With A Little Help From My Friends...
Hello all,
Greetings from the Red Island! As always I hope that this note finds you all well and in fantastic health and spirits. Also, as always, I’m quite a bit behind in my updates so, as always, I hope that you can find it in your hearts to forgive me. Alas, bad news, my camera was out of commission from my work trips and I only recently got it back from the shop so there aren’t as many good photos accompanying this letter online but there are still enough to make it worth checking out the illustrated version at http://atibbs.blogspot.com.
As July comes to a rapid conclusion (where did the time go??) I’m finishing up at the office and finding it frustratingly… well… frustrating. It took three days and much communication across oceans and continents to ensure the proper size and placement of logos on the front page of the final report document. I didn’t expect anything else really, but I had hoped. I also suffer from the affliction of having too many bosses who all have to sign off on the same document but who apparently don’t talk to each other and all want different things. It’s been a good learning exercise and needless to say I can’t wait till I am one day the boss and can be petty and exact revenge on a group of interns of my own. Insert evil laugh here. In any event, the 55 page report documenting my travels and discoveries (but only the positive ones!) is now complete (for the third time) and submitted to the powers that be. If anyone wants to see it let me know and I’ll be happy to fire you off a copy. For the next three days I’ve been demoted to doing data entry projects and am taking time off to write you all this wonderful letter.
Thankfully and excitingly life has not all been work in the few months since last I wrote. Much of the summer has been indelibly shaped by an unexpected but welcome and awesome friendship with a local PC volunteer and her friends and family, as well as by the arrival of my own brother and sister to the Love Shack.
It all began immediately following my return from the last of my work trips. While I was still mulling over what I had seen and done on those adventures I went out with a group of PC volunteers to an ex-pat bar downtown. I was invited by Molly, whom I knew and had been in contact with about another project that we were cooperating on for the PC environment program. Spent much of that evening daydreaming and drifting but managed to have a great time discussing ecosystems and favorite bird behaviors and to make plans to meet Molly and her friend Laura, who was visiting from the states for lunch the next day to discuss the project.
So, I met the girls at a hotely (a small local restaurant) in the same neighborhood as my house. Sitting around a plank table on makeshift stools eating Chinese noodles, rice and eggs in the shadow of a truly awesome wall poster depicting crystal tableware and a stack of neon orange pancakes we discussed the economics of Africa (and the world), our various travels, McDonalds abroad, politics, and the pros and cons of various religions and traditional beliefs from Mormon to Voodoo. We did not discuss the project. Several hours passed amicably in this way and when we emerged back onto the street it was as true friends. To celebrate these newfound friendships I decided to skip a few days of work the next week (one of which was a holiday anyway) and travel with them via public transport to Andasibe, the rainforest in the east, for a few days of exploration before they had to return to Molly’s site in the North.
We arrived without incident in the evening and set up lodging in a hostel run by one of the NGO’s I visited on my work trip to the same locale. After a scrumptious dinner of rice and beans at the local hotely (which came highly recommended by the volunteer that lives in Andasibe,) and some more conversation we retired for the evening. The whole time we were there the stars were nothing short of amazing. The moon was new and building so for much of the night, every night, we were treated to the full effect of the African sky. I firmly believe that if you have never been to Africa you have never truly seen the stars. (Though perhaps I would be willing to concede that they are almost as good elsewhere)
I’ve also decided that you can never get enough of the rainforest. There is just so much to see and take in. Every time you walk through its different and equally amazing. There are millions of variations just on the color green. Birds and lemurs call as if to compete for your attention, though it remains difficult to see anything through the dense brush. The corrosive smell of decay and the fresh smell of new growth and rebirth are present in equal abundance, reminding you constantly that one is not possible without the other. This time, because our guide was hand picked for our visit by the local volunteer, he was actually the chief forester in charge of tree nurseries and forest rehabilitation. This presented an amazing opportunity to delve into the world of plants that make up the structure of the forest. The organization who manages the private reserve which we visited, Mitsinjo, is busily redeveloping the forest from the ground up. Planting more than 70 species of trees of different types, each with its own rate of growth, lifespan, and shade tolerance, they hope to eventually bring back some of the endangered, slow growing hardwoods that used be the primary players there. Palisandre(sp), a tree which grows only in Madagascar, is one of the densest trees on earth. It grows a vertical meter every 20 years and is highly sought after as a building material for furniture and hardwood floors. There are hardly any left. We saw only a couple of them in the forest, mostly saplings shorter than me and less than two decades old. The oldest and largest that we saw clocked in at something like 700 years and was still only 6-8 inches in diameter.
