Off to a rough start (in Africa)

Ending Madagascar:

It seemed that the moment I parted Bianca and Himali in Madagascar, I lost my 'good luck charms' and a plethora of negative incidences followed. The first was during my walk to the Rova (the old palace) in Tana when I was stalked by a somewhat crazed-drunk who refused to leave me alone and became more aggressive as time passed. At first I tried to pretend not to know French, English or Malagasy, hoping he'd leave me alone, but soon gave up with that tactic and started to command "Arretez" repetitively, getting loader each time. Eventually that developed into me screaming at him and physically shoving him away, but by this stage locals noticed and came to help. At the end of my tolerance for drunk sleeze accumulated over the trip, I opted to get the bus back from the Rova instead of walking. My luck continued later that evening when I became quite sick; passing in and out of fever in my sleep until I had to wake at 1.30am for an insane-o-clock flight.

Heading to the mainland

My plane was headed to Johannesburg via Nosy Be (an island in the north) and after going through the lay-over at Nosy Be, I started to nap in the next plane trip. Two hours later, I awoke to the sound of the hostess announcing our arrival in Antananarivo and could see airport infrastructure labelled 'aeroport d'Ivato' out my window. The airport in Nosy Be had been so chaotic I initially feared I had boarded the wrong flight. What had actually happened was that the plane on-route to Johannesburg had turned around half way across the Indian Ocean when we lost cabin pressure, concluding it was safest to return to Madagascar to land. As to when we would actually be able to get back on a plane to Johannesburg, no one knew.

Once off the plane they went to take us to domestic arrivals, then to international, then back to domestic and then back to international. For hours we sat there in the stuffy airport, no announcements, no food, no water, with my fever intermittently coming and going. I went to buy water, but the kiosk didn't accept local currency; just pounds, euro, swiss francs and US dollars and there was nowhere on our side of customs to change/withdraw money. One shop took card, but all they sold was alcohol. It seemed painfully ironic that I couldn't buy water (and tap water wasn't drinkable) but could buy as much booze as I wanted. Luckily some South Africans managed to get past security/customs to change some money to euros and swapped some with me in exchange for some Rand I had. For hours I sat in the airport with them chatting -- both extremely friendly people. Finally at 4pm (I had arrived at the airport at 3am that morning) we finally left off again for Johannesburg, arriving late at night (so much for a morning arrival). Once again, the couple was extremely hospitable, inviting me to eat with them and their family, buying my meal and providing me with a lift to my accommodation.

Trying to get to Bots

The next day I was meant to get the 2.30pm bus to Gaborone, and my university contact was going to email his cell so i could be picked up when I arrived at 9.30pm. At 12.30pm that day, I still had no such email and was feeling exceptionally weak and feverish once more. As such, I sincerely lacked the will to rush to get transport to Park Station if it meant me arriving in Gaborone at night with no contact, no ride and no idea of where to go. Needless to say, I didn't make it. I called the university and still couldn't reach Moagisi but spoke to another staff member who gave me his cell to call when I was to arrive the following day. Upon arrival in Gaborone however, he said all the cars were out -- could I get a taxi? I had no pula (the currency) and no idea where in the university to go. Nonetheless, I realized by now I couldn't rely on the university for anything and so I just agreed. A local who I befriended on the bus assisted me; he paid for my taxi and helped guide me around the university. The underlying irony of the story was; the people paid to help me (the university) did nothing, but a stranger paid to help me.

Falling sick...

Having averaged 4 hours sleep/night for about 4 nights in a row, changing completely different climates about 4 times in 4 days and lugging around a 20kg bag on my back, wheeling another 20kg of scuba gear around and carrying my small backpack and laptop from city to city, I think my body decided to give up. The next day my fever was shocking; I was convulsing in my sleep and coughing so much I felt like my head and chest were going to explode.

With no one around on Saturday and barely any taxi's on the road, I started to walk painfully slowly to the closest medical centre; it was shut. I started slogging back, keeping an eye out for taxi's, until a local started to chat to me. I realized with the effort it took to try and act normal in conversation, I was really not well. I told him I was just looking for an open medical centre and he helped me wave down a taxi. By chance it was probably the best taxi driver I could've possibly got. He took me to the doctor and the pharmacy and when I almost blacked-out attempting to buy food (pretty much collapsing in the taxi instead) he went and collected it for me.

When we arrived back at the university I was 10 pula short of the taxi-fare and offered to draw more out. He just said it was best if I go back and rest and not to worry about it. Now he is my official taxi-man in Gaborone and if I ever need a ride I call him first!

