Jen with a friend
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Madagascar Pictures
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
The Queens Palace (or not)
Just had a very afternoon. Set out to visit the queens palace with jen ad 5 of the other english students here and one of the malagasy doctors who is an interne in surgery. The doctor organised a bus to take us there and back and off we went..............
After about 25 minutes one of the girls points out that the bus is headed in the opposite direction and it seemed that the queens palace party had been lost in translation and we were heading for the Kings palace 45 minutes out of tana. Having rectified the bus's direction we headed back into tana but by the tile we got there the palace had shut so we wandered around on top of the hill looking at the views of tana (surprisingly attractive from afar!) and ended up in a terrace bar drinking beer and watching the sun go down, all very civilised.
After about 25 minutes one of the girls points out that the bus is headed in the opposite direction and it seemed that the queens palace party had been lost in translation and we were heading for the Kings palace 45 minutes out of tana. Having rectified the bus's direction we headed back into tana but by the tile we got there the palace had shut so we wandered around on top of the hill looking at the views of tana (surprisingly attractive from afar!) and ended up in a terrace bar drinking beer and watching the sun go down, all very civilised.
Antsirabe
Last weekend I headed south from Tana to Antsirabe for the weekend with 6 of the french medical students that are living in out accomodation. The journey took 3 and a half hours to 160 km along roads across the haute plateau.
Having decided on a restaurant called the pousse pousse to eat in, choosen from the guidebook, we headed there accompanied by a collection of pousse pousse drivers intent on our custom. IN the end, two of the boys offered the men a ride in their own pousse pousse's and pulled them to the restaurant given they were so intent to follow us anyway. However, on arrival the main courses were 8000 arary each (2.20 pounds) and they decided it was too expensive (!) so ended up walking a full circle around town with a following of pousse pousses and ate in a restaurant opposite our hotel for 6000 arary for a main course, with accompanying poubelle rhum! After a long week in A&E I was quite glad when the 2 people I was sharing a room with decided to call it a night.......the others headed off to the local disco!
Saturday morning started early with Franck and Fanny deciding to hire bikes and cycle to thermal springs. Sounded like a good idea so was happy to go along with their plans. Franck had found some decent bikes ti hire (these ones even had v brakes that worked!). I was more than a little surprised that once we had hired the bikes that they turned around and said it was a 63 km round trip given that they were dressed in jeans! Did a bit of a rush job on food and water buying and we set off.
It started off with an interestingride out of town, through a market, avoiding pousse pousse, taxi, bikes and pedestrains followed by what seemed like an entire batallion of soldiers who were more than surprised to be overtaken by vazaha on bikes! However, we only made it 3 km out of town before Francks derailleur broke in such a spectacular fashion that it took out half the spokes too! He managed to get in contact with the hire shop who sent out a boy on a bike to replace the broken one, which actually arrived very quickly for a country where everything is moramora (slow!).
It took us the rest of the morning to get to the thermal baths - which were quite literally lots of stone baths sunk into the ground, enclosed by little huts and had hot water running into them. The source was a similarly impressive (!) pipe running out of a stone wall in which all the local were washing their clothes!!!!!!!
WE then started the climb back up to the nearest village - quite steep, midday african sun - just what we needed. In the village we ate in a very malagasy restaurant. Rice, a few bits of meat on a small plate and a bowl of sauce to pour over your rice. This wasnt too much of problem having lived with a malagasy family for a month but both fanny and franck seemed a little confused by it all and hardly ate any of their lunches!
After lunch, Fanny got the taxi car back to Antsirabe (with bike) while Franck and I had the long uphill ride home with a detour round some pretty lakes. WE left out a small section of the ride and only did 55 km but by this point we had both had enough, especially given i had a mans saddle. i did fair slightly better than Franck who had had to tie his fleece over his sadle half way home and had so me interesting sun burn!
Late afternoon we walked around some of the saturday markets in town, learning from oneof the pousse pousse drivers that our friendshad returned to the hotel at 3.30 am so we were quite glad not to have waited for them to do stuff in the morning!
