Mombasa, Kenya

Got back to Nairobi after our mountain trip and spent one night there before heading off in the morning for Mombasa. Caught a pretty comfortable bus and had a good trip. Passed alongside the Tsavo National Park and only saw a few zebra from the bus window. Saw typical Kenyan scenery, maize fields, cassava, bananas, and herders with cows, goats and a few sheep.

We drove into Mombasa through the heavily congested port area. There were huge trucks with containers coming and going and the road was a dustbowl with such heavy usage. All along the highway we passed container trucks and oil product tankers.

It was 34 years since I was in Mombasa too but when we arrived and headed up the main street there was nothing I recognised. The town is crowded with lots of taxis and Indian tuk tuks every where. The footpaths filled up in the evening with hawkers selling plastic products, shoes, clothing, and fruit and vegetables.

The hotel we checked into was on a busy corner and was pretty noisy but it was spotless and had everything we needed. We are used to sleeping with ear plugs and I use a mask to cut out the light and keep my ear plugs in. There were mostly locals in the hotel and a couple of white Kenyans. It felt a little like a boarding house as they sat around watching the "soapies" on TV all night. One of the soapies is an Italian one dubbed in Swahili and then later it is on again in English. We never saw any other travellers in the place.

We walked to a vegetarian Indian restaurant further along the street and although there were hardly any lights on in the street we felt comfortable walking after dark. When we go out after dark we leave our passports and other valuables at the reception desk and have them locked in a small bag. We then only take what we need for an evening meal and nothing else valuable.

Everywhere you look there are mosques and minarets.

Got up early and got a ticket on the bus to Lamu and will stop on the way back to Nairobi again here for one night to break the trip.

Lamu Island, Kenya

From Mombasa we took a big bus to Lamu. We passed through Malindi which was where I had a Christmas dinner on the beach in 1976. It was at a place owned by an Indian family and they cooked us lobsters, fish and vegetables, with a carrot and rice dessert. Malindi is now very busy and hectic. A lot of land has been bought by Italians for their resorts. We decided not to stop there this time.



The area is pretty dry and dusty and the road from Malindi to Lamu ferry was pretty bad and unsealed. For access to a UNESCO site, it is not a good introduction to the island. Lamu can be accessed by an airport at Manda so maybe those are the kind of tourists they want. There were only 4 backpackers on the bus and the rest of the pasengers were locals getting off at small dusty villages on the way.



The main crops seemed to be sisal, maize, bananas and coconuts. A lot of the land that had dry grasslands were used to graze animals and grow palm trees that are used for thatching the local daub huts.



At Mokowe, which is the end of the bus route and the ferry landing to Lamu Island, we couldn't get off the bus for locals touts wanting to carry our bags a few metres to the ferry boat. After fighting them off we had to contend with the touts who had accommodation on offer. We had booked through http://www.hostelworld.com/ and we were met by one of the staff members who was easily identifiable with a tee shirt advertising the guesthouse. She was sent to make sure that we were not taken away by any of the other guesthouse owners. There are not many tourists coming to Kenya, because of the riots at the last elections, so there is a lot of competition for the very few tourists who do come here.



The wind was up and the ferry bounced about a lot. One of the huge empty polystyrene boats that was tied up to the ferry we were on, ended up blowing up on the side rails and the Muslim women on board screamed and shouted hysterically. Although they were born on the island they have never learnt to swim and so are very nervous on the water. I would not like to sit beside them if the boat tipped over as they would claw you to death trying to climb up on you to save themselves.

The waterfront.



The guesthouse was owned by Arnold from Germany. It was spotless and offered free internet, a delicious breakfast and an informative welcome. There was a cool rooftop area where we could relax and meet the other guests. It was a short walk through the narrow 1 and 1/2 metre lanes with their open sewers.



Sometimes we had to jump out of the way of the locals on their donkeys. There were about 6,000 donkeys at one time and when construction booms the donkey population booms too. The only person with a car is the District Commissioner, however, we did see a couple of rusty ambulances that didn't look like they could move, as well as a couple of new tractors that were donated to the island to carry the rubbish.






I came to Lamu in 1976 as well as and I would have to say that things have gone backwards since that time. The open sewers in the street are as black as they were in the 1700s, according to some of the old stories we read about the place. But, of course, nowadays they are not only blocked with grey water and organic matter but also plastic bags. The rubbish piles up outside shops and peoples' doorways and it gets eaten by goats and donkeys and blown about by the wind, and scavenged through by the hordes of cats and crows or chooks . When the tide was out the seafront was full of trash and most of that was broken household items and plastic bags. The council banned plastic bags but everyone still uses them. There are a few wooden slatted rubbish cages on the waterfront but what the wind doesn't blow into the ocean the donkeys spread through the streets. When the rubbish piles get smelly the locals burn them and then start to pile up more waste on top.







The town is a living example of the Swahili culture that once dominated the entire Indian Ocean coast. These carved doors are on many of the houses in the old town. Outside the front of the houses are also plastered seats, like a chaise lounge, where the men sit or lie and discuss matters with other menfolk. There are many Muslim sects on the island so some women wear a full veil while others pin a black scarf over their head. A sect similar to one we saw in Yeman wear pastel coloured capes with a bonnet, similar to Little Red Riding Hood, and a matching skirt.