I was also forced to somewhat revise my opinion of Eucalyptus. Previously, I looked on these interesting trees with their distinctive peeling bark as an introduced blight on the local landscape. Invasive and hungry for the water that is so needed by other rainforest species it would have gladdened my heart if someone had found a way just to get rid of them all. I learned from our guide that the French brought these fast growing trees here as fuel for the railway steam engines. He also made me consider that properly managed, these trees could be the only hope for saving the forest from the charcoal makers by giving them an alternative source of fuel.
The most exciting thing that happened while we were in the forest however was completely unexpected. It just so happened that a BBC film crew were using Mitsinjo’s forest to film nocturnal creatures called Tenrecs (think tiny hedgehogs except not at all related) and we managed, no doubt thanks to our copious charm, to wrangle an invitation to go with them and watch them film some segments. This was a truly amazing experience. Granted, I may never look at a nature documentary the same way again. The amount of equipment required is truly astounding and there are other secrets which I will keep to myself for fear of ruining your impressions with inadequate explanations.
>"My tomato... SO THERE!" Lesser bamboo lemur
>Dancing Lemurs Dancing
>Mongoose Lemur
All in all it was a great trip and the girls and I went our separate ways with the promise that my brother and I would join them later in the month in Molly’s village to the north for the celebration of Malagasy Independence Day on the 26th of June. I was excited about this trip for many reasons, not least of which that I wanted to see some PC sites in order to better compare and contrast to my Morocco experience.
I took Matt fresh off the 24 hour plane ride, gave him one day to recover and then stuffed him into a Malagasy Taxi-brousse, a decrepit bush taxi little larger than a mini-van into which they routinely cram at least 15 people. Its run down, dusty, bumpy, there’s no padding in the seats and we were on board for something in the neighborhood of 20 hours before being discharged in Antsohihy where we would take a brief overnight rest before boarding another bus for the last leg of the journey. It was awesome in a forget-how-to-use-my-legs-wish-I-had-Valium kind of way. Cold though… We got the front seats because I made reservations in advance and this would have been great except for two minor details. The driver insisted on blasting Malagasy pop music for the entire 20 hour trip and our window refused to roll up all the way. If we had any doubts that it was winter in the southern hemisphere they were dispelled along the route.
Matt by the Brousse before our big journey
In any event we arrived in Bealanana without serious incident, sore and dusty but feeling very much in harmony with the PC spirit. Reunited with M&L we resumed our discussions pretty much where we had left off several weeks before in the appropriate setting of M’s one room house and with the added benefit of Matt’s awesome sense of humor. We got a lot of reading in, explored the surroundings a bit, and made peanut butter with peanuts harvested from M’s garden using a large mortar and pestle on the street in front of the house, much to the amusement of passersby I’m quite certain. Especially when we started belting out camp songs. We also succumbed to our own patriotic leanings and L turned tattoo artist giving us all patriotic motifs with marker.
The town itself was actually quite large and a pre-holiday party atmosphere was building. Each night there was festivities and performances on the town square and Malagasy flags and other decorations sprouted from windowsills and balconies all over town. Despite our best efforts to procure a second chicken to supplement the one M had inherited from a previous volunteer there was not a chicken to be had in town. Every walking bit of poultry of decent weight had already been spoken for weeks in advance in anticipation of Independence Day feasting. There was even a small, seedy looking carnival doing banner business.
M was an amazing hostess and quite patient of our invasion of her space. She was an awesome chef using primarily an “improved” cook stove made of clay and rice hulls to make us one-pot vegetarian masterpieces over charcoal with ingredients from the market across the street. This didn’t stop us from getting her into trouble with her super cute landlady though, who took the time to berate M for having the tenacity to ask her guests to fetch water, despite the fact that she was busy baking us a Dutch oven pineapple-upside-down cake at the time.
The big day finally arrived and the Malagasy started hitting the booze early in the morning which made for some interesting people watching from the balcony. The official festivities included parades, (in which we were obliged to make a brief appearance), many speeches (which seem to be something of a Malagasy national pastime), soccer matches, bare knuckle boxing and a grand ball (which is not nearly as grand as its name would lead you to believe). We spent most of the day cooking and listening to music and ended up with an awesome feast - barbecued chicken and vegetables, cakes and bread, potato salad and traditional Malagasy salads of various compositions. Something for every palette. I could no doubt continue to regale you with tales of good times and good food, but I don’t want to make you jealous.