On sunday, we wandered around the artisan market whch was fun and also the precious stone stalls. Seems you can get most stones of varying shapes and sizes and colouts to get set as various peices of jewellery at very low prices - so if anyone has any requests, let me know and i'll see what i can do. Export regulations seem to suggest we can export 1 kg of stones each!
Headed back to Tana in the afternoon, ate dinner in town before heading back to the accomodation!
Having decided on a restaurant called the pousse pousse to eat in, choosen from the guidebook, we headed there accompanied by a collection of pousse pousse drivers intent on our custom. IN the end, two of the boys offered the men a ride in their own pousse pousse's and pulled them to the restaurant given they were so intent to follow us anyway. However, on arrival the main courses were 8000 arary each (2.20 pounds) and they decided it was too expensive (!) so ended up walking a full circle around town with a following of pousse pousses and ate in a restaurant opposite our hotel for 6000 arary for a main course, with accompanying poubelle rhum! After a long week in A&E I was quite glad when the 2 people I was sharing a room with decided to call it a night.......the others headed off to the local disco!
Saturday morning started early with Franck and Fanny deciding to hire bikes and cycle to thermal springs. Sounded like a good idea so was happy to go along with their plans. Franck had found some decent bikes ti hire (these ones even had v brakes that worked!). I was more than a little surprised that once we had hired the bikes that they turned around and said it was a 63 km round trip given that they were dressed in jeans! Did a bit of a rush job on food and water buying and we set off.
It started off with an interestingride out of town, through a market, avoiding pousse pousse, taxi, bikes and pedestrains followed by what seemed like an entire batallion of soldiers who were more than surprised to be overtaken by vazaha on bikes! However, we only made it 3 km out of town before Francks derailleur broke in such a spectacular fashion that it took out half the spokes too! He managed to get in contact with the hire shop who sent out a boy on a bike to replace the broken one, which actually arrived very quickly for a country where everything is moramora (slow!).
It took us the rest of the morning to get to the thermal baths - which were quite literally lots of stone baths sunk into the ground, enclosed by little huts and had hot water running into them. The source was a similarly impressive (!) pipe running out of a stone wall in which all the local were washing their clothes!!!!!!!
WE then started the climb back up to the nearest village - quite steep, midday african sun - just what we needed. In the village we ate in a very malagasy restaurant. Rice, a few bits of meat on a small plate and a bowl of sauce to pour over your rice. This wasnt too much of problem having lived with a malagasy family for a month but both fanny and franck seemed a little confused by it all and hardly ate any of their lunches!
After lunch, Fanny got the taxi car back to Antsirabe (with bike) while Franck and I had the long uphill ride home with a detour round some pretty lakes. WE left out a small section of the ride and only did 55 km but by this point we had both had enough, especially given i had a mans saddle. i did fair slightly better than Franck who had had to tie his fleece over his sadle half way home and had so me interesting sun burn!
Late afternoon we walked around some of the saturday markets in town, learning from oneof the pousse pousse drivers that our friendshad returned to the hotel at 3.30 am so we were quite glad not to have waited for them to do stuff in the morning!
On sunday, we wandered around the artisan market whch was fun and also the precious stone stalls. Seems you can get most stones of varying shapes and sizes and colouts to get set as various peices of jewellery at very low prices - so if anyone has any requests, let me know and i'll see what i can do. Export regulations seem to suggest we can export 1 kg of stones each!
Headed back to Tana in the afternoon, ate dinner in town before heading back to the accomodation!
Monday, July 16, 2007
Lake Itasy
Having had a bit of a cold at the end of last week i couldn't really face a weekend of kayaking and wild camping with Jen and Em so decided to go away with some of the other students that we are living with: 2 English med students, 2 french med students and 2 french nursing students.
We got a taxi brousse (sort of like a minibus but smaller and no leg room!) from Tana. The journey, heading west, took 3 hours but there was beautiful scenery all the way there. on arriving in Ampefy we found some lake side bungalows called the terrace. Everyone was pretty blown away by how stunning the surroundings were and we sat for a while on the veranda and watched the sun set on the little lake and all of the locals fishing from their piroges. We had an amazing meal in the terrace restaurant that evening and sampled the delights (or not) of various local flavoured rums, ranging from vanilla, ginger, pineapple, apple or house, with varying degrees of strength!!!!!!
