Our Last Day on Tsarabanjina

October 15 -- It was our last full day on Tsarabanjina, so we decided to take it easy and soak in as much of the beauty as we could.  After a lazy morning, we took another snorkeling trip, this time around the point at the far end of the north beach.  The amount of sea life right off of the beach was simply amazing.  It was like swimming through a forest of coral.  We saw another puffer fish, sea anemones, sea slugs, and a few giant starfish.

The rest of our day was spent walking along the beaches, drinking at the bar, and relaxing at our bungalow.  One of my favorite parts of Tsarabanjina are the three iconic blue swinging benches scattered between the north and south beaches.  They offer the perfect contrast to the white sand beaches and provide an ideal spot to watch the sun set over the island.

Where Has the Time Gone?

The Traveler's Palm

October 14 -- It feels like only yesterday that we arrived on Tsarabanjina, yet our stay is almost over.  Today was very relaxing.  In the morning, we took a quick botanical walk from the restaurant to the reception and learned about a number of plants.  Unfortunately, our guide only knew the Italian name of many of the plants, so my ability to describe them here is limited.  Nevertheless, we saw jackfruits, pink peppercorn plants, papaya trees, vanilla plants, and a variety of incredibly beautiful (but unnamed) flowers.

Out of all of Madagascar's flora, its palms are perhaps the most impressive.  There are approximately 200 different species of palm trees on Madagascar, and 189 of those are found nowhere else on Earth.  The adaptations are astounding.  For example, there is one type of palm that, rather than growing seeds, it sprouts young buds up its trunk that subsequently fall off and become whole trees.  Yet, as impressive as the Malagasy palms are, the two most impressive species are not actually palms at all.  The most famous -- the traveler's palm -- found its was to being the logo for Air Madagascar.  It's actually a species of banana tree, but it looks like a palm and its giant leaves collect watter inside their base so a thirsty traveler need only take a machete to one of its leaves to find water.  The second "false" palm is commonly called a Madagascar palm.  In truth, it's a large succulent, called a pachypodium because it looks like an elephant's leg.  The tree is covered in spines that serve the dual purpose of keeping lemurs away from the tree's delicious fruits and collecting/storing water.  In other parts of the country, the pachypodium is referred to as a "tourista trap" because tourists will grab it to stabilize themselves, not seeing the spines on the dark gray bark.

Kati Admiring the Sunset

After a long day relaxing on the beach, the staff treated all of us to a bit of a party.  We had an aperitivo on the beach, complete with a Malagasy band, dancing, and some great appetizers.  There were chicken skewers (with some of the juiciest chicken I've ever had), several kinds of fish and beef carpaccio, fresh oysters, and a Malagasy take on pizza.  We befriended a nice British couple from London that had to come to the island by helicopter because Air Madagascar (aka 'Air Maybe') changed their flight at the last minute and they arrived too late to take a boat to the island.

For dinner, Kati had some mediocre lamb and I had some really good calamari, both paired with an excellent Malagasy red wine (yes, I drank red wine with calamari, and it was great).  Between the many aperitivo drinks and our bottle of wine at dinner, Kati and I were both a bit inebriated and more than a little exhausted, so we started the trek back to the south beach early, stopping to admire the star-filled sky for a bit before turning in for the night.

Another Day in Paradise

Kati Hiking Around Tsarabanjina

October 13 -- We've fallen into a routine now.  It's an easy life, punctuated by the arrival and departure of the other guests.  The morning was for relaxation and sun.  We had originally planned to walk around the island in the morning, but we dropped all of our clothes off to be laundered when we arrived and hadn't gotten them back yet.  Especially with my illness, the luxury of laundry cannot be overstated, nor can my exuberance at returning around 11:00 to a stack of newly washed and pressed clothes.

After lunch, we set off around the island.  While there wasn't an easy "path," as we had been led to believe, it wasn't too difficult of a walk.  Most of the coastline is basalt, weathered by years of rising tides.  In total, it probably took us about an hour and a half to walk all the way around the island.  We saw tons of crabs (several different species), a Malagasy kingfisher snacking on a sardine, and a small population of very pretty dimorphic egrets.  Because we were walking not long before high tide, we also got to see some fantastic waves crashing up against the rocks in front of us.  We also decided that the south beach (our beach) was much better than the north beach.  After a few celebratory cocktails at the bar, we headed back to our bungalow to watch the sunset and get ready for dinner.

Crab on the Rocks

In the evening, we had a pleasant surprise.  Eric, the restaurant manager, had arranged for Kati and me to have a private dinner on one of the highest hills on the island.  They had decorated it with paper lanterns and candles, and it was incredible!  Beneath a star-filled sky, Kati and I toasted a Malagasy rose wine and dined on ham croquettes, eggplant and feta cannelloni, some phenomenal glazed duck, and a chocolate dessert that was to die for.  We capped the night with a glass of Amarula, which is advertised as "the drink of Africa," and is very similar to Bailey's.  It's really quite good.

Kati and Me at Dinner

Beneath the Malagasy Sun

Brown Boobie Flying

October 12 -- We spent yesterday morning relaxing by the beach and soaking in the rays.  The original plan was to spend the morning walking around the perimeter of the island, but the activities of the night before gently persuaded us to forego significant activities in the morning.

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.

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.

The Sealife of Tsarabanjina

Kati and Me Snorkeling 

October 11 -- Our first day on Tsarabanjina was incredible.  In the morning, we stopped in to look at the island's turtle hatchery.  Every year, several different kinds of sea turtles come to Tsarabanjina to lay their eggs.  Each female lays approximately 400 eggs and only about one out of every 1,000 will make it through the perilous journey down the beach and into the open ocean.  Because the survival rate is so low, the island staff does their best to save a few turtles that aren't going to make it and care for them until they can be released into the wild.  They currently have two hawksbill turtles and two loggerhead turtles in the hatchery, but will probably release them in the next month or two.

Later in the day, we went snorkeling at a reef around the island.  It was Kati's first time snorkeling and she was a bit concerned at first, but by the end, she didn't want to get out of the water!  Even though it was a bit overcast, the colors were still amazing and we saw just about every local reef fish possible.  Our guide is Milanese and spent the last two years working at the sister resort in the Maldives (tough life!).  She was great with helping acclimate Kati to breathing through her mouth.  She even took my camera to do some deep dives to the base of the reef and take pictures for us.

