Today is the start of our holiday trip to Madagascar. We have to get up at 3:00, leave the house at 4:00, and end up at Schiphol airport at 4:45 where the check-in counter is not even open yet. At 5:00 we pass all queues quickly and our flight leaves in time at 7:15 starting with a 20 minute ride to the "polderbaan".
In Paris we walk to the C terminal, where we can take some time to walk around. As the boarding time arrives a small chaos occurs because two huge planes start boarding at the same time right next to each other in the corner of the terminal building. There is not enough space to harbor all the people. The flight to Antananarivo leaves 40 minutes late. On board we enjoy a good rest after the warm afternoon meal. Above Africa we encounter a little turbulence in bad weather; the plane makes a 15 minute detour. Two hours before arrival we get a small sandwich.
At the airport in Antananarivo we end up as one of the first people in the "With visa" queue. Nevertheless, it takes us a significant amount of time to get through customs. Once we get through, our suitcases come along quickly. Our guide Jari is waiting for us in the arrival hall with a big sign with our name on it. We first charge the car, and then I make a quick ATM visit to get 200000 Ariary. The machine only has bills with a value of 5000 Ariary (about 2 euros), and the maximum amount it can give out at any one time is 40 bills.
After about 1 hour of driving, we arrive at the hotel Royal Palissandre around midnight.
Our friends from Madagascar pick us up from the hotel at 9:00. Together with the family driver we visit the high city (the rich areas). We stopp at a number of viewpoints to make pictures, with nice views over the lower parts of the city. Of course we get explanations with the views: the two wooden houses in the picture are among the oldest original buildings in Antananarivo.
At one of the photo-stops we pick up two young local guides that are eager to tell us about the city. The hitch a ride with us to a viewpoint on a dead-end road where there is a sort of pick-nick place with a great view. They do not like that area: there are many places for bandits to hide and take visitors by surprise.
After some time for pictures at that place, the driver takes us up to the old queen's palace that is under reconstruction after it had been destroyed by a fire in 1995. Our host, who works for Unesco, talks to the guards at the palace and we get the rare occasion of visiting the premises. Our two local guides accompany us and explain the views and the construction.
After this visit we leave our guides behind, and visit the palace of the first minister, which serves as a museum of the royal history. In this museum there are a number of pieces that are very similar to pieces that can be found in the Museum Speelklok in Utrecht.
Leaving the museum, we drive through some parts of the lower city, where there are many local markets. There are daily markets, but also the big weekly "Thursday" market where people from far away come to sell everything one may need in a household, including furniture. On the market, some of the vendors are still working on their merchandise. For security reasons, we have only looked at the markets from the car. Our host took us for a quick visit to their home in Tana where we had a glass of juice with some of the members of the family. After that, the driver brought the lady of the house to the academy where her husband was for the day, and he brought us back to our hotel where we had a quick sandwich for lunch.
At 14:00 Jari comes to pick us up. Normally, the schedule of our trip would have called for a visit of the city, but since we had done that visit in the morning, we discuss the possibility of visiting the Croc Farm (close to the airport) during the afternoon. Our guide accepts this with pleasure, and we set out for an hour of driving and a visit to this special zoo.
At the Croc Farm we can get very close to the huge Nile crocodiles, but they also have a nice collection of other animals like snakes, frogs, and chameleons.
On the parking lot Jari gets a little card describing a vanilla workshop. When we leave, we do visit that address, but unfortunately the workshop is closed as we come to the address at 17:00. We will have to get our vanilla somewhere else: Jari gives us the advice of getting it at the beginning of our tour so that the car will smell like vanilla for the voyage.
In the hotel we enjoy our first dinner. I take the menu of the day with zebu as a starter and zebu as a main course. The main course has a seasoning of 4 "mild peppers". Tears running down my cheeks... We are all sound asleep by 22:00
This day we can sleep late, until about 7:30, because we only leave at 9:00. On the other hand, we have to pack all our luggage because we will check out of the hotel. The route across 145km of curves brings us toward the east of the island, towards the rain forests near Andasibe, half way to the harbor city of Tamatave.
