Very behind with my blog writing - oops as already in NZ so going to try and upload 3 blogs today! Then you should be all up to date with my news......

So blog number 3 - final leg in Madagascar...

The last leg of the Madagascar trip left Fort Dauphin in the South and our work with Azafady behind on Sunday 18th March. The first journey involved a 4 x 4 trip to a village in the spiny forest (an area of the south where the climate is very very dry and lots of cacti and aloe vera type plants grow) called Ctsi - Manakiaraky! I know I oculd never say it either.... with Claude one of the guides who works with Azafady and also runs independent tours in his spare time.

After bumping along a standard Malagasy road/track for a fair few hours we arrived a little shell shocked into the village. Greeted, as is customary in Madagascar by everyone in the village we took our seats in a tiny room complete with bed, table and chairs and oh you guessed it a Hannah Montana poster! I know I was as surprised as you... Lunch of creamed corn and a stange cottage cheesy, fermented yogurt thing which you know is like a roast dinner for the village but is the last thing you fancy after a turbulent car journey! Anyway dutiful and polite Brits we were we ate as much as we could stomach without inducing illness.... Next we set up our tents and spent the afternoon learning how to weave! Well, it was more watching them prepare the cotton and then using sticks perfectly distanced apart simply stuck in the ground as the loom, weave the cotton in a pattern that we barely mamnaged to mimick even after many attempts! Just goes to show how skilled these women were - the designs were incredibly detailed and dyes collected from plants and you would have no idea that they weren't made by machines.

After embarassing ourselves by being 'worse than the other vazaha's' we visited the village witch doctor - hmm yep I wasn't sure what I thought about that either but it'sall about having an open mind- isn't it.....The spirits conveniently posessed him after he had been financially rewarded and I guess the only way I can describe the experience was like a fortune teller having an epileptic fit every few minutes whilst touching you a little bit too much for comfort and telling you, 'you will marry, you will marry, soon soon' hmm so not bad, glad he didn't predict any misfortunes, some may disagree but like I said I'm keeping an open mind...!

The evning entertainment involved the killing and skinning of a goat which we were welcomed to take part in. All politely refusing natually... before being treated to quite an indtimidating display of spiny forest dancing. This is where the men and boys make a kind of rythmical 'cavemen' type grunt while stamping on the ground very fast, waving their arms and spears. The most tribal dance I had seen so far and of course you had to oblige when you were invited to join in -best entertainment they had had in a while!

Very early start - 4.30 am the next day, after a noisy night of listening to goats doing what goats do best. Eating, farting and making more goats - usually in that order with very similar sounds for each!! Set off on a killer journey from about the middle of the South to Tulear - a major city over on the far SW coast - 17hrs away in the end! After enduring a few hours of travel sickness, several rapid river crossings and driving on a road that in no way resembled anything even close to a road, we arrived bedragled in Tulear.

Did some sight seeing the next day before catching a taxi - brousse to Ifaty - a beautiful, idyllic and touristy in comparison to elsewhere, resort right on the beach. We were treated to clear blue skies everyday and we were literally in a bungalow on a tropical beach - the sea was visible from bed!! a place I had always dreamed of, and all for 20 quid for 5 nights - not bad! So nice we found it hard to leave, enjoying that holiday feeling of lying in the sun, snorkelling, eating and dancing the night away! oh and the first skinny dip of the trip was had - I've vowed to at least try for a natural dip in every country I visit...!

Tearing ourselves away from the laidback lifestyle of Ifaty we were back on the road again, returning to Tulear overnight. The next few days blurred into one as we realised we might have got a bit more than we bargained for in terms of 'the views are spectacular.

We set off the next day for Ambavaloa - a provincal town further North, only nine hours this time and on tarmac roads so a luxurious journey in comparison to the last few. Arriving at the hotel we were greeted by Marcel - our guide to be for our little slightly regrettable adventure to Andringitra national park. All seemed promising as we set off the next morning, up the mountain. I was quite surprised to hear we were going to climb 'pic boby' a rather impressive 2,658 metres and it wasn't until the next day when we began to realise what we had let ourselves in for! The first day was pretty leisurely with lunch by a river and realising we were the only peole in the natioanl park at that time - it was rather idealic. Lovely dinner by the campfire complete with singing and dancing from the porters. This time from the Besileo tribe - dancing a bit more low key than the spiny forest variety!

Day 2 - up early and we began the ascent.... started at 7.30 am and reached the peak by 11 am. Tough but all ok at that point and beautiful views. It was the next part where we began to suffer! Left the peak at 11.30 am and walked downhill most of the way back to camp, then the heavens opened so we raced to pack up the camp and began to walk again crossing swollen rivers, rushing as the guides were worried we'd get cut off. Lunch in the rain next to a river before more walking down hill on slippery rocks, non-existent paths until 7pm that night! The river was too bad to make it the final campsite so we set up next to a boulder - beautiful spot but everything drenched so natually that kind of overshadowed the beauty a little!

The next day - yes you guessed it - more walking.... oh only 8 am to 3.30 pm solidly with about a half hour break for lunch and in the seering 30 degree heat! As you can tell a little of the leg pain is still with me!

Once recovered we decided no more guides and a little less walking to increase the enjoyment factor! We made it to our next stop Ranamafana after stopping in a town where we had the quintissential Madagascan taxi brousse experience! Arrive after a long journey on a squished, stinky bus to be met by a lot of people bustling around selling everything you can imagine before noticing the gleaming white flesh of the vazaha's appear which of course causes mass hysteria as they try to offer us the best deal of a taxi/hotel/anything you want basically!!

Anyway Ranamafana was beautiful and just what we needed to regain our faith in our own fitness levels!! Meaning hot water in Malagasy - its one of the remaining areas of rainforest left and we were lucky enough to see Mouse lemurs and a huge variety of chameleons whilst on a night walk and then a family of red-bellied lemurs the next day. A fantastic experience to see them in the wild.

Next and final stop was Tana - the capital where we were all looking forward to the luxuries of a nice hotel... if only we could get there! Picked what we thought looked like a good taxi-brousse but we later discovered it had to be push started,drivers had no papers and when we finally limped into Tana in the dark we had no headlights either!

Spent the last few days of the trip shopping for souvenirs, eating and generally relaxing - a lovely end to a stay in such a beautiful and fascinating country. Ready for the next stop but I truely did not want to leave and stalled getting on the plane for as long as possible!