Edited to add (Sep 2017): This post is now officially outdated. The bridge has meanwhile be opened and can be used. Yippy!
Edited to add (Nov 2012): Construction of the bridge across the Oiapoque River – This information may soon be outdated. The construction of a bridge over the Oiapoque River was finished more than a year ago. Due to political reasons it hasn’t been opened yet and nobody knows when this will happen: tomorrow, next year, never. For the time being, you still depend on the car ferry.
The Cargo Boat Ferry
There is only one car ferry (cargo boat) that does the river crossing between Oiapoque, Brazil, and St. George de Oyapock in French Guiana. The company is based in Oiapoque so when you want to cross from the French Guiana side, take a passenger ferry to Brazil to make arrangements with the owner.
Name company: Lunay, located along the waterfront of Oiapoque (Brazilian side).
Owners: Señor Luis and Señor Wendell
GPS Waypoint: 3.500000, -51.500000
Price of Car Shipment
Lunay is a private company that charges a fixed price:
- 1 car = 200 euro
- 2 cars = 120 euro per car
- 4 cars = 80 euro per car
The cargo boat sails upon request (within reason, and depending on possible other passengers of course). The best course of action is to drop by, chat with the owner and see if there are any other car owners who want to share the costs.
Paperwork
- You have to leave the country on the same day you receive your passport exit stamp.
- After your exit papers for the car have been stamped, you have 48 hours to get the vehicle out of the country.
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Dear Koen and Karin-Marijke, thanks for all of your invaluable info here, great for those of us planning our trips… bedankt!
We are leaving in December with our family of 5, for a 5 month trip in Brazil. We can get a cargoboat to the north of Brazil, it also stops in French Guyana. Bureaucracy-wise, i think it might be better to unboard the ship in French Guyana. We also bring a car, customs clearance might be faster in French Guyana?
My question to you is: do you think it ok (possible at all, wise, fun, interesting) to travel by car from Guyana to Brasil in January/February?
Thanks for helping!
I’m not sure I understand your itinerary. Are you going from north to south or the other way around? In terms of paperwork, organizing a cargo boat in Brazil is not a lot of work at all. I don’t know about French Guiana in this respect. Jan-Feb is rainy season but that didn’t stop us from going. Carnaval in Cayenne (FG) is a 3 or 4 day spectacle, well worth a visit. We also enjoyed the state of Amapa, even though we did have to wait a couple of days because of broken bridges due to rain. Without 4×4 the northern part of Amapa may be a problem because it’s unpaved and lots of cars get stuck then. With our 4×4 we had no problem.
But whether you want to go FG and Amapa depends on your own interests of course. What is it you’re looking for in your journey?
Thanks! N–>S or S–>N, we don’t know yet… I will explain a bit better. We are a Dutch family living in Portugal, we travel starting in Dec., up to June ’16. Our car is a T5poptop, not 4×4, we do not really plan -but roughly have the idea to go to: Buenos Aires, the nordeste and -hopefully- Amazonas. To get to SA, we want to travel by cargo boat as passengers from Europe and are now considering the options. Grimaldi to Montevideo takes 34 days, while the boat to Fr. Guyana and north of Brasil takes only 15 days=> our preference. Hence the question to you: is the passage from Fr Guyana to Brazil, and the extreme north of Brazil navigable in Jan /Feb? …. or is it really wiser to start in the more accesible South? And would desembarking and custom-clearing a car arriving by cargoboat in Brasil be easy? Thanks for your help.
Weatherwise South to North would make much more sense especially if you don’t have 4×4 although you’ll only need that for 100 kms in the state of Amapa (northern part). The Guianas all have asphalted roads. The northeast of Brazil is dry and even if it rains, enough asphalt roads to either follow the coast or cut through the interior (in dry season it’s no problem to take unpaved roads). Hope that helps… Enjoy your trip
thanks!