We regularly make stops along the road to make pictures: landscapes, people working or doing laundry, traffic. Here in the highlands, it is not a problem to take pictures of people; our guide tells us that only in the south of the island people do not like to have their portraits taken.
Half-way, at approximately 11:00, we stop at a small park, the Peyreras reserve, where we see and hold many reptiles, many of them nocturnal and half asleep.
After the visit we continue our trip until the last village before the rain forest, where we enjoy a quiet lunch.
In the morning it had been cloudy, but as we enter the rain forest the weather clears, and it becomes a rare beautiful dry day. Since this is such a pleasant surprise, our guide changes the program: rather than having the rest of the day to ourselves, he changes the program to include the visit to lemur island and the hotel reserve including crocodile park today and moves the free afternoon to tomorrow. To visit lemur island the water is crossed by kayak.
A park guide takes a banana to lure the animals. We get pieces of banana on our hands, and different kinds of lemurs jump on our shoulders to get their treat. Others prefer staying in the trees but pull our clothes until they can reach the food from there.
The visit to the reserve and crocodile park is set up as a survival: once the guide discovers that Maxim loves the hanging bridges, he crosses as many as possible on our tour. During our tour into the wild areas the guide points out some wild lemurs; as he takes a picture with Maxim's camera the flash goes off, and from the eyes that show up on the image we can see that the animal is a mother with a child.
In the evening, just before dinner, we make another trip: a night visit through the hotel reserve. Originally, the program calls for a night visit through the vast national park at 30 minutes drive, but because of the winter season it is very difficult to find night animals there, so our guide easily convinces us that a tour through the smaller hotel reserve is better. The guide (same one as the afternoon tour) proves to be a master in locating different animals: little chameleons not bigger than half a finger, different kinds of geckos and tree frogs. Above us we can see countless stars in the moonless night.
Returning to the hotel, we enjoy the meal that we ordered before leaving for the night trip: a traditional meal (adapted for tourists) with a local Three Horses Beer. Early to bed, because tomorrow we will leave at 7:30 for a daytime visit of the national park.
Today we are getting up early to make our 7:30 appointment with the guide. A quick breakfast in the restaurant starts our day. The weather is as beautiful as it was yesterday: dry in the rainforest. Our day starts with a 30 minute drive to the entrance of the national park. In the park, Abraham leads us along the "Indri 2" tour that is labeled as mildly exercising. The total size of the park is 800ha, the tour takes us along a 4km trail. We get some explanations of the plants, some of which have traditional medicinal uses. The guide also points to a 1cm diameter pallisander tree of about 50cm height, which he guesses to be about 20 years old. The first lemur we come across is a sleeping nocturnal animal, a bit later we find some eating ones in a group.
There are many groups of tourists taking pictures here. A bit further down in the park, close to their territorial boundary, we come across a group of 4 indri-indri lemurs, sitting and eating high up in the trees. These are the largest living lemurs in Madagascar. Because it is such great weather, we have good occasions to take pictures. While we are watching the group, they burst out in their well-known communicative sounds.... a very loud and unforgettable experience.
Along the tour we also meet some smaller animals, a very small frog (1 cm) , a small gecko that hides in a plant, a wild bees nest, and several bird species among which the king of the jungle with its strange hairdo. We arrive back at the hotel, where we have an early lunch at 12:00. After lunch and a quick siesta we take a quiet reading afternoon, while Maxim and our guide take another trip to the lemur island. By this time it rains and pours. When Maxim comes back soaked at around 16:00, he comes with stories of the ring-tailed lemurs they visited on another island, and that he also has been able to feed some pieces of banana. The four of us drink coffee and hot chocolate. Maxim then goes for a hot shower. After some more quiet reading, a good meal in the restaurant completes the day. We go to bed early again to be fresh tomorrow, packed to leave at 8:00.
