AT A GLANCE
Why go?
The Sentier des Salines is a well-maintained walking trail on the edge of Montjoly Beach in Rémire-Montjoly, just minutes from the center of Cayenne in French Guiana. It threads through a remarkable mosaic of ecosystems — dune ridge, flooded savanna, mangrove, and open beach — offering an easy yet immersive nature walk that feels worlds away from the town behind it.↗↗
At just over one kilometer one-way, this level-A trail is the kind of outing locals bring their children to after school and visitors use to acclimate to Guianese coastal nature. Wooden boardwalks carry you into the mangrove canopy, a carbet observation hut looks out over a lagoon alive with birds, and between May and August the adjacent beach hosts nesting leatherback and olive ridley sea turtles.↗↗
A Coastal Wetland Inside the City
The word "salines" here has nothing to do with human salt harvesting. The name refers to the natural salt deposits that form after seawater floods the lagoon and evaporates. The Salines de Montjoly is a roughly 63-hectare wetland basin trapped behind a sandy dune ridge, its water level rising in the rainy season and becoming briny during the dry months. The result is a rare inland lagoon on a coastline otherwise dominated by mud and mangrove.