We spent our afternoon relaxing on the beach before walking over for dinner and drinks.  They were having a Malagasy party, so we all donned lambas (i.e., sarongs) to learn how to wear them and how to dance.  The party started with cocktails on a viewpoint where we had some fantastic kebabs and watched the sunset.  Afterwards, we went into the bar for a quick lesson on Malagasy history.  They used Kati and me as models for the various ways you can wear a lamba and then had a few of the locals, dressed in traditional garb, show us some Malagasy dancing (and force us into doing some ourselves).  It was a lot of fun.

During the ordeal, we befriended a couple from Scotland - Matt and Rachel.  He is a psychiatrist and she is a children's psychologist.  They were a very interesting pair and had also done a fair amount of traveling on mainland Madagasacar.  We ended up getting dinner with them, swapping travel stories, and then spent the evening together at the bar.  In the spirit of the evening, there was a traditional Malagasy dinner -- a pumpkin soup to start, followed by a cooked octopus mixture and some sort of local cake-like dessert.  The soup was very good.  Kati liked the rest of it, but I certainly did not.  The octopus just seemed too chewy and fishy.  I've had octopus cooked well, and this just did not meet my particular tastes.

Kati and Rachel were intrigued by the various infused rums that they make on the island and set out

Kati, Erica, and Jean-Michelle

to try all of them (I'm pretty sure they succeeded).  Some of them -- the ginger-cinnamon and vanilla -- were very good.  Others, like the banana-infused rum didn't do it for me.  Then there was the weird one: Citronella-infused rum.  It smelled like deet and it didn't taste much better.  Even the locals were laughing when Kati and Rachel were asking about it.  They had hoped that, even if it tasted bad, it would help keep the mosquitos away.  Henri, however, was quick to point out that it would probably keep the mosquitos out of their stomachs, but little else.  

The four of us closed the bar out around midnight and walked home over the "secret" rock path between the bar and the south beach.  Kati not only spotted, but caught a pretty large crab by doing what, by all accounts, was a very distracting dance that confused the crab so she could sneak behind it and grab it from the back!  All-in-all, it was a wonderful day.

Hey, Tsarabanjina...

Wow!!  Constance Tsarabanjina isn't particularly easy to get to, but boy is it worth it!  We took a 1.5 hour flight from Tana to Nosy Be (pronounced 'noosey bay'), then got in a car for a 40 minute drive to the beach by the Manga Soa Lodge where we got on a boat for the hour ride to Nosy Tsarabanjina.  The name means "good-looking island," and man is it accurate!  We finally arrived to a beach full of waving staff members around 6:00 p.m.  (Though they claim to be an hour ahead of Tana here, the internet and my iPhone disagree.)  The sun was setting and it could not have been more perfect.

Nosy Tsarabanjina is a private island occupied only by our hotel - Constance Tsarabanjina.  There are 25 bungalows spread out over two beaches - one on the south and one on the north.  There is also a third beach in front of the restaurant and bar.  Henri, the manager, walked us to our bungalow, stopping to show us the helipad, the ping-pong table, and the beach volleyball court.  Our bungalow (#9) is on the south beach.  Like all of our neighbors, we have our own shaded porch, hammock, and private section of the beach.  The sand is as white as I've ever seen, and the ocean is an amazing teal-blue.  It is hard to imagine a place more beautiful or relaxing than Tsarabanjina.

To make things even better, there is a direct flight from Milan to Nosy Be, so everyone here speaks

Italian and many of the guests are Italian.  It's nice being able to understand most people again!  Nevertheless, Kati and I always make a point to speak in Malagasy as much as possible to the staff.  It's funny because you can tell that nobody does that around here.  All of the Europeans come down, not knowing a word of Malagasy, and just expect the staff to speak to them in their own languages.  I love seeing the look of shock on their faces, followed by genuine appreciation, when we make the effort and speak to them in their native tongue.

Not only is Tsarabanjina mind-blowingly beautiful, the service is impeccable and the food is outstanding.  For our first dinner we had zucchini flan and crusted fish appetizers, followed by some amazing grilled prawns (each bigger than my hand), and a chocolate mousse cake for dessert.  It's hard to beat that coupled with a good wine list and an attentive staff willing to make you a wide variety of island frufru drinks.  It's going to be a great week!

Touring Tana

Kati and Me at the Rova

October 10 -- After a light breakfast at the Consulate, we took a tour of Antananarivo.  While there are some cool sights around the city, neither of us particularly likes Tana.  It's huge, dirty, polluted, and rather dangerous.  Still, the tour was a lot of fun.

Tana was originally a Vazimba town called Analamanga, which means "the blue forest."  Its name came from the forests -- which, from a distance are said to have looked blue -- that previously covered the area.  Then, in the 16th century, a Merina king conquered the town and renamed it Antananarivo, "the city of thousands," because there were allegedly thousands of warriors protecting it.  The city is built on a number of large hills, making it difficult to attack (and difficult to walk!).

Our tour started at the highest point, where the rova (the royal palace) is located.  Until the mid-1800s, the Merina kings lived in very modest houses at the rova, but Queen Ranavalona I changed that by building a massive stone palace for herself.  Unfortunately, in 2005 the palace was burned to the ground.  The Malagasy claim it was a natural event, but other sources suggest arson.  The UN has already invested more than $20 million painstakingly reconstructing it with as much of the original stone as possible.  Though progress was going well, in 2009 the coup d'etat caused significant problems and work has been halted indefinitely.

The cliffs near the rova, called Ampamarinana -- "the place of hurling" -- had long been used to kill those offending the royal family, but they gained even more infamy under Queen Ranavalona I.  Her husband, Radama I, was the first King of Madagascar.  In the early 1800s, he united the entire island and developed a great relationship with the British.  Under Radama's reign, the British set up a number of schools to train craftsman and teachers.  They also built several churches, created a written form of the Malagasy language, and wrote the first English-Malagasy dictionary.  Unlike in other parts of the country, Christianity found many converts in the Merina people.  When Queen Ranavalona I took the throne, however, she undid much of her husband's good work.  Because of her strict traditionalism and brutal actions, she is often referred to as the "Wicked Queen."  Most significantly, Queen Ranavalona outlawed Christianity and forced all converts to voluntarily come forward, disavow their new religion, and seek forgiveness for departing from tradition.  Those that did not come forward were killed.  Many Malagasy Christians were martyred when, after refusing to denounce their religion, they were wrapped in cloth and thrown off the Ampamarinana cliffs alive!