We ended up back in Tana eventually after a reverse of the taxi ride (for which we were better prepared) just in time for our own Independence Day celebrations. M&L eventually joined Matt and I in the city and we hung out and did city things (like getting our own official rubber stamps made and drinking homemade beer from the Hotel de France) for a few days before L had to catch her flight back to the states. My family then recruited M to help decorate for the Ambassadors 4th of July bash. This was a good time. We decorated 600ish cupcakes and arrayed them in the shape of a giant American flag. This turned out to be an amusing dessert choice for the party because Malagasy people have no idea what to do with a cupcake. Or a hamburger for that matter… which made flame broiling my hands at the grill for 2 hours worthwhile. I think perhaps my favorite part was the Malagasy choir’s rendition of the Star-Spangled-Banner… Or perhaps Michael Jackson’s “Heal the World.”
>Molly,me,Laura,Matt in true Malagasy style
Later in July M’s parents flew in for a month long visit and Matt and I took them up on an invitation to accompany them to Morondava, a beachy town on the Mozambique Channel to the west of the island. We figured it was probably worthwhile just to watch M make her parents ride in a taxi-brousse for 19 hours. (It was). M was going to Morondava to run a marathon and the rest of us (who thought she was quite crazy) were going to hang out on the beach and witness the weird majesty of the avenue of the baobabs. (Also because the Morondava region is supposed to be interesting and unique and I hadn’t been there yet).
It was an amazing trip. Definitely one of my favorites thus far. Our hotel was cheap, yet our room had a clear view of the water and the surf lulled us to sleep each night. The beach in front of the hotel was well maintained and we swam for hours every day in the buoyant, salty water of the Indian Ocean, riding the waves and swimming from sandbar to sandbar. Each morning the water as far as the eye could see would be dotted with native pirogues, usually with a basic square sail made from whatever scraps of material they had to hand and an outrigger. The fishermen would pull in all sorts of things, from squid to sharks and paddle them in to their women on the beach who would, in turn, prep them or sell them to local tourist hotels. Each evening the sun would set directly into the water rendering the sky and the crests of the waves in a multitude of orange and purple hues. The word idyllic springs to mind most regularly looking back on it.
Lizard Friends at the Hotel in Morondava
Lizard Friends at the Hotel in Morondava
Lizard Friends at the Hotel in Morondava
Beach Sunsets!
Beach Sunsets!
Beach Sunsets!
Beach Sunsets!
Beach Sunsets!
We rented a car one day to take us out to Kirindy Mitea National Park, home of the “dry” forest. (as opposed to the rainforest?) We actually ended up going a day later than we had planned because there was an apparent shortage of gasoline that it took us the better part of a morning to discover. Sometimes events conspire to remind you that you’re still residing in the third world.
The park was interesting and I was pleasantly surprised by the abundance of birdlife. There isn’t as much underbrush in the dry forest and so you can see the birds better than in the rainforest. My favorites, the Paradise fly-catchers in the black and white morphology, were displaying! Exciting stuff indeed. We also saw 3 types of lemurs and if we had camped out there we might even have seen a Fosa, Madagascar’s largest mammalian predator. (Which looks like a cross between a dog and a cat and is in the Civet cat family I think.) The highlight of this excursion however was most certainly the Baobab trees that line the road. These giants are truly bizarre and yet this only increases their appeal and their majesty I think. They are wonderfully weird. I could, and did, stand and look at them for a long time. We visited all the main attractions; the “lovers” baobab, the “sacred” baobab and wound up our visit with the classic but still amazing sunset photo shoot over the “avenue of baobabs.” I think that many people who come to Madagascar probably have these exact same photos but the event itself is certainly spectacular enough to make it worthwhile. Our only regret is that the chameleons have gone into hiding for the winter, though M and Matt did manage to find natures version of gladiators when a dragon fly that had been caught in a spiders web turned the tables and ate the spider earning his freedom. Who says the best drama is on television?
Baobabs! My new Favorite Trees
Baobabs! My new Favorite Trees
Red-Capped Coua
Lazy Sifakas
Red-Bellied Lemur with Tagging Collar
Paradise Flycatcher displaying
Sacred Baobab
Lover's Boababs
Avenue of the Baobabs
Avenue of the Baobabs
Awwww!
