French Guiana

To reach the Iles du Salut without reaching too far into your pockets, take the military boat from Kourou's Navy base (departs every morning). It's way cheaper than the regular boat service (indicated in your guide) and a lot more fun!
Philip Horchler (Aug 98)

All tourist-oriented institutions accept payments in USD, so there is no reason to change lots of money.
Devil's Island After one-hour sail by motorized catamaran you will land on Ile Royale. There are three islands, one by one, separated only by 200-meter wide, rough channels: Royal, the largest and in the middle; St. Joseph with a small beach (there is landing place-local boat can take you there) and Devil's Island on the left where they kept political prisoners in the past. Devil's Island is inaccessible due to rocky shores, currents and rough sea. That's why they used primitive cableway over the channel to provide all supplies. So in fact tourists can only see Devil's Island from the distance of 200 meters.
On the Ile Royale once they kept up to 2000 crime prisoners. There are remains of barracks, chapel, lighthouse and prison hospital. In the former guard's mess they have restaurant and hotel (charging 300 FF per night) and small gift shop. Backpackers can sling hammocks in former barrack paying 60 FF. There is a convenient path along the coast heading around the island-it takes about 45 minutes to make complete circle.
Since it is treated as a part of France there are inexpensive flights from Paris to Cayenne: 290 USD each way with AOM Minerve. It is probably at the moment the least expensive way from Europe to South America. From Guyana you can enter Brazil via Saint Georges de L'Oyapock but so far they didn't finish the road from the capital to Saint Georges: To get there you must take domestic flight (300 FF one way) or a boat sailing once per month.
Wojciech Dabrowski - Poland (Apr 98).

For more news, views and the odd bit of gibberish, drop in on the soc.culture.latin-america and rec.travel.latin-america newsgroups.

For detailed up-to-date travel information check out Lonely Planet's Destination French Guiana.