Vacation Travels Part 4: Diego for New Years

Another 4 hour brousse ride to Diego. But we made it without a break-down…so that’s exciting. We got to Diego and went to the MEVA (PC house) to hang out for awhile. Then we indulged in some amazing vazaha food. I had spaghetti and it actually tasted like spaghetti. So exciting. We kept up with the vazaha food theme and decided to cook a feast for dinner. The girls cooked baked mac and cheese and the boys made cheeseburgers and we bought a box of wine and had funfetti cake. It was amazingly delicious. ( I realize that I write a lot about food…but its hard not too when all you eat here is rice). Anyway, after dinner we went out for some drinks and ended up at the casino in this really nice hotel. The owner is a Scottish guy who knows the names of all the PCVs and all the prostitutes. He gives both parties free drinks everytime they come in, a nice benefit of being a volunteer. A bunch of people played black jack and one of my friends ended up winning 140,000 Ariary ($70). Pretty exciting.

Emerald Isle

On the way to Emerald Isle

Paradise

Looming storm

The next day, bright and early, we hired a sailboat to take us to Emerald Isle. When I say sailboat, I don’t mean a fiberglass catamaran like you see in the bahamas. This was a Malagasy sailboat, with the mast made of a log and the bottom of the boat full of water. It was a 2 hour ride to Emerald Isle, and it was calm and beautiful. We got to the island and our captain dropped us off to hang out on the beach. When we got there there were only a few other people on the island so we had the whole beach to ourselves. Unfortunately, the boats kept showing up with more and more tourists. It was still beautiful though. We hung out on the beach, swam in the clearest water I’ve ever seen, and relaxed. Our captain went fishing and caught us lunch. We had a feast for lunch with fresh crab, coconut rice, and 5 different kinds of fish.  Unbelievable. We spent the afternoon on the beach and just as a thunderstorm was approaching, our captain decided it was time to leave.

So through the thunderstorm we went. It was slightly terrifying, and at times I thought I was going to die. But since everyone else was laughing about it, I tried to also. But it brought back memories of growing up when my dad made me go sailing with him…and I remembered clearly why I don’t like sailing. Although after sailing through a thunderstorm, I could probably handle Torch Lake now. We all survived though, and the only casualties were our bags that had gotten soaked, and our stomachs because I’m pretty sure everyone was feeling nauseaus.

New Years Eve day we splurged. We went to this beautiful hotel where they had a huge breakfast buffet with cereal (and milk!), eggs, steak, pastries, lychees, other really good fruit and really good coffee. We all thought we were getting a great deal, of all you can eat for 10,000AR ($5), but when we went up to pay the lady told us it was actually 20,000Ar. Woops. Another thing lost in translation. So that was a bummer, but the food was delicious, and still worth it. Later on we went back to the hotel to hang out at their pool which is also beautiful. Again we got screwed over on price, this time because it was Sunday and after 1pm. They have some weird pricing schemes. This time we told them we were volunteers and didn’t have a lot of money and asked for a discount. Apaprently you can bargain anywhere, because it worked. So we spent the afternoon at the pool with a swim up bar and lots of cute french kids running around and it felt like we were back in America. Weird.

For New Years Eve we all went out to dinner and then went out for drinks and then went into a club. The club was EMPTY, so it was about 12 Americans, 2 Malagasy people and some old French men and Malagasy prostitutes. (Diego is known for how much prostitution goes on there. Its really sad to see. But its seriously everywhere. Walking down the street you lose count after 50…Yikes). But we had fun dancing at the club and then we had champagne at midnight which was great. But after midnight the town goes crazy. Apparently the thought is that once everyone is sufficiently drunk (aka midnight) everyone should get in their cars and/or motorcycles and drive through the city while people on the street throw water at them. Each car had probably 15-20 people in them and then there were people sitting or dancing on top of cars. It was insane. And I’m pretty sure I witnessed 4 car accidents. So we spent New Years watching the shenanigans in the street for a few hours. It was pretty entertaining.

New Years "parade"

And then vacation was over, sadly. Well aside from the 24 hours I had to spend on a brousse just to get back to the capital. Luckily, it only broke down once…and if my mechanical skills serve me correctly, it was a spark plug issue. We were only broken down for an hour, which is almost a record. But now I’m back in the capital for a dayish and then I go back to site.

Its going to be weird going back to site because I’ve been gone for so long. My town probably thinks that I’ve gone back to the US, so I’m hoping they haven’t given my house away, and I’m also hoping that it still has a roof now that the rainy season has begun. Who knows, maybe in this month I’ve been away, my new house will be finished…but I think that’s a lot to ask so I won’t hold my breath!

I hope everyone had a great New Years and holiday season! I miss everyone so much, so keep those letters coming! I’ll write you back I promise.

Vacation Travels Part 3: Ankarana National Park

first lemur sighting in Madagascar. This one didn't dance.

  

We arrived in Ankarana not having any idea if there would be a place to stay, and wondering whether we would have to do a quick hike and then leave again. Luckily, we got there, found bungalows, and before we knew it they were cooking us lunch and we were drinking a cold Fanta. Nothing tastes better than cold fanta. Yum. After lunch we went on an afternoon hike to the BAT CAVE. 

Pride Rock is actually in Madagascar. Get it right Lion King.

This one didn't think anyone was watching.

But first, I had my first lemur sightings. Oddly enough they were singing and dancing just like the movie. But actually they were pretty awesome and got really close to us without getting scared away by the 8 cameras we shoved in their face.

