Still August 2007
Sunday again so everything is a bit off! No taxi-brousse till the afternoon,
so we managed to take a taxi to the next biggest town to have a better chance
there. Not so, another 4hour wait in a dodgy Saphir mining town waiting for
the bus to leave (for 3 hours we were the only 4 out of 18 on the list!). So
close yet so far. A day in transit to add to all the others. More people
were crammed in this taxi-brousse than ever and the road blocks were
sufficiently paid off en route. We could see the sea as we were nearing
Tulear, but arrived in the dark. Tulear is out of power again. We stayed at
our second choice hotel based on electricity power and then headed straight
out for dinner at Le Jardin for pizza, hmmmmmmmmmm. The favourite restaurant‘Cortez Maltese’ does not open on Sundays (of course).
Monday: a run around day, collect snacks, organize flights, meet and greet
the new volunteers, arrange transport etc. Have dinner at ‘Cortez Maltese’
fave zebu steak with a camembert sauce, and chocolate mousse! Pousse Pousse
around town all night to find a place that will serve me pizza so I can take
it back to site for the staff in Andavadoaka.
Tuesday 14th 6am. Camion and 4x4 now all full of eager volunteers ready to
start the 12hours journey to Andavadoaka.
……………….The Holiday is Over. Back to Work……………………
Saturday, 8 September 2007
Madagascar: The long journey south Part 3: Slowly heading south
Still August 2007
So pleased to meet up with some friends. Of course until they met with us
they hadn’t had any problems whatsoever with their travel, but with us things
were not going to plan once again.
The 4x4 we had booked was not available, but neither was any other mode of
transport. Desperate to get to the Park this time we managed to persuade a
normal driver with a large-ish vehicle to take us to the park (and of course
paid over the rates for it). All the organization had nulled our 6am start
and we still couldn’t leave till 10:30am cutting the day short and
restricting the walks in the park. Very bumpy 1.5hour ride in. Managed to
persuade the less than keen walkers with us to go a little further than they
wanted, until we were all running to the highest point we could get to
before time ran out. The guide was a good sport, we saw the beautiful
waterfalls, the fantastic rock outcrops and scaled the mountain, and made it
back to base with a lot of manic running (no falling) just before nightfall.
Not quite the long circular route I had dreamed of for days, but was fun and
manageable none the less.
Chilled out with friends in the evening, sorry to be heading in different
directions the following day.
Pizza for breakfast always a good thing! Especially as the taxi-brousse
took 4 hours to leave. I filled the time with phone conversations, mainly
about work unfortunately, whilst others were playing pool with the locals,
golf balls and sticks on a warped board! A few trips around town before we
even left to find petrol, apparently everyone was waiting for the tank
filling truck to arrive! Then again to find that at the military check point
we were overloaded and had to return to drop people off and try again.
Arrived into Ranohira at night, got a great dinner at the fancy restaurant,
set-menu. Carrot soup (hmm), zebu steak (always good), banana flambé
(rubbish). But hey, two out of three not bad!
Guide and Park fee arrangements to be made all over again, and despite the
guide prices being very clearly labelled they all rip you off, in as much as
if you don’t agree to pay their rates you don’t have a guide and you can’t
enter the park! With only a day to play with, though we had hoped to do an
overnight camping trip (but were given wrong info!), we decided to just pay
up and go. Car to the Canyons, 1 hour bumpy ride, but fantastic following
the ridge all the way to the park, knowing that we would be walking the
length and more to return. Saw a few lemurs at the entrance to the canyon,
unfortunately did not have loads of time to wander around the canyon and the
river as had no way of climbing to the top from the interior. Long hard
climb to the top of the ridge, but rewarded with fantastic views of the
meadows within and then the ridge on the other side of the valley. Lots of
little baobab trees and beautiful views to be seen on the 3 hour walk to the
waterfall. More of a cascade really and enclosed within a meandering cutout,
but pretty as it was well hidden within the forest.
