Happy Days!

You notice the change in season here in many ways ... the first being the change in the produce available in the market. Lettuce and cucumber becomming available was the best change so far, and the worst was the disappearance of avo's! You have to learn to cook seasonally and to change your habits with the changing season and availability of produce. We get so used to living in places that have constant availability shipped in from around the world, meaning you are never without. This has been a refreshing reminder of how things actually are!

Other signs that winter is here is that we are waking up later in the mornings. The sun comes up about an hour later than before so we're snuggling down for that little bit longer, and its not so hot, so we aren't jumping up and racing to the sea for a swim, either early in the morning or during the day! We still dress in shorts and no shirts during the day, but I comfortably pull on a long sleeved t shirt at night!

Our showers are FREEEEEZING! With no hot water its been fine during the hotter months, but its become a little too chilly now (and we're becomming a little too soft I think). We are really glad that we brought our camping solar shower bag with us - its become a new daily chore - fill it up and stick it on the table in the sun in the garden each morning - but remember to bring it in at 3pm and put it in a cooler box, otherwise it looses its heat by 6pm shower time!!

So the pace of life picked up a bit after the parents left and Ross had a bunch of clients out here - around 30! We were asked to organise three client trips to Ankarana on the mainland - the same trip we had just done, so it was easy going and helped bring in a little income - to cover the cost of the Diego hospital bill at least! So that kept us busy for a few days, meeting and organising people, drivers, accommodation etc.

We also had to try and repair the kayak, the company had said they will pay us out (the boat cost us around EUR900), but you can't buy them here, or any other kayaks for that matter! When the bulldozer crushed it, not only did it squish the plastic and push it out of shape, but all the through holes burst meaning the boat was totally sinkable. It was a bit of a challenge finding some stuff that we needed and with a bit of ingenuity (see cutting up a life jacket to make dense foam plugs) and Davids perservering, we managed to repair it to a state that at least Lucien (the boat guardian) can paddle to and from the boat each night. We then have had to get an invoice from the kayak suppliers, download pictures, write a formal case letter and get that to the company at faults offices. Not all that easy without internet. I'm glad we brought the printer with us at least!

Making friends here isn't the easiest thing, not only due to language barrier, but because we came here not to sit in bars and socialise, but to live more simply, and this kind of choice limits the opportunity to meet people, but being David and I, we have still managed! So we invited some friends over for a South African style fish braai (bbq) one afternoon. It was really cool with Serena and Manuel from Manta Diving and Sylvia and Rolo from Forever Dive. Serena and Manuel brought their gorgeous Rhodesian Ridgeback Zion with them as he and Inja love going mental together. We had a very cool afternoon and after they left David and I did have to laugh that we moved here, a French country, are learning French and the first friends we invite round are Italian! Typical!

Some more of Ross' guests came out and we went to meet a young South African couple, Callan and Carryn. We took them to Tatie Chris on the Sunday night which was pretty cool - we'd not been for a while and the boys got more than a little tipsy on rum, it was pretty funny. Especially the call we got at midnight from Callan explaining that when they had returned their hired scooter in the afternoon they accidentally handed thier hotel room key in with the bike key! Brilliant! We gave them a few key French words to convey the words Key and Lost to the hotel staff so they could at least explain why they needed a spare key at midnight!! It was great to chat and catch up on the world outside in English with South Africans, it was so easy going!

I between all this, we have been looking at the possibility of buying some land here, its a small investment but something that may be used in the years to come for a holiday home, or to sell in many more years to come to realise a small return on a very small investment. So we've been looking at different pieces of land and working out prices for buying, transfers, designing a small 
little house and getting a price to build, time frames, risks .... is it worth it?! It been fun chatting to the locals working for the company that are selling the land, of course I have them write down everything in MY notebook and sign their names so we have an audit trail of what was agreed and by whom! Some things never go away!

Well tourist season started here on 15 July and its definitely picked up a bit, although we've been lucky in the preceedng weeks with Ross's clients coming through. 
One of the other couples we have recently met, Loic and Nelly, finished setting up their new dive centre in the beginning of this year, and 10 days before they opened Nelly discovered she was pregnant! There is definitely something in the water here! So she of course hasn't been able to dive at all and Loic has been having to try and do it all on his own, but the best part is that us girls are stoked to not be alone in being here and pregnant! She is now 5 months so its even better for me to have someone going through it first who can tell me everything!