We continued on our 4 hour hike and finally made it to the Bat Cave which was an enormous cave that we hiked into. As the name implies, there were thousands of bats and you had to watch where you were walking or you would get pooped on. Unfortunatly, half our group forgot their headlamps, so we were hiking in a cave in the dark. It was a little scary, but beautiful. We also saw a 400 year old baobab tree and hiked over the tsingys. At times I thought I was in Jurassic Park, or on an alien planet…hard to say which.

tsingy

Day two we did a day hike which was supposed to take us to the “green lake.” However, there was a miscommunication and our guides forgot to bring our lunch, and we forgot to bring our lunch, which meant that our day hike turned into a half day thing. But it was still really amazing. We hiked through more tsingy, through another cave (saw human bones), and had to cross a rickety suspension bridge which could only hold one person at a time. That’s a little scary, but it was fun. Our final destination was the “Big Hole.” They really do a good job at naming these places. The big hole was indeed, a really big hole. And it was really fun to throw things in. Apparently during the rainy season it fills up with water, but I don’t know if that’s actually true. It was dry when we saw it, with many pairs of shoes at the bottom.

The Big Hole

After hiking so far we were all exhausted so we hung around our bungalows, tried to find ripe jack fruit (failed), and watched movies. And then the next day we left for Diego.

Vacation Travels Part 2: Ambanja Christmas

After arriving in Ambanja, we dumped our stuff and went to the beach. The beach was beautiful, and like most of the beaches I’ve seen in the this country, completely empty! The beach was in Ankify, the port town for Nosy Be. So from the beach we could see Nosy Be, a bunch of rustic sailboats, and fishermen out at sea. It was gorgeous.  Our miserable brousse ride was totally worth it, if only for the pretty beach. But we also got to eat delicious fish brochettes and mango lasary and other delicious food. So I was happy. And then it was CHRISTMAS!

The beach in Ankify

Christmas

Definitely a different kind of Christmas this year. First, I woke up sweating as opposed to freezing cold and when I walked outside, there was no snow! Just a goat wandering around. Crazy. But it was ridiculously hot and humid, so we spent most of the morning playing in the pump and trying to stay cool. Later on, we went to a Malagasy family’s house for lunch/dinner. Mama ‘Gasy is a woman who takes care of all the volunteers in Ambanja. She is amazing, and was hosting a huge Christmas dinner for one of the volunteers and his family who had come from the states. There was so much food. They slaughtered a sheep, and left the head to sit on the table in the kitchen. There was coconut rice and fried rice and sheep and a three-layer cake and fresh crab. I could go on. It was delicious. In the afternoon we all took a siesta and hung out at the hotel.  For dinner we went to a hotely and then spent the evening at a nice Malagasy bar. Apparently that’s what people do on Christmas…so we were just trying to integrate. 

Dinner

Christmas Dinner

The next day we went back to the beach and spent the day in paradise. For lunch we had a Malagasy family cook for us, so we had tongue (of some animal?) and some other mystery meat which was surprisingly good. We also made some friends with two guys who work for the UN in Sudan and were on vacation in Madagascar. So that was a good time.

After another day in Ambanja we got on another brousse, bus this time to Ankarana, a national park.

Vacation Travels Part 1: The Brousse from Hell

 Vacation has come to an end, sadly. But it was an adventure to say the least…

Vacation started with a parade of vazaha heading to the taxi brousse to what we thought was a reservation for 8 in a nice brousse to Ambanja.  But obviously, that is too much to ask. Reservations don’t mean much here. So we got to the station to find that our 8 seats now had an extra 3 people sitting in them. And the nice brousse we were expecting turned into a rickety old brousse that I thought was going to explode at any point. It made a weird humming noise when we went over 30mph also, so I don’t think that was good. In any case, we loaded up, smooshed into our seats, and had a birthday party. My friends had bought party hats, kazoos, candy and drinks, so we had a festive birthday party for the first 15 minutes of our trip…I’m pretty sure everyone on the brousse hated us, but it was fun.

The fun didn’t last too long though. About four hours into our trip we heard a huge thud. The brakes had fallen off. And since it was dark by this point, the driver had to go look for them with a flashlight. I’m pretty sure he found them, because then he got on a blue jumpsuit conveniently stored in the trunk, and started fixing our brousse. So we sat on the side of the road for over an hour, while our driver (with unknown mechanic skills) hammered away at the brakes. We tried to pass the time by singing Christmas carols until a Malagasy woman told us to be quiet or the mpangalatras (thieves) would come. So that was a little scary. It was also scary to watch the huge thunderstorm approaching. Anyway, before we knew it, our brakes were fixed (?), so off we went. We stopped for food for about 20 minutes, and in that time our driver lost the keys. So that was another hour of waiting around….And then a few hours later our headlights stopped working. So we stopped again, the driver started fiddling with things under the seats (which is where the engine is?) and then he was lighting something on fire. I guess they started working again, so we took off again, only to have them break 30 minutes later. This time we waited for another brousse to pass, so we could mooch off their headlights. That worked for awhile…And then when we were about an hour away from Ambanja the car overheated. So the driver got out and started pouring water in the radiator….however that just caused hot steam to spray all over the people in the car….And everyone thought the car was going to explode so people freaked out and started jumping out of the window or shoving people to get out of the door. So that was fun.

After pouring water into the hot radiator...

At least the view from the brousse was pretty.

Eventually we did make it to Ambanja and at that point I never wanted to see another taxi brousse again. Part one of vacation, done.