The men sit about the town square in front of the old fort near the market. The sea used to come up to the bottom of the tree but now it is several metres off the seafront.

Generally the local people are friendly and greet you with a 'Jambo'"(Hello) or 'Karibu' (Welcome). We ate fish most nights in the seafront restaurants as it was lovely and fresh.

One evening we went on a sunset cruise on a local dhow. The 3 men on the boat cooked up a huge black snapper, on their charcoal grill on the deck at the back of the boat, and some stir fried local vegetables. They followed this up with baked chocolate bananas and fresh mangoes. The sun sets really quickly. It was wonderful to see the old dhows still being used but there are also a lot of fibreglass speedboats buzzing up and down.

The one day we decided to walk along the beach front to Shela Village it was really windy and we got sandblasted. The beach was as I remembered it but now there are lots of weathly Kenyans and foreigners who have built houses in the village. Some of the tourists shops were brand new, empty, and expensive.

From Lamu we went back to Mombasa for one night and then back to Nairobi for another night. From here we caught a flight to Addis Abba in Ethiopia. We are not sure what the internet connections will be like in Ethiopia and may only be able to write without photos. We have heard that only locals can get SIM cards here.

Mount Kenya National Park, Kenya

We were met at the airport by Kennedy, our guide to trek Mount Kenya, and his driver Joe. We drove to the small town of Naro Moru, about two and a half hours from Nairobi. We checked into a hotel on the outskirts of the town, surrounded by fields of crops. The hotel had a campsite and a poultry farm in the complex and chicken, eggs, and chips were the only items on the menu.

In the evening Kennedy came to see us because he had to return to the Masai Mara where he manages a tour company. Some people from Uganda had stolen things from the tourists in his camp and his second in charge was not able to handle the situation. However, he introduced us to Gerard who would be our guide for the five day trip

We sorted the gear we would need and the next morning we met Charles, our cook, and Boniface and John, our two porters. All the boys went to school together and belonged to the Kikuyu tribe. We only needed to carry small day bags with gear and snacks we would need while the porters carried our packs with our extra clothes and sleeping bags and then filled the packs with their own gear. Two primus cookers were attached to the outside of the packs and we set off from the Naro Moru gate of the Mount Kenya National Park.

We had stayed a night in Naro Moru to help acclimatise to the altitude as I had suffered from the altitude when we had climbed Mount Kinabalu, in Malaysia. The walk to Met Hut was 9 kms along a dirt road, and we rose from 2400 metres asl to 3049m asl and it took us 3 and 3/4 hours, which Gerard assured us was good going. Saw lots of elephant dung, antelope and buffalo spoor but didn't encounter any of the animals. There were four huts and we had one with about ten beds to ourselves. Next door was a German climber named Frank who had a hut to himself. The last hut had two English girls. The porters had separate rooms away from us and a small room for cooking beside each hut.

This Syke monkey stole a tub of chocolate powder from Frank and climbed up the trees to get into it. The porters all came to throw stones at him to get him to give it back. We had to be sure to lock our door whenever we left the hut to keep the monkeys out. Although the signs says the animals should not be fed, lots of people feed them so they can get close up photos.

In the evening these francolin birds came around to visit. We were told there were leopards, genets, and buffalo near the hut too, but only saw duiker.

Charles cooked soup, battered fish and vegetables, followed by fresh fruit for dessert and we could hardly eat it all there was so much. I couldn't sleep because of the altitude so I heard the tree hyrax calling each other in the trees outside our hut, and I heard the buffalo pulling on the grass under our window and chewing its cud. I wanted to go to the toilet but had to wait until the pulling and chewing stopped. Before going outside at night we had to check for eyes glowing in the dark. The closer the eyes together the smaller the animal we were warned.

The next morning we had a huge breakfast of eggs, pancakes and fruit and headed off about 7 am. Walked through the bamboo zone and then onto timberline forest with lots of African rosewood and giant St John's wort plants.

We had been taking diamox pills to prevent altitude sickness so we both felt fine but I had a lot of trouble getting enough air into my lungs and my diaphragm muscle hurt, similar to the stitch from overuse. Gerard kept reassuring us we were doing fine and the pace was good but I was not so sure. I felt he was trying to humour me. However, he did later tell us of clients who took 15 hours to do the climb so I felt pretty good that we had done the 10 kms in 7 and 1/2 hours, to 4300 metres asl.

Saw several colonies of rock hyrax and spotted a lot of hyena droppings on the trail but saw none. The giant forest lobelia at about 3 metres tall were like something out of a Dr Suess childrens' book. Some fluffy plants were called 'ostrich' plants and they were interesting as they started as a rosette of leaves and ended as a tall spiky fluff of leaves. There were a few clumps of gladioli and red hot pokers as well to add some bright colour to the view. Covering the ground were thousands of everlasting daisies with their paper-like flowers.

We saw a porter carrying Frank's ice climbing gear in a long narrow pack and another carrying his rock climbing gear in a similar pack and they looked so uncomfortable as the packs were taller than the porters and had no support for their backs. Other porters passed us with duffel bags which had even less support, or soft carryall where they had to loop one handle around the top of their head in order to carry the bags to the top. Our health and safety laws would never allow workers to labour under such conditions. We only hope they were generously compensated for such hard work.

At a place called Picnic Rock, Charles and the boys cooked up some noodle soup for lunch. We chatted to a couple of English girls who were taking a break at the same spot too.