We had two snorkeling trps to Tanikely too. The one was a older Fench guy with his very young Malagash companion. It was her first time on a boat and she didn't know how to swim. This could be interesting. I finally got to use my Dive Master skills! We set off early in the moring and the weather was a bit didgy - cold and grey and overcast. Not too thrilling to want to jump into the water at 8am! But luckily by the time we got there the sun had come out and it was sparkling and looking good. We put a life jacket onto the girl and slowly got her into the water and wowser - I was so impressed. Not one moment of panic, her face in the water using the mask and snorkell, holding my hand and using me for support - lucky I had my wet suit on as it gave me extra bouyancy! But she was so cool. We had a couple of swallowed water moments and coughing but never panic and she was determined. So we spent an hour and a half snorkelling around and we even saw a 1.5m shark (guitar fish)! We then took the boat around to the beach and they went into the reserve on the land - the whole of Nosy Tanikely is a reserve. I laid back on the beach and was catching some sun when Sylvia and Rolo came over, they too had clients at Tanikely. I thought for a moment - not a bad day at the office this is! Back on the boat and around to another side for another hour or so of snorkelling, where we saw Henry and Deny from Mohamed and Ross's houseboat! Seriously feel like locals now! After the snokrkelling, e sat on the boat for a bit and ate the lovely freshly baked scones with jam I'd brought along, and then headed back to Palm Beach!
A couple of days later we had another set of clients - the first two wanted to go back and a young American lady wanted to go along. David went on his own this time, as we had planned with some of our other friends to have a beach BBQ that afternoon, so I stayed home to prep a few things and sent David along with a batch of yummy banana bread muffins! We like to keep our clients happy! So that was a nice busy couple of days work which ended well with a cool beach BBQ. here our friend Stefan introduced us to a young Belgium guy called Francois Xavier (FX for short!). While chatting we said we wanted to do a day trip to Nosy Sakatia as we weren't too familiar with it at all and lots of clients were keen to do a day trip there, so we needed to do a scout about. So Stefan and FX said they knew it well so we planned to go on Wednesday. FX told us that his dad was busy building a new resort on the island and that we should stay the night and make a couple of days out of it. He would get all the food sorted and then we'd just split the costs. We were expecting to be almost camping and nothing had prepared us for what was really there!

Oh how spoilt are we! FX arrives at ours with all the supplies and a chef to do our meals! We load up and head over to the island. We pull into he bay where the resort is and wow! Its amazing. Fully completed, with 8 bungalows, tortoises, beautiful gardens with fruit and veg growing all over, 5 staff on site and four of us with this amazing place all to ourselves!

David and I dumped our stuff in our bungalow and went for a snorkell, he picked up a couple of small fish for the staff while we were out there. We had beautiful hot showers, courtesy of the amazingly huge solar panel that runs everything during the day, plus stores about 2 hours of running on battery before having to use the generator once dark.

The chef prepared us a delicious meal of zebu filet with lemon grass, veg and mash and for desert, creme brulet and bananas caremalised in orange juice and ginger! Mmmmmm.
The boys then got stuck in to their rums and beers and I called it a night by 9:30pm, where as they continued hahahaha! I felt fatastic at breakfast the next morning, them.... not so much!
Breakfast was all freshly baked (pastry made from scratch) pastries - pain au chocolat, croissants, brioche and jam filled pastries, with fresh fruit and papaya from the garden! Oh my, delicious!
After breakfast we fed the tortoises left over papaya and bananas and then FX gave David and I a tour of the grounds and gardens. Stefan went back to bed hahaha!

For lunch we had decided we'd walk over the island to Sakatia Lodge, a South African run resort on the other side of the island, where we wanted to make contact and get familiar. It was a pretty cool walk, hilly with great views and the boys were pretty relieved to get to the restaurant to sit down and refuel! Stefan had stayed in bed!

Lunch was delicious but not spectacular - smoked fish and melon to start, grilled fish, coconut rice and salad with different sauces for main and a chilled chocolate mousse cake for dessert. The reason for the details ... .when the bill came it cost us EUR20 each!!! Yikes! We weren't expecting that AT ALL and didn't even have enough cash with us - lucky they know FX and we could send some money back with his staff later! So that was a bit of a let down, but as we said, we've not done anything expensive while we have been here so it was quite nice to have a change and find out for ourselves ... bu next time definitely the gargote next door!

