Road Trippin' Across Madagascar!

Hello everyone!

I know that this is a long-awaited blog entry and I do send you my deepest apologies for the delay. But really I blame the computers of Madagascar and unreliable internet. SO I have a lot to fill you guys in on...lets see where to start...

Its hard to think all the way back to being in Fort Dauphin. But I think I was ready to get out of there and see the rest of the country. The last week there was kind of long but I spent a lot of good time with my host family. I learned how to weave mats and bookmarks out of banana leaves! Also my mom and sister taught me how to make this really tasty banana-rice cake (basically you soak rice, pound it and sift it till its kinda like flour, mush up a ton of bananas with a fork, add a pinch of yeast and baking powder, and then cook it forever - except they dont have an oven so we boiled water in a big kettle and then put the smaller kettle with the batter inside. its really incredible the solutions that they come up with here)  You all know how much I like crafts and cooking so I had a lot of fun. Also hung out at my taxi driver uncles house. Had dinner there on the last night dont really understand why but it was really nice, we watched a bootlegged planet earth dubbed in french so I was really happy. He has the little baby named Steven who is so cute! He was just about to learn to walk when I left, he just turned one and figured out how to stand. Also my uncle gifted me some malagasy music videos so I can show you all the crazy malagasy dance moves Im always talking about. So anyways that was pretty much it. My dad, uncle, and Jenny all went to the wirport with me (it was the first time shes ever seen an airport she was amazed that ill get to the other side of the country in one day) The flight was good it was crazy short just half an hour but not too bumpy. Soooo then we were in Tulear!

So Tulear is a pretty big city on the west coast. In one word it was HOT! Oh man it was so stinkin hot there I just had to treat myself to ice cream a good couple of times :) and it was mad delicious ice cream too! mango flavored gelato-basically better than any ice cream ive ever eaten I really miss it a lot now. That city was pretty nice. I couldnt really use the internet there cuz for awhile the whole countrys internet was turned off because they were announcing the new prime minister (who ended up being the same guy as before, bad news bears). Ya that kind sums up politics here basically theyre just really messed up. But we did a lot of different things there. The first 3 days we were camping on our directors land. It was a really nice area right next so some mangroves (mangroves are a really interesting and cool type of ecosystem. Im going to be nerdy and explain it: so its this transitional ecosystem where trees grow between fresh and saltwater bodies of water. So its really cool cuz even though salt in high doses is toxic to plants the trees and animals have adapted to live there. also when the tide comes in theyre flooded so the roots of the trees are like snorkles that stick out of the ground to breathe. Theres tons of little crabs running all over and theres there really cool fishes that have feet and can live on land for up to 3 hours! So basically i really like mangroves. kind of wish i could do my ISP there but it would just be too difficult for me to change my plans at this point.) anyways we had a big party at Jim (the director) house the last night and danced and ate goat fried on a big stick. it was a good time. Then we staid in the city for awhile and i had my FIRST HOT SHOWER! Thank goodness Im pretty sure it was necessary, cold showers just leave you not feeling as clean. So that was nice. My favorite part of Tulear was the last day when we went snorkling!  Went to this organization called reef doctor, theyre an NGO workin there and they were really nice-good things happening there if anyone feels like coming to research/volunteer in marine studies in madagascar. So Tulear is home to the 3rd largest coral reef in the world! Pretty awesome; We had to take little 4 person pirogue boats out to the reef and then wejust got to swim around for a good hour or so. I was a whimp and wore a life jacket but that was actually great for me cuz I just floated around watching the fishes and didnt have to worry about drowning. It was so incredible! The fish were so vibrant-orange, green, purple,blue, crazy colors! The visibility was bad in the beginning but it got better. funny story so I was just chillin when one of my friends said ohmygosh baby shark! so i stuck my head under the water and this "baby shark" swam right into me! i was like ahdfqufhgqmuiohfmyeutgn! (garled snorkle code for OHMYGEEZ AHHHHHH) but then it turns out that it in fact was not a baby shark but rather a friendly little gray cleaner fish who likes to suck the dirty stuff off of you. So he just kind of followed us around and ate all of our dead skin. The coral actually was hit really bad with a disease last year so i guess about half of it was actually dead-i didnt really know what i was looking at though until after we came back to shore. Saw some really cool stuff though, huge yellow and black angel fish (grandpa z this made me think of your aquarium because you always siad they are mean and eat the other fish!) i used my underwater camera and took tons of pictures that i will show you all later. Really awesome though!

