Blogs from Madagascar, Africa - page 17

I arrived in Madagascar for an 11-day trip in July (2011) with Zina from Za Tours waiting for me. After taking some money from an ATM we were off. With the conversion rate of 2000 Malagasy Ariary to one U.S. dollar you feel rich getting 400,000 Ariary from the ATM but it’s also hard to find somewhere to put your newfound “brick” of money. Zina and I headed south for about 5½ hours to the Artisan Hotel in Ambositra. The ride through Antananarivo (Tana) was definitely eye opening including all the people on the streets and the huge soccer games going on (a Sunday ritual as I learned). The poverty and poor living conditions of the people is also evident immediately when going through the city. Driving was a bit harrowing as not everyone seems to ... read more

La primera entrada de Africa. Estuvimos mas de un mes en Sydney haciendo nada. En la mañana del 2º de Junio fuimos en un avión para Africa via Singapore. El aeropuerto de Singapore era muy bueno. Tuvimos 8 horas alla y jugamos playstation 3, vimos futbol en un tv grande y caminamos mucho en el aeropuerto. Comimos comida de India porque estaba abierto a la 1 de la mañana. Finalmente fuimos a Johannesburgo. Llegamos a las 7 de la mañana (en la hora de Johannesburgo) y llamamos la hostal Mufasa para el auto. Llegamos en Mufasa y tuvimos una ducha, caminamos a una tienda para comprar comida para el almuerzo y la cena. A las 2 de la tarde John veno para llevarnon en un tur a el Parque de Leones a una hora de Mufasa. ... read more

Well the dinner was great! Zebu steak for me (type of big horned cow with a big hump on its back) and a traditional Malagasy (Madagascan) dish for Dario, both delicious. Of course we tried a local beer, Ambree, very nice! Then we went to bed exhausted. Next morning we had brekky at 6.30am then grabbed our things and took a taxi to the taxi-brousse station (basically mini van which are public transport) to take one to Fianarantsoa, 10 hours south. We managed to just miss the morning one, we didn’t want to wait until 2pm for the next one so instead we got on one that was heading to Ambositra, 5 hours south. We had to wait in our seats (we had the best ones since we were one of the first people in the ... read more

Dear Friends, April, 07 - 2011 This morning we arrived early in Madagascar - Port Diego Suarez. This port is situated on the most northern part of Madagascar and is one of the most beautiful and third largest bay of the world. The city of Diego Suarez is the chief city of this provence of Madegascar. Its name was bestowed by the Portuguese explorer Diego Diaz, who arrived in this bay in 1500. The city, built around the bay, has a mixture of modern and colonial aspects and gives the impression of being sparsely populated. It is widely known for the fishing industry and for its handicrafts. To learn more about Madagascar you can read the Wikipedea article below about the history of Madagascar. Today we are going to the Unesco World Heritage The Ankarana National ... read more

It has finally stopped raining!!!!! :D A bit of a scare this past weekend the other volunteers and I were supposed to take a cat-cat to Tulear for the weekend for some good steak and good drinks and good cheese but due to a tad bit of scheduled political instability we rescheduled our weekend adventure for next weekend… Good thing we did because we got hit with the dying end of a cyclone and the wind and rain were C.R.A.Z.Y. Kajsa(another volunteer) and I were both quite happy for the break in the heat but after three days of constant rain and the volunteer hut being so oversaturated with water that the normally waterproof straw hut was raining from the inside and absolutely everything was wet, we were getting anxious to be dry and hot again. ... read more