Sunday, May 16,1999  Back in Cayenne, French Guyane

Well, we are back in uncensored territory.  We could hardly believe it, but the Brazilian Authorities did not allow  us to continue publishing our website as well take any pictures and/or do any "interviews" with the locals.  Here is the document that I had to sign as we had to turn in our passports...

Termo de Impedimento

This is how it started:  After a friendly and successful check-in last week on Friday (May 7,99) in Pirabas, we spent the weekend enjoying the hospitality of the locals and the birdlife of the area.  Since we had no journalists and/or scientists on board,   we cleared in as tourist, which is the common procedure for most countries. Everything was fine until on Tuesday morning we received a call from Afonso, that I   had to come to Pirabas immediately, because three officials from the Policia Federale were waiting and there was a problem.  I got the order to come alone and bring all the passports. That did not sound very inviting...

The Policia Federale confiscated all our passports and we were ordered to come to Belem the following day for further investigation.   At that time the Authorities in Belem did not give us much detail, but as far as we know they thought we were all journalists and scientists  breaking the law as we had cleared in as tourists.

I believe the background for this is, that in Germany STERN Magazine (one of our sponsors) has published a list from the German foreign office, that lists some "dangerous" countries with high crime rate in cities for tourists. Brazil happens to be one of them. That really upset the Brazilian Embassy in Germany. And these guys apparently called the authorities in Belem, which got the ball rolling...

So next day on Wednesday, all of us, but Steven left early at 09:00 am from Pirabas for the 4 hour ride to Belem.  In the meantime some friends in Rio de Janeiro had called the German Embassy and they were sending their Honorary Consul Mrs. Steffen to the Investigation to give us support and translation services.  I had also emailed a friend at the Brazilian Embassy in Washington early that morning and asked for help.   We arrived on time at 2pm at the Immigration Building of the Policia Federale.  After a short wait I was called in for a quick Interrogation and then was told to wait outside until I was called.   Another 45 Minutes later I was called in again, and was even offered some coffee !  The Consul was with me and it was good to have her on the side.  After 10-15 Minutes of questions I was basically told, that we are not permitted to report on the wildlife and/or the people of Brazil on the Internet.  I told them it is just a private website, but that did not make a difference for them.   We are welcome to come back as Journalists and/or Scientist and do all the reporting we want.  But as tourists it is strictly forbidden.   Well, I guess I did not want to mess with them any further and decided to play along.  After all, they still had our passports.  So I signed another paper, again accepting the restrictions not to take any pictures and not to "interview" any local people.  It was not further defined what exactly was meant by "interviewing", but I guess we did not want to take chances.  We were handed our passports and were sent off....

To tell you the truth, our visit became purposeless that moment.    Without interaction with locals and without being able to photograph there was no point in staying there.  So we scrubbed the hull on Thursday and left with the high tide on Friday afternoon.

Too bad, since we met some wonderful people in Brazil.  We would have liked to intensify these friendships...

After 50 hours at sea we have reached Cayenne again,  we will do some provisioning here in the morning and then continue our voyage northwest towards Trinidad.

Talk to you tomorrow,

Michael