I haven’t done a lot of writing this past week, so I don’t have any more stories of my adventures in Madagascar to post yet. Instead, I’ll just let you know what I’ve been up to since the last update.
(Note: This is a post from my 2003 travel blog IMoL: Travels and Travails.)
At the end of my last update, I had just arrived in Fianaratsoa. I got together with a French couple who were heading to Ranomafana National Park in a 4×4, so I decided to join them for the day. We got to see four different species of lemurs there and it was was a really nice little hike in the rain forest. It was only secondary rain forest, so it wasn’t quite what I’d imagined – tall trees and a high canopy – but it was quite nice nonetheless.
The next day, I just relaxed at the hotel, Tsara Guest House, which was great – the best place I stayed at in Madagascar. I tried to get a car to take me up to Tana, but ended getting stuck and having to take a taxi-brousse. I waited about four hours in Fianaratsoa and then four hours in Antsirabe, and finally arrived in Tana at about four o’clock in the morning. My final day in Madagascar I just wandered a bit in Tana.
My flight from Tana to Johannesburg on Air Madagascar was alright. When I got to Jo’burg, I immediately went to the kulula.com desk to get a ticket to Cape Town. Kulula.com is one of those no-frills airlines that are great for people like me because it is more like a bus – none of this outrageous pricing for one-way tickets. At the desk I met a couple who live in Madagascar and were on the same flight as me from Tana. They run ocean kayaking tours in the far Northeast of Madagascar. He’s South African and she’s Swiss and they’re just getting the company up and running. We chatted the whole way to Cape Town about a variety of things, but mainly South Africa, Madagascar, and foreign aid.
When I got to Cape Town, I went to the Oak Lodge, a hostel where Andrew, a friend of a friend (thanks Jen!) had reserved a room for me because he was out of town. Sunday night I met up with Andrew and moved to his house around the corner (thanks Andrew!). During the last week, I’ve mainly been chillin’ out. One night I joined Andrew at the Mountain Club of South Africa for a talk by a well-known climber named Greg Child. Thursday I took the ferry out to Robben Island where Mandela was held during the Apartheid years. Friday I hiked up Table Mountain. This past weekend I joined Andrew out at a friend’s place in Rooiels along the coast and tried my hand at rock climbing which was a lot of fun even though I needed quite a positive belay from Andrew to get up the easy route…
My plan from here is to head along the coast to Durban, then up through Swaziland, possibly to Kruger National Park, then back to Jo’burg for my flight out on 5 December. There’s all sorts of stuff to do along the way including caving, hiking, kyaking, surfing, shark diving, climbing, canyoning, white water rafting, etc., so I’m going to do some of that.
Talk at you later.