Wow...
Getting to know a praying mantis
Our final full day in Morondava was the day of the Marathon. Matt and I made signs and decorated to support our favorite runner (and we were the only ones… the idea of a cheering section has apparently yet to catch on in Madagascar). I must admit that despite thinking marathon runners are crazy I still found it to be nothing short of amazing. A group of 45 foreigners organized by an American tour group in Boston had come to Madagascar specifically to run this marathon. Other than them it was 30 Malagasy guys and M. The runners got up at 3:30am to be bussed to the starting line 42 kilometers (26 miles) away and were supposed to begin running at 6am in hopes of avoiding the worst of the day’s heat. Unfortunately, their shuttle broke down and they started more than an hour behind schedule and had to finish during the suns worst hours. Much of the course was deep sand and they couldn’t close the road so they also had to dodge traffic. Despite all of this the first Malagasy men finished in less than 3 hours and most did so without shoes. M was awesome and came in second for the women (no Malagasy women ran) and got a spiffy golden trophy to display proudly at the PC house in Tana. A pretty great day all around I think. It has inspired me to attempt to train for a marathon at some point in the next few years. I would like to at least find out if I’m capable.
Unfortunately, the trip had to end and we taxi-broussed back to Tana and I returned to the office. I’ve been using the afternoons to do things around the city with Matt and Megan and just to relax. M and her family have left and it’s back to just us again. Our own family is planning to leave on our first full-family vacation in quite some time the first day of August. We’ll spend ten days driving south, seeing the sights along Madagascar’s highway 7, a trip that was suggested to us when we first arrived. I’m looking forward to it, even if we have all grown up so much that it means a rather cramped car. I’m sure I’ll have something to say about that trip in the not-to-distant future.
In the meantime, this letter is quite long enough. I do hope you’ve enjoyed it though. If the fancy strikes you feel free to write and let me know what you’re up to! I’ll be changing mailing addresses shortly so it is perhaps best to start sending any paper mail to the new address, listed below. E-mail is also welcome!
Until next time,
Stay well!
Love and Luck in Everything
-Andy
Greetings from the Red Island! As always I hope that this note finds you all well and in fantastic health and spirits. Also, as always, I’m quite a bit behind in my updates so, as always, I hope that you can find it in your hearts to forgive me. Alas, bad news, my camera was out of commission from my work trips and I only recently got it back from the shop so there aren’t as many good photos accompanying this letter online but there are still enough to make it worth checking out the illustrated version at http://atibbs.blogspot.com.
As July comes to a rapid conclusion (where did the time go??) I’m finishing up at the office and finding it frustratingly… well… frustrating. It took three days and much communication across oceans and continents to ensure the proper size and placement of logos on the front page of the final report document. I didn’t expect anything else really, but I had hoped. I also suffer from the affliction of having too many bosses who all have to sign off on the same document but who apparently don’t talk to each other and all want different things. It’s been a good learning exercise and needless to say I can’t wait till I am one day the boss and can be petty and exact revenge on a group of interns of my own. Insert evil laugh here. In any event, the 55 page report documenting my travels and discoveries (but only the positive ones!) is now complete (for the third time) and submitted to the powers that be. If anyone wants to see it let me know and I’ll be happy to fire you off a copy. For the next three days I’ve been demoted to doing data entry projects and am taking time off to write you all this wonderful letter.
Thankfully and excitingly life has not all been work in the few months since last I wrote. Much of the summer has been indelibly shaped by an unexpected but welcome and awesome friendship with a local PC volunteer and her friends and family, as well as by the arrival of my own brother and sister to the Love Shack.
It all began immediately following my return from the last of my work trips. While I was still mulling over what I had seen and done on those adventures I went out with a group of PC volunteers to an ex-pat bar downtown. I was invited by Molly, whom I knew and had been in contact with about another project that we were cooperating on for the PC environment program. Spent much of that evening daydreaming and drifting but managed to have a great time discussing ecosystems and favorite bird behaviors and to make plans to meet Molly and her friend Laura, who was visiting from the states for lunch the next day to discuss the project.