So we went back and packed up and headed home across the choppy afternoon sea.We could only leave after 3pm with the high tide as the resort is in its own private bay but at low tide its too low to move the boat in / out and at the moment its spring tides. It was unreal how the whole bay totally emptied out and we were walking on sand where the previous high tide it was 4m deep! 

So that was the end of a very nice mid week break! Things on the client / tourist side for us are pretty quiet again - we will just wait and see what comes along from Bob or Ross, and continue making the most of this gorgeous winter weather - hot sunny days and cool relaxing evenings.

Our guardian at Serge's place and his family!

Beach BBQ with Stefan, FX and Bob

The view from our bungalow at Ocean Beach

Having a ber with all the staff at FX's place, Ocean Beach

Amazing breakfast!! mmmm

Low, low tide

Jackfruit

Haricot (thats bean for those who didn't pronounce that arico!)

3 days after Bev and Brian arrived, we were getting ready for the island hopping week, and I woke up on the Friday morning and found that we were ... erm ... missing something. Something that usually arrives like clock work, the same time every month.
David and I exchanged a few nervous jokes and laughs but thought there was obviously some odd delay, and not to think much more of it. Sunday morning we hopped on a boat and headed out to the middle of the ocean .... zero access to any pharmacies / tests etc. This was day 3 of the missing! I decided it best at this stage to just take precautions and stop drinking for me. It wasn't too hard as the new lifestyle meant we were barely consuming much booze anyway - so it wasn't like I was going to miss much, at least until we got back to Nosy Be and could get 100% confirmation!

We started noticing a few things on the trip - like I was the only one using the heads (toilets) on board the boat - about 5 times a trip against everyone elses zero - and that I was more than ready for bed by 7pm each night after a day of chilling on the boat / beach and snorkelling!

Finally we arrived back the next Saturday and the first thing we did was jump on the quad and head to the pharmacy. 

POSITIVE! Yikes .... we're PREGNANT!

Now what?

We had absolutely no idea - as Im sure everyone else in the world has the same feeling when it happens. We didn't even know if there was a doctor on Nosy Be! These weren't the kind of things we had looked into so far! This was month 3 into our year off!

The day before we were heading off island hopping, one of the workers from the hotel construction site across the road came to get us as there had been an accident! Some guy from the quarry had taken a bulldozer (high and boozed) and decided to drive it down the beach, then tried to drive it down the little alley way between Nosy Lodge Hotel and the new hotel going up .... he got pretty stuck, tried to turn around, destroyed the fence of Nosy Lodge and unfortunately, we chain our plastic double kayak to a tree in that alley, and he totally obliterated our boat! Squashed and destroyed. He also then got back to the beach and smashed into a guest from the hotel breaking the guys hip! An horrific accient and a huge pain in the arse for us as our boat guardian uses that kayak to get to our boat each night! 

The reason I tell this story is that it put us in contact with the owner of Nosy Lodge Hotel - Eric, a Belgian guy. Because we were teaming up against the company who caused the damages (the hotel guest whose hip was broken also happened to be Erics uncle who was here on holiday - day 2 of 3 weeks), it meant we had to go over and chat to Eric a few times, and I noted that he had a little kid, about 8 months old! Perfect, he'll know about doctors etc! So we told Eric what was going on and he was so excited for us! He gave us an outline of who does what and where and gave us the details for a local doctor who could help us with .... well I'm still not quite sure. So we made an appointment and went to see her. She is a lovely Malagash lady and can speak a little bit of English which is always a help for us. She basically told us where we had to go for some initial test - a hospital in Diego. She gave us their phone number and wrote down on a piece of paper what we needed to have done and why - which was a huge help. She then told us adamantly to not even think about trying to have the baby here! We had a lovely little chat and then she walked us out - the appointment is at her house, and she has a load of puppies, kittens and tortoises running around the garden! Bizarre!
So to Diego we had to go .... luckily we had planned the trip to the mainland with Davids parents, so a day trip to Diego was doable.