Gerard carried a small solar panel to power a small light and for all the boys to recharge their cellphones.

Mackinder's Hut was made of stone blocks and it was absolutely freezing. We shared the bunk room with the two English girls who were suffering from bad headaches and felt unwell so we were grateful to have taken longer than they to get to the hut and not suffer such ill effects. Frank was in a bunk room by himself and he told us about all his climbing experiences in Europe, Sth America ( Aconcagua ) and last year when he was on Mount Kenya as well.

After an enormous dinner, we had an early night as John and Gerard decided to get up at 2.30 am to climb to Point Lenana, at 4985 metres. Once again I didn't sleep a wink but had decided not to go with them. They had to use their headlights to light the trail until the sun came up. John was thankful he couldn't see how steepthe scree slope was as he may well have turned back but was glad he didn't.

I spent the day walking around the trails near the hut and chatting about NZ to the porters and cooks left at the hut and listening to the hut warden talk about the climbers who had problems on the mountain.

John and Gerard had to detour to the north side of Point Lenana because there was an ice field on the direct route and they didn't have ice axes or crampons. They crossed the equator on their climb. The mountain was clear so they had a great view. It took them 8 and 1/2 hours and trekked about 11 kms altogether. I saw them descending through the binoculars and went to meet them in the valley.

We were joined in the evening by seven elderly Norwegians who took about 11 hours to get to the hut. One of the ladies was quite unwell. They must have paid a lot of money for their trip as they had waiters serve them food from their insulated pots and even had table cloths. They are so used to the cold weather and were well prepared with their puffy down jackets and even puffier down sleeping bags.

I had to buy a pair of track pants in Nairobi, but we were already carrying woollen hats, gloves, and thermal underwear, which had been used in Cape Town in June. Our sleeping bags managed to keep us warm even though we woke to sleet on the roof and frost on the ground in the morning.

However, once again I still didn't sleep and Charles, the cook, told me that he didn't on his first few trips to the mountain either and it was probably due to the altitude.

It took us just over four hours to get back down the mountain to Met Hut again. John caught up on some sleep at Met hut and in the evening we tried to spot the tree hyrax and catch the moles digging up the earth but didn't manage either. I thought I'd be low enough and tired enough to sleep but couldn't.

Gerard is an avid bird watcher so we spent a bit of time looking for birds and spotted this crimson chested bee catcher on the way out the next day.

We did manage to see a family of black and white Colobos monkey swinging through the trees on the way down to the park gates.

We drove back to Nairobi with Kennedy and Joe and found a room at the same hotel we stayed in last time and got ready to head to Lamu Island.

Antananarivo, Madagascar

Hired a three wheeler Kanga or moto to the Antsirabe bus station. The touts herded us to a private people mover where a lady spoke Spanish. She needed two more people to fill the private vehicle and it looked like a much more comfortable ride than the minivans or taxi brousse. We had to promise that if the police stopped us that we were to say we were from USA and friends with the lady. We think this was because it was a private vehicle being used as a public one that we had to do this. However, the police, gendarmerie, or soldiers never stopped us.

The driver was quite young and he drove too fast for the conditions and after speeding around a tight corner at 120 kms per hour with squealing tyres, like he was driving in a Hollywood movie, we got a bit nervous. A few kilometres later he sped up again and a bullock cart crossed in front of us and he had to brake hard. We missed the farmer and his bulls by a few centimetres and John then ordered him to slow down. From the voices and gestures of the other passengers we could see they were blaming the bullock cart driver for the near miss. Fortunately the Spanish speaking woman sided with us and also rebuked the driver. After this we continued at a reasonable pace safely to Tana, but also passed a minivan upside down near the top of a hill and this made us feel justified for hassling the driver.

The vehicle stopped in a shanty town outside the city centre. People were living in huts made from anything they could scavenge. Small stores of planks of salvaged timber lined the dusty streets. We were approached by a 'Rasta' man who took us off to find a taxi. It was a pretty desperate place. The taxi driver gave the Rasta man a tip for finding him a fare and we headed off to Tana Jacaranda Guesthouse.

The guesthouse was full of French researchers and they referred us to a hotel at the top of the street. The hotel was on the corner of a very busy street and the room was very cramped. After one night here the staff from Tana Jacaranda phoned to say they had a place for us so we returned there. We had not been able to write any blogs so we were looking forward to using the free internet they offered to catch up with all the Madagascar blogs, so we were thankful to be back with the comforts of our old guesthouse.

We had to organise the airport shuttle bus for our flight out so we headed to Independence Plaza and the railway station where we knew the buses were kept. At the entrance to the train station were many teenage street kids. They hassled John for money and surrounded him tugging at his pockets trying to get money off him. They were unsuccessful. We both wear little pouches that button up inside the waistbands of our trousers where we keep our supply of cash and these can't be reached without taking our trousers off. Our passports hang around our necks under our clothes. John usually carries just enough cash for the small things we need in a zipped or buttoned pocket. After organising the airport shuttle bus to pick us up at 3.30am we left the railway station. The teenagers followed us out and John made a lot of noise shouting at them to go away and fortunately they then dispersed as people on the streets began to look at the commotion.

