Ambohimanga

Camellia captured my enthusiasm this morning in this photo. An enduring expression to be sure.

Plans have changed! We got our first taxi-brousse ticket, set to depart from Tana at 2pm bound for Morondava, arriving there somewhere between 2am and 8am, depending on whether there's a road and we need to get out and push the bus. When we pulled up, our taxi was mobbed by middleman brokers trying to get you to pay them to get you a ticket instead of walking 20 feet to get your own. Our driver was very good about keeping them off of us while we negotiated. This was another one of those things we were prepared for ahead of time.

Once we've arrived at Morondava we'll be less than a day ( 35 minutes by plane, a very bumpy ten hours by 4x4 ) from exploring the vast Tsingy de Bemaraha ( wiki here ), which has me very excited! We'll also get to see the majestic Avenue of the Baobabs, trees that resemble barrelly towers. These famous landmarks, as well as the surrounding nature preserves, should make for quite a photo day or three, or four.

Hopefully we'll have the internet to share the photos we take there, but we may be unable to blog for several days if not. Apologies in advance.

Besides securing our travel today we took a taxi about 21km NE to Ambohimanga (am-boo-ee-mang as read Malagasy ), or "Blue Hill" translated. This hill was the site where royal ceremonies took place during the time of the unified kingdoms during the 18th to 19th centuries. It's such a beautiful, tranquil place with amazing panoramic views of the countryside around Tana. Some of the kings and queens are entombed there as well. The amazing thing about the place is that you can see authentic artifacts and other exhibits, like a 19th century Venitian mirror given to the king by Queen Victoria, without any barrier, guards, or cameras. You just have these beautiful pieces of furniture and exhibits in their original wooden buildings with total tranquility around to appreciate them, and if you're like me, imagine being visiting during the time of the Malagasy kings and queens. Of course, you wouldn't have been allowed there until much later since the hill was off limits to foreigners at that time.

Below are pictures from Ambohimanga. Enjoy!

Not much exciting to blog about today. We mainly got information about our planned departure on 7/1 to visit Ranomafana National Park, and tour South Madagascar over the next few weeks. We had a very fancy dinner tonight at a restaurant down the street, and now we're crashing out.

Update about comments: I just realized that you can't comment unless you're registered, and changed the setting to allow you to do so anonymously, for those without blogger accounts. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Tsimbazaza

This is the first weekday we've seen since we got here. The stores were mostly open, traffic (cars and foot) was much heavier than the past two days, and the schools were in session as plainly evidenced by the school children in lines and clusters on the streets around the city.

Today we visited the city zoo, Tsimbazaza, a place of pride for the residents of the capital city. It's built at an old sacred site, the name apparently translating to "children are not allowed," but we can assure you that there were plenty of children enjoying the animals there. Also on the site are the botanical gardens which feature many species of trees particularly, as well as flowers and scenic ponds with ducks, herons, and other beautiful wildlife. We had plenty of time and space to enjoy the animals including caged birds (which always makes me a little sad) reptiles, crocs, some mammals like the fossa shown below (a kind of wild cat), and even non-natives like camels and ostriches. The lemurs, however, were mostly left to populate small wooded islands in the middle of green ponds. We took so many pictures of them-- more than our scant internet access allows us to upload-- but I shared a few of them below.

What was really special about our trip there was the chance to be taken aside behind some of the enclosures (for a nominal tip/fee as we've started to expect when people, even employees, want to draw your attention to something or show you something special) to feed honey to lemurs. I knew that lemurs were very curious of people and actually quite willing to peacefully interact with them in the wild, but that it wasn't advisable to try due to the rabies threat. So, when I had the opportunity to do this in a safe setting (for us and the lemurs) I was very excited. I was surprised by how gentle they were despite being very eager to get the sweet treat we offered them by finger. We documented our snack with the lemurs pretty well, so when we get home we can show you a wider variety of species we got to interact with.

After the zoo we headed back to our hotel, I went down the street to get more bottled water (something we regularly do since the tap water isn't safe), then retuned only to fall to the lingering effects of jet lag. A little later we went looking for an Italian restaurant down the street that I must have completely imagined-- we didn't find it--, before returning to the hotel and trying the food in their restaurant. We were actually surprised at how good the food was there, my curry chicken and Camellia's traditional Malagasy chicken dish.

Tomorrow we'll be researching tours through Ranomafana National Park where we'll get to see critters like those in the zoo in their natural habitat, and hopefully in greater variety and abundance. Particularly, I'm looking forward to seeing the insects of the forests there

Today is unequivocally church going day. Almost all the shops were closed and the churches full of worshipers in their Sunday best. The sound of Christian worships songs is pretty much everywhere, familiar and unfamiliar. The street vendors and the main market are selling, of course, so we strolled down the street to take a look at the colorful assortment of fruits. Camellia and I are enjoying the first day here, though she probably enjoyed herself more since I tend to feel extremely anxious in unfamiliar situations-- something I fully expected but can never seem to prepare for.

Other than that we're just trying to figure out what to do next and lounging in our hotel room, cooling off and reading up, blogging and all that good stuff. Camellia has been trying to become better friends with the spider outside our room. If you look at the photo keep on mind that it's got a leg-span of about four inches!

After a very long series of flights we arrived at Antananarivo, Madagascar with our luggage and smiles actually on our faces. At the moment I'm pretty jet lagged so it's a challenge to come up with first impressions, but I can say that we were surprised at how poor much of the capital city is. We are staying in the Radama hotel, and, it thankfully has plenty of comforts so we can acclimate to the 10 hour time shift for a few days before heading off to somewhere more enticing, and hopefully full of interesting flora and fauna to send pictures of.

Incidentally, it's their independence day here and the mood is increasingly celebratory as the night comes, as seen from our little room on the hill.