In addition to the rova, we saw the old Palace of Justice -- a Roman-style forum in which the king would administer justice to his subjects -- a few really cool churches, the Presidential Palace, the Central Bank, and all of the other typical governmental icons.

One very interesting facet to the city is that there are rice fields interspersed among the more

traditional aspects of the city.  It's these areas where the very poor live and work.  In one such area, we stopped in an artisan's market to peruse a bit before heading to the airport.  Frustratingly, many of their products were made from rosewood, so we bought little.  Madagascar is the only place in the world that you can find rosewood and it's supposed to be protected.  It's both illegal to use it and to export it.  Nevertheless, rosewood forests are being logged at an alarming rate to satiate foreign desire for the pretty wood.  China is the main culprit, as its citizens will pay virtually any sum for furniture made from rosewood.  Recently, there were reports of a small bedroom set made entirely from rosewood being sold for several million dollars.  The Malagasy government is outwardly opposed to rosewood trafficking, but the general consensus here is that it is the government that sanctions and/or profits from much of the illegal trafficking activities.

As usual, our guides dropped us at the airport unnecessarily early, so we spent a solid two hours waiting for our flight (which was thankfully on time).  Next stop, Nosy Be!

Back to Tana

With our jaunt through Western Madagascar over, it was time for us to head back to Antananarivo.  Our flight was originally scheduled to leave Morondava around 2:30 p.m., but, Air Madagascar is notoriously unreliable.  Those working so hard to promote Malagasy tourism are frustrated to no end by this fact.

When we got back to Morondava the night before, around 7:30, we pulled into a rundown building that had a giant white-board propped up against a dilapidated column with times scrawled all over it.  That's how Air Madagascar communicates its flight times...on a white board in an abandoned parking lot.  Sitting there, we found that our flight had been delayed by two hours!  We were supposed to get into Tana before then and have an afternoon tour of the city, but in that second, our plans were completely thrown off.  Oh well, we knew this could happen and we just had to roll with it.

Kati and I spent the morning relaxing around the hotel.  We walked down to the beach to see the local fisherman, watch some sand crabs scurry around, and get up close and personal with an outrigger canoe.  It was those outriggers that the Malagasy ancestors used to migrate from Indonesia to Madagascar nearly 2000 years ago.

Marc and Faly picked us up at 2:30, insisting that we had to get to the airport two hours before our flight.  I'm not sure why this was because there was literally no security.  We were on the only flight out of Morondava.  (There was also only one flight coming in)  On the way to the airport we saw one of the best things we've seen during our trip -- something that we've been hoping to see since we got here: a Malagasy man in a Kentucky Wildcats hat!  Unfortunately, we were driving too fast and couldn't stop to get a picture with him.  The only thing that would have made it better would be if it were a UK 2015 National Championship hat.

When we got to the airport, we stood in line for 30 minutes to check our bags and get our tickets, but then we were done and left with 1.5 hours to sit and wait.  Then, 4:30 came and went.  Finally, they came on the loudspeaker to say that the flight was running late.  It finally landed around 4:50 and we boarded immediately after those arriving disembarked.  It was 7:00 before we got into Tana, and we still had an hour drive into the heart of the city to get to our hotel.  

The central highlands of Madagascar (where Tana is located) was populated by a different group of people than the west.  In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Sakalava people -- the tribes from Western Madagascar -- effectively dominated the island.  This was primarily because they were the ones who came into contact with European traders and obtained guns before anyone else.  They also came to Madagascar in a separate migration and the African influence is much more pronounced.  They have darker skin and have adapted some Bantu words into their language.  In contrast, the Merina (who settled the central highlands) are much more physically and culturally similar to their Malay-Indonesian ancestors.  They are also the people that united Madagascar under a single ruler for the first time in the early 19th century.  The cultural differences were immediately visible driving through Tana, from the style of shops to the types of things being sold (e.g., bulk spices, Asian-looking hand foods).

Now about our hotel...I didn't know what to expect, but I certainly didn't expect what we got.  We stayed in the Consulate for Monaco!  The Consulate is housed in an old colonial house built in the 19th century by Joseph Simon Galleini, the first French Governor-General of Madagascar.  The first floor has just a handful of rooms that the consulate rents out as guest rooms.  The wait staff serves both the guests and the Resident, who lives on the third floor.  Our room was uber-modern and opened up right to the Consulate's private pool!

The only problem with staying at the Consulate was that they didn't have the ability to feed us when we showed up at 8:00.  Instead, one of the guards walked us down to another hotel which had great food, but horrible service.  After dinner, we were both so exhausted and glad to be done with the day, that we laid down to enjoy our perfectly air-conditioned room and excellent bed.

The Long Drive Back to Morondava

October 8 -- It's my birthday!  Thankfully, when I woke up today, I was feeling a bit better.  Better, but not great.  None of us were excited about the prospect of me on an 11-hour trip down a bumpy dirt road in a 4x4, but there was no other option.  I loaded up with water, downed a pharmacy worth of medications, and settled in for the long drive.

The trip wasn't nearly as bad as any of us expected.  The strangest part of the trip was that, not far outside of Bekopaka, we drove past four French guys - two on bikes and two running.  Apparently, they're ultra-runners and were running from Bekopaka to...somewhere.  It's ~80 km from Bekopaka to Belo, and they caught up to us while we ate in Belo, so there is no way that they ran that whole distance.  Still, they were running in 90+ degree weather, without any shade, and one of them was running without any water!

By the time we stopped in Belo for lunch, I was feeling well enough to eat real food for the first time in 24 hours.  It wasn't much, but it was an improvement.  Much to my chagrin, however, one of the meds they put me on means that I can't drink for 48 hours after I take it...I'm going to be stopping that one as soon as possible!

Even the ferry ride across the Tsiribihina wasn't too bad.  There was one hell of a line waiting for the ferry when we showed up, but we made it on.  It's a good thing too, because otherwise we would have been stuck there until the late afternoon and would have missed watching the sunset along the Allee des Baobabs!  They packed the ferries as full as possible.  Ours had six cars on it and dozens of people, so Kati and I stayed in the car with the windows down, enjoying the breeze.  The most entertaining part was watching almost a dozen Malagasy men trying to push a one ton (or more) engine up the steep, muddy hill from the ferry.  Even by the time we left, they had only made it a matter of feet!