Now normal experience for us: the guide decided that he wanted more money for
us to see the blue and black pools, which should have been on our original
route. A bit of deliberation and we decided to just pay up and enjoy. It was
only about 10mins out and back and the waterfalls were pretty, but the walk
to the falls was stunning and definitely worth it. At this point we started
to see all the other tourists mulling around. It had been just us with nature
for the best part of the day, but we were now on the tourist loop.
Ring-tailed lemurs were seen walking up the path towards us and brown lemurs
were hanging around the camp that we passed through so definitely got the
lemur quota in, and decided that we must have been the only people to have
bad weather in Ranamafana as no one else seemed to bother about them.
Another long stretch of the walk to reach the final goal, the piscine
naturelle. Though not in the sun and being very nippy, we opted to take a
dip and freshen up. We were fully aware that there would be no water and
shower where we were staying and were very happy to wash the dust of the day
off.
So great to find a tourist bus at the end of the park ready to leave and
prepared to take us back to the village. Definitely a 5km walk at the end of
the day that we could do without, and a fantastic day was had. Another
massive zebu steak meal and some local song and dance troop for
entertainment. Sleeping well.
So pleased to meet up with some friends. Of course until they met with us
they hadn’t had any problems whatsoever with their travel, but with us things
were not going to plan once again.
The 4x4 we had booked was not available, but neither was any other mode of
transport. Desperate to get to the Park this time we managed to persuade a
normal driver with a large-ish vehicle to take us to the park (and of course
paid over the rates for it). All the organization had nulled our 6am start
and we still couldn’t leave till 10:30am cutting the day short and
restricting the walks in the park. Very bumpy 1.5hour ride in. Managed to
persuade the less than keen walkers with us to go a little further than they
wanted, until we were all running to the highest point we could get to
before time ran out. The guide was a good sport, we saw the beautiful
waterfalls, the fantastic rock outcrops and scaled the mountain, and made it
back to base with a lot of manic running (no falling) just before nightfall.
Not quite the long circular route I had dreamed of for days, but was fun and
manageable none the less.
Chilled out with friends in the evening, sorry to be heading in different
directions the following day.
Pizza for breakfast always a good thing! Especially as the taxi-brousse
took 4 hours to leave. I filled the time with phone conversations, mainly
about work unfortunately, whilst others were playing pool with the locals,
golf balls and sticks on a warped board! A few trips around town before we
even left to find petrol, apparently everyone was waiting for the tank
filling truck to arrive! Then again to find that at the military check point
we were overloaded and had to return to drop people off and try again.
Arrived into Ranohira at night, got a great dinner at the fancy restaurant,
set-menu. Carrot soup (hmm), zebu steak (always good), banana flambé
(rubbish). But hey, two out of three not bad!
Guide and Park fee arrangements to be made all over again, and despite the
guide prices being very clearly labelled they all rip you off, in as much as
if you don’t agree to pay their rates you don’t have a guide and you can’t
enter the park! With only a day to play with, though we had hoped to do an
overnight camping trip (but were given wrong info!), we decided to just pay
up and go. Car to the Canyons, 1 hour bumpy ride, but fantastic following
the ridge all the way to the park, knowing that we would be walking the
length and more to return. Saw a few lemurs at the entrance to the canyon,
unfortunately did not have loads of time to wander around the canyon and the
river as had no way of climbing to the top from the interior. Long hard
climb to the top of the ridge, but rewarded with fantastic views of the
meadows within and then the ridge on the other side of the valley. Lots of
little baobab trees and beautiful views to be seen on the 3 hour walk to the
waterfall. More of a cascade really and enclosed within a meandering cutout,
but pretty as it was well hidden within the forest.
Now normal experience for us: the guide decided that he wanted more money for
us to see the blue and black pools, which should have been on our original
route. A bit of deliberation and we decided to just pay up and enjoy. It was
only about 10mins out and back and the waterfalls were pretty, but the walk
to the falls was stunning and definitely worth it. At this point we started
to see all the other tourists mulling around. It had been just us with nature
for the best part of the day, but we were now on the tourist loop.