Saturday morning started with breakfast in the sun on the veranda before heading off to see the chute de la lily (a local waterfall). 4 of the group decided to walk while 3 of us hired bikes. The bike itself was an experience - back to the days of cantilever breaks that actually may as well not have been fitted for the use they were when trying to stop!!! We cycled 4-5 km up the road along the side of lake Itasy (3rd largest lake in Madagascar), watching the locals swim, fish from piroges or just working in their paddy fields. Then the off road track started. It was by this stage that i was beginning to appreciate why i ride a full suspension bike when i go riding in the UK. The vibrations through the handle bars was very tiring, and actually managed to give one of the French boys blisters on his hands! We had to ask the way a few times when the track bifurcated and generally people were very helpful. There was one point however when some local boys pointed us down the wrong track. It didn't take us long to realise as the track was almost impossible to ride along due to the massive gulley's - guess they were just paying us back for refusing to take up their services as local guides!!!!! After about 5 km we had to leave our bikes with some locals and carry on one foot.
The falls themselves were very impressive and about 18m high. There is zip line that we could have taken across the waterfall but that experience will have to wait for another time.
The ride back from the falls was also eventful. No sooner had we set off than the saddle on my bike broke! The metal clamps that hold the saddle on to the seat post broke through the plastic of the saddle so i had to sit on the metal clamps all the way home, and i still have the bruises to prove it! Back at the bungalows we made use of the complimentary piroges. It was very entertaining watching everyone struggle to make them go in a straight line, in fact some of them just went round in circles!!!!! I think people were quite surprised and a little frustrated that i wasn't having such problems, especially as they had all taken the boats out in pairs and i had one by myself. Knowing how to use the paddle as a rudder and having on occasions paddled a open canoe may have helped with that!
Dinner that evening was a little disappointing, maybe because we had been spoilt the previous night, but having decided to try somewhere new, my poulet roti and chips turned out to be a chicken wing and few chips while vegetable soup turned out to contain meatballs - not great when the girls ordering it was a vegetarian!!! However we made up for it by returning to the previous nights restaurants for pudding - banana flamée. Having had such a small main course, pudding then extended to a a pancake as well much to everyone else's amusement - or maybe it was just the rum they were drinking again!!!!!
On Sunday morning we all headed off on foot for the island of the virgin Mary - which contrary to the title isn't an island but is attached by bit of land protruding out. The walk was very much like the Madagascar i had expected to see having read the guide books - the tracks were bright red mud and very dusty, surrounded by very lush vegetation and the lake side had many many paddy fields. Yet again the locals (all of whom seemed to be chewing sugar cane) greeted us and some even stopped us to a chat and we ended up having a short game of football with their young children, with the ball being made out of plastic bags and elastic bands all entwined.
There were stunning views over lakeItasy from the top of the hill on which the virgin Mary monument stood. All of the surrounding hills are extinct volcano's and the lake itself being one of the former craters. The walk back turned out to be slightly shorter for 3 of us. Since one of the girls had very sore feet we were lagging behind when we saw all of the locals taking a short cut across a very narrow path raised up across the paddy field. It was certainly an interesting deviation especially when we had to nip through someones garden at the other end (strangely they were only too happy to be accomodating) and the others were quite surprised to come across us in front of them when they finally caught us up after taking at least 20 minutes off the walk back!
Not sure that the trip back to Tana is one i want to repeat in a hurry - particularly with the taxi brousse driver that we had; Slightly hairy would probably be an understatement when describing the speed, over taking and the general driving on the wrong side of the road when approaching bends in order to get the racing line!!!
