark at me and were not behind a fence where they should have been. The barking is almost as bad as the men in the city. The only place we saw large clusters of white people was near the large fancy hotel (can’t remember the name) and along the strip of bars (which is really only like 3 or 4, which was somewhat disappointing). Not much of a club scene. More for friends having a good time. If you are looking to mingle with other whiteys, I would suggest staying at guesthouse twenty 4, but when we went they were booked. Paramaribo on Sunday is COMPLETELY closed (especially in the morning). Very difficult to get food at that hour. We heard a lot of awesome gospel music from afar, though. Also, when it rains I think buildings tend to close…I think in general people just open and close whenever they please so we (me and shawn) just learned to take such factors into account during decision making. We also met a guy who was traveling around the world on his bicycle (Markus Schorn , markusschorn.com). He wants to kayak across the Caribbean to Florida. Crazy!!! Anyways we left Paramaribo after 3 nights and took a bus at 5 in the morning that cost us around $40 USD to get to Georgetown. You have to go bus, ferry (border crossing), bus…but the price was for the whole way and we arrived in Georgetown at around 3 in the afternoon.
Guyana:
You can see large quantities of rice being dried along the paved road to Georgetown. Once in Georgetown, you will immediately pick up the repulsive scent of trash and mildew that manifests itself within the stagnant water of the canals built from the time of Dutch rule. Guyana prices are comparable to that of Suriname. The only thing that Georgetown has to offer is that it is home to the world's largest wooden structure (a church). 
The country is English speaking, which makes travel much easier. Also, out of all three Guyanas, I would say that Guyana has the least amount of European presence among its current population. As a result, you will receive much more attention from the locals. What’s even weirder is that now, all the whistles and hollars are 100% in English and it becomes much harder to use the language barrier as a scapegoat if you are trying to get out of a conversation. They may also ask you for money (especially the children). In these countries close to the equator, much more of the local population is seen using umbrellas to hide from the heat and also from the sporadic onsets of rain. I, too, took to the umbrella not only for these reasons but also to serve as a device to hide my ‘white girl’ appearance. If cars would drive by I would open the umbrella in front of my face to hide myself from them, which is probably weird but much better than them seeing me and then honking loudly in my face. I spoke to another blond girl I met in the Oasis Café (a place with free wifi, btw). She is living here as a volunteer nurse and says that she gets harassed on a day to day basis and now her brain essentially blocks out all of the whistles and hollars from men. She said that even though it seems like there are no white people in the city, they are around and are mostly volunteers that hang around certain hotspots (i.e. oasis café, Pegasus hotel, and a few other places I can’t remember). A white friend of hers got raped 2 weeks ago down in Lethem (a city in the south of Guyana), but she says the girl was acting really stupid (i.e. they were at a rodeo and she was drunk and decided to walk home by herself at night…and she ended up getting on the back of some guy’s motorcycle). She ended up with wounds around her neck and had to fly back to Australia to get all of the medications and treatment that was necessary for after such an ordeal. This normally does not happen, though. So I am not too scared and neither was the girl I was talking to.
Tips:
-bring pepper spray. You will probably never need it but worth the comfort level. Also, be sure to always pack it in your checked luggage before boarding any planes. I had to stuff it between my boobs one time in order to get through security. Would not risk it again.
-bring a netbook. They are fairly cheap (I bought one for $300 and it works just as good as a regular computer) and they are INCREDIBLY useful. I can assure you that the amount of money I would have had to spend in an internet café in these past months would have already made up for the costs.
In summary, I would say that the Guyanas are definitely worth visiting. They are off the typical traveler’s map but do justice in showing you an alternative view of South America. Each country of the three seems distinctly different due to their different rule. However, I would say that all of the Guyanas are relatively safe when it comes to serious crimes such as rape or murder. In San Paulo and other places in Brazil I feel I could not say the same, probably because such cities are much larger and the economic gap in Brazil has caused much more of a riot among the people. Despite the increased number and whistles and rape story, I still felt safer being alone here than in Brazil. The vibe is more relaxed.
