Madagascar blog 2 - the next couple of days

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Today was a moving on day, and yes, that did mean revisiting THAT road, although calling it a road is probably a bit of a stretch! Somehow in the daylight with less dust being thrown up it didn’t seem quite as dramatic as the first time, but it’s still a drive I wouldn’t have attempted in Barbie.

We drove for around 3 hours on roads similar to those before THAT road. In Madagascar the cars travel on the right hand side of the road, well they do when they aren’t in the middle of the road or on the left hand side. It really seems a bit random except when there’s another vehicle coming towards you and you move to the right hand side to pass. If you plan to overtake a vehicle, which of course might be in the middle of the road, you pull up behind it and peep your horn. The vehicle then moves to the right and you pass it while attempting to not drive into one of the millions of holes in the road. Interestingly I haven’t seen any woman driving yet.

We visited the Tsingy Rouge – see, I told you I’d come back to Tsingy. Tsingy are rock formations formed by erosion of the land above fossilised shell formations. The word Tsingy means ‘where one cannot walk barefoot’; the grey Tsingy are incredibly sharp vertical shards of rock, so it’s aptly named. It was making to think we were looking at a place where no-one had ever set foot before. The red Tsingy look very different, obviously the colour, but also the shape is rounded rocks rather than sharp. We were able to get very close to the red Tsingy, although of course we didn’t set foot on the formations.

Lunch was a bit further along the road in a local restaurant. The food was lovely! Avocado with crab as a starter, wild pig with rice for main and fresh pineapple for pud.

There was a chicken with about 8 chicks clucking around as we ate. One chick got separated from the group and was peeping with panic while mum chicken was clucking ‘I’m here!’ They were either side of the raised platform with the tables, so couldn’t see each other. We listened for a while, then decided to help by directing the chick towards mum. Peace reigned.

We then carried on to our next hotel in Diego-Suarez, the Allamander. Less basic than the Black Lemur, but not as luxurious as the Vanila. There was a pool however and after today’s journey I was hot, sweaty and extremely dusty, so once I had dumped my case in the room I jumped in; lovely and refreshing!

We had dinner at the hotel, then a few of managed to finish the bottle of spiced rum I’d brought with me before retiring to bed.

Day 5 was a beach type day. In fact 4 beaches! And blooming lovely ones! On the way to our first beach we had 3 stops, firstly to visit the Sugar Loaf, a small spiritual island in the bay which Diego-Suarez sits on, then to see some Baobab trees, the spiritual tree of Madagascar then we visited a huge 500 year old Baobab tree. It was a hugely impressive beautiful tree. Sadly though there was evidence of idiots carving their names into the tree. Just why?

The first three beaches were the ‘3 bays’, Firstly the Bay of Sakalava, often windy and popular with wind surfers. We stayed about 20 minutes to take photos of this beautiful place, a long white sandy beach with palms and very big wooden seat. The second one was the Bay of Dunes where we stopped for a couple of hours to swim and relax. The waves were much higher then the previous beach, but most of us braved them, and it was brilliant fun! The icing on the cake was a whale breaching and tail-slapping in the bay.

We walked a few minute to the next bay – the Bay of Pigeons. This was a much smaller bay, and I’m not sure why it’s called that because there weren’t any pigeons. There were however some birds of the Tern family, beautiful white birds with long tails called Tropicbirds.

On the way to lunch we stopped at a lighthouse. It was situated at the shipping entrance to the Bay of Tonnerre, the only entrance to the port of Diego-Suarez. We had no interest in the lighthouse however when we spotted a a couple of whales which were playing in the sea below us. A turtle was too! Several minutes were spend oooohing and ahhhhing at them. There were three Tropicbirds too!

Lunch was in a seafood restaurant in a village with Lemurs in the trees around the restaurant. They are suckers for bananas, and we were really lucky that they came within arms reach to claim their food. I feel hugely privileged to have seen a Crowned Lemur that close up and have it take half a banana from my hand. Oh, and the food was yummy!

We then went to the last bay of the day, the Bay of Diego which National Geographic reckons to be one of the most beautiful bays in the world. It was pretty special! The calm, warm sea was fabulous to have the second dip of the day, followed by a while sitting under a tree trying not to get burned!

One the way back to the hotel we saw a wedding procession – a couple of dozen cars in a convoy all with hazard lights flashing and horns hooting. The bride and her entourage were standing in the back of a 4x4. We reckoned there’s going to be a big party tonight!

We’re going into town tonight and braving a local restaurant. I’ll tell you how we get on in the next blog!

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