As you know, it took us a few hours to get there, we found the hospital quite easily and were pretty relieved to see it looked pretty impressive - for these standards anyway - but it was clean, no queues outside, uniformed staff, airconditioning, clean flushing toilets with 
sanitiser hand wash and an actual hand dryer. Wow! Bev and I wanted to stay there all day just for the toilet facilities!

So we handed our little note in to reception and were told to wait. I asked for the loos and they handed me a plastic cup! After that David and I were ushered into another room where they motioned for me to sit on a chair, they rolled up my sleeve and did the usual to take blood, all was fine and very clean and properly done. And that was that! Now there were two reasons we had to go to Diego; the first was that no where on Nosy Be could do the blood and urine tests, and the second was that they had a more modern / advanced ultra sound than the ones on Nosy Be, so good for the first scan. Of course, this is the third world, so the ultra sound wasn't working that day. We had to go elsewhere. Of course our French isn't good enough yet to take complicated directions, so we called the driver in and after he was briefed, we headed off to the next place. After a few 'Douglas Green' moments, we stumbled on this tiny two roomed building that was where we had to go. We sat in the waiting room and someone walking past stopped in front of us, we explained what we needed and he nodded, ushered us in to one of the rooms, pointed to the bed - old and torn plastic cover, I lay down, he squirted the gel on my belly and said Voila! Then there was a whole heap of broken communications and misheard words etc which totally threw me and I assumed something was wrong and it was too small and there was no heart beat ..... of course with no internet or books we only get tit bits of what we should see / hear etc at this stage and I became almost hysterical! It was only really 2 days later when Wendy called me and I told her about the whole ordeal that she laughed and called me an idiot and explained that its all fine and the equipment they used was so old that you wouldn't see the hearbeat at 6.5 weeks and that if the doctor marked everything as good and normal then STOP PANICKING! Phew, thanks Wends!

So that was the start of our latest adventure! We have since been to the midwife - again, at her house - and she too said everything looks fine, and I can come see her again in a month!

So now we are ten weeks in, I'm just starting to feel a LOT better and I'm looking forward to the second trimester.

Of course its already had a huge impact on the life we had planned here - I can't haul buckets of water out the well and to the veggie garden. I can't haul stuff on and off the boat, I can't scuba dive, I went on the boat once and felt far too ill and even snorkeling had me back on the beach within 40 mins! .... but David and I are good at change and adjustments and we are settling into our new routines. I'm so SO lucky to be pregnant here though and not having to work, plus the weather is amazing and I go for one or two walks every day, we cycle to the shops still and I can still be a lot more active than when we were in Dubai. The water is warming up a little again so I have dipped into the sea a couple of times and know the swimming will pick up over the next few weeks. 
  Everything we eat is organic, and we hadn't eaten cheese - soft or not - in the 3 months we had been here, so no loss there! We eat healthily with loads of fruit and veg and no junk food - its just not available or in our price range!

So now the next phase for us is to decide really, what next! We have to leave here end of November in order to be able to fly before 7 months, and then the biggest decision will come as to when / if we come back here, or what the best move is for baba Kitching, as well as mom and dad. The most amazing thing about being here is that its given David and I exactly what we wanted - to hang out together everyday and do stuff together, and we're not too keen on David or I not being able to be able to spend the time we want with the baby and each other. So we're flipping a few coins, brainstorming and debating a few options.
So watch this space as we find a solution to the next chapter of this adventure we call life!

Our poor squashed kayak!

Outside the nice hospital in Diego

Outside the dodge place where we had the scan!

Somewhere in there is the baby!

Bev and Brians Epic Madagascar Adventure!

Finally the Tuesday had arrived that Mom (Bev) and Dad (Brian) Kitching were landing in Nosy Be. We had organised for a car to collect them, so we took our quad into Hellville, parked it up and jumped in with Johnny, the driver. 
We arrived at the airport way too early of course, so sat down for a beer to await the plane!

Much excitement when it touched down, and not long later they were through! Its a domestic flight from Tana and such a tiny little airport, we could at least get together before their luggage came through.
We had SO much to tell and show them that I think we went a little babbling crazy! So much of excitement! Back into Hellville to pick up the quad, which I rode home and left David with his parents to point things out en route home.

We spent a few days aquainting them with Palm Beach, Dzamandzar market, Hellville - where we went for a picnic in the town square and seemed to attract a lot of attention as I don't think anyone has ever seen vassers eating sandwiches from a local snack stand picnicking in the town square!
We walked around a lot and got prepared for our week long island hopping voyage, that was setting off on the Sunday.