So, I met the girls at a hotely (a small local restaurant) in the same neighborhood as my house. Sitting around a plank table on makeshift stools eating Chinese noodles, rice and eggs in the shadow of a truly awesome wall poster depicting crystal tableware and a stack of neon orange pancakes we discussed the economics of Africa (and the world), our various travels, McDonalds abroad, politics, and the pros and cons of various religions and traditional beliefs from Mormon to Voodoo. We did not discuss the project. Several hours passed amicably in this way and when we emerged back onto the street it was as true friends. To celebrate these newfound friendships I decided to skip a few days of work the next week (one of which was a holiday anyway) and travel with them via public transport to Andasibe, the rainforest in the east, for a few days of exploration before they had to return to Molly’s site in the North.
We arrived without incident in the evening and set up lodging in a hostel run by one of the NGO’s I visited on my work trip to the same locale. After a scrumptious dinner of rice and beans at the local hotely (which came highly recommended by the volunteer that lives in Andasibe,) and some more conversation we retired for the evening. The whole time we were there the stars were nothing short of amazing. The moon was new and building so for much of the night, every night, we were treated to the full effect of the African sky. I firmly believe that if you have never been to Africa you have never truly seen the stars. (Though perhaps I would be willing to concede that they are almost as good elsewhere)
I’ve also decided that you can never get enough of the rainforest. There is just so much to see and take in. Every time you walk through its different and equally amazing. There are millions of variations just on the color green. Birds and lemurs call as if to compete for your attention, though it remains difficult to see anything through the dense brush. The corrosive smell of decay and the fresh smell of new growth and rebirth are present in equal abundance, reminding you constantly that one is not possible without the other. This time, because our guide was hand picked for our visit by the local volunteer, he was actually the chief forester in charge of tree nurseries and forest rehabilitation. This presented an amazing opportunity to delve into the world of plants that make up the structure of the forest. The organization who manages the private reserve which we visited, Mitsinjo, is busily redeveloping the forest from the ground up. Planting more than 70 species of trees of different types, each with its own rate of growth, lifespan, and shade tolerance, they hope to eventually bring back some of the endangered, slow growing hardwoods that used be the primary players there. Palisandre(sp), a tree which grows only in Madagascar, is one of the densest trees on earth. It grows a vertical meter every 20 years and is highly sought after as a building material for furniture and hardwood floors. There are hardly any left. We saw only a couple of them in the forest, mostly saplings shorter than me and less than two decades old. The oldest and largest that we saw clocked in at something like 700 years and was still only 6-8 inches in diameter.
I was also forced to somewhat revise my opinion of Eucalyptus. Previously, I looked on these interesting trees with their distinctive peeling bark as an introduced blight on the local landscape. Invasive and hungry for the water that is so needed by other rainforest species it would have gladdened my heart if someone had found a way just to get rid of them all. I learned from our guide that the French brought these fast growing trees here as fuel for the railway steam engines. He also made me consider that properly managed, these trees could be the only hope for saving the forest from the charcoal makers by giving them an alternative source of fuel.
The most exciting thing that happened while we were in the forest however was completely unexpected. It just so happened that a BBC film crew were using Mitsinjo’s forest to film nocturnal creatures called Tenrecs (think tiny hedgehogs except not at all related) and we managed, no doubt thanks to our copious charm, to wrangle an invitation to go with them and watch them film some segments. This was a truly amazing experience. Granted, I may never look at a nature documentary the same way again. The amount of equipment required is truly astounding and there are other secrets which I will keep to myself for fear of ruining your impressions with inadequate explanations.
>"My tomato... SO THERE!" Lesser bamboo lemur
>Dancing Lemurs Dancing
>Mongoose LemurAll in all it was a great trip and the girls and I went our separate ways with the promise that my brother and I would join them later in the month in Molly’s village to the north for the celebration of Malagasy Independence Day on the 26th of June. I was excited about this trip for many reasons, not least of which that I wanted to see some PC sites in order to better compare and contrast to my Morocco experience.
I took Matt fresh off the 24 hour plane ride, gave him one day to recover and then stuffed him into a Malagasy Taxi-brousse, a decrepit bush taxi little larger than a mini-van into which they routinely cram at least 15 people. Its run down, dusty, bumpy, there’s no padding in the seats and we were on board for something in the neighborhood of 20 hours before being discharged in Antsohihy where we would take a brief overnight rest before boarding another bus for the last leg of the journey. It was awesome in a forget-how-to-use-my-legs-wish-I-had-Valium kind of way. Cold though… We got the front seats because I made reservations in advance and this would have been great except for two minor details. The driver insisted on blasting Malagasy pop music for the entire 20 hour trip and our window refused to roll up all the way. If we had any doubts that it was winter in the southern hemisphere they were dispelled along the route.