(Lack of) Organisation at UB

The next week I experienced the agony of class-registration in the University of Botswana (UB). Only 1 of the 5 subjects I originally opted for were actually offered that semester and to see if the classes that had been 'officially' timetabled were actually running, the only way to know would be to go to a class first. But finding that class would be another challenge. Even if it was operating, the chances were that it wouldn't be in the room timetabled and there was no logic as to where it could be found, often proving impossible to find.

There was only one staff member in the whole university that all of the internationals could register through and for the most part you could never find him in his room. He even went on leave in the middle of registration (though I do believe he was legitimately sick, which suggests they should've had another staff member on). No one else could access the databases and I had to wait weeks before I could actually know if I was registered and THEN confirm with my university that my units could be approved -- if Monash had declined to approve them, then I would've been in a very sticky situation indeed as by then it would've been too late to change it with UB.

The break-in

A week after arrival in Bots, I was out drinking bottomless coffee (a phenomenon in some cafes in Gaborone where you have as much filter coffee as you want for <$2) with some friends when my roommate called me. We had both been out at different places and she had just returned to our room before 9pm to find it broken in to. My apple macbook pro had been stolen and her laptop, 400 pula ($50), phone and camera taken too. Quite honestly, after all the bottomless coffee, upon hearing this news I was raging on adrenalin and caffeine - it was not a good mix. The frustrating bit was that the bolt cutters required for our door would've had to have been a good 1m in size, illustrating how bad security is around 'Las Vegas'. Las Vegas is the name of our accommodation compound on the campus with little guess where the pet-name came from.

The only thing security managed was to take us on a pointless mission to fill out statements and re-do them several times, including at the police station. All this took more hours than it should have, so we only got to bed at 3am that night.

Somewhat determined to get my laptop back I approached a 2nd hand dealer in Main Mall, pretending to be interested in buying a macbook. He said he didn't have any in-stock but he could call his friends because sometimes they would get different 'second-hand' laptops. Whilst the dealer didn't seem to be a thief himself, it was quite clear he was the recipient of stolen goods from thieves wanting to sell them on quickly. My guess was that he would fix them up if necessary and sell them from his shop. For example, one macbook he got in was a 2012 macbook pro complete with thousands of dollars worth of engineering software. I sincerely doubt someone would buy a 2012 model, pimp it up with all that software, only to sell it second hand immediately afterward.

In any case, he showed me two laptops that I knew weren't mine but I saw one that looked uncannily like Lindsay's HP. We got in contact with the police, telling them we saw a HP much like Lindsay's. They stormed into the store, demanded the serial number for the macbook and left. They had only briefly read the police report, didn't ask us which laptop was whose or what laptop we saw and went straight for the mac -- not the HP -- subsequently ruining any chance we had of getting the laptops back. Afterall, following that incident the dealer knew I had never been interested in buying a macbook but just wanted to recover my stolen property.

All the police really said about the situation was to free themselves from blame by saying that the laptop was probably sold on through to Zimbabwe and that the only real chance of recovering the goods would be chance border inspections. The fact of the matter is though, if anything goes wrong in Botswana it generally gets blamed on Zimbabwe; true or otherwise.

After the theft, certain behaviour on our block made us uneasy (in these situations, often the neighbours are in some way involved and there was strong evidence to suggest that was the case for us); consequently we were moved blocks. In the process of doing this however, the University relocated us to an already occupied room whilst our old room was re-allocated to someone else; effectively rendering us homeless for a few hours until they finally managed to sort it out...... the magic of UB.

The stories

From my first time in Botswana I knew that theft wasn't abnormal -- it just wasn't of the 'I'll stab you for that' kind of theft as it is in most other countries in Africa. In fact I had already experienced my very own snatch-run-and-chase incident with my bag in Francistown in 2010 (several of you probably know that story). What surprised me was the fact that, despite how Botswana is portrayed as this safe haven of Africa (which it largely is and has been), it is really not quite as angelic as people lead you to believe. As such an open and economically advantageous country, it has received alot of migration from poorer countries in recent years and crime is on the rise, particularly in Gaborone.

For example:

·         Just before we had arrived, there had been a stabbing outside the south gate of UB and in recent times a lady was stabbed outside the west gate for her laptop.

·         The loss of our laptops was not uncommon and when I saw the incidences logged at security there was a huge list of 'laptop theft/ laptop theft/ laptop theft... etc'.

·         The university is quite open, security is lax (and I mean 'they go to sleep at night' type of lax) and all the thieves in Gaborone know this.