After the crossing, the road got noticeably rougher and more difficult on my stomach.  Kati eased the pain, however, because she'd had some of my best friends (and family) send her pictures and songs that reminded them of me and made a 30th birthday playlist for me!  It was amazing.

At around 3:00, we stopped by the Great Baobab.  Mark says that, based on its size, they believe it's about 800 years old.  The problem with baobabs is that, unlike most trees, they don't have rings, so they are much more difficult to age.  He also told us the story behind why the Great Baobab is sacred. The tribe that settled Western Madagascar is called the Sakalava.  Many years ago, a Sakalava princess was traveling through that area and stopped at the nearby village asking for water.  She sat down at the base of the Great Baobab, stressed out because she had thus far been unable to give her husband a child.  As she sat there, she spoke to the baobab and wished that she could get pregnant.  She promised that, if she did, she would come back and sacrifice "many zebu" in its honor.  Six months later, she was pregnant.  She didn't think much of it until a year later when she remembered sitting under the baobab tree and the promise that she made that day.  So, she rounded up a number of zebu and took a caravan of people out into the country to find it again and fulfill her promise.  When she did, she told the villagers from that day on, no one was to harm the Great Baobab because it was sacred.  To this day, the Malagasy believe that tree to be connected with their ancestors and venerate it accordingly.

The highlight of the day was undoubtedly the Allee des Baobabs, and we hit it perfectly!  We got

there maybe 15 minutes before sunset (and the sun sets fast here).  The only way to describe it is as "incredible."  We got some amazing pictures, but even they don't do it justice.

We finally made it to Morondava around 7:00, and driving through the city at night was an entirely different experience.  There was still a lot of hustle and bustle, but of a very different kind.  We stayed at the Palissandre Cote Ouest Resort & Spa -- way on the Western end of Morondava, and right on the  coast.  I was still recovering from my illness, so we grabbed a quick dinner (I still ate very little), and then retired to relax in the room.  The only problem was that, even though we had an "air conditioner" in our room, it didn't really cool anything off very much and we were forced to sleep in the sweltering heat.

The Grand Tsingy and My Medical Mishap

In the Grand Tsingy

October 7 -- It was my last day being 29 and, looking back on it, it was fitting (in an ironic way) that I should leave my twenties in much the same way that I spent them -- that is, having grand ambitions, making poor choices, trying to do too much, and ultimately ending up on my back, miserable, vomiting, and cursing my stupidity.

To say that I didn't sleep well the night before is an understatement.  Though I had to be awake for breakfast at six so we could leave for the Grand Tsingy at 6:30, I slept little after 4:00.  That's when I woke up in a cold sweat, feeling horrible.  Nevertheless, this hike through the Grand Tsingy -- which Kati not-so-affectionately calls "the death hike" -- was the impetus for planning this whole adventure through Western Madagascar.  I was not about to miss it because I didn't sleep well and didn't feel great.  At breakfast, I could barely eat anything.  That should have been yet another sign that I was making the wrong decision, but I ignored it and pushed on.  Meanwhile, Kati was still sleeping and dreaming of her coming day relaxing by the pool.

Faly and Mark picked me up at 6:30 and we headed into town to grab Tivy on our way to the Grand Tsingy.  Driving through the residential side of town was very interesting because I got to see how the Malagasy actually live when no one is watching.  Most shockingly, I saw a butcher chop the head off of a newly killed, hanging zebu as he prepared to cut it up for the day's product.  We also drove by a brick works and a very primitive (and entirely manual) quarry on the outskirts of town.

The drive to the Grand Tsingy took about an hour, and I was feeling a bit better.  I loaded my backpack with nearly three liters of water for the upcoming trip and had been drinking constantly in hopes of replenishing the fluids that I had sweat out the night before.  By the time we reached the "base camp" for the Grand Tsingy hike, I felt good enough to eat half of a cliff bar that I brought.  Tivy showed me the path we would be taking on a large stone map.  It was a 3 km hike that was supposed to take no longer than four hours.  He expected us to finish in two.  On any other day, I suspect he would have been right on the mark.

The first kilometer consisted mainly of walking through the woods, descending into the rock maze that erosion had carved out in the bowels of the tsingy, and then pushing through an extended (and narrow) cave to the base of the true tsingy.  I found myself sweating profusely not even halfway through that first section, but I chalked it up to the heat and exerting myself too hard when I had eaten so little.  After asking for a break, I felt good enough to continue and shrugged off my condition.

The maze was incredible.  We must have been 50 meters below the tops of the rocks, walking through abnormally shaped passages created by Mother Nature herself.  The system of ladders and make-shift rock footholds we used to go up and down the maze were a ton of fun.  The cave was also cool (both figuratively and literally), but by the time we reached the end of it, I was feeling bad again and took another break.  This time, however, I didn't feel fully recovered when I started back up.  I also couldn't bear to eat any more of my cliff bar because my mouth was too dry.

As we started through our final section of forest before we hit the first climb up the tsingy, Tivy spotted a troop of at least eight or nine red-fronted brown lemurs.  They were on a mission to do...something.  I used the lemurs as an excuse to take another break in the hopes of regaining my strength, taking a few minutes to snap some pictures of them leaping from tree to tree and playing with each other.  Then it was time for the climb.

I took a few big gulps of water, clipped myself into the safety lines provided on these sections, and followed Tivy up the side of a 50 meter rock face, taking each step with care.  About halfway up, I lost my strength and tried to catch my breath.  After a few minutes of waiting, Tivy said that there were other groups behind us and that if I needed a rest, we needed to back down to the base.  As I started my descent, I felt it coming and quickened my pace in a panic, only just making it to a ledge out of the way of the trail before I lost what should have been my breakfast, but in reality was only neon-yellow water.  Tivy and Mark were very understanding  and helpful, dousing me in cold water and giving me as much time as I needed.  They asked if I wanted to turn back, but I insisted that I would be ok and wanted to move forward.  After all, when in my life will I ever be back here?

Fifteen minutes later, after I had obviously emptied my stomach, I said that I was ready to go.  Mark kindly offered to carry my backpack, and I started the ascent again.  This time, with significant effort, I made it to the top!  But it took everything out of me.  I had to break at the top, under the shade of a rock for quite some time and had to admit to myself, and Tivy and Mark, that I couldn't go on.  Tivy took me up the additional 15 feet to the viewpoint so I could at least see what the climb was all about. It was incredible!  Unfortunately, being in the hot sun exasperated my illness and made me very faint, so I had to back down right after Tivy pointed out a Decken's Sifaka way in the distance.  I was even too faint to ask Tivy to take a picture of me in front of the tsingy.