After Tulear we started our voyage up north to the capital. Generally we drove for about 6 hours each day in the TATA (this tata is a lot better than the one we took to the village stay though, it actually is a working vehicle and we havent had to push it yet!) Stopped at Islo national park. Went swimming in some natural water holes that was really cool. At Islo we had some really chubby brown lemurs visit us and try to steal our breakfast! Also went to Anja where we saw a ton of maki lemurs (ringtails) and went on a cool hike that included some spulunking, a rope ladder, and a kings tomb covered in zebu skulls. Then got to Andrigatra. Oh man was this intense. You guys wont believe the things Ive done! So we hiked into our campground a good hour an a half basically uphill stairs tha whole time with our little packs. It was tough but really nice because it was sunset time and ther were these two huge waterfalls. Then we staid there for the night and the next morning we hiked the tallest accessible mountain in Madagascar! Thats right folks, I did this and I do have to say that I conquered that mountain. It was called Pic Boby (pronounced Booby so naturally a lot of jokes were made) the first hour was not so bad mostly grassland but then the next THREE HOURS were a straight uphill climb, either stairs or steep rock that we crawled up. Now you all know that I am not the most athletic of all people BUT i was so happy i actually really enjoyed the hike while i was doing it and i wasnt that winded! it was actually really exhillerating im pretty proud of myself for doing it. the view from the top was incredible it was so worth it. cool to know i was at the highest possible point in the country (there is one higher mountain but it is too wild and its basically controled by pot growers/cops working together) Took us about 3 hours to hike back down, think i prefer going up hiking down was more difficult. But it was really fun.  Also it was freezing there! Which was a bummer for me since my sleeping bag is for 55 degrees and up. I literally slept in every piece of clothing i had with me-my long pants with shorts on top with two pairs of socks, long sleaved shirt and riancoat, beanie hat, and then used my sweatshirt as an extra blanket. who knew it got that cold here? but the last night there the profs surprised us with smores so we roasted them around a campfire and sang songs with our malagasy guides and it was a good time.

After that we went to Fianarantsoa. Its a pretty big city i didnt really like it there and I was bummed all of there internet was slow and unusable. It was one of the girls birthdays while we were there so that was fun though. We got to eat cake! Such a treat!

Then we went to Ranomafana national park. Its hard to pick a favorite but I think this one is it. Its a crazy beautiful rainforest! Basically what I imagined Madagascar looking like before I came here. It was so lush and green and there were tons of lemurs! Saw 4 types: sifaka, 2 types of brown lemurs, and the highly sought after golden bamboo lemur! The golden bamboo lemurs are really cool they eat this special type of bamboo that has 6 times the letheal amount of cyanyde to kill a human. and they can eat it no problem, no one really can figure out why. also theyre small but pretty beastly little guys so i think theyre pretty cool. we also got to go on a night walk to see the nocturnal animals. saw cute mouse lemurs, chameleons, frogs; AND I spotted a snake!!! I was really excited to find it, I was the only student who found anything so its kind of a big deal. We also visited an awesome NGO there, i would love to go back and do research with them sometime maybe ill drag one of you here with me :) we interviewed some villagers, basically the national park system is super corrupt and they have gotten jipped from their land and livelihood its really sad. then we went to the"natural hot springs" really funny because it turned out to be a regular swimming pool that the water from the springs is pumped into. it was pretty funny there were actually kids in floaties all over it. water was definitely not clean but i couldnt resist it was probably just as warm if not warmer than our hot tub!