We get up at 6:25, pack all our suitcases and take a shower, and leave the room. Very quickly three porters are next to us to help us carry the suitcases down the long stairs that are slippery and wet. We have a nice breakfast and see our guide arrive in his car at 7:15. We pay the hotel in euro's, because plastic money is not accepted here, throw some money in the three tipboxes for hotel, service and kitchen and leave at 7:30 heading back west: to Tana. Almost during the whole trip the rain pours down; one moment even stronger than the next. Many of the people we encounter on the roads are dressed up nicely, clearly ready to go to church. Some people walk barefoot, with their shoes (required in church) in their hands. Most people walk without umbrella's. The landscape is very different from two days ago because it rains, but also because we are traveling in the opposite direction and with two days more experience in Madagascar. The traffic is also different: the Sunday shows many fewer busses, and a lot more trucks. One in every two trucks is a gasoline truck carrying fuel to Antananarivo or returning empty to the refineries in Tamatave.
After a basically non-stop trip, we arrive at the hotel Royal Palissandre at 11:00 where we get the room right next door to the one we had our first two nights. We quickly refresh ourselves, and make sure to be down at 11:25. We are being picked up by our local host and one of his grandchildren; they just came out of church a little further down the road. They bring us to the restaurant La Rotonde where we have lunch in the "Aquarium" room in a group of 15. As a warming up, I get a "Rhum Arrangé" (a specialty of Madagascar) with cinnamon and cloves. During the meal we drink a local rose wine. The meal consists of a mixture of Malgash dishes, among which "yam leaves" (cassava), eel, prawns, different meat dishes and rice. The six kids in the group get their own separate dishes, and Maxim get some delicious fries. During the rest of the "grown up" meal time, the kids play together. We finish with coffee and another Rhum Arrangé.
Our guide comes back to pick us up at 14:20 for a visit to the "blue hill". Apparently blue stands for beautiful. The blue hill is a royal monument, now on the Unesco list of world heritage sites. We get an explanation of the site, the buildings, and the views by a local guide. On the way back to the hotel we take some extra detours (not only the one we are required to take because the major road is blocked) to see some different parts of Tana. At 17:30 we are back in the hotel; Anne and Maxim have a short siesta while I do some laundry. At 19:00 we go for dinner: the hotel serves a Sunday special grill menu. The meal is accompanied by the same pianist as a few days ago, playing the same piano, equally out of tune. He even plays Ballade pour Adeline. Around 21:00 we return to our room, Maxim goes to bed quickly while Anne and I still read a bit.
Today we sleep late, until 7:25, pack our luggage including the dry laundry, and have breakfast. Around 9:00 our guide comes to pick us up and we drive south towards Antisrabe along the Route National 7. It is Monday morning, the traffic into the city is very busy but outward bound like we are we are making good progress. When we come outside of the city limits there are numerous occasions to have a great view and take pictures. We make an extensive stop close to a riverbed, where in the dry winter many people work together to make bricks.
Further along the road we first pass vendors of strawberries (not a good idea for weak tourist stomachs), and a little later we pass through the pineapple area. There we make a short stop to eat a pineapple and take some pictures. Unfortunately this becomes a bad memory for Maxim as the combination of the fruit and the car trip make him feel sick later. We continue our trip to have lunch in a "French" restaurant, where I have canard à la vanille, delicious. In the afternoon we stop along the road where a craftsman sells model cars, and a little further we get an demonstration at an aluminum factory where ±50 pans are being produced per day from recycled aluminum.
Once we arrive in Antsirabe, we visit a family where one of the members makes small model bicycles and pousse-pousse out of waste materials, and the rest of the family makes embroidery. Of course we buy some of both. Just a little further down the road we get a demo from some people that work with Zebu-horn. They use 20kg of horn per week that they buy at the local slaughterhouse. To work the horn, they use a machine with an old motor recovered from a washing machine that is started by plugging in the electric power and then pushing it in the right direction. They first cut a piece with a home made circular saw blade, then they heat the piece in water and push it in a self made press. To finish, they use 4 cycles of polishing and shaping. Their last polishing step is done using a disc made out of circles cut from old jeans.