Ring-tailed lemurs were seen walking up the path towards us and brown lemurs
were hanging around the camp that we passed through so definitely got the
lemur quota in, and decided that we must have been the only people to have
bad weather in Ranamafana as no one else seemed to bother about them.
Another long stretch of the walk to reach the final goal, the piscine
naturelle. Though not in the sun and being very nippy, we opted to take a
dip and freshen up. We were fully aware that there would be no water and
shower where we were staying and were very happy to wash the dust of the day
off.
So great to find a tourist bus at the end of the park ready to leave and
prepared to take us back to the village. Definitely a 5km walk at the end of
the day that we could do without, and a fantastic day was had. Another
massive zebu steak meal and some local song and dance troop for
entertainment. Sleeping well.
Madagascar: The long journey south Part 2: Still in Fianarantsoa
August 2007
Day trip to another National Park didn’t happen. Arrived to find out that
the park was too far away for a day trip to start at our arrival time. The
Zebu market day had shifted to a day later. We rented bikes as the scenery
was fantastic and arrived at a small park where there are many ring-tailed
Lemurs to find that the guides were asking far too much money for a 1 hour
trot, and fed-up with being ripped off everywhere, we hopped back on the
bikes and heading back to the village (only 15km away!), back onto the
Taxi-Brousse to try again another day.
Day trip on the train heading East. 6am start. On the train, stopping
frequently to pick up passengers and goods and to make sure that everyone
on the train is fed an array of different local delicacies at each stop.
Bananas,peanut brittle, crayfish, fresh water prawns, boc boc, banana
fritters etc.
The scenery was supposed to be amazing and what we could see was nice, but
there was a rather thick covering of cloud for much of the time. The main
attraction was a large waterfall, which I missed completely as there was no
indication when we might happen across it.
Half way through the journey we passed the train coming from the other
direction,so after deliberating for a while we decided to hop off the train and return to Fianar for the scenery and having had sufficient train time, we
discovered that the return train had left. Depression set in, especially
as we found that the tourists who had had a guide with them had done exactly that.
We were now stuck on the train for a further 4 hours, and would then have a rather less than nice 10hours taxi-brousse ride overnight to return to Fianarantsoa. We were mistaken though, because apparently we were amidst the primary banana zone in Madagascar, so we stopped for at least an hour every stop (about 20 mins apart)to pick up a carriage load of bananas and drop off rice.
So instead of the full journey being the 7hours it ended up being a very long 11hours,with no great scenery and the disappearance of joyful faces of the
villagers because they were all on their way home to food and bed! At 6pm we
arrived in Manakara on the coast, although we didn’t see the coast at all and we hopped in one of the 40 aggressive pousse pousse carts on stand-by, rushed to the
taxi-brousse stand, thankfully got the last 2 seats on the bus (though they
were the split seats, half high - half low, very uncomfortable) and were on
the return.
3am Fianarantsoa, desolate and still had to pay full rate for a room, for 2.5 hours sleep before back to the taxi-brousse stand to try for Andringitra NP again!
Day trip to another National Park didn’t happen. Arrived to find out that
the park was too far away for a day trip to start at our arrival time. The
Zebu market day had shifted to a day later. We rented bikes as the scenery
was fantastic and arrived at a small park where there are many ring-tailed
Lemurs to find that the guides were asking far too much money for a 1 hour
trot, and fed-up with being ripped off everywhere, we hopped back on the
bikes and heading back to the village (only 15km away!), back onto the
Taxi-Brousse to try again another day.
Day trip on the train heading East. 6am start. On the train, stopping
frequently to pick up passengers and goods and to make sure that everyone
on the train is fed an array of different local delicacies at each stop.
Bananas,peanut brittle, crayfish, fresh water prawns, boc boc, banana
fritters etc.
The scenery was supposed to be amazing and what we could see was nice, but
there was a rather thick covering of cloud for much of the time. The main
attraction was a large waterfall, which I missed completely as there was no
indication when we might happen across it.