The descent was not fun.  We took it slow and Tivy made a point to clip me in and out of all of the safety lines as Mark carried my gear.  Luckily, Tivy knew a shortcut that allowed us to circumvent the maze and take a pretty easy walk through the forest.  Though, it was still long and wore me out more than it should have.  Back at the car, they put me in the front seat and laid it all the way back for the drive to the hotel.  As the day progressed, I felt worse and worse.

By the time I made it to the hotel, I felt like death.  I found Kati relazing by the pool, explained why I was back early, and plodded off to the room to lay down.  Not long after, Mark came to talk to Kati, very concerned about me and what disease I had contracted.  He insisted that I be tested for malaria, so the three of them loaded me into the car and drove me into town to see a Malagasy doctor.  The office was like many Malagasy buildings and not necessarily clean or sterile, but the doctor pulled out an official WHO-issued malaria test (scary that I know what those look like).  She spoke only French, and Mark's English, while good, does not extend to medical issues, so the language barrier was difficult.

The Doctor's Office

The general consensus was that I was very sick because she had to prick my finger three times just to get enough blood for the test.  Luckily, the test came back negative.  I told them that it would, because we had only been in the country for six days and it takes at least seven days after being infected for malaria to manifest.  The doctor ultimately gave us a number of medications that she insisted we take and charged us 50,000 ariary (~$15.38).  It's ridiculous that a doctor visit, anti-malarial test, and medications cost less than my copay to see a doctor in the US!  And, she called Mark on our drive back to suggest adding an antibiotic, which Mark just picked up at the pharmacy without any prescription or anything.  Still, we had no idea what the meds were, or any side effects or risks.  Luckily, we have a top-notch pharmacist on call.  Dr. Powell gave us all of the information we needed and told Kati exactly what I needed to do.

The remainder of the day was a painful blur.  I ate nothing.  I drank my body weight in fluids, but lost all of it almost immediately, either through sweat or otherwise.  Staring down the face of a 12-hour trip back to Morondava along a bumpy dirt road the next day was unpleasant at best.  Yet, if we didn't make it to Morondava in time for our flight on October 9, we would be stuck here for three or four more days.

The Manambolo River and the Petite Tsingy

Kati, (Moxie), and Me at a Cave Along the Manambolo River

After nearly five days of traveling, we finally made it to Bekopaka and the highlight for the first week of our trip - the Tsingy de Bemaraha.  This national park (also a UNESCO World Heritage Site) was one of the primary reasons that we decided to come to Madagascar.

This area of the country is unique both because of the ubiquity of limestone and the drastic changes in the water level.  In the rainy season (December through March), the Manambolo River rises ten feet!  Not only does it flood vast stretches of fields and farmland, it puts large portions of the tsingy underwater!  The current in the river becomes so strong that it is not navigable using the pirogues the locals rely on.  Moreover, the only road between Bekopaka and Belo becomes unpassable.  In effect, the residents of Beokpaka are stranded and helpless for four months out of the year.  To make matters worse, the Manambolo River is rife with Nile crocodiles that are not shy about feasting on unsuspecting Malagasy and their zebus!  Yet, it is this insane aquarian change that makes the tsingy so fantastic.  

The rising and falling water has carved out much of the limestone in the area into formations that look truly surreal.  The area is split into two parts - the Grand Tsingy and the Petite Tsingy.  In the Grand Tsingy, there are "pinnacles" of limestone (think giant stalagmites) that stand more than 100 meters tall.  The Petite Tsingy is much smaller (hence the name), but still made from the same erosive processes.  The Manambolo River also poses such an insurmountable barrier to many terrestrial critters that the fauna in the tsingy can be found nowhere else in the world, or in the country.  More than 80% of the animals in the tsingy are found only in the tsingy.  For example, Decken's Sifaka, while very similar to its southern relative - the Verreaux's Sifaka - can only be found in the tsingy.  Similarly, several species of plated lizards are exclusively found in the tsingy.

We started our day with a trip in pirogues - dug-out canoes made from a single tree - up the Manambolo River.  I was shocked to learn that each pirogue is used for a maximum of three years, even when it's made from the best wood possible.  The fact that that I thought pirogues would last for three times that long is just further proof that I would not make a good Malagasy worker.  

Marc and Tivy (our local guide) were fantastic.  We saw a cave that, when the river is high, is a haven for crocodiles, but when the water is low, houses colonies of bats.  I only caught a glimpse of a bat, as our flashlights scared them away, but it was neat nonetheless.  We also saw a variety of Malagasy birds, including egrets and what the locals call Vikiviks, after the call that they make.

Our trip up the river culminated at the tombs of the Vazimbas.  The Vazimbas were the first people to colonize Madagascar.  For a long time, people thought that they were aboriginals, but the archaeological research done in the country has not turned up any evidence to support that claim.  It's now widely accepted that the Vazimbas were the first Malay-Indonesian immigrants to make it to Madagasacar and that the remaining groups now on the island simply made the same trip later in history.  The Vazimba "buried" their dead in concealed crevices of the rocks along the Manambolo, just high enough that they would not be washed away during the rainy season.  We didn't actually climb up to look at the skeletons, but it was pretty cool to see where people buried their dead nearly two thousand years ago.

After we made it back down the river to Bekopaka, we set off into the Petite Tsingy.  We followed a

Kati and Me in the Petite Tsingy

two-hour circuit that led us down into the rock maze below the tsingy, up and down to see the mini-pinnacles, and then on a walk through the woods surrounding the tsingy to see some wildlife.  It was hot as could be, but it was at least a little cooler in the shaded forest.  Plus, we got to see a ton of cool critters.  We found a French Sparrow Hawk, a Magpie-Robin, a Crested Coua, and a variety of different lizards.  We did see a few Decken's Sifaka's, but they were way up at the top of a fig tree and obscured by leaves.  My hope is that tomorrow, in the Grand Tsingy, I'll be lucky enough to see a few more sifakas and maybe even a Madagascar Fish Eagle (one of the rarest birds in the world)!

We made it back to our hotel by noon and had the rest of the afternoon to relax by the pool.  It was a pleasant surprise because we had thought that our tsingy explorations would be all-day affairs.  Having some time to ourselves to rest up and relax was a surprise that neither of us realized we needed so much!