We park the car at the hotel, and make a walk along some old buildings in French architecture. We also visit the Hotel des Thermes, a very old building (1897) next to the traditional bath house (using volcanic heat). After the walk we check in to the hotel. Our guide manages to negotiate a cheap room for himself in the same hotel, and therefore we can make another walk through the streets of the city where the vendors are active in the starting twilight. Many of the people in the street offer us their local products. At 17:30 we come back to the hotel and get settled. The hotel is simpler than the other hotels we have visited so far. At 19:00 the restaurant opens for dinner. We are the only visitors, and get a little electric heater under the table to keep us warm.
This morning at 8:00 we had an appointment with our guide to go walking to the local market in Antsirabe. Instead, our guide has arranged for 2 pousse-pousse to bring us to the market while he takes the car. One of the pousse-pousse takes Anne and Maxim, I take the other one. Along the way, local street sales people offer us local merchandise: Vanilla and stones. We do not buy anything. We take a few sight-seeing detours. When we arrive at the market, our drivers tell us we can pay whatever we feel like. After that, our guide gives us a tour of the market. He buys two eggs of wild chicken himself. After the visit of the market, we make another quick pass along the hotel to use the toilets, and then we are really on our way to Fianarantsoa.
Our first stop is a Dutch funded orphanage in Ambositra where we get a tour. The orphans are on a holiday visit to the city of Antsirabe. We get a tour of the girls quarters and the boys quarters, both of which are divided in rooms for older and younger kids. The children playing around the orphanage pay a lot of attention to us. Our guide tells us that it is the first time he visits this place with a family, normally only grown-up tourists visit this area. Most likely, the local children have not often seen a white child before, and they must realize that white people are also born and raised as children. At the orphanage, we leave a bag of toys we brought from home.
A little further we visit a wood-workers studio. We see one of the men carving statues out of precious Madagascar rosewood, and another craftsman making wood mosaics cutting the miniature pieces using a self-made saw. Even the blades for the saw are self made! All of the colors in the mosaic are natural colors of the wood. Some are treated with a special mud, but none of the colors are painted. We buy a few small pieces, including some animals made of rose wood accompanied by an export permit. Our guide tells us this workshop is one of the few successful multi people enterprises. The owner is a very good man, employing a group of people that would otherwise have no chance of earning a decent living, and treating them very well.
On the road further to the south we encounter groups of many hundreds of walking zebu cattle, on their way to the slaughterhouses in Antananarivo. Some of the animals make a 700km trip this way from the south of the country. We continue our trip until we arrive in a small city (Ambohimahasoa) where we park next to a protestant church. A table for 4 is made in the garden, and we have a Malagasy lunch there while the local people perform on a stage. One man plays a valiha, a traditional musical instrument. During the meal, Maxim plays soccer with some children. They are very proud to have a real leather ball, although it is broken. We are also invited to join in a traditional dance. All of the performers get their tips, that is the only income they have.
After the meal and the show are finished, we are invited into the church where the children sing songs for us.
We leave the village around 16:15. When we leave the parking lot the pastor shows that he used some of the tip money to buy cookies for all the kids in the church. During the last part of the trip we see different very beautiful landscapes while the sun sets.
As we check in to the hotel, it is dark. We enjoy an extensive "French" dinner. Our hotel room has a little diffuser for insecticides, but we nevertheless kill 14 mosquitoes when we come back to the room. Well protected by a thick layer of DEET we dive in our beds.
Today we get up early to start our long journey. In an attempt not to discourage us, the guide does not tell us that there are more than 300 km ahead of us today. In the morning we can enjoy the beautiful view from behind the hotel. After having bought some bags of vanilla, we leave the hotel, first to a high viewpoint where we are supposed to be able to see why the alternate name of Fianarantsoa is "the city of 1000 churches". On a church square on our way down we buy some postcards from school kids that are trying to earn money during the holidays to be able to buy school needs. We then continue our trip towards the south.
One of our first stops along the way is a place where a family makes products out of sisal and raffia. We get an explanation of how the sisal rope is made out of the leaves of the plant.
On our way to the south the landscape changes. There are fewer trees here. Some of the trees that are left are beautiful, huge mango trees. The climate also becomes drier. We make several stops to enjoy the views and to take a look at the red soil with a lot of iron minerals.