Sunday dawned and we were "up and at em", chomping on the bit to get going. We were loaded onto the houseboat and set off towards Russian Bay - around 30km's across the sea from us. We sat on the front deck, on a sponge mattress with a shade cover overhead and listened as Henry (on ree as pronounced in French) went over the planned trip schedule, meals and answered any questions we may have had. 
The boat has a front cabin with a double bed in it, in case there's a two person trip and they want to stay on the boat, but we just kept our luggage in there. It had a head (toilet) and a kitchen area - where Henry and the rest of the crew - Jorice the new trainee and Denny the Captain, prepared most of the meals whilst we were moving! There was such an array of fruit and veg piled up ready for the week ahead. It was pretty exciting and we lay back to enjoy the sunshine, the wind on our faces and to watch the dolphins surfing the waves off the bow, the water was so clear we could watch them dart down 5m or so before they breached the surface again. Ahhhhh. Bliss! A holiday on holiday hahahaha.

Our first stop was for snorkelling at a little island adjacent to Russian Bay. It was absolutely beautiful. An uninhabited island, and no fishing around.  I saw some of the biggest Parrot Fish I'd ever seen, as well as so many other fish and sea life. It was gorgeous. We finished the snorkell and climbed back on board only to be served lunch (we'd already been served coffees, breakfast and a mid morning snack on board - I could see myself gaining a couple of kg's on this trip!)! Amazing - fresh tomato and avo salad with red onions and this delicious dressing, fresh baguette and omlettes... absolutely delicious. We ate lunch anchored in the bay, looking out at the glistening sea and hearing the waves break on the shore line not too far away.

After lunch we set sail and headed into Russian Bay. Ross's camp is on the far side of this huge natural bay, and consists of wooden huts on stilts, that all you can see are the thatch style roofs peeking out from the trees as you approach. There's a small slice of beach, and you can see an area where we will have our meals and the kitchen / prep room. We were shown to our little huts and left to settle in. The views were spectacular and it was so darn peaceful there! 


Just after sunset, they lit a fire on the beach and had put down grass mats for us to chill out on, waiting for dinner! And what an affair dinner was! Crab in an amazng tomato and spicy sauce, and coconut rice and salads and roasted vegetables! Delicious!

We wanted to set off early the next orning as we were doing a bit of a deviation to the usual island hopping plans and wanted to include a stop on Nosy Iranja, and then two nights in Baramamiha, which is a village on an ilet off the sea - kind of like a huge bay that resembles a river mouth / lagoon.

Nosy Iranja is the idylic looking island that reminded us immeidately of the Maldives.There are two sections to it, separated by a 2km strip of ice white sand that gets almost totally submerged during high tides and is about 100m wide and 5m above sea level at low tides. I have no idea how the sand doesn't wash away - but it is absolutely stunning. The colour of the water and sand and the fact that you're this tiny little smudge in the midle of the ocean is just pretty cool!

We took a walk up to the lighthouse, through the jungles and past a few villages. Up at the top by the lighthouse is a school and it was hilarious when Brian stuck his head in the door to take some photos and the kids all stood up and greeted him in French in chorus! Up, up, up the lighthouse we went for 360 degree views. Breathtaking!

We didn't have long at Nosy Iranja as the wind picks up each afternoon and we wanted to make sure we were in safe anchorage for the night before the wind got too high and the waves too boisterous, so we headed back to the boat. David jumped in and did a spot of spearfishing - got us a green job fish and a nice sized blue fin trevally. All this with 3 little white tip reef sharks checking him out! While David was in the water Brian and I went for a little snorkell and had an encounter of our own. This damn remora - you know those fish that stick themselves to whales and big fish? Well it decided it wanted to stick onto me - I tried not feel insulted! It was hilarious, Brian and I swatting at this thing that was relentless, its a pretty freaky feeling but was also pretty funny!

So we set sail for Baramamiha and on arrival the boys all went ashore to try and get us some accommodation for the night. The chief of the village has been pretty smart and realised a business opportunity for sailing vassers - he has built 4 simple little huts, put beds in and mosquito nets (a must for vassers) and rents them out! So we secured out little rooms and settled in for the night. It was a bit dd the first night as there were a load of traders dhows, small ones with whole families on them, cooking and just sitting around - all moored up just in front of where we were staying. We later found out that they had done their trading and wanted to head home but the wind had changed direction so they had to pull in and wait for the wind to come right again before they could continue their journeys home.