We got a taxi brousse (sort of like a minibus but smaller and no leg room!) from Tana. The journey, heading west, took 3 hours but there was beautiful scenery all the way there. on arriving in Ampefy we found some lake side bungalows called the terrace. Everyone was pretty blown away by how stunning the surroundings were and we sat for a while on the veranda and watched the sun set on the little lake and all of the locals fishing from their piroges. We had an amazing meal in the terrace restaurant that evening and sampled the delights (or not) of various local flavoured rums, ranging from vanilla, ginger, pineapple, apple or house, with varying degrees of strength!!!!!!
Saturday morning started with breakfast in the sun on the veranda before heading off to see the chute de la lily (a local waterfall). 4 of the group decided to walk while 3 of us hired bikes. The bike itself was an experience - back to the days of cantilever breaks that actually may as well not have been fitted for the use they were when trying to stop!!! We cycled 4-5 km up the road along the side of lake Itasy (3rd largest lake in Madagascar), watching the locals swim, fish from piroges or just working in their paddy fields. Then the off road track started. It was by this stage that i was beginning to appreciate why i ride a full suspension bike when i go riding in the UK. The vibrations through the handle bars was very tiring, and actually managed to give one of the French boys blisters on his hands! We had to ask the way a few times when the track bifurcated and generally people were very helpful. There was one point however when some local boys pointed us down the wrong track. It didn't take us long to realise as the track was almost impossible to ride along due to the massive gulley's - guess they were just paying us back for refusing to take up their services as local guides!!!!! After about 5 km we had to leave our bikes with some locals and carry on one foot.
The falls themselves were very impressive and about 18m high. There is zip line that we could have taken across the waterfall but that experience will have to wait for another time.
The ride back from the falls was also eventful. No sooner had we set off than the saddle on my bike broke! The metal clamps that hold the saddle on to the seat post broke through the plastic of the saddle so i had to sit on the metal clamps all the way home, and i still have the bruises to prove it! Back at the bungalows we made use of the complimentary piroges. It was very entertaining watching everyone struggle to make them go in a straight line, in fact some of them just went round in circles!!!!! I think people were quite surprised and a little frustrated that i wasn't having such problems, especially as they had all taken the boats out in pairs and i had one by myself. Knowing how to use the paddle as a rudder and having on occasions paddled a open canoe may have helped with that!
Dinner that evening was a little disappointing, maybe because we had been spoilt the previous night, but having decided to try somewhere new, my poulet roti and chips turned out to be a chicken wing and few chips while vegetable soup turned out to contain meatballs - not great when the girls ordering it was a vegetarian!!! However we made up for it by returning to the previous nights restaurants for pudding - banana flamée. Having had such a small main course, pudding then extended to a a pancake as well much to everyone else's amusement - or maybe it was just the rum they were drinking again!!!!!
On Sunday morning we all headed off on foot for the island of the virgin Mary - which contrary to the title isn't an island but is attached by bit of land protruding out. The walk was very much like the Madagascar i had expected to see having read the guide books - the tracks were bright red mud and very dusty, surrounded by very lush vegetation and the lake side had many many paddy fields. Yet again the locals (all of whom seemed to be chewing sugar cane) greeted us and some even stopped us to a chat and we ended up having a short game of football with their young children, with the ball being made out of plastic bags and elastic bands all entwined.
There were stunning views over lakeItasy from the top of the hill on which the virgin Mary monument stood. All of the surrounding hills are extinct volcano's and the lake itself being one of the former craters. The walk back turned out to be slightly shorter for 3 of us. Since one of the girls had very sore feet we were lagging behind when we saw all of the locals taking a short cut across a very narrow path raised up across the paddy field. It was certainly an interesting deviation especially when we had to nip through someones garden at the other end (strangely they were only too happy to be accomodating) and the others were quite surprised to come across us in front of them when they finally caught us up after taking at least 20 minutes off the walk back!
Not sure that the trip back to Tana is one i want to repeat in a hurry - particularly with the taxi brousse driver that we had; Slightly hairy would probably be an understatement when describing the speed, over taking and the general driving on the wrong side of the road when approaching bends in order to get the racing line!!!