In Ambalavato we make a walk on the zebu market. This is the largest in Madagascar. Our guide tells us that in the evening, the zebu market turns into a market of women, where the rich zebu sellers are offering money for a good night with a lady. All the zebu that are sold here are moved immediately to special enclosed areas where their vaccinations are checked by government officials and where the new owners are noted in the books. Next to the market we see a few trucks that transport zebu, attached left and right with their horns and tails to the sides of the truck.
Close to the zebu market we make a walk on a huge market of (mainly used) house hold goods and clothes. Market stands here are even more specialized than markets we know in Europe: we come across vendors that only sell fluorescent color sports shorts. In a small shop adjacent to the market we buy two beautiful shawls made of wild silk.
When we arrive at the paper factory, their lunch time has just started. We therefore start with our lunch, and after that make a walk on the daily village market (food and medicine) and along the taxi-brousse that are being charged for their trips. Back at the paper factory we get an explanation and demonstration of the different steps involved in turning the bark of the Ahova tree into traditional paper incorporating real flowers for decoration. We buy some beautiful pieces, and continue on our trip.
On our right hand side we pass some big rocks which our guide names the "gates to the south" (porte du sud). When we buy some bottles of water along the road, we take a picture of a lady roasting her own coffee. We had already seen that coffee beans here are always sold green; everybody roasts their own fresh coffee here.
The houses in this region of the country are much smaller than up north, and many are colored red like the soil. When our guide needs a rest we take an extra coffee break outside a village bar. We continue our trip just before sunset, and we reach the highest point of the rest of the voyage just to late to witness the sun going down. We do enjoy the total spectrum of light in the twilight while the last 100km of our trip (at 80-100km/hour!) slide by on this high-quality stretch of road. We arrive at the hotel at 18:58, have dinner and go to sleep. We hear that in this hotel there is no electricity between midnight and 6:00 as well as between 10:00 and 14:00. The dark night is filled with stars.
This morning at 7:30 is our appointment with the guide for a visit to Ifato National Parc and the natural swimming pool. We get up early, and enjoy our breakfast in this fantastic hotel. In Ranohira our guide arranges for a park guide, and in the mean time we buy a T-shirt at Maki company. The route to the parking lot where the walking tour begins is full of bumps, and at one point the car has to dive through the river. The start of the walk is going upwards, towards a rock that looks like a tortoise. Along the trip we get explanations of how the caves between the rock formations are being used by the local people to bury their dead, and how the dead bodies are excavated a few years after the burial and reburied later at a higher level after the festivities end.
We are very lucky on our way into the park: half way we meet a troup of ring-tailed lemurs that are also going up the mountain, but in the other direction. This gives a nice occasion to take some pictures of these animals in their natural habitat. Our local guide gives us explanations about many of the local animals (termite mounds up in the trees) trees (bearing fruits all year, only dropping them when it rains) and plants. We also see the cocoon of a wild silk worm, stick insects, and some scorpions under the rocks.
Along the 3km walk there are several natural rock formations where good local stories are told: a rock in the shape of Madagascar, a Crododile jumping out of the water, a little dog, and a skull. The geology is quite interesting: the rocks contain layers of round pebbles leaving nice layers of round holes when they loosen up. Close to the end of the walk there are more green plants as we come closer to the source. At the natural pool we take a short dive into the cold water, and then we walk back to the car along the same 3km trip. We bring our local guide to his house for lunch time, and at the hotel we drink a cup of coffee and play some chess. After lunch we read our books, and Maxim enjoys the hotel pool.
Our guide comes to pick us up at 17:00 for a visit to the "Window of Isalo"; a nice rock formation where we can enjoy the beautiful colors of sunset.
Again we have to get up at 6:30; we will be leaving at 8:00 for the last leg of our tour. Twelve kilometers from the Hotel we come through the sapphire capital of Madagascar, Ilakaka. Sapphire was discovered here in 1998, and since then the small village has grown into a city populated largely by people from Sri Lanka and Thailand that are buying and exporting the raw sapphire stones. Criminal activity here is very high, so the doors of the car are locked from the inside, and we can not make a stop inside the city area. We are stopped and checked by police three times. Left and right of the main road all the places are called after gems and sapphires, including the local school.
