Oct 24, 2016 - travel by boat and plane

We were up nice and early for breakfast, but the plane is delayed so we don't have to leave at 8. We can enjoy this paradise until 9. We then took that same speedboat back to the port at Toliara, a van into downtown, and we spent about an hour or so at a lounge area of a new restaurant called the Oasis. TV was on showing CNN in French, so we got a bit of news from the real world. We were presented with a long lunch menu in French and John had to try to translate it for us. A couple of dished were cicadia bugs! None of us are adventurous....

Oct 24, 2016 - plane stop and finish the loop

We went east to Fort Dauphin and spent only 1/2 hour there on the plane while some people left and others got on. we got to Tana airport at 6:10 and back to our original hotel at 7 PM. Dinner was at 7:30 and I had skewer zebu and vegetables and warm banana. Diane and I got the same room we were in the first time, but the others got different rooms.

Oct 20, 2016 - Traveling again

We had heard that Madagascar exports sapphires and today we saw people looking for them. It's as if they are panning for gold. It's a sad story, really. If/when these people find sapphire pieces, the sell them to a dealer. With their newfound money, they buy a car or TV or something like that. When the new to them purchase breaks, they have no more money to repair it, so they add to the junk pile. They are broke again and go back to the river to pan for more sapphire. We then drove through the desert in a van with no name except we didn't...

Oct 19, 2016 - Glorious day

The Isalo National Park is purported to be the most visited park, and we only saw a portion of it. The day started out cool with a nice breeze, but by the time we got to the panoramic view it was getting hot and none of us wanted to continue on to a natural pool, since we wouldn't swim in it anyway. We learned a lot here - I hope I remember enough of it to make sense of the story. The people here bury their dead in rock crevices and leave them there for 4-5 years. Then they open up the casket, clean and shroud the bones, put them in a small...

Oct 18, 2016 - travel, iron works, paper mill, small hike, travel

I'm still not feeling so great but at least I'm not puking anymore. The morning was spent traveling but we stopped at an iron works factory and that was interesting. Such hard work. They were making shovels or hoes that are used in the fields. I made a video of the process. We drove some more then stopped at a paper mill. Here I had to use a dirty bathroom - we all must take our turn! This was an interesting place. We could go to each station to see how the special tree is shaved, boiled, beaten to a pulp (pun intended!), dried, decorated,...

Oct 16, 2016 - More travel and a hike

Because I woke up weak and wobbly, then puked up my meds before breakfast, John drove around town looking for an open pharmacy on this Sunday when most stores are closed. He found one and thus started my regimen of taking some strange and not so strange things. I needed to drink saltwater most of the day to build back up my electrolytes. I drank some syrup for my nauseousness and then took a blue pill every half hour until I felt better with no cramps. We stopped for lunch at a quaint establishment where we would take a hike afterwards....

Oct 15, 2016 - travel day - aluminum pot factory

This was a big travel day, as we had to follow route 2 back into Antananarivo to pick up National Route 7 south. Oh wow - we finally saw a train! Fabrice heard our excitement and found a place to pull over ahead of the train so we could get out and take a picture of it! I looked down on the other side of the road and found a kid laying in the grass, fishing. We passed a big area popular with the locals for doing laundry and socializing. Someone was even cleaning the car's seats - I didn't know they could be removed from the car like...

Oct 13, 2016 - Serpentarium & Night walk

This morning, we made our way out of Tana, going East on National Route 2 to a town called Andasibe. It took awhile to get out of the city and then we went on a two lane road with places of good condition over mountains using lots of switchbacks. It was an interesting ride, showing us the differences between city and country living. We have so much to be grateful for - these people truly work hard for their life, not for money! Everything is done by hand, from making bricks, raising crops, and even breaking down granite into blocks or...

Oct 11, 2016 - travel day

After breakfast and checking out of the hotel, we were driven to the airport after 8 AM. We had to get out of the van to walk through a security building and then get back into the van. Cindy and I were not able to get boarding passes because it said a bill wasn't paid! We talked to an agent and figured out that because we had window seats behind the exit door, we have extra leg room and the airlines tried to charge us an upgrade. The problem was corrected without us having to pay anything and we got our boarding passes. Then we went...

Mar 10, 2014 - Getting Used to the Heat

Today was full of almost 13 hours of driving just to reach the Tsingy de Bemaraha Strict Nature Reserve. I started the day by waking up in the room of my small hotel located about 145 miles away from the reserve (there aren't any hotels closer than that) at about eight in the morning. I was able to take a little time to myself and walk down to the little beach just behind my hotel and go for a short swim and get some sun. At about 9:30 I headed back up to the hotel and took a shower to clean up then got dressed and packed. I made sure to...

Mar 9, 2014 - Fly Like a Lemur

Today started my week long journey to Madagascar! Oh,I'm so excited! I even dressed like a cheesy tourist and wore a shirt with the movie, "Madagascar"'s character Mort on it. The thirty hour flight was exhausting, but the scenery from my window seat on the plane made it all worth it! I usually despise being confined to small spaces for a long time but looking over the vast oceans and seeing the land from a bird's eye view made me feel like I really was a bird flapping my wings through the breezy air. We landed at an airport located in...

May 26, 2013 - Tana

we arrived in Tana at 6am. my hotel room was not ready by than. i had to wait.'i used the time to check my mail. at 8am i could move into my room. i tried to sleep a little and than called tobias. he stopped b shortly after. he told me he was invited to the christening of his work mates daughter, but he hadn't been called by him. so we decided to go for lunch. as soon as we had left, his mate called. he invited me to come along. we grabbed a cab and drove out into the suburbs. the taxi dropped us at some roadside, where we were picked up by...