Arrived in Antananarivo
We arrive in tana just over a week ago. We are staying in a big house that is a 5 minute walk from the military hospital which is quite convenient. There are 30 other french qnd english medical students living in the house. We are currently in a room for 10 people which is noisy to say the least. The bathroom facilities are also a little stretched with us sharing 3 showers and 2 toilets, but at least its a step up the ladder from our accomodation in tamatave.
During the 1st week, jen and i worked in internal medicine while em did A&E. Alot more of the medicine is in french here which is really very hard work for me but both Jen and Em seem to be picking things up very quickly given their better linguistic skills! The hospital is very different to that in tamatave as it is not a public hospital and everyone has to pay for their treatment. Despite the increased level of medical interventions available things are still very basic compared with western standards.
This week all 3 of us are working in a&e. This is going to involve me taking a history from someone in french as well as work out what treatment to given with very limited intervention from any of the doctors here. Just a little daunting. At least my 24 hour shift is tomorrow night so i can get it over and done with at the beginning of the week.
During the 1st week, jen and i worked in internal medicine while em did A&E. Alot more of the medicine is in french here which is really very hard work for me but both Jen and Em seem to be picking things up very quickly given their better linguistic skills! The hospital is very different to that in tamatave as it is not a public hospital and everyone has to pay for their treatment. Despite the increased level of medical interventions available things are still very basic compared with western standards.
This week all 3 of us are working in a&e. This is going to involve me taking a history from someone in french as well as work out what treatment to given with very limited intervention from any of the doctors here. Just a little daunting. At least my 24 hour shift is tomorrow night so i can get it over and done with at the beginning of the week.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Andisibe National Park
Having been out for a farewell meal on Friday night with our Malagasy host families, we left Tamatave on Saturday morning at 6.30 am! Just as we had arrived in torrential rain, we departed in similar conditions!!! We took a taxi brousse to the national park: the taxi was destined for tana but Jens host had convinced the drived to take us up to the national park which was only about 3km out of the way but a significant distance with all our luggage. Em and Jen, having not read the guide book, were adamant that the driver should take us to the gates of the national park rather than the village a further 1km up the road. Unfortunately i couldnt persuade them otherwise and it wasnt till the taxi had driven off that they realised why i had wanted to go to the village - that was where all the accomodation was! So with all our worldly goods and the worlds most uncomfortable rucksack we went off in search of accomodation, still in the pissing rain!!!!!
We found some very nice bungalows with hot showers that were reasonably priced, deposited our bags and headed off to the park, for what we hoped was a bit of lemur spotting!!! No such luck. the best time to see the lemurs is first thing in the morning as they sleep in the afternoons. So instead we had a walk round an orchid park where there were also a lots of chamelens and gheckos.
Despite being a very small village, the restuarant in the evening was packed with vazaha (white people)!!! The meals were also very good. We headed back for an early night as we had an early start on Sunday morning. Not sure I had factored being woken by the noctural lemurs calling to each other in the middle of the night and then finding it very hard to get back to sleep.
WE arrived at the park at 7 the next morning to see the lemurs. The tracks into the forest started out quite wide and gradually got narrower and narrower. There were lots of things to see and the guide was very good at pointing things out: for examples plants that are used as herbal medicine treatments for fatigue and rabies etc. During the 4 hour walk we came across 2 groups of Indri lemurs (this is the only park in madagascar where this very endangered species of lemur lives). They treated us to their morning song which was a very loud and eerie call but very distinctie as none of the other lemur species calls in this way. The 1st group were very content with eating their breakfast while the 2nd group were much more lively and were jumping around between trees above our heads.They looked a little like giant Koalas wearing panda suits!!! While we were out we also saw some of the nocturnal lemurs that were trying to sleep - not sure they were all that impressed to be woken up!!!!!
After the park we went off to catch a taxi to Moramanga - this is always a bit of a hit and miss activity if you want to get somewhere for a certain time since the taxis only leave once they are full. 2 hours later the taxi was full, but then proceeded to continue picking people up all the way to moramanga. There were 23 seats in the minibus sized taxi - there were at least 40 of us by the time we arrived in Moramanga!!! Rather entertainingly, 8 of the other people on the bus were french medical students working at the military hospital in Tana and they were living at the residency where we were headed for. Very convenient, because not only did they make sure that the taxi between moramanga and tana took all 11 of us before selling the last 3 seats but they then showed us to the accomodation in Tana!!!!!