so then we spent a whole day driving here to the capital city. 12 hours in the TATA is a loooong time. But here are some entertaining bits from the trip: a man sold my friend a post card and asked "are you going back to america where barack obama is your dreamland," saw a random ferris wheel (it was being run by a man who literally just pulled it everytime a seat came past), saw a small boy pooping in the river while his mom stood next to him (basically sums up all of the sanitary/water quality problems of Madagascar), and a very funny corn story. So theres a girl here named May and she is from Burma (but studies in the US) and has this darling south african accent (kind of sounds like a british accent). So she had a random craving for boiled corn and was like "ohhhh boiled corn" (with her cute accent you just have to imagine it) then i kid you not, not even an hour after that we pulled into a random town and all of a sudden there were men and women surrounding our tata trying to sell us boiled corn! literally corn everywhere it was hilarous! so we all bought corn from our windows (i got grilled corn) It was so comical May was really happy. It actually works great its just like a drive through except you have to take the chance of getting explosive diareah since its sketchy street food.

The drive was interesting though. basically saw the main attractions in all of the southern half of madagascar. it was crazy how much the landscape changed! from grassland to savanna with massive baobab trees to forest to mountains to basically everything. and interestingly everything improves as you approach the capital. the road got better, houses and stores got nicer, everything is just higher quality (which is still not saying much by US standards) but it was intriguing to watch.

Antananarivo, a real city!? This is the capital city where I have been all week and I am most definitely ready to escape. Its HUGE! Crazy that a city like this exists here! And its really dirty and crowded and honestly I just much rather prefer to be camping in the forest. The food here is nice though last night the girls and I treated ourselves to Italian food - pasta with real cheese it was incredible! But besides that weve just had a lot of free time here. Visited an orphanage thats doing REALLY great things here. You can sponser a kid through them and you all should because theyre a great organization, the best and most organized one that I have seen here, and theyre doing tons of great things. One day when I have more time ill tell you more about it; also went to a huge arts market. didnt like that so much its like the people suck you in and i hate haggeling and i was just like AH this is overwhelming! once you ask a price its impossilbe to escape. and it was really sad because they were selling tons of hardwood (like rosewood) products which is totally illegal and a huge source of deforestation issues. i tried to tell people who tried to sell me stuff that it was illegal but of course they didnt care. also fought with some dudes over Harry Potter in the book marche (ok not really fought i dont want david to come over here to beat these guys, it was more like agressivley haggled) they were ripping me off and wouldnt budge so i didnt get the book,kinda bummed about this. 

Wow thats a lot. so thats about it i think. Today were eating lunch in a cookie shop which might have something resembling a bagel so im pretty excited. tomorrow were driving another 4 hours to visit a national park where the indri indri lemurs are-theyre the largest living lemurs so im excited to see them. then we come back on sunday and on monday each student is going their seperate way!

So to fill you in on what ill be up to: this next month is devoted to the Independent Study Project, or ISP. Mine is officially in Sainte Luce - a littoral (coastal) forest about ' hours from Fort Dauphin. Ill be camping there for 3 weeks and then the last week ill go back to stay with my host family and write up my huge paper. Not exactly sure what my project will be but i think itll be a basic inventory of the forest and the conservation efforts there. I do have an edvisor who will be there with me  from time to time.  There is also a guy doing research and supervising the camp along with a cook and a guard so I wont be totally alone. Thats about as much detail as i have right now. kinda crazy im just going to try to show up and look and the forest and see where it goes from there. I will have my phone while I am there so never fear i wont be totally out of contact with the real world in case of an accident or something. And im able to use their computer (and maybe internet from time to time so hopefully i can update you all!)

think thats about it. oh yea also one night this week i accidentally ordered zebu foot soup. it was strangely fatty. i just couldnt stomach it. its the first thing i really havent eaten since i got here though.

Ok i think thats really it. ill be home in 6 weeks from today thats so crazy! hopefully ill be able to blog during ISP but dont be surprised if you dont hear from me. im glad that my blog is entertaining for you all, cant wait to tell you more stories and share pictures with you! everyone please remember to do what you can to conserve (you know, turn off lights, unplug toasters, turn the water off when you brush your teeth, all that jazz) it really means a lot to me. 

Miss and love you all! Veloma!