The plaza was full of all kinds of hawkers. Everyone seems to have more than one cellphone and they buy scratch cards from vendors with umbrellas. As we stumbled our way through the hawkers we heard a guy whistling and then a wave of panic rippled through the street as hawkers folded up their umbrellas, wheeled away their carts loaded with goods, wrapped their trinkets up in sheets, or bundled their wares into cardboard boxes and shoved them under parked vehicles. The police must have been nearby. As soon as the panic was over the peddlers reset their items for sale and carried on until the next warning whistle

In the evening we found a place to have a pizza and met an American guy who has lived in Tana for 5 years. He told us that the teens at the station had tried to rob him 5 times and had managed to get his wallet once. When we saw him pull out an overstuffed wallet from his back pocket we were not surprised that they had targeted him. He recommended a local restaurant to us with a great 'ambiance' so we went there one night.

The restaurant was not far from our guesthouse in an old renovated house with a courtyard. On the way there we passed many people on the streets with their children begging. Others were keeping warm with their charcoal burners or getting ready to bed down on the footpath for the night. There were only four diners in the restaurant and while it had nice food it also added extra taxes to the bill that we hadn't had to pay in other places. The hidden price of 'ambiance'.

We spent the rest of our time in Tana, burning photo CDs, buying a new belt for John as his old one had disintegrated, doing laundry, and writing our annual newsletter and getting it mailed off to friends and family. We repacked our bags and got rid of things we no longer needed or couldn't take on the flight; aerosol insect repellent and cooking fuel.

The flight to Nairobi with Madagascar Air was delayed as it waited for a connecting flight from Paris. While boarding I spotted a guy who looked like someone I had worked with at our local Polytechnic. A little while later he looked at me with a puzzled look and then I knew it was Keith Gregor who tutored marine studies. We had a good chat on the flight about he and his partner's 6 month round the world trip. Africa really is a small place!!!

We had a short stop at Moroni in the Comoros Islands, where the majority of the passengers alighted, before continuing to Nairobi. . Mount Kilimanjaro from the aeroplane.

Antsirabe, Madagascar

The sun is up so early in the morning that it is easy for us to get up at 5.30am and get on with the day. In keeping with our plan for more exercise we walked the steep 2 kms to the taxi brousse station to get our reserved seats. Like all the stations here it is chaos. People who want to get a bus have the taxis drive in amongst the porters and the minivan taxi brousse. Porters carry huge loads on their heads or lug them around on these home made trolleys. At the back of the trolley is a steering wheel to steer them. Beside is a lever that has a bar covered with old tyres that is used as a brake. John reckons they would carry up to half a ton of gear on them. The wheels are usually made of wood and covered with old tyres and wobble all over the place. Some take the time to decorate their trolleys while others are bare wood. We often pass them on the highways where they get pushed up the hills by 2 or 3 men and then they sit on the load as it races down the hills. Often they are loaded with bricks from the kilns or huge sacks of charcoal.



Amongst all of this are the peddlers trying to get you to buy fruit, tea, packets of biscuits, baguettes, newspapers or souvenirs.

Passed through Ambositra city, which is the arts and crafts centre. Most of the stuff made here is from timber and the hills are pretty bare of trees which are felled for the crafts or charcoal. In fact the whole southern half of Madagascar we have seen is completely cleared of large trees. There were numerous stalls set up on the side of the highway, selling wooden trucks painted with Coca Cola or petrol company logos and painted in bright colours.

We ran out of petrol about 10kms from the city and the bus driver had to flag another van down. They found some plastic water bottles floating about the van and undid the fuel line of another van and filled the bottles with petrol. One and a half litres later we were on our way again.

At Antsirabe bus station we were besieged by rickshaw Kangas imported from India. The rickshaw pullers tried to talk us out of using them saying they were unsafe. We had heard that they are unstable if driven too fast. Luckily we have learnt that 'mora mora' means slowly slowly!

Checked into the place recommended in our guide book and luckily they had rooms. It was an unusual place with small round brick bungalows set out around some lawns and ponds.



We wandered into the city which was known in the 19th century as a spa town. It has wide boulevards and once had a railway, but now the huge station is empty.



Near the hotel was an enormous cathedral and we could see people on the lawns of the huge Thermes hotel which would have been magnificent in its day.

People seemed to have a lot of time to sit around in the shade in the streets. Peddlers tried to sell us beads and packets of small gemstones. They all complained there were no tourists to buy their wares. We couldn't step out of the hotel without a flood of rickshaw pullers calling out their names and wanting to take us places.



We found an internet shop to catch up on internet banking and get an e-ticket from our daughter for Kenya to Ethiopia.

Found a bakery to buy some nice bread and a cafe to eat with all the other French tourists and their families who were in town. It also had a Shoprite supermarket so we could stock up with nibbles for our trip back to Tana. Antrirabe would have been a lovely place in its heyday, but one night was enough for us.

On the roadside on the way back to Tana, locals were holding up live rabbits for sale.

Fianarantsoa, Parc National Ranomafana, Madagascar

A tout from Ranohira signed us up for a taxi brousse while at Chez Momo so at 7.15am we met him and he put us in our minivan. Of course he gets 10% from the driver for doing this and we get a seat!
Unfortunately our minivan only lasted 30 minutes before it ran out of water and blew a head gasket and we were left on the side of the road in the heat waiting for a replacement. That was a sign of things to come as we ended up being shuffled around four different minivans before arriving in Fianarantsoa (aka Fianar).

