Hotel Safari Vezo Anakao

Slept late (nice with the air conditioning and all) then went for a swim in the hotel pool. At 11am Lisa and I took a taxi into downtown Tulear to go to the bank (ATM) and market to buy some vanilla bean pods. Lisa said the vanilla beans pods are very expensive back in S. Africa and I've never seen them in the states. We walked around the central market a bit. It started getting hot and shops were ...

... find an ATM and post office. I looked at t-shirts at the expensive "baobab shop" (souvenir store for tourists). Stopped at the Air Madagascar office to confirm the flight back to Tana and they told me that everything was on time. Babba and I stopped for a beer at a roadside cafe when went back to the hotel. Due to the heat most shops are closed from noon to 3pm (siesta!). In the late afternoon when it cooled off a bit, Lisa and ...

... like "I went to the shops".Scary. Every evening we have lectures on the scientific research going on here and get to get involved. Dinner at 7.30 (rice,fish and beans.... Again) .Sometimes we go on little trips to the mangroves or collecting sea cucumbers or visiting local villages by boat to teach them about conservations. Usually we are in bed by 9pm.. Every 6th day we get a day off diving and get to do things like explore the ...

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

It really felt like we were having a day off today. I spent the whole day on my sunbed, trying to stay in the shade. It was very hard work and I had to keep sleeping just to make sure I had enough energy to get up and go to the restaurant for lunch! There was another great sunset tonight and before dinner we were treated to a display of traditional music and dancing by the hotel staff. The girls wore ...

We had breakfast of bread and jam this morning at 4:00 so that we could be ready to leave at 4:30. I was expecting to see huge boabab trees, sapphire mining towns and elaborate stone tombs of the Mahafaly and Antandroy tribes but at that time in the morning I struggled to stay awake. We arrived in Tulear on the South West coast at around 8:30 to catch our boat to Anakao. We had to leave our main luggage in the hotel's ...

... We stopped 3 times along the way for the driver to present his papers (read 'pay bribe') to the police. We stayed at a great hotel called Nautilus, very pricey but it was the diving school that drew us in. The air con was also a big draw as the temperature was rising and it was very humid, especially in the afternoon. The Lonely Planet described ...

Yesterday Matt and I got up bright and early to catch our early morning pirogue ride to Anakao, a beach town south of Tulear. Or so we thought. We had arranged with a piroguier the night before to meet at 7 am at the pirogue port for departure. Since the guy who helped us organize it had said to arrive around seven, give or take 20 minutes and since time goes slowly here, we decided to have breakfast before leaving. Good thing we did, since at around 7 the guy came by and ...

... main road. Along the coast we can see large mangrove trees, only one layer deep, with roots protruding for about 30 metres out, tide channels amongst them. Pass through Ifaty, so know we are almost there. See some interesting crowds at the village markets, and some remarkable taxi-brousses, on a large truck chassis, two rows of seats, rice bags and chattels stacked in the aisle, and people ...

The Lonely Planet says Anakao is one of the best places in Madagascar so we remained faithful and left our madagascan companions for a night to take a look. It is undoubtedly beautiful but needs much more time than just one night to be fully appreciated. It's quite a chore reaching it, taking a bus then a boat and then a truck. We were automatically dropped off at 'La Reserve.' There were no bungalows left so we took ...