Matt by the Brousse before our big journeyIn any event we arrived in Bealanana without serious incident, sore and dusty but feeling very much in harmony with the PC spirit. Reunited with M&L we resumed our discussions pretty much where we had left off several weeks before in the appropriate setting of M’s one room house and with the added benefit of Matt’s awesome sense of humor. We got a lot of reading in, explored the surroundings a bit, and made peanut butter with peanuts harvested from M’s garden using a large mortar and pestle on the street in front of the house, much to the amusement of passersby I’m quite certain. Especially when we started belting out camp songs. We also succumbed to our own patriotic leanings and L turned tattoo artist giving us all patriotic motifs with marker.
The town itself was actually quite large and a pre-holiday party atmosphere was building. Each night there was festivities and performances on the town square and Malagasy flags and other decorations sprouted from windowsills and balconies all over town. Despite our best efforts to procure a second chicken to supplement the one M had inherited from a previous volunteer there was not a chicken to be had in town. Every walking bit of poultry of decent weight had already been spoken for weeks in advance in anticipation of Independence Day feasting. There was even a small, seedy looking carnival doing banner business.
M was an amazing hostess and quite patient of our invasion of her space. She was an awesome chef using primarily an “improved” cook stove made of clay and rice hulls to make us one-pot vegetarian masterpieces over charcoal with ingredients from the market across the street. This didn’t stop us from getting her into trouble with her super cute landlady though, who took the time to berate M for having the tenacity to ask her guests to fetch water, despite the fact that she was busy baking us a Dutch oven pineapple-upside-down cake at the time.
The big day finally arrived and the Malagasy started hitting the booze early in the morning which made for some interesting people watching from the balcony. The official festivities included parades, (in which we were obliged to make a brief appearance), many speeches (which seem to be something of a Malagasy national pastime), soccer matches, bare knuckle boxing and a grand ball (which is not nearly as grand as its name would lead you to believe). We spent most of the day cooking and listening to music and ended up with an awesome feast - barbecued chicken and vegetables, cakes and bread, potato salad and traditional Malagasy salads of various compositions. Something for every palette. I could no doubt continue to regale you with tales of good times and good food, but I don’t want to make you jealous.
We ended up back in Tana eventually after a reverse of the taxi ride (for which we were better prepared) just in time for our own Independence Day celebrations. M&L eventually joined Matt and I in the city and we hung out and did city things (like getting our own official rubber stamps made and drinking homemade beer from the Hotel de France) for a few days before L had to catch her flight back to the states. My family then recruited M to help decorate for the Ambassadors 4th of July bash. This was a good time. We decorated 600ish cupcakes and arrayed them in the shape of a giant American flag. This turned out to be an amusing dessert choice for the party because Malagasy people have no idea what to do with a cupcake. Or a hamburger for that matter… which made flame broiling my hands at the grill for 2 hours worthwhile. I think perhaps my favorite part was the Malagasy choir’s rendition of the Star-Spangled-Banner… Or perhaps Michael Jackson’s “Heal the World.”
>Molly,me,Laura,Matt in true Malagasy styleLater in July M’s parents flew in for a month long visit and Matt and I took them up on an invitation to accompany them to Morondava, a beachy town on the Mozambique Channel to the west of the island. We figured it was probably worthwhile just to watch M make her parents ride in a taxi-brousse for 19 hours. (It was). M was going to Morondava to run a marathon and the rest of us (who thought she was quite crazy) were going to hang out on the beach and witness the weird majesty of the avenue of the baobabs. (Also because the Morondava region is supposed to be interesting and unique and I hadn’t been there yet).
It was an amazing trip. Definitely one of my favorites thus far. Our hotel was cheap, yet our room had a clear view of the water and the surf lulled us to sleep each night. The beach in front of the hotel was well maintained and we swam for hours every day in the buoyant, salty water of the Indian Ocean, riding the waves and swimming from sandbar to sandbar. Each morning the water as far as the eye could see would be dotted with native pirogues, usually with a basic square sail made from whatever scraps of material they had to hand and an outrigger. The fishermen would pull in all sorts of things, from squid to sharks and paddle them in to their women on the beach who would, in turn, prep them or sell them to local tourist hotels. Each evening the sun would set directly into the water rendering the sky and the crests of the waves in a multitude of orange and purple hues. The word idyllic springs to mind most regularly looking back on it.
