NDBT

Perth note – Sam’s signed up to be in Frost/Nixon with Michael Sheen and Frank Langella. Rock. He’s now got 2 movies scheduled for 2008.  

4-14 We had breakfast at the hotel (watching the mist rise over the rainforest) and caught the taxi brousse back to Fianarantsoa. We found out that the next brousse to Toliara (or Tulear, however you want to say/pronounce it – like many places in Madagascar it has many names. At least those 2 are pretty similar). Ahem anyways – the brousse was at 5:30 at night. So we spent the day hiking around town trying to go to the bank, internet cafe, and stuff; all with our packs on, walking up lots of hills in very, very hot weather. We got a lot of attention. Also at the internet cafe, I discovered that San Francisco gave Sam Rockwell an acting award. Another reason to love my city. (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/05/01/DDGECPH20F1.DTL. Okay – “sweet ‘stache” (Safe men) and my favorite bit of that article? “It was not unlike a petting zoo.”)

Ate at Chez Papillon, which, like many establishments, had an underfed, persistantly begging cat. Then we went back to the brousse station to wait, where we were befriended by several children (Mapti, Mani, Stephanie, and Leah, among others). We practiced our Malagasy and they invented a game which involved them asking me my name (in french) and as soon as the reply “je m’appelle Jessica” was given they would scream with laughter. And run and tell other people around the station. It was pretty bewildering, but funny. This went on for over an hour. When we finally got in the brousse to leave, they all came up to us – some shaking hands, the shyer ones merely touching our skin quickly and running away.

Our seriously laden brousse finally left at 7:30. Patrick and I sat up next to the driver. Usually this is a good seat – more legroom – but for this trip it was awful. As we drove out we nearly hit – in order – a chicken, a dog, a child chasing a ball, a guy walking in the road, and a tanker truck. I had about 14 heart attacks. Having the (mostly scary) view means I did get to see a couple of fosa, a bat, a dog carrying a dead duck in its mouth, and some fires on a distant hill which made it look like the sky was on fire. Another great thing about Madagascar at night was seeing billions of stars – really, really great night sky.

15-4 We got into Toliara at 5:00am. A French girl, Emily, asked us if we were going to Ifaty (pronounced Ee-faht) and we said ‘sure – why not?’ so after lots of negotiation, we got a cat-cat (4×4, or quatre-quatre in french) to drive to Ifaty (sand road. It took us an hour to go 27 km, and the brousses can take 3 hours). The cat-cat driver gave a tour (in french) and stopped at good places for photos. Decided to stay where Emily had booked – the voille rouge, which was this amazing tropical paradise resort. We had a bungalo overlooking the beach and it was completely gorgeous. Ifaty is a totally different ecosystem from ranomafana – it is dry spiny forest (cacti, baobabs, spiny plants, etc.), much more desert-like than the rainforest we had been in. While I knew about that, I really hadn’t expected there to be these carribean type resorts in Madagascar. It was a pleasant surprise.

We had drinks in the open air bar-dining room (coco-punch. Drinking out of coconuts became a big hit with us). Met Pierre, a french guy who spends 2 months per year in Africa. The French have vacations so right. All the food at the resort was made by the owner’s wife who, if she wasn’t a gourmet chef before moving to Madagascar, certainly was in a former life. Most of it was seafood caught fresh that day. Even the shrimp were delicious, and I hate shrimp. Went walking along the beach in the afternoon, followed some crabs on the rocks, and went swimming for a couple of hours (the water was ridiculously warm). Then Patrick and I borrowed masks and went snorkeling. Played darts after dinner, while the geckos watched.

16-4 Woke up early the next morning to look for birds and get breakfast before a tour of the baobabs. On my way to breakfast I was stung by a wasp thing on my thigh, which really hurt (that might sound obvious, but the only other time I’ve been stung in my life was when I was 5). On a random side note, Madagascar had very good, very strong coffee, which they serve with condensed milk. I guess some people don’t like it, but I thought it was fine. Oh and Patrick wasn’t really awake, and locked us out of our bungalo (we got back in after a little). Anyways, we went on a baobab tour with Emily and our guide Julien, who didn’t speak English, but the tour was still a lot of fun (Emily translated the few very important things). We went by zebu cart, which was cool and exotic, and not very comfortable. But still fun. We saw lots of cool trees, butterflies, birds, and knocked down some baobab fruit with sticks. Then Patrick and I walked to ‘tortoise village’ which is a totally cool conservation project that takes radiated and spider tortoises that have been caught in smuggling busts and rehabs them and breeds them for release into the wild. And they are working on creating a small museum for local kids. Very cool, local project doing a lot of good. Walked back through the village. Ate at chez pauline, where I ordered fish and got and entire fish – eyeballs and all. They also had a pet ring-tail, Maki, which I do not approve of, but it was kind of fun to see his giant hands up close as he climbed all over us. Now I know why they are such good jumpers. Walked back along the beach, and a local girl talked me into letting her give me a massage (I know, I know – twist my arm…)

k – stopping there for now. more later.

Tags: Travel

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