Half way through the journey we passed the train coming from the other
direction,so after deliberating for a while we decided to hop off the train and return to Fianar for the scenery and having had sufficient train time, we
discovered that the return train had left. Depression set in, especially
as we found that the tourists who had had a guide with them had done exactly that.
We were now stuck on the train for a further 4 hours, and would then have a rather less than nice 10hours taxi-brousse ride overnight to return to Fianarantsoa. We were mistaken though, because apparently we were amidst the primary banana zone in Madagascar, so we stopped for at least an hour every stop (about 20 mins apart)to pick up a carriage load of bananas and drop off rice.
So instead of the full journey being the 7hours it ended up being a very long 11hours,with no great scenery and the disappearance of joyful faces of the
villagers because they were all on their way home to food and bed! At 6pm we
arrived in Manakara on the coast, although we didn’t see the coast at all and we hopped in one of the 40 aggressive pousse pousse carts on stand-by, rushed to the
taxi-brousse stand, thankfully got the last 2 seats on the bus (though they
were the split seats, half high - half low, very uncomfortable) and were on
the return.
3am Fianarantsoa, desolate and still had to pay full rate for a room, for 2.5 hours sleep before back to the taxi-brousse stand to try for Andringitra NP again!
Madagascar: The long journey south Part 1: To Fianarantsoa
August 2007
Plans never really go according to ‘plan’. So after spending a lot of time
in Tana organizing our trip down the river and to Tsingy National Park, and
arriving in our departure destination we found out that really there was no
way we would be able to get back to site at the end of it all. The roads had
been washed out and had not been repaired at all. A few days on the pan and
start re-thinking all over again. Thankfully there are many parks on the RN7
route south, so we were able to make our way slowly back to Tulear instead.
Travel by Taxi-brousse can be very frustrating in Madagascar, not so much
because they squeeze 4 people onto 3 seats or that you find you are always
in the slowest van as everyone overtakes, but mainly because they take
forever to leave. It is pretty common to wait for at least a few hours
before the van is full and will leave. Then 5mins into the journey you will
stop for a toilet break as everyone has been waiting around for hours
already, and so it goes on.
To summarize in 10 days we spent 6 on transport and 4 in national parks!
Found that our first port of call: ‘artesian markets’, weren’t open because it
was Sunday, so headed on straight away after a cold beer and on to another
taxi-brousse.
Early to rise to make it to Ranamafana NP, first we found that it was
raining pretty hard, looked set in and no doubt would continue all day
(reports on how it was lovely the day before not really helping too much),
dumped our bags, picked up a guide (reasonable fees we thought), but then disappointed that the Blue Ventures discount was not going to work.
Day consisted of walking a lot through the wet, dripping forest and were fortunate enough to see a few lemur species despite the rain. Returned wet and cold to discover
that the guide was asking for an extortionate 50,000Ar rather than 15,000Ar
(£14 not £4, total shocker considering average daily wage is: £0.60),
couldn’t thumb a lift into the village to find a place to stay, so eventually
walking in the rain in the village we found a place but far too expensive. Cut
our losses and spent 3 hours on the side of the road trying to get a lift
back to the city whilst I was freezing and desperately trying to dry myself
off a little against the warm coals of the mini kebab stall.
Ready to call it all off we managed to pay over the normal rates for a taxi- brousse to take us back to Fianarantsoa and drop us off at the only place with rooms.
Very long cold wet expensive day, with the only saving grace that we were able to see a few lemurs.
Plans never really go according to ‘plan’. So after spending a lot of time
in Tana organizing our trip down the river and to Tsingy National Park, and
arriving in our departure destination we found out that really there was no
way we would be able to get back to site at the end of it all. The roads had
been washed out and had not been repaired at all. A few days on the pan and
start re-thinking all over again. Thankfully there are many parks on the RN7
route south, so we were able to make our way slowly back to Tulear instead.
