Blogs from Madagascar, Africa - page 35

A few shots showing life around camp, including the hand-crafting of Andavanopoly by myself, Steve and Andy during a particularly rough few days!... read more

A glimpse of Andavadoake village itself (about half a mile from our huts) and the 'northern beaches' close by.... read more

In the first week at Andavadoake we were invited to a Fumba (celebration) at a local village. Two women had recently recovered from severe illness and this called for much rum, dancing, music and merriment.... read more

After much preparation and planning we left the UK in mid September and joined a team of 14 LEPRA cyclists in Madagascar. We all met up in the highlands of Southern Madagascar in a National Park called Ranomafana. Sadly much of the original rain forest has been destroyed in Madagascar and a few National Parks have been created to preserve some of the remaining forests. Even then poverty forces locals to employ illegal slash and burn methods in an attempt to sustain themselves. As we prepared for our first day’s cycling we were quickly reminded that this was not the UK. when a recently beheaded Zebu (a Malagasy cow) clattered down the slight incline in front of our bamboo shack on a metal wheeled bogie as it was transported towards the market. The 3 Malagasy butchers ... read more

Hi everyone, Before you get too excited this isn’t really the next instalment, just a quick apology for the lack of blog updates over the last couple of months! As usual I have plenty of excuses for being slack, for starters - only email via satellite phone was available at the dive project and at 5€ a pop to send a short text mail we didn’t do any of that… The 2 - 3 weeks of travelling we had after leaving the project were a haze of bone-jarring, bum-numbing bus journeys, remote river trips and isolated National Parks, a time where we were rarely blessed with electricity let alone access to a computer. And if that wasn’t enough, our return to England has been somewhat blighted by illness….nothing that serious we hope (they are still investigating), ... read more