·         An international girl was mugged by two men on a short walk to the local shops in the middle of the day, Sunday

·    Another local friend narrowly dodged an attempted stabbing when he was mugged

..and all of this occured within quite short spaces of time just outside the university recently.

·         Finally, at last years ‘Fresher’s Ball’ at the university a gang ‘gate crashed’ and proceeded to rob students as well as rape allegedly up to 8 international girls. The police and security were reportedly ‘nowhere to be seen’ at that event. Needless to say, when it came time for the ball this year, I took a weekend trip elsewhere. In all fairness though, reports from those who stayed on campus during that weekend this time said that security had been significantly increased with police on campus accompanied by guard dogs etc.

Overall feelings:

BUT having said all that; those experiences really haven't stopped me enjoying Botswana/travelling at all. The fact of the matter is, it's quite the opposite. In times of stress, people often come together -- for every bad person or situation you have to endure, there are hundreds more better or supportive people willing to help. You meet some of the most amazing people. Sure, I can't rely on the university to help me with most things, but I have friends here I know wouldn't hesitate to lend a hand!

The Vanilla Coast and Beyond (Madagascar)

Madgascar, contrary to the suggestions of pop culture, is not an uninhabited jungle-island populated solely by lemurs, fosa, a giraffe, a hippo, a zebra and a lion. Indeed the country has near to 20 million occupants who are as unique and diverse as the natural environment for which the red-island is famed. Just to set the context, it is currently 'goverened' by an ex-DJ who ousted his predecessor in a coup. His predecessor was a village-yogurt-salesboy turned dairy-industry-entrepreneur whose factories were burnt down by some locals in the coup, causing a significant inflation and shortage of dairy products in the country. Suffice to say, almost everything about Madagascar is a little bit eccentric and all-too-often you'll find yourself thinking 'surely not'; surely I'm imagining that, surely they wouldn't do that, surely this can't be happening.... surely not. But the answer, is always 'surely yes.' And I think that is why travelling Madagascar is such an experience; providing both absolute infuriation and AMAZING fun.

Antananarivo --> Mahajunga

Arriving just after independence day, my second visit to Tana was in a festive atmosphere with fireworks and canons going off at night and Malagasy music continuously audible in most parts of the city. As a capital city in a developing country, Antananarivo has a surprising beauty about it. The city is comprised of charming red-bricked buildings (including the occasional patisserie, cafe and ice-creamery) built across a series of spiralling hills and valleys, with rice paddies growing between. But when you look deeper you notice the paddies are quite multi-purpose; in the dry season the soil is used to construct bricks, other times for cultivating food and at any time used for fishing, washing, drinking water, rubbish and err... going to the toilet. These activities occur simultaneously and within 20m of each other. In other parts of the city are areas of accumulated sewage run off and rubbish-grounds (places that us westerners would avoid like the plague) where you will see still children scrounging around for food... This made it hardly surprising when, at the market, a child squatted right in front of me only to do a less-than-solid bowel movement. A city of both charm and charmless .... in desperate need of improved public hygiene education systems and infrastructure.

For the first few days of our reunion, this is where Bianca, Himals and I chilled, eating strawberries, ice-creams and pastries before heading north-west and away from good food.

Majanga and the Grotto:

 
Initially we had intended to visit Ankaranfantsika n.p, but in the middle of the 8 hour taxi brousse trip we had a sudden change of heart and ended up in Majanga instead. We had heard about Les Grottes d'Anjohibe -- caves and piscines naturelles (natural pools) -- and naturally Tarzan-like adventures had captured our imagination. To organise the trip however, we had to head to Majanga first, a 'city' that resembled something more like a western film with ramshackle buildings, frequently deserted streets and bars full of drunken (french)men at midday. Slightly more unusual, on our first night at our hotel we had a middle-aged Pakistani man arrange for the hotel workers to usher us out of the restaurant onto the quiet balcony 'just to talk' and offer us his giant platter of fish to eat. Insisting that we were vegetarian (but-thanks-anyway-for-his-offer) we headed back downstairs where the waitress, through a series of gestures and giggles, indicate that he wanted more than 'to talk.' Undeterred, he still tried to lure us out onto the balcony with his fish several times. The next day, with my rudimentary french, I organised the trip to the Grotto with Stansilas (who then came to be referred to as our 'Malagasy dad') pulling a 20 minute conversation in French -- and was surprised how mentally exhausting it was. I gained much more respect for multi-lingual people in the process.