Fianar is a part of the haut plateau. Here there was a lot of maize and cassava as well as a lot of fallow land probably for grazing. In the valleys were the usual rice paddies.

At one point we dropped some men off at a side road and at the intersection were about five men with old fashioned rifles. Coco, our guide from Isalo Park, told us that in the Bara tribe a man is not a man until he has stolen some cattle to provide a dowry to his wife's family. The men with their guns are either protecting their cattle from theft or out to steal cattle. We were also told and read that there is a special court to deal with cattle thefts as it is a long standing tradition and the regular courts are not the place to hear such traditional cases.

Passed through Ihosa and Ambalavao towns before arriving at Fianar after eight and a half hours on the go and covering about 300 kms in total. In one bus a man behind us was vomiting out the window the whole journey. We were so lucky that he wasn't in front of us!

Fianar has about 150,000 inhabitants and is in the centre of the tea and wine growing area although we never saw any tea bushes from the minivan. At the bus station we were surrounded by touts wanting to know where we were going and they wisely informed us that there would be no taxi brousse for two days as it was the holidays. To get in more exercise we walked the uphill 2 kms to the Tsara Guesthouse where we wanted to stay and didn't have a booking.

View from hotel to Old Town

The guesthouse was gorgeous. It was a restored old French building and was well presented. There were traveller's rooms, which we got, where we shared the ablutions. They also had quite expensive suites further down the hill that had a garden view and a view of the old town. We got to look over the street and down the valley but we were happy with that.

There was a well looked after garden with traveller's palms and trimmed hedges. At night the place was lit up with fairy lights and tables and diners could eat at tables set amongst the hedges. It was a lovely setting for a New Year dinner but pretty quiet. Had crayfish soup, chicken and mustard, and honeyed duck. The cake was a peanut ice cream filled roulade like we had on Christmas Day. All in all in was a pretty sedate evening but very nice away from the hectic happenings in the street where we could hear loud thumping music but not see any people.

New Year's Day we walked around the city to see what the locals were doing on their holidays. The streets were empty of the stalls selling second hand clothing and shoes. There were no vehicles on the streets either. We saw a couple of old guys playing music on a homemade fiddle and guitar to a small group in a park.

In another street there were groups of guys playing on their drums. Near the old railway station building there was a fair with a merry-go-round and a ferris wheel. Neither rides had motors and the merry-go-round was pushed around by a couple of men. The wheel was a bit more complicated to operate. Two men raced up the side frame to the top and then clung onto a seat as two men from below pushed the bottom seats on up. The locals looked happy with their ride anyway.

We walked around the Old City and there were about 5 or 6 different churches in the very small area. It is now a protected site. Fortunately for us, the souvenir shops were closed but we were followed by children wanting to sell embroidered post cards. We encountered several groups selling the same things in various parts of the city. Some said it was fundraising for their school and they were pretty aggressive. If I ignored them, they would speak in French, English, Spanish, and Italian to get your attention!

Being a holiday we couldn't guarantee getting a taxi brousse to and from Ranomafana National Park so we hired a car and a driver from the hotel. Of course they wanted to add in a picnic lunch and side trips for double the price but we only wanted transport so negotiated a reasonable rate.

Outside most of the towns are gendarmerie or police and also what look like men in green police uniforms. Some wave the minivans on while others take a folder from the driver, walk around the back of the van and obviously take the bribe that the driver has left him. Some we have seen under a "Halt la corruption" signs!

The road was sealed and in good condition all the way to the park. The houses we passed were tall and narrow, some had thatched rooves while others had clay tiles. There are always kilns where the clay bricks have been prepared and fired. Sometimes they would still be smoking and at other times they would be being dismantled and the baked bricks stacked onto trolleys or carts to take off to a building site.

At the park a guide found us. Of the 51 guides there are only 8 who speak English and the other 7 we were told were hungover and not at work, so we had to take the only guy who turned up for work. It took a wee while to get used to his French-Malagasy accent but he was very good. He had about 4 spotters who scouted the forest for lemurs or chameleons and then they would send cellphones messages back and forth. There were only a couple of other groups in the park and they only stayed about and hour and a half and headed off. We were the only ones doing a full day trek in the park.

The chameleon is the second smallest species they have in Madagascar and was about the size of my little finger! He was also the same colour as the dead leaves on the ground so how the spotter saw it amazes us.

The guide cut a piece of bamboo and the rare brown bamboo lemur came down and ate it on the path in front of us. Some of the lemur have collars and are tracked by researchers so they are pretty used to humans. We also saw red fronted lemurs and golden bamboo lemurs. They are pretty high in the trees and difficult to photograph. Altogether there are 11 species of lemur in the park.

We saw very few birds, a couple of robins, but heard several parrots. There were a few geckos and the guide caught a long thin non-venomous snake. When we had lunch by the river he caught some crabs and a crayfish. Some of the forest was secondary and we saw a tomb left by the local tribe who used to live here before it was declared a national park. It was pretty dry and they had not had rain here for a month.

On the way back to the hotel we booked a taxi brousse to Antsiribe.