The next day was Bevs birthday. We woke her up with candles and cupcakes and tried to make it a memorable one - strange as it was already, staying in this little village! We went for walks to check out the area and just took it easy having a nice relaxing day - it as great being on terra firma for full day and not being on the boat for a change!
That night the guys put on a special birthday dinner with the fish David had caught and finished off with chocolate rum bananas .... mmmmmm! Their cooking facilities were like a large table just above waist height with edges creating a box like structure on top of the table that was filled with sand and you built your cooking fires on top of that!

While David and I were strolling around we met this guy, whose name is very fitting of his description. Rasta Man (Wilk really, but commonly known as Rasta Man!) He was the most gentle soul I've come across in a long time, long dreadlocked hair and just so friendly and welcoming. He is almost finished building a little house high on the top of a hill, and invited us up. You have to be pretty fit to get up and down that hill easily I tell ya! But on top he has this cute little place on stilts, no stairs upto it yet so he had to jump up to get in, but we sat outside, looking over the entire bay, while he servied us some sugar cane from his garden and shared his honey with us, giving us over half a litre to take with us! He was telling us stories about the area, and showed us that his little dog (whose name I can't remember now but was something from a Bob Marley song) had just had a run in with a lemur, poor thing. Seemed to be ok though.

We had to head back - maybe Bev and Brian thought we had been kidnapped or something! We invited Wilk to come and have a couple of sundowners later with us which he did. The next day we were all setting off - us back to Russian Bay for the night, and Wilk was taking some guys to Nosy Be in his pirogue ... a tiny pirogue with a sail that just about fit the four of the guys on it - he makes a bit of money - and if the wind is right, they can sail the whole day to get there, 8 hours with your bum on a tiny plank sitting up straight heading over the ocean! I certainly could not travel that way! Its incredible to think that thats how the Indonesians discovered Madagascar all those hundreds of years ago - they set off in a pirogue and paddled and sailed across vast oceans to land up there, making Madagascar the worlds only Afro / Asian culture.

We returned to Russian Bay, having stopped at what is known as South African Island (because all the south africans stop off there for a snorkell I guess), amazing snorkelling again and I saw things I"d never seen before and so many different species of fish. Amazing!

The next morning we were up early and headed over to our final destination where we'd spend two night - Mahalina (which in Malagash means the place with the bar that causes trouble with your wife because you go to it instead of staying home) Oh yes! Although the bar is no longer there, Ross has set up an awesome camp with A-frame beach huts along this amazing huge stretch of beach, that has all these sand-bars so as the tides change you get these little trapped lagoons and pools of water, and then waves wash up huge cowrie shells and an amazing array of different shaped and sized shells.

Mahalina was great as we got to walk and walk which I'd mised over the last few days.
One afternoon we each found ourselves a couple of 'suitable' balls for a game of French Boulles. It was the parents vs the kids and we had such a laugh. We were whipping the parents, but they came from behind to take victory! Much celebration ensued hahaha.

Henry and the guys continued to feed us these beautiful meals and at night we'd sit on the beach and watch the flames dance on the beach and just enjoy the amazing peace the place brought with it.

The sad part is that just behind the camp there is one of the hugest mangrove areas I've ever seen stretchng as far as the eye can see, but as part of their survival, the local villagers are cutting it all down to make charcoal, for their own use but mainly to sell. The magroves are totally stripped bare. You can see they have tried to keep some areas, but the stripped areas will take more than 5 years to come back and I"m sure by that time the natural lifecycles will be totally wiped out. As it is, the coral is getting wiped out as all the nutrients that should be absorbed by the mangroves are flowing out into the sea and killing the coral. Its so sad to see this kind of destruction but its also hard to see that its a case of survival of man - its what they do to live - its not like Dubai or other rich coutnries whcih destroy similar mangorve areas to build luxury houses.

After two blissful nights in Mahalina, we were heading home, via Nosy Tanikely for a snorkell. It was a pretty overcast day and the wind was up by the time we got to Tanikely, making it not so easy to jump in the wayer at 10am! But we did and it was so worth it. Tanikely is a reserve, and so you have the best snorkelling we have experienced in all the locations we have swam at. Just divine.