Travel by Taxi-brousse can be very frustrating in Madagascar, not so much
because they squeeze 4 people onto 3 seats or that you find you are always
in the slowest van as everyone overtakes, but mainly because they take
forever to leave. It is pretty common to wait for at least a few hours
before the van is full and will leave. Then 5mins into the journey you will
stop for a toilet break as everyone has been waiting around for hours
already, and so it goes on.
To summarize in 10 days we spent 6 on transport and 4 in national parks!
Found that our first port of call: ‘artesian markets’, weren’t open because it
was Sunday, so headed on straight away after a cold beer and on to another
taxi-brousse.
Early to rise to make it to Ranamafana NP, first we found that it was
raining pretty hard, looked set in and no doubt would continue all day
(reports on how it was lovely the day before not really helping too much),
dumped our bags, picked up a guide (reasonable fees we thought), but then disappointed that the Blue Ventures discount was not going to work.
Day consisted of walking a lot through the wet, dripping forest and were fortunate enough to see a few lemur species despite the rain. Returned wet and cold to discover
that the guide was asking for an extortionate 50,000Ar rather than 15,000Ar
(£14 not £4, total shocker considering average daily wage is: £0.60),
couldn’t thumb a lift into the village to find a place to stay, so eventually
walking in the rain in the village we found a place but far too expensive. Cut
our losses and spent 3 hours on the side of the road trying to get a lift
back to the city whilst I was freezing and desperately trying to dry myself
off a little against the warm coals of the mini kebab stall.
Ready to call it all off we managed to pay over the normal rates for a taxi- brousse to take us back to Fianarantsoa and drop us off at the only place with rooms.
Very long cold wet expensive day, with the only saving grace that we were able to see a few lemurs.
Madagascar: There is a world outside the village of Andavadoaka
August 2007
I managed to get a little time off for a holiday. Was sad to leave the volunteers I had made friends with, but really welcomed the opportunity for a break. The availability of a free 4x4 ride from the village to Tulear (8hours south), was too good to miss, so by 6am I was packed and ready to leave. However, I did feel slightly that I was leaving like a thief in the night as I didn’t get to tell many people that I was off.
4x4’s are not the most comfortable ride on the coastal track and by the time 7 hours was up I was thoroughly exhausted. We usually ride in the back of a camion (a truck with canvas top) We put down some foam and though it is 12 hours and sometimes a little packed with bodies (23 is definitely too many as we found out once),including bags and lunch etc, it is a slow but steady journey and more comfortable than the 4x4 which is also really expensive (200 Euros a journey).
Having been to Tulear a few times now there are definitely favourite places to eat. And after leaving site, food is the most craved substance of all. Cortez Malteze is my favourite place for filet de Zebu (cow with hump) in a camembert sauce. Unfortunately it wasn’t open. Rubbish.
Nothing is easy to organize in Madagascar and trying to get to Tana (Antananarivo) was no exception. Flights were all booked so opted for the taxi-brousse, in this case a small mini-van loaded with everything.
Tulear is generally just a functional place for us in between expeditions. However it is not very functional at all when everything shuts down at 12midday and doesn’t re-open until 3pm and then closes again at 5pm, and nothing is ever open on a Sunday (we ended up having a snack lunch at a service station). Very few hours to spare and everything takes forever. So trying to find an internet café that was open took a while and we were getting slightly nervous that we would miss our transit to Tana. Stupid me, of course everything in Mad is ‘mora mora’ slowly and Malagasy time – late.
18hours later we were in Tana trying to organize a quick exit to Diego Suarez and sort a few bits and bobs. Travel being what it is, meant that we were still unable to book a flight for some reason and just had to turn up at the airport. We were told that there were a lot of seats until we arrived at the airport to find out that it was full and we had to pay a 1/3 again for club seats. We got a small sandwich and a glass of fruit juice for our money! It was a beautiful flight though, got to view Nosy Mangabe, and Sambava coastline, the mountains close to Diego Suarez and Petite Sugar Loaf (Nosy Lonja).
