Blogs from Antananarivo, Madagascar, Africa - page 7

So here we are. Mango town. We have never seen so many mangoes in one place. Ever. On the trees, strewn all over the floor. Mangoes are eaten for breakfast & lunch, the after-school game was throwing mangoes at the mango tree and eating the fallen mangoes and dinner was.... Mangoes! Raay! Inevitably it stank of fermenting fruit. The local bin men were obviously on strike or something. Following the river trip, the second half of the tour was a visit to the Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park in western Madagascar. The journey there was quite nice - initially driving along tracks past paddy fields, then lunch and a river ferry at Belo Tsribinha - Eric had to get out of the "ferry" and help push it across the river, much to the amusement of the ... read more

Heading Getting ready and already dealing with fotoana gasy (Malagasy time) Now that our trip is officially one month away, Jessica, Wendy and I are trying to book our plane tickets to Diego- so we either pay 50 dollars on top of the tourist price to get them sent to the US, or we very kindly ask Wendy to get the peace corps travel agent to book them for us and hope that the dollar becomes stronger in the next 2 weeks. I think we are doing the latter. ... read more

Well, when I was in the middle of my last tour of Kenya/Tanzania, I wrote a very long second entry and then the internet died in the cafe I was in, so I lost it. So...here I am in Madagascar! I just finished my tour and it was amazing. What a truly beautiful country. A few of the highlights.... The screaming Indris in Andasibe waking me up at 5:50 Having three brown lemurs climbing all over me on Lemur Island (and digging their nails into my neck) Learning how to pronounce Antananarivo, Fianarantsoa, Analamanzoatra and Andrianampoinimerina Meeting Dr. Patricia Wright, of Stony Brook University, who discovered the Golden Bamboo Lemur in 1986 and help set up Ranomafana National Park and getting a tour of their fantastic research facility Swimming in Piscine Naturelle at Isalo...paradise Dancing sifakas ... read more

Or maybe not..... So first of all in this Blog you'll find: 1) PLENTY of photos 2) A very negative comment as I have to get it off my chest 3) a text that Nadja wrote about most of what we did till now. (I use her text as I have spent a lot of time uploading the pictures. So what's wrong????? We have been very dissapointed by the "friendliness" of the Malagasy. Madagascar is not a country to travel "independently". As long as you travel in group and pay a LOT of money, you get plenty of nice smiles. But we are trying to do it the real way and travel with the locals and local transport. Again and again they try to rip us off. Over charging by 2 or 3 times the normal ... read more

Geo: -18.9201, 47.5237Madagascar has become my most favourite place in the world (sorry China!) with my most favourite people in the world living there! It is paradise! Sweet little houses, mountains, rainforest, cuddly lemurs, palm trees, perfect weather, desert and palm trees all in one. It's a world of its own. And the Madagascans are even better than the lemurs! Lots of waves and smiles and an amazing warmth. I went there to visit a long term penpal, Domoina. It was a bit of a gamble and Rebecca had already planned many escape plans but it couldn't possibly have been better. I just couldn't believe it had all worked out so perfectly.I've never been anywhere like Antananarivo, more easily known as 'Tana.'. It is a grotty higgelty piggeldy mess in the most wonderful way possible. Flying ... read more