Arrival in Madagascar
3 day journey to the white sand, turquoise sea of Andavadoaka.
Travel: car, taxi, train (eurostar), taxi, plane, taxi, plane, taxi, pousse pousse (man pulled cart), 4x4, dig the 4x4 out of the sand again and again, arrival. Fantastic!The site is really beautiful, warm in temp as well as in welcome from all staff members and current volunteers.
Day 1: Swimming test. I am so unfit, and already have a few aching muscles, only going to get worse.
Day 2-4: Dive days, 1. Reasonable visibility, 2. great corals and am learning to ID a couple of fish. 3. Staff dive, recreational, loads to see.Nice to be back in the water for sure.
Every 6th day is a non-dive day. Equals party night (can drink as no dive!). It was one of the Staff members last night here so we had fancy dress ?Englishness?: Big Ben, Shakespeare, teapot and a teabag, full set of Spice Girls etc, good turn out. I was very unimaginative as a St. Trinians, never mind, I made up for it with enthusiastic dancing at the local bar (?epi bar?) on the beach. Out till 4.30am, needless to say breakfast was a little late at 9am!
Headed out to the Baobab trees, really amazing. Very bizarre, a massive tree that is more like a succulent. Makes with horizon really interesting, very photogenic. We had to take vezu carts out there 1.5hours each way. The vezu are the cow equivalent, big horns and a hump on their back. Quiet uncomfortable really, but fun. Was glad that it was a grey day, as it meant that we didn?t burn. Saw some really interesting spiders and birds (parrots) as well.
Saw a little yellow snake, but they are all non-venomous here in Mad, so that is OK. It was in a volunteer's bathroom but ran away when we tried to take photos. My next-door neighbour, Ida, has seen 3 different species of snake in the 6 days we have been here! I think I am just a bit too blind for that, though am now paranoid and have a quick check with the torch in my bathroom where there is no electricity.
1 comment:
Rubbish
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