Diego Suarez was not much to write home about, it appeared that the only way to visit things were on tours. We found this out the hard way as tried Montagne D’Ambre, and found it cost us a fortune (wouldn’t have paid that much in the UK for sure) and to be fair it was a very generic forest park. So having met up with a couple of funny French girls we pooled our resources and planned a trip to National Park Ankarana via Tsingy Rouge.
Tsingy Rouge was fantastic, great views, and a nice walk up a braided river channel to the small eroded tsingy pinnacles, very fragile as made from sand.
Ankarana was almost overwhelming, walked through lively forest and across a dry river bed littered with volcanic and limestone rocks, up the limestone kharst to amazing views over the grey tsingy. We dropped down into a few caves, some large spiders and massive bats (80cm span), then walked along the top of the tsingy to return and were greeted with a visit from the crowned lemurs hanging out in trees very close to the clearing, and a large chameleon not trying to run away. Second day involved a 12km hike out to some more fields of Tsingy, a green lake, and an introduction to climbing crowned lemurs who were very photogenic and friendly. The heavens decided to open on our return so the lost river was not so lost and actually pretty wet as were we all.
Managed to hitch a lift with a 4x4 to Ankify, the port to Nosy Be, so avoided the taxi-brousse crush and horror, hopped in a speed boat to the island and arrived in time for lunch. Our residence looked sweet, but full of mosquitos, and when we were told to make sure we double-locked everything, even when we were in, it left me a little worried.
Gutted that all the live-aboard boats had already left or were full, we booked diving. Rain stopped our play the next day, so we rented a quad and toured the island. Highlight was definitely an abandoned and rusted sugar mill. Trains and everything left in situ and we could just walk around and look at all the machinery. Would be a death trap to the average child and I could see it as one of the 80’s safety ads (like don’t play on the railway lines, or fly kites near overhead power cables etc).
Got a little wet but not too bad!
Two rather generic dives the following day, some strong current but better visibility than we are used to in the south, but nothing special, so a bit disappointing. Heard about the dives for the following day and couldn’t choose between all the options. 3 sites I wanted to go to, but only enough money for two. In the end I made the wrong decision and missed the opportunity to see a manta ray by going to another fringing reef. Horrors of the dive center (no first aid kit, or even a plaster) and general grumpiness made the day a little bitter, in addition to NOT seeing the manta as was talked out of it by Bad dive center owner (obviously trying to sell his dives). Having said that, the sites were pretty and there were many hawksbill turtles and blue spotted rays to be seen.
Flight out of Nosy Be almost went a little wrong with not being able to book flights again, had to turn up and hope, though they were full, a few seats opened up. But almost got very stuck as they would not accept a credit card and had to dig around to find the money in three different currencies.
Back in cold Tana, and any tan I thought I had got has disappeared already. Hoping to head out west now, but chilling and looking at photos before getting on the road again.
I managed to get a little time off for a holiday. Was sad to leave the volunteers I had made friends with, but really welcomed the opportunity for a break. The availability of a free 4x4 ride from the village to Tulear (8hours south), was too good to miss, so by 6am I was packed and ready to leave. However, I did feel slightly that I was leaving like a thief in the night as I didn’t get to tell many people that I was off.
4x4’s are not the most comfortable ride on the coastal track and by the time 7 hours was up I was thoroughly exhausted. We usually ride in the back of a camion (a truck with canvas top) We put down some foam and though it is 12 hours and sometimes a little packed with bodies (23 is definitely too many as we found out once),including bags and lunch etc, it is a slow but steady journey and more comfortable than the 4x4 which is also really expensive (200 Euros a journey).
Having been to Tulear a few times now there are definitely favourite places to eat. And after leaving site, food is the most craved substance of all. Cortez Malteze is my favourite place for filet de Zebu (cow with hump) in a camembert sauce. Unfortunately it wasn’t open. Rubbish.
Nothing is easy to organize in Madagascar and trying to get to Tana (Antananarivo) was no exception. Flights were all booked so opted for the taxi-brousse, in this case a small mini-van loaded with everything.