Driving to Bekopaka

 Kati and Me on the Ferry

Today we continued up the Malagasy equivalent of Route 1 - the dirt road that runs from Morondava to Bekopaka and is only passable during the dry season.  We had just 100 km of road left but it took us almost eight hours to get to Bekopaka!  Now, in all fairness, about 2.5 hours were spent crossing the Tsiribihina River and in Belo Sur Tsiribihina, but still.

The road is torturous.  In just the three hours before we made it to the Tsiribihina River, we saw four cars that had broken down.  The driver of one old-school jeep had apparently gotten a flat, but didn't have a spare tire, so he took the bad tire off, started a fire, and set out to patch the hole himself.  The Malagasy are nothing if not ingenious when it comes to fixing problems without spending money.

"Tsiribihina" roughly translates to "that river which you must not try to cross."  It got its name because of a large population of Nile Crocodiles that inhabit the deep river.  In the past, they had used makeshift wooden rafts to cross the river, and I was getting excited as we pulled up to have that kind of hardcore jungle experience.  Unfortunately (or fortunately for just about everyone else), technology has come to the Tsiribihina.  They had built a wooden raft on two motorized long-boats, which substantially expedited the crossing.  Interestingly, the crossing is not directly across the river.  Rather, the ferry takes you down the river 4 km to Belo Sur Tsiribihina.  They squeezed four cars, a motorcycle, and roughly two-dozen people onto a single ferry.  Now, getting those cars on the ferry was quite an ordeal.  The ferry was at the bottom of a steep, eight-foot hill and they put curved steel platforms from the hill to the ferry.  If your car went off those steel platforms, it (and you) were toast!  Faly, however, was a master and navigated onto the ferry with no problem.

As we waited on the ferry for the other cars to load, we got a look at the Malagasy river culture.  From the variety of hotels, "hostelys," and restaurants catering to the river traffic, to the commerce flowing south, there was a lot to see and we got some great pictures.  The crossing itself probably took 25 minutes, though it will take twice as long coming back up the river on the way back.  As we got off the ferry at Belo, we were accosted by young children talking very quickly in Malagasy.  After talking with Marc, we learned that they were asking for our water bottles, so that they could sell them for reuse or recycling.  Throughout Belo, the kids were very aggressive in looking for, and repeatedly asking for bottles, even if they weren't empty.

We stopped at the Karibo Hotel & Restaurant in Belo for lunch.  It seems to be the place that all of the tourists eat.  I suspect that's because it has walls separating it from the bustling streets outside, so tour guides and most of their clientele feel safer there.  Kati and I both had some great barbecued prawns and some THB while watching the Malagasies go about their daily business in the city.  My favorite was a guy across the street, smoking a cigarette right below a  giant "no smoking" sign on the front of the petrol station.  Kati also saw an old guy wearing an old bachelorette shirt!

Me at Lunch in Belo

After lunch we had another 3-4 hours of driving, but luckily the road was in better shape.  The last Malagasy Prime Minister was from the area and had promised to make the road better.  We passed a number of places where construction workers were busy rehabilitating ruined sections, laying out new dirt, of firming the road out with steamrollers.  In one instance, we got to be the very first car to drive over a newly laid section of road...right after the dirt spreader got out of our way!

Unfortunately, we also passed a number of areas that were being burned and cleared by the locals.  Some charred areas of the forest were miles long and went back as far as the eye could see.  They clear this land so that they can make rice fields.  The problem is that the Malagasy use antiquated cultivation methods and are not nearly as productive as they could be.  Even clearing large tracts of land will not produce enough rice to support a village or prevent them from having to purchase rice from elsewhere.  An interesting aside, the Malagasy eat more rice than anyone else in the world.  That includes Japan, Vietnam, and all of the other asian countries! 

About halfway through our afternoon drive, we stopped to stretch by a watering hole where a number of local kids were swimming and washing clothes.  Several of them were fascinated by my camera and kept insisting that I take pictures of them, even going so far as to dance while I did.  Finally, we got to Bekopaka and crossed one more river - the Manambolo River - before we got to our hotel, the Soleil des Tsingy.

The Soleil des Tsingy was only built in 2013 at the top of a mountain, and it is stunning.  The main building is completely open with thatched roofs, giant wooden beams, and a view of the forest around it.  There's also an infinity pool overlooking the forest below.  Our bungalow is also incredible.  We've got a king-size bed, complete with a mosquito net that makes Kati feel like a princess, an amazing front patio with a view of the sunset, and a giant bathroom where you can hear lemurs calling to each other as you take a shower.

Sunset at the Soleil Des Tsingy Pool

It was a long day of driving, and we were both hot and exhausted, so we decided to take it easy.  After taking a dip in the pool and grabbing a bottle of THB's "Fresh" (a disappointingly low-alcohol beer with a great and refreshing taste), we sat down to watch the sunset.  After that, we grabbed dinner, which included a zebu carpaccio with pesto and cheese, tilapia with roasted vegetables in a cream sauce, and some sort of panna cotta-like dessert.  It was all excellent.

Tomorrow we're going to split the day in half.  First, we're going to take a pirogue up the Manambolo River to see the tsingy from below, check out some caves, and see the Malagasy tombs built into the cliffs.  Then, after grabbing lunch back at the hotel, we're going to take an afternoon hike in the Petite Tsingy.  With any luck we'll see not only some great views, but some more lemurs and other wildlife!

LEMURS!!

Kati and Me at Camp Amoureux

October 3 - Today was the first "real" day of our trip.  We caught an 8:30 flight from Tana to Morondava, on the west coast.  Our guide Marc and our driver Faly met us at the airport.  Faly's 4x4 is his pride and joy and he's responsible for getting us all the way to Bekopaka while Marc is leading us through all of our adventures.  The two of them actually left Tana Friday night and drove to Morondava along perhaps the most notoriously bad road in a country of horrible roads.  They didn't get into Morondava until Saturday afternoon!

Our first stop in Morondava was an ATM.  They are not easy to find over here.  There wasn't one in the airport, and I knew that we'd need money for the coming days, so we had to drive 15 minutes into downtown Morondava just to find one.  As it turns out, that's the only ATM in this western area of the country!  Morondava is ecclectic.  There were two guys that had set up a tail-gating tent outside of the palace of justice and were blasting Malagasy music.  There was a lady selling live chickens, just walking around with them hanging upside down from her hands.  And, most noticeably, there were dozens of rickshaws.  Faly hates rickshaws because you don't need a license to trive one so everyone buys them and just park them haphazardly in the middle of streets.

