Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni

Saint-Laurent was built as the reception port of France's penal colony, and it keeps the era's fabric with unusual honesty: the Camp de la Transportation's gate, cell blocks and courtyards - where tens of thousands of convicts landed between 1858 and the system's end - now stand as a classified monument toured with guides who tell the history straight, Papillon chapter included. Around the camp spreads a gridded colonial town of verandahed administration buildings and Creole houses, and in front runs the Maroni: the great border river whose pirogues, Maroon villages and market traffic give the town its living second identity as gateway to the river world upstream.

History

Saint-Laurent was founded in 1858 by Auguste Baudin as the arrival point of the penal colony, where convicts landed at the Camp de la Transportation, near an Amerindian settlement called Kamalakuli after its chief. On 15 September 1880 it became the capital of a special penitentiary commune whose mayor was the director of the prison administration, and its town hall was completed in 1907. Transportation of convicts was abolished on 17 June 1938, but the final closure came only in 1946, and on 9 November 1949 Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni became an ordinary commune (Wikipedia, Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni).

Highlights

• The Transportation Camp - gates, cells and courtyards of the penal era.
• The colonial grid - verandahed official quarters and Creole streets.
• The Maroni waterfront - pirogues and border-river commerce.
• The market days - Maroon, Creole and Hmong produce on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

When to go

July to December for drier wandering; market mornings (midweek and Saturday) put the town at its liveliest. Camp tours run to schedule - check times on arrival or ahead.

Good to know

The penal history is heavy and the best tours treat it with documentary seriousness rather than ghoulishness - bring the same. The town beyond the monuments is workaday; river trips upstream need arranging with piroguiers and time. Border-town practicalities (documents, currency for Suriname hops) reward forethought.

Nearby

The Maroni's Maroon villages, Awala-Yalimapo's turtle beach and Mana.

Key facts