Ranohira,Parc National d'Isalo, Madagascar

Once in Ranohira, we were the only ones to get off and the rest of the passengers continued onto Tana. We were greeted by touts happy to tell us where our hotel was and if we wanted guides or taxis we could let them know. We checked into Chez Momo where we got a rustic bungalow with an ensuite. Even though it was late Momo managed to cook us up a zebu steak and chips. We discussed our options for a trek the next day and headed off to bed as we had an early start. We would have been a day earlier and could have done an overnight trek but lost time with our passports being locked up and us having to wait for the owner to get the key to open the safe, and the bus being so late in the afternoon, out of Tulear.

We got a packed lunch and met Coco, our guide, who took us off on a six hour trek. We walked from the town through the rice paddies. The park was very dry with lots of sandstone landscape and towering massifs. The particular part of the park that we wanted to visit was closed because of a huge fire and not due to be opened for a week or so. We then chose to walk a circuit that ended at a waterfall and pools.

Coco informed us that Malagasy people wear different coloured clothes on different days of the week as they meant different things to the wearer. He also said that different days are for different activities. Wednesday was a good day to travel long distances where as other days were only for short trips. Some days were better for making important decisions etc. Monday was a day of mourning so Monday was suitable for funerals and to wear black.

We passed several tombs that belonged to the Sakalava people who used to live in the area before it became a park. We were told about the caves in the cliffs where the bodies were put in a temporary grave in a low down place. Later the body is removed from the grave and the remains exhumed before being placed in a higher permanent grave. Once this is done the ancestor is at rest.

Other than a couple of falcons and harriers we didn't see much bird life. There were several kinds of lizards and chameleon and even a small thin non-venomous snake.

The rare pachypodium or elephant foot managed to grow in the cracks in the rocks and are a weird looking plant. The weather was pretty hot and we enjoyed the swim at the watering hole where we were joined by about a dozen French families doing a short walk for a picnic by the waterfall.

Once back at Momos we met Karen, from the US and Joop, from Holland. They had both been volunteering with a Dutch botanist although Karen had been working with Peacecorp as well. As we chatted about our travels Karen asked us if we had a citrus orchard. She then realised that we had met before in July at Betty's Bay in South Africa. Is Africa that small?

Tulear, Madagascar

Stayed at the same hotel as we had previously and everything looked exactly as it did the last time. The same men and the same girls drinking and playing cards outside the same room we were given. This time we knew that the mosquito net was too short to tuck in the bed so we got out some string and made some alterations. The beds in Madagascar have wooden slats under and they can be warped so when one of us turns over the slat flicks up and sticks into the other ones back. The mattresses are usually poor quality foam that looks thick but after a while it compresses to a few centimetres and is pretty uncomfortable when your hips are in the gaps of the slats. To minimise the discomfort we sleep with our heads at the foot of the bed which isn't as worn as the head of the bed is. I am sure the cleaner was puzzled when she found we had rearranged things in the room.

In the evening we were able to find a restaurant with seafood, Italian food and pizzas, as well as Indian dishes. That was a pleasant surprise after not being able to find any food the first visit here.

Once again we hired two rickshaws to get us to the taxi brousse depot. Unfortunately we had a four hour wait for the next minivan to leave so wandered into the city to find somewhere cool to hang out. Spotted a cafe with lots of tourists and expats with their computers out and saw they had free internet. It was the perfect place to while away the time and catch up on lots of emails from family and friends wishing us well for the new year.

Although the taxi brousse was scheduled to go at 4 pm, it was late as the locals arrived with enormous bags and there was an argument over loading a goat. The customer was not travelling with the goat but had all sorts of official papers with red stamps to say the goat could go all the way to Tana. A trip that would mean it wouldn't arrive until early morning. We were told that the goat would be eaten for the New Year dinner as a special celebration.

The road was in very good condition and the driver was very careful and we felt safe travelling in the dark. We drove through a small town where every second shop was a gem store. It really looked like it had come out of a Hollywood Wild West set, with its wooden houses with small balconies on the top floos. There were no street lights but nearly everyone in town was out walking up and down the main street. Every shop in between the gem shops was a bar that had its counter facing the street and crowds of men standing on the street drinking.

We were told that these places boomed once sapphires were found here and people came from Thailand and Sri Lanka as they are very experienced with sapphires and other gems. Consequently a lot of the big businesses are owned by these people while the locals provide the hard labour in the fields.

We arrived at Ilakaka, a small sapphire mining town, where we stopped for the evening meal. Outside the restaurant was a boy of about 9 or 10. He called to a young girl of about 4 or 5, threatening her with a large rock if she didn't come to him. He had a few words with her and she returned to the doorway of the restaurant where she grabbed diners as they went in to ask them for money. When she was given some money she took it to him and he growled at her again to continue begging for more. He was obviously too old to beg and she was better able to get the sympathy and money from the passersby. There are just so many children in Madagascar. They work as hard as the adults and are often seen carrying their baby siblings on their backs and being left to care for them all day, while the parents are in the fields.

The bus trip went well but every time we went over a pothole or speed bump the goat would bleat so loudly we could hear her above the noise of the radio. When she was first tied up to the roof rack she was a beautifully proud goat which had obviously been well looked after. When it first rained she brayed and brayed. When we stopped for dinner she was not fed or given water and continued to bray and she looked terrible. The journey was not over for her and she looked done in. As we got back into the minivan we discovered that we were also carrying a small kittten to be a gift for the New Year but not for eating.