Just outside of Morondava, we turned left onto a dirt road and Marc leaned back to say, "Now the fun driving starts."  It took us nearly two hours to make it to Camp Amoureux.  Two hours on a dirt road that's only passable during the dry season.  We drove through several small villages and the Allee des Baobabs.  The road was rarely level and I couldn't count the number of places where the road was washed out or destroyed and we had to take a "detour" around a portion of the road that had been excavated with no apparent plans for filling it back in.  At one point, Faly even had to pay an old man standing on the side of the street just to keep driving.  I honestly have no idea what that was about!

We finally got into Camp Amoureux around 1:30.  Now, when I say "camp," I mean camp.  We are legitimately staying in a canvas tent (with holes in it) set up on a wooden platform under a thatched roof.  This is definitely not the kind of "glamping" people think of when they picture safaris.  Yet everything else is fantastic.  The restaurant here is a two-story wooden pagoda right next to these two baobabs that have twisted together and become intertwined - hence the name "Camp Amoureux."  The first floor has several tables for dining, and the upstairs is a lounge area with couches, chairs, and this awesome ball game that I have no idea how to play, but want to understand so much!

Angry Red-Fronted Brown Lemur

After a nice barbecue fish lunch, we took a two-hour walk through the Marofandilia Forest.  But, even before we left the camp, we saw a troop of red-fronted brown lemurs right by our host's and a panther chameleon that was nearly two-feet long!  Unfortunately, after leaving the camp we didn't see much more for the first hour.  We ran across a small green gecko and a collared iguanid (not an iguana), but little else.  Then we hit the jackpot.  About 2/3 of the way through the hike, we stumbled into another troop of red-fronted brown lemurs.  What's more, they had two babies and one of the females was about to give birth!  The males were very protective of the pregnant female, and it wasn't long before the only thing between me and a hissing lemur was two feet and a camra lens!  Not long thereafter, we found a troop of Verreaux's sifakas in the canopy above us.  They were leaping from tree-to-tree and they had a few babies with them too (it's baby season for lemurs).  We got some phenomenal pictures!

We had a lazy afternoon, drinking Three Horses Beer, napping on the second floor of the "restaurant," and recovering from a hard day of driving and lemur watching.  Yet, 6:30 came quickly and it was time to take a night walk through the forest.  Our day walk was great, but the night walk was even better!  Before leaving our camp, we saw a fork-marked lemur (which are very rare around here), a red-tailed sportive lemur, and a Madame Berthe's mouse lemur.  As our walk continued, we found at least a dozen mouse lemurs, including some gray mouse lemurs, a few sportive lemurs, and two more fork-marked lemurs. Only two species eluded us - the dwarf lemur, and the aye aye.  I really wanted to see an aye aye (like everyone else in the world), but they are unbelievably shy and difficult to find.  They say that even tour guides that have been doing this for ten years or more often haven't seen an aye aye!

By the time 9:30 rolled around, we were both exhausted, so we called it a night and started resting up for our long drive to Bekopaka.

Au Bois Vert

We finally made it to Madagascar at around 1:00 p.m. today.  The flight was less than smooth, but very interesting.  To begin with, I haven't been on a flight that empty in ten years.  There was nobody in first class, and the rest of the plane was less than half full.  It very much felt like a flight from the nineties, from the way that the stewardesses were dressed to the containers they used to serve our lunch.

Even from the air, I could tell that this was going to be an experience.  The vast countryside was mostly vacant, peppered with an occasional farm or "village" (and I use that term loosely).  As we got closer to Tana, the landscape shifted from virtually untouched to being covered by terraced fields -- a not-so-subtle indication that the Malagasy are of Malay-Indonesian origin.  More and more villages also started to pop up.  The typical village was composed of 4-5 buildings on top of a hill.  One was, almost without exception, a church, and the others were indistinguishable one-story buildings made from mud bricks, many with thatched roofs.  The other striking feature of the countryside was the lack of asphalt. All of the roads were made of well-trodden dirt.  Until we hit the runway, which was (thankfully) paved, we only saw a single asphalt highway snaking its way through the hills of an otherwise red-clay desert.

The airport was definitely an experience.  After disembarking, we handed out passports to one of the security officers who quickly took them, put them in one of a dozen stacks walling a few other guards into their desks, and stood in a giant mass of people, waiting for them to approve our visas and (quietly) call out our names.  From there, we grabbed our bags, walked out of the secured, and were immediately accosted by dozens of locals -- taxi drivers, "tour guides," and porters -- all hoping to persuade us to shell out a few thousand ariary (the exchange rate sits at ~3,200 ariary to $1 USD).

Before I could find an ATM and pull out a wad of 10,000 ariary bills, I spotted someone from our hotel holding a sign for us.  Because we're only staying here a night, I figured that we'd be alright without cash for the evening and we headed out with him to his van.  As we were loading up the van, some other guy came over, repeatedly saying, "Au Bois Vert" -- the name of our hotel -- "Au Bois Vert."  He forcibly took our packs off of us and put them in the back of the van, only then insisting that we give him a tip.  Rarely have I seen a foreigner so annoyed with me.  I told him that I didn't have any ariary and closed the door while our driver went to pay for parking.  For several minutes, the porter just stood outside the van glaring at us.  Then, after the annoyance had built in him, he started just repeating the word "rand" -- the South African currency.  Now, I had a 100 rand note with me (~$7), but I wasn't about to give that to him, especially after he was being so creepy!  After another few minutes, he moved to the other side of the van and stayed there until our driver started walking back to the van.

Driving out of the airport was eye-opening.  The sides of the red-clay road were plastered with makeshift wooden shacks, each peddling something -- cell phones, raw meats, cooked dishes, etc.  As we moved into the more developed parts of the town, little changed other than the size of the buildings.  There were still the same kinds of shops, and the same dust-covered kids sitting in the same leaning doorways.  There were, however, two major differences.  First, some of the buildings were two-story stucco construction.  Second, there were way more people everywhere, including in the streets.  It was immediately clear that there are no rules of the road here.  Dogs and chickens stand in the road as they please.  If you don't like it, you can honk, but the animals, often unfazed, leave you with only one option: Drive around them.  Pedestrians are no different, often walking in the middle of the streets.  In several instances, there were cars just parked in the street.  They hadn't even tried to pull off to the side.  Perhaps the most shocking thing that I saw on our drive, however, was a ten-foot-long, three-foot-high pile of trash on the "sidewalk" that someone had lit on fire!