After the sapphire capital we still cross several other smaller places that are largely driven by gemstone sales, populated by people that fled the unfriendly atmosphere in Ilakaka. We also cross a riverbed where we see people washing the earth dug up from a sapphire pit looking for precious stones.
The landscape changes continuously: we are now in an area of table mountains with absolutely flat tops. The type of trees also changes towards more dry forests. We pass a last time by car through a reserve where there are wild lemurs. We catch a glimp of a large animal in a tree, but it gets away before we can take pictures. Another village we pass is surrounded by a "forest" of Baobab trees. We make a good speed, and arrive in Toliara at around 11:30. Already 25km before the city, still higher up in the mountains, we get some views on the ocean. The effect of the barrier reef a few kilometers away from the coast line is very visible: the sea in the distance is white with breaking waves, closer to the city the water is calm. In the city it is warm. We make a visit to the "shell market" where we can not buy any sea shells (because export is illegal), but we do buy some other artisan work. When we arrive, we are the only tourists on the market. On such a quiet market, the vendors follow us from the moment we park the car until we close the doors to drive away in an attempt to make enough money to have food for another day. Some of the people on the market have colored their faces. We have lunch in the city in a restaurant that serves very good fish. The dish with fish in vanilla sauce is excellent.
After the lunch we have a coffee together with our guide, buy and eat a coconut along the street, and then continue our way along the coast towards the north. The road here is a dirt road; there are some remaining pieces of an old asphalt road that everyone avoids to use because it contains many deep holes. The road is used also for cotton transports coming from further north, and some remains of cotton are stuck in the plants that grow along the road. Local buses are formed by huge uncomfortable trucks here, loaded with enormous amounts of luggage on the roof and very many passengers on board. On the way to the hotel we pass fisherman's villages and a village that has a specialty in constructing homes from local materials (costing 10,000 Ariary or approximately 3.50 Euro apiece). We also pass mangrove forests and see the local fishermen at sea (Mozambique Straight) in their "pirogue" boats.
After more than an hour drive for about 20km, We check in to our hotel. Luckily they have mosquito nets here on all beds, because the rooms have open windows and a fairly open construction of the roof. We have a beautiful view on the ocean, a beautiful occasion to take pictures of a red sunset. After sunset we take a drink inside and make appointments for a trip in a pirogue to visit the reefs for some snorkeling on Sunday morning. We have dinner, and go to bed early.
At 8:30 we have the last appointment with our guide: a visit to the "Reniala forest", also known as the "Foret des Baobabs", a 45 hectares dry forest reserve at a few minutes drive from the hotel. The reserve has nine hundred Baobab trees, all of them one species but in different shapes, among which the oldest and biggest of the south (12 m circumference, estimated at 1200 years of age). We also get an explanation about several other tree types from the dry forests, four of which are used to build the pirogue boats of the fishermen: different ratios of strength, flexibility and weight. There are also some trees with a latex that is very poisonous, and the yatropa which can be used as antidote. We also get an explanation of the local tree that looks like a complex cactus with long arms, of which the arms always point towards the south. Apparently the branches of these trees can be cut of and planted easily; this is what the local people do to build a fence. The reserve also has different bird species and spiders, and Maxim finds a small snake moving with us along the path. At the end of the tour the guides show their plantation of small Baobab trees: some that are only 2 weeks old, a whole group of 3 year old trees, and some 5 year old.
Back in the hotel after the visit, we drink a cup of coffee, and say farewell to our guide. He drives back to Toliara in the afternoon, so that he can start early tomorrow morning with the 2 days of his 950km return trip.
The afternoon is off. We take a spot at the beach, and have lunch. We read. We watch the fishermen. Maxim swims along the shore.