Lizard Friends at the Hotel in Morondava
Lizard Friends at the Hotel in Morondava
Lizard Friends at the Hotel in Morondava
Beach Sunsets!
Beach Sunsets!
Beach Sunsets!
Beach Sunsets!
Beach Sunsets!We rented a car one day to take us out to Kirindy Mitea National Park, home of the “dry” forest. (as opposed to the rainforest?) We actually ended up going a day later than we had planned because there was an apparent shortage of gasoline that it took us the better part of a morning to discover. Sometimes events conspire to remind you that you’re still residing in the third world.
The park was interesting and I was pleasantly surprised by the abundance of birdlife. There isn’t as much underbrush in the dry forest and so you can see the birds better than in the rainforest. My favorites, the Paradise fly-catchers in the black and white morphology, were displaying! Exciting stuff indeed. We also saw 3 types of lemurs and if we had camped out there we might even have seen a Fosa, Madagascar’s largest mammalian predator. (Which looks like a cross between a dog and a cat and is in the Civet cat family I think.) The highlight of this excursion however was most certainly the Baobab trees that line the road. These giants are truly bizarre and yet this only increases their appeal and their majesty I think. They are wonderfully weird. I could, and did, stand and look at them for a long time. We visited all the main attractions; the “lovers” baobab, the “sacred” baobab and wound up our visit with the classic but still amazing sunset photo shoot over the “avenue of baobabs.” I think that many people who come to Madagascar probably have these exact same photos but the event itself is certainly spectacular enough to make it worthwhile. Our only regret is that the chameleons have gone into hiding for the winter, though M and Matt did manage to find natures version of gladiators when a dragon fly that had been caught in a spiders web turned the tables and ate the spider earning his freedom. Who says the best drama is on television?
Baobabs! My new Favorite Trees
Baobabs! My new Favorite Trees
Red-Capped Coua
Lazy Sifakas
Red-Bellied Lemur with Tagging Collar
Paradise Flycatcher displaying
Sacred Baobab
Lover's Boababs
Avenue of the Baobabs
Avenue of the Baobabs
Awwww!
Wow... 
Getting to know a praying mantis
Our final full day in Morondava was the day of the Marathon. Matt and I made signs and decorated to support our favorite runner (and we were the only ones… the idea of a cheering section has apparently yet to catch on in Madagascar). I must admit that despite thinking marathon runners are crazy I still found it to be nothing short of amazing. A group of 45 foreigners organized by an American tour group in Boston had come to Madagascar specifically to run this marathon. Other than them it was 30 Malagasy guys and M. The runners got up at 3:30am to be bussed to the starting line 42 kilometers (26 miles) away and were supposed to begin running at 6am in hopes of avoiding the worst of the day’s heat. Unfortunately, their shuttle broke down and they started more than an hour behind schedule and had to finish during the suns worst hours. Much of the course was deep sand and they couldn’t close the road so they also had to dodge traffic. Despite all of this the first Malagasy men finished in less than 3 hours and most did so without shoes. M was awesome and came in second for the women (no Malagasy women ran) and got a spiffy golden trophy to display proudly at the PC house in Tana. A pretty great day all around I think. It has inspired me to attempt to train for a marathon at some point in the next few years. I would like to at least find out if I’m capable.
Unfortunately, the trip had to end and we taxi-broussed back to Tana and I returned to the office. I’ve been using the afternoons to do things around the city with Matt and Megan and just to relax. M and her family have left and it’s back to just us again. Our own family is planning to leave on our first full-family vacation in quite some time the first day of August. We’ll spend ten days driving south, seeing the sights along Madagascar’s highway 7, a trip that was suggested to us when we first arrived. I’m looking forward to it, even if we have all grown up so much that it means a rather cramped car. I’m sure I’ll have something to say about that trip in the not-to-distant future.
In the meantime, this letter is quite long enough. I do hope you’ve enjoyed it though. If the fancy strikes you feel free to write and let me know what you’re up to! I’ll be changing mailing addresses shortly so it is perhaps best to start sending any paper mail to the new address, listed below. E-mail is also welcome!
Until next time,
Stay well!
Love and Luck in Everything
-Andy
posted by Andy & Erin | 8:42 PM
|
1 comments