So after an amazing 7 days, we arrived home to an extremely over excited - and much bigger - Inja! Uncle Serge (our landlord) baby sat him for the week!

We spent a couple of days around the house just getting our land legs back and catching up on some chores we needed to. We then hired a quad for Bev and Brian and spent a few hours doing our island quad tour, stopping for lunch and a swim on one of the deserted beaches we know. We found this massive turtle shell washed up on the beach - its fascinating, their shell is the same material as our nails. It was pretty cool.

The next day trip we did was to Lokobe nature reservie, where we taxied to the closest village on Nosy Be, paid a wad of money to a guide from the village and then the four of us plus the guide jumped into a piroge for 5 and had to paddle the pirogue 2km's to the reserve entry village. Bloody hell thats tough going!

We had an awesome walk through the reserve, seeing some of the tiny grey fluffy nocturnal lemurs, a family of black lemurs as well as this massive python and the very interesting Aeroplatus lizard that is able to completely flatten itself on a tree and looks like lichen.

We then set off for a four day trip to the mainland, to Ankarana - known for its Tsingy, which is only found on Madagascar, and then up to Diego, on the northern tip of Madagascar.

Up at 4:30am to be collected by our driver, we boarded the ferry and then got to watch the typically African 'show'! Three cars - working cars were loaded, and then one car that was a shell of a car and all the bits in bags - engines, chassis etc. These guys carried the shell onto the ferry, but of course due to its disintegrating condition, everytime they tried to pick it up, a bit came off in their hands! Very entertaining. So the ferry finally set off, loaded up with people, cars and luggage for the 1hr20 min journey. I must dmit I was pleasnatly surprised with the speed and was expecting a 3 hour journey, so it was a very pleasant surprise!

We landed at Ankify port, I say port ..... a slope up from the water with taxi's, gargotes and people everywhere. Our next stop was Ambanja - to fill the fuel tank and then on to Ankarana. We arrived at one and found our accommodation - pretty simple but perfectly comfortable, and arranged for a guide to take us for a walk that afternoon. Our only shock was the park fees! Wowser, pretty expensive and as the guide said, if they money went back into the locals or the park it would be ok, but it seems is just used to line the pockets of those political officals who can get their greasy hands on it - typically African state.

We walked for about 3 hours and it was absolutely incredible. We walked down, down down into a bat cave - right deep into the cave under ground, with stalictites and stalicmites, guano (bat droppings) everywhere, the shrieking of the bats to be heard overhead and our only light from our torches or head lamps we'd taken with us. There were some rocks that sparkled with a pearlescent sheen and we saw huge spiders too! It was divine. We still had enough light left to make it to the small Tsingy. These are those sharp natural spikes that form in the limestone rocks with hundreds of years of rain having worn them down into sharp spikes. It really is quite fascinating landscape. We also saw some strange Boababs that the locals call - the trees the Fosa can't climb (foossas being the only predator in Madagascar thats a cross between a cat and a giant rat!). This Boabab has tiny thorns all up the trunk and branches. One of my favourite trees is one which the locals fondly call the Vasser Tree. This has brown bark which flakes off and peels to reveal bright white bark underneath! The same as vassers! Brilliant. Our guide, Simon, was very knowledgable and gave us the scientific names for all the trees, along with the tales such as the boabab and the vasser tree. He also spoke impressive English!
It was a great afternoons walk.

The next day we started the journey to Diego. We had no idea what kind of time we would do and if we would end up staying there overnight or not. The first 15km's took us an HOUR! Such was the state of the road, but after that we actually even got up to 90km / hour at one stage, wohoo! We got to Diego and drove around looking at this and that, and found a tourism office, where we aksed if we could get to Amber Mountain - another reserve / nature park, just outside Deigo. They stuck their head out the door to look at the car we were in (a Renault Scenic) and they said no way without a 4 x 4! Hmmmm. So we had a spot of lunch and decided there was not much else to do in Diego so started the long slow drive back to Ankarana (3 hours!).
We stayed in a different camp this time which gave us the opportunity to try different options for potential clients. Aurilenes was great, the staff were super friendly and polite and most of them could speak a bit of English, which is always a great help with us South Africans!