Stanislas took us in his old-but-sturdy quart-quart (4x4) across a frequently changing landscape; wheaten sand to bright red soils, bare desert to palm lined streams and past the occasional few huts marking a village. The caves were nothing short of stunning with the most surreal structures naturally carved by erosion over time and wide chambers illuminated by natural flaming torchlight (of shrub, bush and dried leaves collected by Stansilas and his local friend). At one stage the cave had opened out into sunlight once more with long draping vines in a natural circular amphitheatre. Vines which, yes, we could swing on and climb like Tarzan.

Our campsite was right by the natural pools with waterfalls and was lined with lush green vegetation that would reflect perfectly by the water. By day we splashed around like 10 year olds, giggling hysterically (literally at nothing) and poking fun at Himali every time she said "eeeeewww....eeuwwhh....ughhhh" when a rock was a little slimy. By night we flopped on the grass by the campfire and under the stars, chatting with bottles of Dzama rum .. Himali's pirate dream (minus the pirates...). In the morning, whilst dining on the stale 'national-baguette' dipped in coffee and condensed milk, we encountered a lemur ambush that set-up station on the village mini-bar (if you could call it that) and promptly proceeded to hop from bar, to pole, to our table, splashing coffee everywhere and snatching what baguettes they could; entertainment whilst you (try to) eat.

 

 

 

North: Diego and Ramena

From Majanga we continued north in a series of over-crammed (ie double the legal capacity and occasionally sitting on somebody's lap) taxi-brousses (minivans) that broke down successively over a series of broken tyres, engine failures and god-knows-what-else. Nonetheless, break downs were a good opportunity to stretch the legs, cool your rear (after sitting on the engine for far too long), visit a toilet (ie the bush if there was one), or twitch into dance with Malagasy music on the roadside.

On route to Diego we visited Parc nationale d'Ankarana where there was otherworldy sharp pointed limestone formations, pre-historic looking bat caves complete with giant spiders, an occasional snake (both not poisonous) and an impressively huge gaping hole in the ground at the meeting point of two dried up rivers (which flow through this hole in the wet season to the Mozambique channel... a few of you may know what I am thinking ...).

Diego had surprisingly more Vazah (Malagasy term for white person) than many other places in the country and subsequently good ice cream (which we consumed for breakfast or lunch or dinner...). But going out at night was also a bit of a crude in-your-face cultural wake up of the sexual tourism between attractive, young Malagasy women (barely legal age, if at all) and older (talking 50's + ) french men. Over time we noticed that easily 95% of the expat community around Madagascar were older French men who almost undoubtedly would be with a Malagasy lady young enough to be his daughter. Not that it was a one-way street; in a country where education is limited and won't guarantee you a good job, the money women can access for being with an 'affluent' frenchmen is much 'easier' to obtain than other means. 

We limited our time in Diego itself and visited nearby Ramena; an area with beaches of Utopian quality with turquoise waters and beautiful white sand, where electricity was virtually non-existent. Journey's to dinner consisted of stumbling across boat ropes along the beach, poking our heads in a small thatched shack and dining by candlelight (albeit, an hour after you order -- everything is THAT fresh).

 

The taxi-brousse ride to truly, truly remember....

Then came our journey to the vanilla coast; a taxi-brousse ride that will undoubtedly stay with us forever. It was a 28 hour trip where Himali and I shared a single seat together in a 4x4-ute-turned people carrier, which passed its expiry date a good 15 years ago. 20 hours of the trip was spent on 156km alone. The 'road' was really just a muddy, churned-up and eroded track, lined with series of huge ditches and sliding slopes. 'Elf man' (a worker who wore a santa hat - hence the name) would often trot in front of the car with a shovel, removing large rocks and guiding the taxi-brousse whilst, all-too-often, more men would hop out of the car to push it from the side and steer it away from the ditches when it began to slide through the mud. Frequently, everyone would have to hop out the car and walk up the steepest, slippery slopes, removing sandals and walking barefoot through squelching, oozing mud (Himali's nightmare) as sandals only served to make us slip and slide more. Nonetheless, that was a better alternative to being stuck in the field of abandoned trucks we saw, wedged into the earth by the rain and left there for a time they could be moved again. Of course, such slow progress on this route, also made it bandit territory, highlighted by the fact our driver told us to lock our doors in the middle-of-nowhere. At breakfast time we still hadn't reached Vohemar, the end point of the Route Nationale de Torchure, having left at 3pm the day previously. Our breakfast stop was in some random middle-of-nowhere village eating glutinous rice cakes, sugared coffee and fried bananas. In this village we were greeted by overly blunt men who made rather vulgar gestures requesting sexual favours from us. As unusual as it sounds, this is not uncommon in Madagascar. Quite the contrary; the way they go about such activity is simply to go up to a lady and ask for it. More often than not, she will agree and afterwards he will give her a small gift (often money) for her time, though it is not necessarily prostitution (that is prevalent too). Madagascar is simply very liberal in this regard, as off-putting as it may be.