Today is the last day of our tour on the main island of Madagascar. Our plane for Antananarivo is scheduled for 16:10. We ask at the reception whether we can stay longer in our room, so that we can enjoy the morning. Unfortunately, our room must be empty at 8:00, already before we leave with a pirogue for our snorkeling on the "Barriere des roses". We store our luggage in the hotel storage room, and have a quiet breakfast. Around 8:30 we redress into our snorkel gear, and store the backpacks in the storage room as well.
The trip starts on a beach next to the hotel, with Bertrand and an assistant. Just when we leave, a second assistant walks up on the beach, and we return to pick him up. The men try for a little while to use the sail, but there is so little wind that is only brakes the speed and we arrive at the barrier on paddle-power alone. We have a nice snorkel tour for about an hour, and then return. Wind has picked up, and we can sail back to the hotel, where our room has been prepared for the next guests. At the reception they give us the key so that we can make use of the bathroom to clean ourselves. After our shower we have a quick lunch, convinced that we have to leave at around 13:00. That does not appear to be the case: the hotel staff calls the airport, and the flight is delayed until 18:10, so we will leave around 15:30 instead. At the checkout, we buy a T-shirt supporting the local library of Mangily. We also drink a last drink at the bar, and read. When the time to leave arrives, our luggage is loaded on the roof of a hotel van together with the luggage of 3 other guests that will leave on the same flight. After an hour of bumps we arrive at the airport, where checkin procedures are quite minimal. We get a hand-written boarding pass without seat assignments, and handluggage is not checked at all. The flight to Tana is quick and comfortable, and we meet our guide Jean-Jacques who brings us to the Palissandre hotel for a very short night. We have a quick "Sunday grill" dinner, and order breakfast in our room for 03:00.
We have to get up very early today. Our plane is scheduled for 06:00, and according to our guide this first plane to Ile Ste Marie is the only flight of the day that always leaves in time. I wake up 5 minutes before our 3:00 alarm call. Soon after, our breakfast arrives at the room: two hot chocolate and one cold coffee, with some energy bars. We leave the hotel with Jean-Jacques before 4:00, and arrive at the airport in far under an hour. Jean-Jacques stays with us until we get through all the checks. These are a bit more involved here than they were in Toliara; we actually have to repack some liquids and gels into our checked luggage before we can get through the lines. The closing of the checkin counters at 5:00 is announced several times, boarding the ATR-72 starts at 5:25 and the plane indeed leaves the gate in time. The flighttime to Ste Marie is 55 minutes. During that short flight we get some sweet bread and a glass of water.
After landing and recovering our luggage we find the hotel car where we leave our luggage, and we take the Zebu-cart for the 500m to the hotel. It is 7:30 when we check in, and our room will be ready in an hour. Since we had breakfast already "twice" this morning, we only get ourselves a coffee in the bar, and then watch a group of tourists leave on the whale trip for the morning. We are told that our own whale-spotting trips are planned for Tuesday and Thursday mornings, but soon after our room becomes available we are called that plans have changed: a storm is predicted for Thursday, so our second whale-watching trip is moved to Wednesday morning.
Just outside of our room, Maxim discovers a hang-mat, and immediately falls asleep, recovering some of the time lost during the night. During this time I take one of the bicycles of the hotel, and make a quick tour around until about 4km north of the hotel. Here there is a nice view of the ocean and I can see the blow-outs of whales in the distance.
After lunch in the hotel we check out the local reefs outside the hotel. Unfortunately the wind and waves make this a less pleasant experience, and we quickly give up. Instead, we rest on the wooden pier, and make a quick swim in the protected area of the sea ("pool") where we see a surprising number of different fish. We take a shower, make a walk in the village close to the hotel, but when we set out to make a bicycle trip together pouring rain convinces us to stay put. Instead, we read a bit in our rooms, waiting for an early dinner. A group of musicians from Toliara is in town and plays music next to the pool in the hotel. After dinner we quickly go to bed: our whale tour is tomorrow morning at 8:00.