Honestly, when I saw signs for our hotel not far from that trash-fire, I became a bit concerned.  Yet we pulled into the front gate of the Au Bois Vert and the scenery immediately changed.  It's a 3 hectare compound, walled off from the outside world.  The place is beautiful, from the painted carts strewn around to the charming bungalow-style buildings, and the fantastic little restaurant.  They even have a few radiated tortoises, one of which had the meanest mug I've ever seen in my life!

We had a late lunch of zebu, chicken, and duck skewers paired with a Three Horses Beer (locally just called "THB"), which is the flagship Malagasy beer.  The zebu was really good.  I've read that eating zebu undercooked carries with it the risk of contracting tapeworms, but it was definitely worth the risk. Hopefully I won't have tapeworms in my future because (1) few things gross me out more than tapeworms; and (2) I don't think I could stand to lose that much weight!

After a nice walk around the grounds, Kati collapsed on the bed in our bungalow for a nap and I headed up to the pool for a relaxing afternoon with my book.

Dinner was also excellent.  I had a zebu lasagne and Kati had a zebu stew.  After a bottle of Pinotage, a few gin and tonics, and some orange-infused rum, we headed off to bed.

Tomorrow we're hitching a ride back to the airport (maybe 10 minutes) to catch a flight to Morondava for the adventurous leg of our trip.

Joburg Layover

Sixteen hours.  That's the longest flight either of us has ever taken.  It was brutally long.  Now, in

fairness, it might have felt longer than it actually was because of the annoying old people surrounding us.  At least nobody thought it was a good idea to bring their baby on the flight!

We landed in Joburg around 4:45 p.m. without issue, though the fact that we had to submit to an ebola screening in customs was a little unsettling.  The Intercontinental Hotel, where we're staying, upgraded us to an executive suite, which is pretty great.  We didn't have too much time to explore, so we decided to take the train into Sandton and grab dinner in Nelson Mandela Square.  

Joburg is not a particularly safe city.  We met a number of South Africans while traveling in Eastern Europe back in 2011 and heard a number of horror stories about this place.  For example, two well-to-do twentysomethings we met told us that everyone has iron gates that separate the bedrooms in their houses from everything else, because burglaries are so common.  Or, a doctor from Joburg told us that: (1) nobody stops at red lights for fear of being car-jacked; and (2) the best-selling invention several years ago was an attachment that would shoot flames up the windows of your car if someone touched them while the ignition was on.  I've had no issue walking through the unlit back streets in Istanbul, and I didn't bat an eye traveling through the Eastern Bloc, but something about South Africa scares me.  Yet, despite my concerns, we had a great evening.  I never felt unsafe on our trip, and the South Africans are an incredibly entertaining population of people.  Perhaps the funniest thing that we noticed about them is their obsession with selfies.  

There really isn't any "local" cuisine in South Africa, but the closest they come is Cape Malay, which is very Indian-inspired and curry-based.  We didn't find a Cape Malay restaurant, but we did stumble across a pretty great Indian place.  After a great pinotage and some ostrich tikka, we grabbed some beers from a pop-up bar in the square, and went to catch the train back to the hotel.  However, unbeknownst to us, the trains here shut down around 9:00 p.m., so we had to grab a cab home.  The cabbie was a little sketchy, and definitely wasn't the best at driving a manual transmission, but he got us back to the hotel nevertheless.

Tomorrow we catch a flight to Antananarivo at 9:20 a.m. and we'll spend the afternoon relaxing in the Malagasy countryside.  Almost there!

Up, Up, and Away

It's finally here.  Even as I sit here in airport, waiting for the first of our many flights, it doesn't seem real.  Just two hours ago I was frantically trying to finalize appellate briefs and sparring with government attorneys over deadlines.  Now, I literally have nothing to do, and it's amazing!

The Eighth Continent.  Land of the Man-Eating Plant.  Madagascar.  No matter what you call it, it sounds exotic.  Over the last few years I've started to realize that I take my broad knowledge of the world for granted.  People seemed skeptical when we went to Eastern Europe and Turkey, but most everyone at least had some vague idea of where we were going.  When I've told people that we're going to Madagascar, I've gotten one of two responses: (1) "Woah, I didn't know people actually went there," or, more frequently, (2) "Where is that?"  Madagascar is the fourth-largest island in the world and its a cradle of biodiversity, so it's hard for me to understand how so many people don't know where it is, much less anything about it.  (The third-most-frequent question I get asked is if we're going to see the penguins while we're there...thank you Disney).

This is going to be, at the very least, an interesting trip.  While reading about the demographics of Madagascar, I was struck by one unbelievable fact.  Ninety-three percent of people living in Madagascar live on less than $2/day.  In fact, even those in the well-to-do professions (e.g., attorneys, doctors, and accountants) live on less than $5/day!

We're going to get a taste of many of Madagascar's highlights over the next two weeks.  We land in Johannesburg tomorrow and spend a day there before catching a flight to Antananarivo ("Tana"), the capital of Madagascar.  After spending a night there, it will be time to get on another flight to Morondova - a city on the western coast.  There we'll do some day and night walks through the forests before taking an 8-hour excursion up a dirt road to Bekopaka.  Along the way we're going to ford two rivers.  No joke.  I haven't been playing too much Oregon Trail.  We are literally fording rivers.  They have makeshift rafts made from chopped down trees that locals paddle or walk across the river with the cars on them!  I am unnecessarily excited about this aspect of the trip.  Once in Bekopaka, we're going to spend two days exploring the Tsingy de Bemaraha...a national park of giant limestone spikes in which 80% of the species that live there are found nowhere else in the world and nowhere else in Madagascar!

On October 8 (my birthday!) we'll be making the 8-hour return trip to Morondova, stopping along the way to watch the sunset at the picturesque Allee de Baobabs.  Next, we'll spend a day back in Tana exploring the markets and cultural sights before flying up to Nosy Be and catching a ferry to Constance Tsarabanjina - the five-star private island resort that we're spending our second week at.  With any luck, while we're there we'll be able to see some humpback whales, hissing cockroaches, and dozens of lemurs!

It's going to be quite an adventure, so stay tuned.  I'll update as we go to the extent we have internet, but I make no promises.  Your best bet is to subscribe to our feed so you get notices when we post.