{"id":4116,"date":"2025-01-04T10:00:20","date_gmt":"2025-01-03T23:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluedottravel.com.au\/?p=4116"},"modified":"2025-02-23T23:33:30","modified_gmt":"2025-02-23T12:33:30","slug":"ilies-du-salut-devils-island-french-guiana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.sydney-websites.com\/bluedotold\/ilies-du-salut-devils-island-french-guiana\/","title":{"rendered":"Ilies du Salut (Devils Island), French Guiana"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">When I was about 7 or 8, I watched the movie <i>Papillon\u00a0<\/i>with my parents at the local drive-in theatre in North Ryde. The Steve McQueen\/Dustin Hoffman classic greatly impacted me as a young boy, so almost 50 years later, I was excited to visit the islands off the coast of French Guiana, where the movie is set.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Kate and I arrived in Cayenne after driving from neighbouring Suriname (formerly Dutch Guiana) and crossing the border at St Laurent. We were collected by Mike, our driver, and Gwen, our guide, at the transport station where many of the convicts from France first arrived. The drive to Kourou, from where you depart for the islands, is about two hours through the jungle. The town itself is a big nothing (it exists primarily as a base for the European Space Centre), but the trip to the islands via catamaran is a gem!\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">There are three islands, the main one being Isle Royale, on which our guide walked us around all the major sites in about two hours. We visited the museum where, among other stories, you can read about the injustice of France\u2019s General Dreyfus, the old jails, including the solitary confinement cells, the officer\u2019s quarters and the hospital. There\u2019s also a cemetery, but this was not for the deceased prisoners, as they were just thrown into the water (with weights attached) for the sharks to feed on!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">The highlight of the day trip was St. Joseph Island, which, technically, we were not allowed to be on as it is not open to the public. The buildings and other infrastructure on this island have not been repaired at any stage so it is more authentic \u2013 and frankly, more spooky &#8211; than the others! Walking through the ruins and seeing the prisoner\u2019s tiny cells where they may have spent most of their life, you can\u2019t help but feel for them regardless of their crime.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">In the late 1940s, the then US President started to put pressure on the French Government to close the facility due to its barbaric nature, likened to Hitler\u2019s concentration camps. After much pressure, the islands ceased being used as a prison in the 1950s.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">I really enjoyed my visit to these historical islands. You can join Blue Dot Travel on our small group tour of the Guianas. <a href=\"https:\/\/bluedottravel.com.au\/contact\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span class=\"s2\">Contact us<\/span>\u00a0for more details.<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Story and photos by Brett Goulston<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I was about 7 or 8, I watched the movie Papillon\u00a0with my parents at the local drive-in theatre in North Ryde. The Steve McQueen\/Dustin Hoffman classic greatly impacted me as a young boy, so almost 50 years later, I was excited to visit the islands off the coast of French Guiana, where the movie [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4124,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[257],"tags":[441,440,272],"class_list":["post-4116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-americas","tag-french-guiana","tag-guyana","tag-suriname","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Ilies du Salut (Devils Island), French Guiana - Blue Dot Travel<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Devils Island in French Guiana is an island which is both famous and infamous. 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