Time to pack

This is the end of the MSG-4 launch campaign. After about three months in French Guiana to support this fantastic adventure, it is time to pack and fly back to our respective places in Europe.

Ohne Titel/Without Titel, Anreas Slominski (1959- ), 

Museum der Bildenen Künste, Leipzig

The outstanding performance of the ThalesAlenia Space team was the key factor for the success all along this MSG saga which started more than twenty years ago and that culminated with the successful launch of MSG-4, the last spacecraft of the series on July 15th 2015. MTG (Meteosat Third Generation) will be now, as explained in the introduction, the next milestone.

This last postcard flags also the end of this blog. It has been a pleasure to share with you this campaign step by step. We hope, with this (almost) daily reporting, to have kept you informed properly and that you have also enjoyed the "side" messages which tried to enlarge the usual engineering fields. If you found some interest in reading us, it is definitely our best reward.

We wish you all the best in your new projects and enjoy now a well deserved summer break! Good bye MSG, good bye to all.

From French Guiana with love.

Kirill B.

PS:
Last news from MSG: it goes (very) well, all planned operations are running nominally (See MSG-4 milestones page).
Last but not least, the first MSG-4 image, will be published early August when it will be released by EUMETSAT.

Few houses in Sinamary

Sinnamary is located thirty kilometers from Kourou following the RN-1 Northwards in the direction of Saint Laurent du Maroni. This old village is crossed by the Sinnamary river. It is the starting point for few pirogue excursions too observe either the toucans in the rainforest or the scarlet ibis close to the mouth of the river. Sinnamary is also a nice place to enjoy a local meal on the terrace of one of the two restaurants located along the river. The blue and white swallows catching insects upon the water surface make the show at anytime. Few typical Guyanese habitations can be discovered during a short walk across the village….This is the theme of this postcard.

 

 

 

 

 

Credits: Christine

Camouflage

Rain forest, swamps, flooded savannas, creeks, rainy seasons, makes French Guiana a paradise for "froggies" :-). Frogs are generally not scared by walkers and can be easily approached for observations. This gives opportunities to admire their camouflage strategies. The few ones shown below belong to the "grenouilles feuilles" family or Long-nose horned frogs (Megophrys Nasuta). This term reflects their ability to look like the leaves where they normal sit on to hide and catch food…

L'Auberge des Chutes Voltaire

The Chutes Voltaire is definitely a special place in French Guiana. Extremely different from the coastal savannas, this location offers a good insight of the rain forest combined with the unexpected show of a large water fall. The best way to enjoy this remote location is to overnight in the Auberge des Chutes Voltaire (Chutes Voltaire Inn) as a starting point for this excursion. This very nice inn can be reached after three hours driving on a mud road starting from Saint Laurent du Maroni.

Overal view of the inn

Few may enjoy a bed in one of the three available rooms located in a dedicated bungalow...

Rooms in the bungalow

whilst the other ones will have to sleep in hammock under the roof of a collective carbet. This is a unique experience to enjoy the "music" of the rain forest at night. Some will also discover that some birds may snore :-)

Hammock arrangement

The restaurant is located next to a cosy corner where it is nice to seat and chat before the meals. The large openings in the walls of the carbet offer gorgeous views on the garden.

Restaurant: view on the outside

But the view inside reveals another surprise: a nice fresco made by Dominique Jado in 1994. A special post will be dedicated to it.

Restaurant: inside view on the fresco

The garden with few trees with flashy flowers (Tulipier, Pommier d'eau...) attracts many kinds of birds. You may also have the chance to observe bands of toucans crossing the sky early morning and late afternoon. Their clumsy flight is so characteristic that you cannot miss them. On the left side, the creek with its sandy beach should not be forgotten. It is certainly a lovely place to have a swim when the water level is not too high.

The garden along the creek. high level of water during the rainy season

Last but not least, you will meet Eva who organises everything for her guests. Her kindness and her care for everything has made the short stay of the MSG teams quite enjoyable. Worth to mention, the food she prepares based on local ingredients is as imaginative as exquisite. Our guide, Pierre, should not be forgotten as well for all the things he learnt to the group during the excursion. Definitely an outstanding place to visit and a good start for the two hour walk to the Chutes Voltaire. It is a strange name for such a place isn't it? What is now sure is that the French Philosoph never slept in a hammock in this inn or even in the vicinity! We keep on investigating...

Gardens in Roura

Roura is a quiet and beautiful place twenty minutes drive after the Cayenne airport in the South-Eastern direction. It is a mandatory stop before the Kaw swamp (Marais de Kaw), another interesting excursion for nature lovers. This tiny city, located on a hilly area, concentrates many of the Guyanese peculiarities: old houses, trimmed gardens, river, creeks, flowers, birds, reptiles… From the church square, one can get dow to the bank of the Mahury river. It is definitely an attracting place for canoeing, fishing or just have "créole" meal and wander around looking for fauna and flora. All ingredients for a "Sunday postcard" and give you a flavor of the gardens in Roura.

View of the Mahury river from the church square

Palmiers du Voyageur, Ravenala Madagascariensis

Private garden along the road

Garden in front of the Presbytère

???

Flowers of the Faux Flamboyant (Caesalpina Pulcherrima)

Les îles du Salut

The ESA MSG team was in excursion on Sunday 10/05 to the Salvation Islands. At lunch time, a nice encounter attracted a lot of attention!