Tulear is generally just a functional place for us in between expeditions. However it is not very functional at all when everything shuts down at 12midday and doesn’t re-open until 3pm and then closes again at 5pm, and nothing is ever open on a Sunday (we ended up having a snack lunch at a service station). Very few hours to spare and everything takes forever. So trying to find an internet café that was open took a while and we were getting slightly nervous that we would miss our transit to Tana. Stupid me, of course everything in Mad is ‘mora mora’ slowly and Malagasy time – late.
18hours later we were in Tana trying to organize a quick exit to Diego Suarez and sort a few bits and bobs. Travel being what it is, meant that we were still unable to book a flight for some reason and just had to turn up at the airport. We were told that there were a lot of seats until we arrived at the airport to find out that it was full and we had to pay a 1/3 again for club seats. We got a small sandwich and a glass of fruit juice for our money! It was a beautiful flight though, got to view Nosy Mangabe, and Sambava coastline, the mountains close to Diego Suarez and Petite Sugar Loaf (Nosy Lonja).
Diego Suarez was not much to write home about, it appeared that the only way to visit things were on tours. We found this out the hard way as tried Montagne D’Ambre, and found it cost us a fortune (wouldn’t have paid that much in the UK for sure) and to be fair it was a very generic forest park. So having met up with a couple of funny French girls we pooled our resources and planned a trip to National Park Ankarana via Tsingy Rouge.
Tsingy Rouge was fantastic, great views, and a nice walk up a braided river channel to the small eroded tsingy pinnacles, very fragile as made from sand.
Ankarana was almost overwhelming, walked through lively forest and across a dry river bed littered with volcanic and limestone rocks, up the limestone kharst to amazing views over the grey tsingy. We dropped down into a few caves, some large spiders and massive bats (80cm span), then walked along the top of the tsingy to return and were greeted with a visit from the crowned lemurs hanging out in trees very close to the clearing, and a large chameleon not trying to run away. Second day involved a 12km hike out to some more fields of Tsingy, a green lake, and an introduction to climbing crowned lemurs who were very photogenic and friendly. The heavens decided to open on our return so the lost river was not so lost and actually pretty wet as were we all.
Managed to hitch a lift with a 4x4 to Ankify, the port to Nosy Be, so avoided the taxi-brousse crush and horror, hopped in a speed boat to the island and arrived in time for lunch. Our residence looked sweet, but full of mosquitos, and when we were told to make sure we double-locked everything, even when we were in, it left me a little worried.
Gutted that all the live-aboard boats had already left or were full, we booked diving. Rain stopped our play the next day, so we rented a quad and toured the island. Highlight was definitely an abandoned and rusted sugar mill. Trains and everything left in situ and we could just walk around and look at all the machinery. Would be a death trap to the average child and I could see it as one of the 80’s safety ads (like don’t play on the railway lines, or fly kites near overhead power cables etc).
Got a little wet but not too bad!
Two rather generic dives the following day, some strong current but better visibility than we are used to in the south, but nothing special, so a bit disappointing. Heard about the dives for the following day and couldn’t choose between all the options. 3 sites I wanted to go to, but only enough money for two. In the end I made the wrong decision and missed the opportunity to see a manta ray by going to another fringing reef. Horrors of the dive center (no first aid kit, or even a plaster) and general grumpiness made the day a little bitter, in addition to NOT seeing the manta as was talked out of it by Bad dive center owner (obviously trying to sell his dives). Having said that, the sites were pretty and there were many hawksbill turtles and blue spotted rays to be seen.
Flight out of Nosy Be almost went a little wrong with not being able to book flights again, had to turn up and hope, though they were full, a few seats opened up. But almost got very stuck as they would not accept a credit card and had to dig around to find the money in three different currencies.
Back in cold Tana, and any tan I thought I had got has disappeared already. Hoping to head out west now, but chilling and looking at photos before getting on the road again.
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