We finally arrived in Vohemar, which was something of an anti-climax. Each of the 20 hours we counted down the 156km and built into our brains this image of a magical-vohemar where smooth roads and maybe reasonable food might exist; only to be greeted with a closed petrol station (yes, siesta time) and off-yogurt. But we finally arrived, 28 hours later, to our destination; Sambava . To top it off our taxi driver from the bus to our guesthouse had bright red eyes, a flare of insanity and a cheek stuffed full of Khat leaves (leaves locals chew as a stimulant/to get high) and tried to rip us off for our journey. Overly-tired, I just yelled back at him in French, wishing sincerely I had taken the time to learn some more less-than-polite words.

La côté de la vanille.


With the only transportation to the vanilla coast the unbelievable roads aforementioned or flying, it is a largely un-touristed location. The beach itself is wild with large crashing waves (our attempt to swim even shallowly resulted in the loss of my flip flops... don't ask why i wore them in) and the surrounding environment is completely different to the rest of the country, somewhat more reminiscent of tropical south east asia. Sambava was also the gateway to Marojejy national park; a pristine, primordial rainforest of immense biodiversity and thick, lush vegetation. Eagerly I talked Himali and Bianca into an overnight trek in the park, to which I suspect they still hate me for; not long into the journey Himali was covered in large welling mosquito bites and Bianca suffered a leach attack (her one phobia). Admittedly, I just loved the place; the huge bright millipedes, spiders, insects, lemurs, thick mist enshrouding the mountain top, running streams, the fresh earth...

 

 

 

 

Less pleasant was the taxi-brousse trip back where the man in the seat behind me proceeded to spit in a cup and drink it again. And again. The whole journey. The smell of the spit.... the smell..surely not.

The vanilla-tour

Travelling the vanilla coast, it seemed fitting to arrange a trip to some plantations through the locals in Sambava. Being un-geared for tourism, the trip was indeed an interesting one. We took little wooden piroques down the river (in which the locals also cooked their meals.. with fire in wooden boats...), ate the fruit of cocoa, took walks across muddy flats (where i took an un-expected step into knee-deep mud, getting so stuck our guide had to pull me out) and visited a shallow drop toilet where you could see the mud below moving with maggots. That said, such a toilet is preferential to the 'pooing' fields in the villages where it is fady (taboo) to go to the toilet in the same place as your family and also fady to bury it (burial is reserved for the dead). Other unusual observations included seeing an old french taxi reversed into the flooded field to be washed and a motorbike on a narrow rickety piroque to be transported. Still, it was refreshing walking through vanilla, coffee and coconut plantations with the aroma of drying vanilla following you wherever you went. The local banana-coconut cakes were also somewhat enjoyable to munch, provided you avoided any of the rocks or sand often present inside. The irony is that, contrary to what the name may suggest, you cannot actually purchase vanilla on the vanilla coast as it is all sent to a corporate retailer who then distributes it for export and internal sales (so I just bought some later in Tamatave).

 

Antahala

Antahala is the sister 'city' to Sambava on the vanilla coast and travelling between them you frequently see destroyed and abandoned buildings ravished by cyclones. Still, where there's money (in this case vanilla) there's better infrastructure, so unlike most of the country Antahala actually has powerlines and the capacity to rebuild (sort of). Should you happen to look up at the powerlines, you will notice the largest orb spiders you have probably ever seen in your life and the site of them is like a scene from the nightmares of an aracnaphobicac. Literally dozens of these giant spiders are present in just 2 metres of powerline, dangling gracefully in the air. The coastline here is much like Sambava, wild and rough, but also accompanied with a sense of end-of-the-world-remoteness and beauty.

