Anakao Ocean Lodge

... for siesta at noon so we headed back to the hotel victory. About 4:30pm I went back into town to find some vanilla rum (rhum) and maybe some vanilla bean pods for Lisa. The guy at the front gate of the hotel flagged down a taxi for me and we barely made it 150 feet down the road when he ran out of gas. After a few minutes another taxi came along and took me into town and dropped the original taxi driver ...

... took a walk down the main street from the hotel towards town. It's a very busy street with lots of people out and about walking up and down the street. Pouse-pouse (rickshaw) drivers would stop every 20 feet and ask us if they could give us a ride. We declined, and they were polite when we said no. Stopped to buy a few cocoa-colas to put in the fridge in our hotel room and came back to the hotel after walking about a kilometer.

... and of course have a big party with the local village where much rum and **** shaking dancing is obligatory. Last week I went on a village home stay when a family came and "borrowed" me for 24 hours - I went in their boat to a tiny island and spent the 24 hours living like a Vezo - the local fishing tribe. I slept with the family of 20 under the stars on their sail like they do (they only have a couple of tiny huts and they are ...

Hello all, This will only be a short entry as this I am on the only computer at the hotel. We are in Tulear on the west coast of Madagascar. Gina and I both survived the treking and are doing well. We have seen many animals and are on our way to the beach tomorrow to relax. I will write more when we get to Tana on Monday. This is the first internet connection I have seen in 2 weeks. André

... and did a great deal of bottom wiggling while the boys wore sarongs over their jeans and trainers and did something similar to the twist. Of course we were all encourage to join in. After dinner, a couple of us spent some time trying to photograph the stars. We could clearly see the milky way and the southern cross and in the darkness they seemed to shine so much brighter than they do at home.

... and take a smaller rucksack with our necessities for the next two days. When we walked to the back of the office we realised why. First we had to get on a cart pulled by two zebu that took us out to sea where we boarded a fairly small speedboat. By the time fourteen of us, Mamy, an American couple, 2 drivers and two very large baskets of provisions were on board, there was very little space. Unfortunately, then one of the ...

... as falling into 'heat drenched torpor' between 1pm and 3pm and we can confirm this. We just did one dive off Ifaty at an offshore reef. Sadly the area has been overfished so we didn't see as much as anticipated but there were some fantastic anemones and a handful of smaller fish. It was also interesting to swim along a kind of canyon in the reef.

... our pirogue was only leaving at 8. After our breakfast, we hauled our things down the road and met the pirogue owner on the way, who assured us that we would be leaving soon and that gas was being purchased. Another half an hour later...one of the more expensive speed boats had already departed and we were starting to wonder if our pirogue ever would. Eventually we told our guy that if the boat did not leave by 9, we would be going with one of the speedboat companies ...

... against the horizontal boards which stop them falling out, and probably stop others getting in, with casual passing thorn bush branches blinding the passengers. The cabin has the usual rack on top, stacked a metre deep with freight and luggage, but in one case, it bulges out to beyond the full width of the vehicle. A real "muffin-top". Would love to ride in it a while for the experience ...

... tent. I hate camping but the tent was in a wonderful location right on the beach. 'La Reserve' was a bit too isolated for our liking. It took 45mins to walk to the village, well 3hrs after we had paddled and searched the beach for shells. There were so many beautiful shells and it went against all of our upbringing not to pick them all up, customs wouldn't allow it. We even found elephant bird egg shell fragments ...