Paris, Portland Wednesday, July 30, 2014 We are flying Air France home the whole way: 11 hours to Paris 9.5 hours to Atlanta 5 hours to Portland We have 2.5 hour layovers in between the stops. So all in all a 30 hour trip! All in all it’s been a fun trip – and very…

Antananarivo Tuesday, July 29, 2014 Our last day here! In the morning we visited a super interesting wood shop to get a demo of the local wood inlay method by a man named Narcisse. From the quality and intricacy of the pieces that were produced there, you would never guess how simple their equipment is….

Day 19 – The lush green rainyforest Ranomafana National Park Sunday, July 27, 2014 “The lush green rainyforest” – that’s how Za Tours described Ranomafana National Park in its itinerary for us and it is indeed that. We had a great tour this morning with an excellent tour guide – Stephan (French pronunciation). All the…

Antsirabe Friday, July 25, 2014 In the morning we took a quick peek at the beach and then continued our journey to check out the Eastern area of Madagascar where the rainforests are. Similar to Oregon, Madagascar has a mountainous area running down the middle which traps moisture from the Indian Ocean on the East…

Morondava Thursday, July 24, 2014       Woke up early to get to the still broken ferry. We surprised Claudia with a gift of a ring that we bought from the hotel stone jewelry table. Madagascar has a lot of pretty stones. We said goodbye to Santrine, our main hostess, and all the student…

Bekopaka Wednesday, July 23, 2014 We woke up early to do the one hour / 15 km drive up the terrible road to the “big tsingy” area. We had Ranovelo in the car so three in the back which made for extra bumpy fun. The hike took four hours and was a good time. We…

Bekopaka Tuesday, July 22, 2014 Today we did two activities in the morning and spent the afternoon doing laundry and relaxing by the pool. Rivu picked us up after breakfast and we went down to the Manambolo river to meet our guide for the tsingy park named Ranovelo, whose name means “live water”. He is…

Bekopaka Monday, July 21, 2014 We had a funny incident at breakfast where they asked how I wanted my eggs done and I said boiled not even thinking about it. Everyone else had been getting them omelette style. Christian got his omelette within 5 minutes. My boiled egg was apparently an issue however. We waited…

Kirindy Sunday, July 20, 2014 A full day! Got up at 5 AM to go catch a flight to Morandava, the Western coast of Madagaacar again, but much farther South than Anjajavy. We said goodbye again to Jackie at the airport. Claudia, our new Za Tours tour guide picked us up at the airport. She…

Antananarivo, Ambohimanga Saturday, July 19, 2014 Christian and I squeezed every bit out of the two and a half hours between dawn and needing to leave to fly out of Anjajavy. We did a jog to a giant baobab we had not seen yet, took a quick dip in the ocean and had one last…

Anjajavy Friday, July 18, 2014 It is sadly our final day at Anjajavy but it was no less epic. The best part of the day was a three hour boat tour to Moramba bay. We had a false start in the morning where the boat we were supposed to go on broke down. However, this…

Anjajavy Thursday, July 17, 2014   We did a couple of hotel activities today. The first was a guided walk in the forest on a pathway called Chemin du crabes – Path of the crabs. Our guide was Franck. We did it midday so less wildlife this time. We did see the very large hairy…

Anjajavy Wednesday, July 16, 2014 Woke up before dawn to go on a Birdwatching tour with Rado, a friendly and knowledgeable guide. He has been working at the hotel for 15 years, starting as an electrician, then a driver and for the last 6 years a guide. We saw a lot of birds which I…

Anjajavy Tuesday, July 15, 2014 This morning after breakfast we go back to our room to get ready for our day only to find one of the sifaka lemurs perched on his butt on our balcony! Did not care that we were there in the slightest. Christian was able to get within 12 feet of…

Anjajavy Monday, July 14, 2014 Over breakfast we watched one of the local bands of the coquerel sifaka (white lemur) jump between the trees. They got so close to us! They can’t really walk on the ground so they jump on their hind legs – it’s really funny to watch. I realize I haven’t really…

Anjajavy Sunday, July 13, 2014 Great first full day at Anjajavy! Every day the hotel runs a couple of excursions and Sundays they invite the guests to take a guided tour of the Anjajavy village since everyone is off and there is a market. The guests all make a contribution to the non profit that…

Anjajavy Saturday, July 12, 2014 Early in the morning Roy and Jackie took us back to the airport so we could catch a tiny hopper plane over to Anjajavy resort where we are to stay until next Saturday. The plane was “classic” with 80s looking controls and a GPS that looked like it was for…

Antananarivo Friday, July 11, 2014 Watched an interesting Kenyan drama on the plane about the relationship between a Kenyan man and his second wife in a rural village. Finally we made it to the capital of Madagascar – Antananarivo. We stood in line for a visa behind another American couple who was on their honeymoon…