Abandoned Ambila Lemaitso

From Antahala (NE Madagascar) we flew south to the East coast -- Tamatave. From Tamatave we decided to visit the 'Canal des Pangalenes' a natural canal system (but also extended by man) just inland of the sea and used for transporation where the boat travel on the coast is simply perilous. Our intention was to visit Nirvana: a small establishment of bungalows on the spit of land between the canal and the sea with barely any distance between. We took a taxi brousse to Brickaville and then the ferry crossing to Ambila. The taxi brousse was then guided onto the ferry which was simply planks of woods roped and hammered together, floated on oil drums. It was almost surreal; nighttime with a starry sky, floating along the water (the ferry was 'poled' along) standing next to the taxi-brousse which had broken down once more and in the process of being repaired. We arrived to the otherside only to discover Nirvana had shut down -- and that there appeared to be no accommodation. So the taxi-brousse took us further, passing small village huts but little else, until we saw one set of lights ahead belonging to a hotel. The hotel was almost-abandoned (ie the white-sheets-over-furniture-type of abandoned), but the patron was there and arranged a room for us, even hammering in mosquito nets. By now we were starving and gleefully accepted the only food there was; eggs. When we awoke the next day, we finally discovered the reason for abandonment from our view on the 2nd floor of the concrete hotel by the ocean. Cyclones. We knew it was not cyclone season (which is Dec-Mar) and we were there in July, but we later discovered that earlier that year they had been struck by cyclones as was evidenced by the devastation we could see from our hotel. Walking through the village we found half-destroyed buildings with vegetation growing throughout, a few tents in which people lived, some huts rebuilt and the village people sitting peacefully by the local thatched tuck-shops. We were approached by a man who smelt heavily of booze, but the smell was becoming so common I began to wonder if I was mistaken. He seemed friendly and talkative enough and took us around village, introducing us to people including the village president and looking for a boat to take us upstream the following day. He asked for a payment for the boat (we insisted on a 50% deposit instead, which was $3) and said he'd meet us at 6pm to talk of the trip for the next day. Incidently, he didn't show up at 6pm so the following day we decided to wait for the taxi brousse where he saw us and expressed sadness that we weren't taking the boat. He claimed he had been distributing rice at 6pm and wasn't able to make it, but had still intended to take the boat that day. We suspect he had been distributing alcohol to his liver instead with our $3.....

 

The taxi-brousse ride back was the usual sort of eventful. On one of the toilet stops by the bushes as I was going about my business attempting to be discreet as usual, a local lady squatting and urinating away started to quiz me in french conversationally. For the life of me, I never got stage fright needing to go on the side of the road (it was your only choice after all) but there was something about her making eye contact and chatting away that made that timid westerner in me come out..

Ile St Marie

After hanging around a bit longer in Tamatave, we had decided to spend the rest of our time in timeless Ile St Marie. I say timeless because no one actually ever seemed to know the time. I even had a debate about it being 11am when the lady insisted it was 9am (incidently I was right) and if you ordered dinner at 3pm for 6pm, it still only arrived at 8pm...

My first perojative on the island was to go about and organise a dive, but whilst walking to the dive centre i came across some people grouped around a dead man on the side of the road. The strange thing was that his motorbike was perfectly upright and he was lying on the side of the road, no blood , just looking as though he had dropped there. A few vazah were there calling emergency services, but despite a few slightly confussed expressions, no one seemed particularly disturbed -- death is quite common and in Africa life is so cheap. Of course, this didn't help alleviate Himals and Bee's concerns when we were in a taxi later that night and something quite heavy seemed to be rolling around in the boot.

Eventually I managed to squeeze in my dive and although it wasn't quite dive season there, the vis was still about 15m and there were a few amazing rose coral reefs, fish life and the song of the migrating humpbacks (which we saw from the boat). Most of the time on Ile St Marie we stayed at 'La Balliene' which had an exceptionally ricketty dock that stretched right out into the crystalline waters. Our last night was on Ile Aux Nattes, quite literally on the water, where we took advantage of our position for obligatory night swims outside our door. For the most part, this was the tourist part of our trip; bumming on the beach, long strolls, riding moto-scooters around, eating Legumes sautee avec sauce coco/ thè gingembre/ thè vanille/cafe avec lait sucre and, of course, the odd cocktail or two.

 

Our last day together we were up at sunrise, taking a piroque to the airport with the rising sun forming a bright red 'x' streak across the dawn sky. Himals and I left for Antananarivo where we stocked up on giant fresh strawberries and chocolate, where she then left from a few hours later -- leaving me all alone!

Travelling places like Madagascar you experience the best and the worst. Ultimately this means you either draw closer to your buddies as the trip progresses, or you drift apart realising your differences/incompatibility. Suffice to say, Bee, Himals and I became even stronger friends and for once I was actually sad going off on my own. Miss you guys! It's not too late to join me in Africa! =P