Today we need to get up early to be in time for a 7:45 pre-briefing for our whale spotting tour. As a precaution, we get a tablet against motion sickness with breakfast. Together with 9 other tourists we fill in questionnaires and the leaders from Cetamada give us a speed training whale anatomy. Then we dress up in raincoats and life vests and into the boat that brings us to the whale tour boat a little further in the harbor. The weather today is very wet, the camera is packed safely in a sealed bag. We leave in south-westerly direction but quickly after bend off northward at full speed. There we encounter a mother whale with baby.
During the rest of the trip we encounter a few solitary males, and a large group of seven whales traveling towards the south together. Each of the whales we find is carefully noted and tracked for a while with a special GPS unit. We also listen to a hydrophone at some point to hear the song of the males. During the four hours on the water it is almost continuously raining, and the camera must be put away all the time in its safe pocket. Sometimes the rain stops to make place for a downpour. When we come back, we are completely soaked to the bone. Anne and Maxim take a shower immediately while I follow the debriefing.
After lunch we try to make a tour on bicycle. After a few km we are soaked again and return to the hotel, where we spend a quiet afternoon instead. Anne and Maxim decide not to go on a second whale spotting trip tomorrow: four hours is too long for them in the rain.
Today I am the only one to get up early, because I will be doing the second whale spotting trip alone. At breakfast I get my tablet against motion sickness, but it is much more quiet at sea than yesterday. All of the 9 people that are going on the trip this morning have been on a trip before, so the briefing can be quick. One of the tourists gets a quick training with the GPS unit, because Maria is the only whale scientist on board. The sun is strong. The advantage of this weather is that one can see much further, so it is much easier to see the whales and take pictures; disadvantage seems to be that the whales don't show themselves as much. We spend a bit of time looking for whales. The first two whales we encounter are solitary males that are playing hide and seek with the boat. The second disappears for quite a while, and then suddenly appears right next to the boat. A little later the same happens with a female with baby. In the far distance, some of the people in the boat see some whale jumps, but they are single jumps, not an event that we could go towards.
While I am at sea, Maxim and Anne take bicycles from the hotel and visit the small zoo 2km north of the hotel. They see the different local animals, among which a very, very slow chameleon that they feed a grasshopper.
After our lunch together we take the bicycles for the trip to Ambodifotatra, the capital of the Ile Ste Marie, at 12km north of the hotel. The first 8km the roads are good, but after that it turns largely into a mud ride. There are deep holes in the road, for some of them it is difficult to gauge the depth because they are full of muddy water. We quickly try a scenic route, but when it appears to be not only muddy and irregular but also steep uphill, we decide to continue along the main road.
It is a great experience to cycle through the small city. The contact with the local culture is much stronger like this than when passing by car or walking with a tour guide.
On the way back to the hotel we visit the pirate cemetary. Because of the high tide, the local guide (without any teeth, but with lots of humor) brings us to the cemetary in a pirogue over the lake.The view from the cemetary over the lagoon and the old pirate island is gorgeous.
Back in the hotel we drink something and write the postcards in our hotel room. Then it is time for dinner and sleep.
On our last full day it rains and pours. During the night we noticed a few times that the power went out for a short time. We make it a very quiet morning, and have breakfast at 9:30. We finish the morning reading in the lounge. During the afternoon the weather does not clear at all. There are puddles of water everywhere, and the wind is very strong. The sea shows white-headed waves everywhere and the whale spotting tours do not leave today. We decide to clean up our luggage already for the trip home. We bring the medication that we took with us to the reception of the hotel for local use, and take some of the books that we did read on our trip to the library.
The night and next day are still quite windy and rainy. This allows us to get the rest that we deserve after our interesting holidays. In the afternoon we fly back to Antananarivo, where Jean-Jacques takes us to a daytime hotel close to the airport. We dump our luggage in the room and have a look at the hotel shop which has a very nice selection of local products. We buy some last souvenirs there, and also leave our postcards; the lady says she can mail them for us. We have dinner, and at 22:00 get our luggage out of the room for the trip to the airport. The hotel bus is really heavily charged with a large group of tourists, some are taking huge pieces home in special boxes. Jean-Jacques appears as well to take other tourists to the airport, at the airport he checks whether we are doing ok. The flight back to Paris leaves around 1:00.