Ifaty, Madagascar

We piled into a medium sized Mitsubishi Canter truck that had the back converted with bench seats. The seats were designed to fit crates of the local beer called THB, Three Horses Beer, under them. As soon as the seats were filled with everyone sitting with one shoulder tucked into the back of the seat and the other towards the centre, they decided to load as many crates of beer as they could fit under the seats and in the aisle. All the late comers had to sit on the crates of beer and we had to squash our size 10 feet in sideways to fit around the crates. The sides of the truck were covered in canvas so we were unable to see out.

The road was pretty dusty and unsealed. In some places the truck struggled in the deep soft sand. It was pretty dry and the 32 passengers all swayed in unison as we bounced over the rocky potholes as we were a pretty tight unit. Some even managed to sleep which is always amazing. The 32km trip took us nearly 2 hours.

We found the Hotel Vovotelo along the dusty village road of Mangily. The owner is French and only spoke a little English. He gave us a discount as he hadn't had a lot of bookings for the Christmas / New Year period so was happy to have us stay even though we didn't have a reservation. With the recent attempted coup in Tana, and the start of the wet season and probably with the economic situation in Europe there has been a drop in tourists to Madagascar. The place was right on the beach and we had a small rustic thatched bungalow with an ensuite with cold water. We planned to rest up over the Christmas break here.



There is no electricity in Ifaty village and the generator was only turned on a few hours at breakfast, lunch and in the evening at the hotel. The rest of the village manages without electricity as it has done for centuries. This is always a worry for meat and seafood in such places. And of course the generator is not on long enough to make a really cold beer!

We were right beside the beach and the sea was lukewarm. The shower was the best place to cool down, but it there wasn't always water. The bead sellers, massage ladies, woven hat sellers, boatmen looking for clients to go to the coral reefs snorkelling or fishing spent all day in the shade of a tree beside the hotel loungers. As soon as a newbie arrived they would pounce on them before they could lie out their towels on the loungers. They too were suffering the lack of trade.
There were lots of hotels along the beachfront and many were closed so the traders spent a lot of time outside our place.

Face paint for beauty and sun protection

Ifaty has one of the world's largest lagoons but unfortunately much of the coral reefs have been destroyed. Everyday there was some activity to watch along the beach. In the morning the pirogues would head off into the wind for the day's fishing or take some of the tourists out for the day. We would watch them head off to put out their nets and then see them pull them in at the end of the day. Some of the tourists had their wind surfers with them and when the wind was right they would sail up and down the beach.



A French guy owned a flying boat that took tourists out over the lagoon and the village and its loud engine would roar into life as it launched itself out of the water and into the sky. All day the local kids were in the water to play or to wash, or sail their home made boats.



The majority of the tourists in the hotel were French and we were the only non French speakers so we never got to meet anyone to talk to. There were several families and a few with very young children. One day a ring tailed lemur swung in through the trees and into the grounds. The parents next to us took their children outside to watch the lemur and in no time it had jumped on the kids heads and shoulders and scared the life out of them. They were reticent to go outside after that and it probably gave them a fear of real lemurs for life but they did venture out to play with their plastic lemur toys.



We signed up for the set menu Christmas dinner with about 30 others. On the buffet we had lobsters (they looked like Morton Bay bugs and were tiny), seaeggs (kina, but with very little roe and not as tasty as ours in NZ), cockles (the size of a small fingernail), mussels (the size of a large fingernail), but no fish. After the seafood entree we lined up to be slices of goat which was cooked over a drum of charcoal embers. The meat was bloody and pink for us and we asked the only waiter who could speak English if it was OK to eat like that and he assured us it was "bon". However, he could see we were not goat meat eaters so he sent it off to the kitchen to be fried till brown. It was rather tough but I kept thinking about the plastic bags and decaying rubbish on the sides of the road that the goats eat as I chewed each piece! Dessert was a roulade Christmas cake with a peanut ice cream filling which was very nice.



To entertain us while we ate, the owner had employed a band and some local dancers. The instruments were all home made and sounded a bit like ukeleles. The girls tied a cloth around their butts and did most of their dancing wriggling their booty at us. As with all these things some one has to get up and join in and give everyone a laugh to give it that interactive theme. I felt for the dancers as we ate so much food in front of them and they probably have very little themselves at home.

During the day we would go into the village to buy fresh bread, papaya, bananas, tomatoes, lychees and mangoes as it was too expensive to eat in the restaurant everyday. Every second shop is selling the same things and several would also have cooked food that they sold. The day after Christmas Day, which was actually celebrated on the 24th as the Europeans do, we saw quite a lot of the children wearing the new clothes that they had got for Christmas.

A shirt walk from the hotel is the Raniala Nature Reserve, which is also known as The Spiny Forest or the Baobab Forest. As is the rule in Madagascar we had to hire a guide to walk around the park. There were so many baobab trees in unusual shapes and we learnt all about how the fruit is rich in calcium and holds a lot of water. One of the specimens was 1200 years old.



We saw plants used to control diabeties and help leukemia sufferers. There was also a plant used by the kings in the olden days to poison antagonistic subjects. It was also used to kill fish. There were a few birds and the night jay that blended in with the leaves on the ground was extremely well camouflaged. A few tortoises were kept in a fenced area but we saw tracks of lots of others that roamed freely. It was sad to see some of these beautiful animals stuffed and for sale along the beach.

