Sinnamary

Sinnamary sits at the mouth of its own river between Kourou and Iracoubo, a quiet commune of wooden houses most travellers pass on the way west. The reason to stop is the Pripris de Yiyi, a protected freshwater marsh of floating vegetation behind the coast with a boardwalk, a carbet and a bird list that includes the hoatzin and the boat-billed heron. Upstream the Petit-Saut dam flooded three hundred and sixty-five square kilometres of forest from 1993 to power the department. Dead trees still stand in the reservoir. Leatherbacks lay on the beaches to the east. The first colonists came in 1624, making it the second French settlement in the country.