A Scarlet macaw eating a chicken leg in the restaurant of the Royal island after a kind of robbery

After a tour of the Royale and Saint-Joseph Islands, less colourful postcards have been compiled from a place which is at first a memorial place…

Colours of Kourou

Even during the rainy season, Kourou appears as a colorful city. This is the result of the work of anonymous artists that have created this "open air museum" for the pleasure of those who just open their eyes. Few examples are shown below.

Rond Point des "Toucans"

 

Quartier Savane

Quartier de l'Anse

Quartier Simarouba

Village Indien

Zone Industrielle de Pariacabo

Centre Spatial Guyanais (Neptune Building)

...
Let's welcome with these Kourou colours the members of the ESA/ESTEC team that will join us today!

A Postcard from the Dutch Goden Age

The beginning of the Columbus era (>1492) started to unveil various aspects of the South American continent to the West. It is generally admitted that the first elaborated landscapes of these remote lands known in Europe are attributed to Frans Post (1612-1680) a Dutch painter who lived in Brazil between 1637 and 1644. He was commissioned by Johan Moritz von Nassau-Siegen, Dutch Governor in Brazil.

The Dutch Brazil (1630-1654) was at that time a large area located along the most Eastern part of Brazil. This is different from Suriname, a former Dutch colony established as from 1667, which is located at a slightly higher latitude. Suriname has a border with French Guiana.

Dutch Brasil, Credit Wikipedia

Despite different locations, the coastal and land views of the Dutch Brazil painted by Frans Post might show some resemblances with the Surinam and French Guyana ones we see today. All had and still have numerous wide muddy rivers meandering up the Atlantic ocean and huge areas of rain forest with a rich equatorial/tropical fauna and flora. 

The picture below, dated 1639, depicts a scenery along the San Francisco river located in the Alagoas. Frans Post surely wanted to impress his audience with the Cabiaï on the foreground not known in Europe. If the large treelike cactus evokes an exotic country, the low horizon line and the blue and grey woolly sky could remind a Dutch atmosphere from Jacob Ruysdael's or van Goyen's paintings.

Rio Sao Francisco and the Fort Maurice, with a Cabiaï in the foreground, 1639, Le Louvre

Frans Post completed only very few (6) out of the 140 paintings attributed to him while he was in Brazil. Curiously, most of the ones he made in Brazil are in Le Louvre (Paris) because they were presented (and sold?) by Jan Moritz van Nassau to Louis XIV. But still one of these "originals" can be admired in the famous Moritz' house in The Hague which is known today as the Mauritshuis, one of the most beautiful Dutch museum (see painting below).

View of the Itamaracá, island in brazil, 1637, Mauritshuis, Den Haag

Credit Wikipedia

In the "Brazilian" landscapes he made once back in Haarlem, Frans Post was working from memories and from the sketches he brought back with him. One can notice that he slightly changed style, using brighter colours, showing more imagination or fantasy. This produced baroque or even romantic effects as proved by the painting below:

Paulo Alfonso falls, 1649, Sao Paulo Museum of Art, 

Credit Wikipedia

In the same period, we should also not forget to mention Albert Eckhout (ca 1610-1665) who painted few local portraits and  still lifes from the Dutch Brazil. Some of his paintings are exposed in the Amsterdam  Rijksmuseum and in the Maurithuis (e.g. Study of two brazilian tortoises, ca 1640).

Last but not least, Dirk Valkenburg (1675-1721), two generation later, spent some years in Suriname where he made few paintings in the early 1700, but at that time the Dutch Brazil was over…

La Pointe des Roches

Today is Sunday and we would like to post not only one but five postcards giving an idea of what is likely one of the most fascinating location in Kourou: La Pointe des Roches.  Some of our colleagues used to stay at l'Hotel des Roches located there. The best moment to enjoy this place is probably in the morning at breakfast when all kind of exotic fruits from the French Guyana are served on the buffets. Some may prefer a jogging along the beach… As far as we are concerned, let's have a walk around the place.

Postcard#1: Hotel des Roches seen for the Dreyfus tower

The hotel is located along the beach with few palm trees directly growing on the shore. But unfortunately the place is not so peaceful as the sea is extremely aggressive and destroy regularly the  the beach. Opposite to the Hotel, the Iles du Salut can be seen 10 kilometers far away in the Atlantic ocean. The Horizon line is low and the skies are always amazing.

Postcard#2: Opposite to Hôtel des Roches: Les iles du Salut

Looking southwards, one can see the mouth of the Kourou river. The traffic of large Cargo (e.g. Toucan) coming from Europe carry elements of Ariane rockets is heavy there and can even be observed from the hotel.

Postcard#3: Mouth of the Kourou river

The strange construction that appears on the right side of the preceding picture is the semaphore tower known as the "Dreyfus tower". It was used at the time of the "bagne" to communicate with the Iles du Salut where some political prisoners (including Dreyfus) were kept. This Dreyfus tower looks today as a Mickey mouse construction that does not fit much with the surroundings but it is part of the memorial monument of the site.

Postcard#4: Dreyfus tower

This sadly reminds the past history of this remote piece of land. There was also a jail in Kourou located in the district of La Pointe des Roches but it has been destroyed when the hotel was constructed in the sixties. What is left now from this period are the ruins of the sea dock where the prisoners disembarked.

Postcard#5; Wharf in ruin...

Today this is, of course, not used anymore, and we can observe all these vestiges from the catamaran sailing from Kourou to the Iles du Salut. The starting point of this about 1 hour cruise is just few hundred meters ahead. By sailing on this portion of the Kourou river you can get in one shot all the views of these five postcards and realize that despite these somber memories, La pointe des Roches is definitely one of the most beautiful site of Kourou.