This one is alive!

After a lot of walks up and down the beach, to get ourselves into some kind of fitter state to climb Mount Kenya at a later date, and a lot of reading and lazing around we got up early to head off to Isalo National Park. Although we had told the receptionist the night before that we would be leaving early, she forgot to get our passports out of the safe and we discovered that the owner had gone into Tulear with the safe key. We had to hang around until he came back and by then most of the taxi brousse had left for Tulear. We hung around in the heat and dust on the side of the road and watched several guys repair a broken down truck. Once they were finished we were offered a ride with the truck owner in his pick up. That was way more comfortable than the bush taxi and we were able to see the scenery that we couldn't on the way in. We were surprised to see salt ponds and mangroves along the way. Unfortunately we were too late to head off to Isalo so had to spend another night in Tulear.

Tulear, Madagascar

As soon as we left the airport it bucketed down with rain. There was a pricelist in the airport with the taxi rates so we were able to get an old Citreon taxi into the city. On the way into the city the electricity had shut down and the streets were full of people stripping off their clothing and taking advantage of the rain for a shower in fresh water. It was quite a sight watching them jumping around in ankle deep water in the middle of the road. Amazingly the taxi did'nt fill with water as it was pretty old and beaten up. Luckily the wipers worked as the water came down in sheets.

The hotel that we had chosen was fully booked so the driver took us onto another place that was in our guide book. We were able to get a double room with a cold shower. mosquito net, toilet and ceiling fan. Unfortunately we couldn't get anything to eat and had to make do with the small cake we were given on the plane. There were several retirement aged Frenchmen playing cards and drinking beer outside our room and there was a small group of very young girls with them. Sex tourists from France are a really big problem here in Madagascar. Luckily with the noise from the ceiling fan we were able to get to sleep without hearing the party noises.

The hotel opened onto a concreted area that was used for parking vehicles and was nicely laid out with gardens and fruit trees even though it was a tiny place. No one spoke English so we muddled along in broken French. In the morning we weren't able to get breakfast so headed off down the street looking for something to eat as we were pretty hungry. A young local lad who wanted to practise his English asked us if we wanted any help. He followed us pushing his bicycle to several restaurants but none were open for breakfast. Finally we settled on a Tea Salon. That was pretty much all they had to offer. So we had tea and coffee with condensed milk and some French style butter biscuits, and dry croissants. I don't know how they can make any money with so few items for sale, but they seemed to.

Managed to find a supermarket and stock up on some supplies to take with us as it seems there are often power cuts and not always somewhere to eat when we need to. We had to empty our fuel bottle before flying so we bungled along trying to work out what the French word was for the fuel we wanted and when we took the empty bottle to a shop keeper to smell, he was able to tell us where to go and what it was called. So we now would be able to cook up food if we needed it. The locals don't use gas at all for cooking and almost everyone uses charcoal which they put into small metal containers and light up on the sides of the street.



The only transport for getting to the taxi brousse (bush taxi) station was the pousse pousse (rickshaw). We hired two of these and the barefooted men raced us off to get a bush taxi. It was quite a long drive and it was pretty hot by the time we were ready to go. It is pretty hard for us having to accept someone pull you along in such a contraption but there was no choice and it provides a pollution free alternative to the smoky diesel vehicles on the road and it is also a great way for the locals to get employment. At all times of the day there will be crowds of rickshaw drivers assembled outside restaurants, bus stations, the markets and hotels ready to do a deal with you to take you where ever you want to go. The particular rickshaws we saw in Tulear look like they have come from India. You have to lean uncomfortable back in a semi reclined position and it felt to me like I may even tip the rickshaw right over.



We arrived at a dusty, rubbish strewn place where there were dozens of vehicles of all kinds. The only thing they had in common was that they had roof racks and bench seats to take as many people and as much luggage as they could.

Antananarivo, Madagascar

Had a good trip back to Tana in light rain with no mishaps.

Spent time catching up with family emails, and laundry and meeting new people in the guesthouse. This is always a good time to trade information.

When John was researching flights to Madagascar he noticed that they were offering 50% discount on internal flights if you purchased a flight with Air Madagascar to get to the island. We decided to fly from Tana to the south and work our way back to Tana overland using public transport.

Our flight was in the evening and we were able to contact the shuttle bus driver and were picked up at the door. I don't think they will make any money from the shuttle as there were only two other people on the bus to the airport. It was nice to travel the same route back in daylight and sunshine and with little traffic on the road we were early for our flight. We could see the rice paddies close to the city. Some had rice ready to harvest while other fields were being hoed ready for planting.

Sometimes I have to stop and think where I am as so many of the locals look Malaysian or Indonesian with their high cheek bones and women with long straight hair. When we hear local music it sounds Polynesian with its harmonies and even when accompanied by drums it doesn't sound African to my ear. The language looks Polynesian with its vowel and consonant mixes. About 1500 or 2000 years ago the first Indo-Malayan settlers arrived on this uninhabited island in their boats. They introduced terraced rice paddies to the island, as well as other Asian food crops. Cassava is as popular as rice. In the 9th century the Hindu-Sumatran empire of Srivijaya ran much of the sea trade in the Indian Ocean and so it is a place that doesn't look African as such.

Once we had got our gear sorted we took a flight to Tulear (aka Toliara).