Because we now weren't going to Amber Mountain we had one extra day, with park fees being so high, we thought we may as well just head back to Nosy Be rather than sit around for a whole day. So we started back and called the ferry to see if we could get on the return. Two factors against us - one being that it was National Day, so no ferries were running, and the other was that there is only one ferry a day leaving at 9:30am, which we'd clearly missed. The fact that we had to travel 15km's towards the port (out of a 3.5 hour drive) to get moile signal to make the calls meant that we thought we may as well just carry on driving.
So we decided we'd stay the night in Ambanja, a half hour drive from the port, so we could get there easily i nthe monring for the next ferry. We drove around for a bit and finally found a nice looking hotel. We pulled in and the place was deserted. We walked around and finally a staff member very sleepily appeared and asked to help, we said we wanted two rooms for the night, but he saud sorry - tis national day and we're closed! We pretty much begged and he let us know that there's been a huge party there the night before to celebrate and so all staff had the day off, no rooms could be made up and there was no restaurant running etc. We said we didn't care, give us the bedding etc and we'll make up pur own rooms! So thats how we ended up getting the rooms. Phew! The next thing we needed was food, so we asked for directions to some western restaurants .... we went to about 4 other hotels and then eventually just tried to find a gargote, but it was National Day - absolutely everything was closed! I'm not kidding! How riridculous!! So we finally had to go basic. We bought some baguettes from a road side stall, went into the market where only two stalls were open and bought tomatoes, garlic, onion, cucumber, limes and carrots, and on the walk back to the hotel the one gargote that was working had some hard boiled eggs. So back at the hotel, we pulled up a table and chairs, we had bought one bottle of Sur Eau (water steriliser) which we used to clean everything, and we proceeded to make a salad with a lime and garlic dressing, which we ate on our baguettes! Talk about making a plan!!!!

The next morning was my birthday, and we were up early heading to the ferry for our ride home. As soon as we got to Nosy Be we headed straight to Oasis, the main cafe in town, and ordered coffee and pizza's all round! We had only had one cup of tea / coffee on the morning we had left Nosy Be that I'd packed into flasks for the trip! Ahhhh - how beautiful it was! And the pizza! Wohoo! That night we also went out for dinner and did Italian again - I think we were craving normal, non - Malagash food for sure!! It was uber delicious and a fantastic birthday night out!

Friday was Bev and Brians last day, and they spent it taking photos and saying their farewells to Surge and Clementine and to Palm Beach! We couldn't beleive that 3.5 weeks had gone by so fast but when you look back at everything we'd done and the miles travelled, 11 days on the go, you can understand why it seemed to have flown by. I am so sure Bev and Brian were more than ready to go back home - to hot showers, no mosquitos and bugs, cheeses and cold meats like ham hahaha! The thing they did say was at least when they go home its back to normal, for us going home from the travels is back to Palm Beach and our simple life of cold showers, fishing for dinner and watchin the tomatoes and lettuce grow so we can finally reap the rewards of our simple life!

Garden lunch with mom and dad

Quad tour

Dinner at a local gargote

With our driver Michael and his mum who lives in Ambilobe - on route!

Henry giving the tour briefing

The boys mapping out the week

Pulling into the camp at Russian Bay

The dining hall

Beach bonfire ready

The houseboat

Delicious crab dinner

Breakfast - omlettes! mmmm

Amazing Nosy Iranja

Nosy Iranja

The headmaster of the school

Inside the lighthouse

walking back from the lighthouse

Nosy Iranja

Baramamiha

The cooker / stove!

Baramamiha villagers

Handing out lollipops

Henry and Denny cooking the fish

Freshly made palm skewers

Dinner all together

Our luxury cabins!!!

Moms biiiirthday!!

Kids on the school run

Dad on the houseboat

David with the fishing net

Jorice getting ready to anchor at Mahalina

Our hut at Mahalina

Coconut boulles!

Dad multi tasking - scuba review and lunch!

I like to move it move it

Some of the mainland rooms we stayed in

Beautiful boababs

Our shower mascot!

Ambilobe

The lovely place in Ambanja - our first hot water shower in four months!!

On the ferry back to Nosy Be

Paddling the pirogue to Lokobe

The guys loading the car onto the ferry!

The tsingy

More tsingy!