Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni is French Guiana's second town and its most interesting one. It was built as the administrative capital of the penal colony: convicts sentenced in France were landed here, processed at the Camp de la Transportation, and sent on to the forest camps or to the Îles du Salut. The camp still stands in the middle of town, its cell blocks and solitary-confinement wing open on guided tours, with Papillon's supposed cell among the graffiti.
The rest of the old colonial quarter has the wide streets and shuttered administrative buildings of a place designed by the prison service, and it is slowly being restored. Beyond it, the town is a meeting point of peoples: Ndyuka and Aluku Maroons, descendants of Africans who escaped Dutch plantations and built their own societies upriver; Kali'na and other Amerindians; Hmong farmers; and French officials.
The Maroni is the border. Pirogues cross constantly to Albina in Suriname, and going upriver — to the rapids, the Maroon villages and eventually Maripasoula — is the main reason travellers come. It is about three hours from Cayenne by road.