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| Brown Boobie Flying |
After lunch, however, we had a busy day. At 3:00, we jumped on a boat to go birdwatching. I never thought that I would say this, but I was so excited to see the birds. The primary reason for this is that one of the small islands just off the coast of Tsarabajina is home to a pair of Madagascar fish eagles! They're beautiful birds -- kind of like a bald eagle, but brown and a bit featherier -- and they're critically endangered. Obviously, seeing one of the rarest birds in the world is a pretty exciting prospect and I've been looking for them our entire trip. We saw one immediately, perched on a tree, looking right at us. It was amazing.
From there, we pushed out to a set of four islands called Les Quatre Freres (the Four Brothers). They're four large lumps of basalt, rising 50-90 meters from the sea. Two of them -- Nosy Beangovo and Nosy Betalinjona -- are home to large populations of birds. We saw tons of brown boobies (relatives to the more commonly known blue-footed boobie), brown noddies, frigate birds, and white-tailed tropic birds. We got really close to a few colonies of these birds and it was really cool. I never thought that birdwatching could be as fun as it is before we came to Madagascar.
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| Sunset on Tsarabanjina |
As soon as we landed back on Tsarabanjina, we rushed over to get massages. The spa is in a small, three-sided bungalow at the end of the south beach. It looks out over the ocean and we got to listen to the waves crashing onto the rocks throughout our massage. The experience was incredibly relaxing.
We were both pretty spent after dinner and opted out of another late night at the bar. The sun had taken its toll, so we turned in around 10:00 to rest up for yet another exciting day.
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