Nosy Be, Madagascar
Monday, January 31, 2011
Sorry for the lack of updates in the last 4 weeks but was pretty cut off in Madagascar! It was amazing though! I started off just outside Tana then we we flew up to Diego the next day for a couple of nights before deployment to camp at 2.30 am on a 7 hour taxi brousse journey. For those unfamiliar with the taxi brousse it is a small minibus designed to take 12 in the main compartment but will usually take a minimum of 15 ish....however they managed 20 on the return journey...it's an experience! We then got to
Nosy Be by wooden boats which luckily weren't too wet! Camp was very basic but joined on to the local village which was nice as the villagers were very friendly especially the children who loved looking through all of our books and being tickled! Facilities on camp included a zebu trough for water and washing, a longdrop, fires for cooking and tents to sleep in (that often collected a couple of puddles!). The weather was VERY hot most of the time so we would get up about 5.30-6.00 to avoid the heat and have a siesta in the middle of the day! We were quite lucky with the rain as the rainy season was late so although we usually had a tropical storm each night it wasn't until the end that we had all day and night rain but it was very refreshing! We mainly ate rice and beans as this was cheap and easy to store which started off ok but after a couple of days we were all fantasizing about food a lot! When anyone could be bothered to be imaginative we would have bean burgers or pancakes made of flour and water which seemed amazing! The diving was pretty nice although there was quite a lot of dead coral around due to the over fishing so we mainly did the survey dives on those. Where it was a bit deeper and further from land the reefs were amazing with so much life and lots of turtles! As it's in the Mozambique channel there would be whale sharks and manta rays in the right season but that's a bit later. :( On Saturdays, our days off, we went for a trek through the rainforest to get to the next village for some decent food and to see some wildlife on our way which started by wading through the mangroves
(which the villagers use as their toilet) up to our thighs which was....not so refreshing! We had a guide from our villlage whose eyesight was amazing! He would spot leaf tailed geckos in a dense forest from 10+ meters away! We saw A LOT of lemurs who were very curious and liked to throw mangos at us if we weren't welcome...lots of snakes (which I don't think Gill was too pleased about :P )...lots of chameleons possibly including the smallest which was tiny, it could sit comfortably on the tip of your little finger! We also got wildlife on camp..we had a big boa which had just helped itself to a chick up by the longdrop, a couple of snakes, spiders, scorpions etc! At the end of the four weeks I was very sad to leave but was looking forward to South Africa but then it was a nightmare getting out of Madagascar as my flight was delayed so missed my connections so had to stay another night in Tana where I ended up having dinner with a group of west african fishermen then having a stressfull wait to see if I could get on the next flight then sprinting several laps of ******* Jo'berg airport trying to get luggage sorted out but in the end gave up and hoped it would appear in
Cape Town which it did on the last flight!! But finally I coudl relax and enjoy a week with a bit more luxury with mum doing the garden route! I will go into more detail on the garden route next time as I have two minutes left so I've got to love you and leave you!! Enjoy Eng and don't get too cold! :P xx