We found some very nice bungalows with hot showers that were reasonably priced, deposited our bags and headed off to the park, for what we hoped was a bit of lemur spotting!!! No such luck. the best time to see the lemurs is first thing in the morning as they sleep in the afternoons. So instead we had a walk round an orchid park where there were also a lots of chamelens and gheckos.
Despite being a very small village, the restuarant in the evening was packed with vazaha (white people)!!! The meals were also very good. We headed back for an early night as we had an early start on Sunday morning. Not sure I had factored being woken by the noctural lemurs calling to each other in the middle of the night and then finding it very hard to get back to sleep.
WE arrived at the park at 7 the next morning to see the lemurs. The tracks into the forest started out quite wide and gradually got narrower and narrower. There were lots of things to see and the guide was very good at pointing things out: for examples plants that are used as herbal medicine treatments for fatigue and rabies etc. During the 4 hour walk we came across 2 groups of Indri lemurs (this is the only park in madagascar where this very endangered species of lemur lives). They treated us to their morning song which was a very loud and eerie call but very distinctie as none of the other lemur species calls in this way. The 1st group were very content with eating their breakfast while the 2nd group were much more lively and were jumping around between trees above our heads.They looked a little like giant Koalas wearing panda suits!!! While we were out we also saw some of the nocturnal lemurs that were trying to sleep - not sure they were all that impressed to be woken up!!!!!
After the park we went off to catch a taxi to Moramanga - this is always a bit of a hit and miss activity if you want to get somewhere for a certain time since the taxis only leave once they are full. 2 hours later the taxi was full, but then proceeded to continue picking people up all the way to moramanga. There were 23 seats in the minibus sized taxi - there were at least 40 of us by the time we arrived in Moramanga!!! Rather entertainingly, 8 of the other people on the bus were french medical students working at the military hospital in Tana and they were living at the residency where we were headed for. Very convenient, because not only did they make sure that the taxi between moramanga and tana took all 11 of us before selling the last 3 seats but they then showed us to the accomodation in Tana!!!!!
Friday, July 06, 2007
The medicine In Tamatave
We spent the first 2 weeks of our stay here working in a clinic on the outskirts of Tamatave. A majority of the work load was for children mainly who had infections of one sort or another. Unlike the UK all the children are treated as if the infection is bacterial and a whole random assortment are dealt out; All children with a cough get cotrimoxazole. In addition all of the children are treted for worms every 3 months as they have a big problem with it here.
All medications have to be paid for although they seem quite cheap by western standards: 1 antibiotic tablt costs 0.5 pence. Despite this there are many people who cannot afford the medication.
The second set of 2 weeks we have been in the local hospital, mainly in the paediatrics department. It is quite sad as there is usually at least 1 death per day. The treatments and investigations here are very limited which doesnt help. However the single most common problem is that people dont bring there kids in till they are very very sick because they are worried about the cost since many cannot afford to pay. For example 1 child was taken to their GP in january and diagnosed with meningitis, given a prescription for antibiotics but the parents couldnt afford the antibiotics. 6 months on the child has the most enourmous hydrocephalus (water on the brain). The child needs to go to tana to have a shunt put in to drain it but the parents cannot afford the 4000 arary bus cost of getting there (3500 arary = 1 pound). So we are currently giving it antibiotics and draining 50 ml of fluid off its brain every few days knowing full well that its not going to cure the problem, confounded by the fact the parents have now run out of money for antibiotics. Thats a pretty standard example of medicine here.
All patients have to provide someone to stay with them and look after them, as well as providing all the sheets for the bed and implements to eat with and out of. the relatives then fetch rice in their own saucepans from the hospital canteen.
In addition its not helped by malagasy beliefs - if the parents dont think the newborn children will survive they dont buy it clothes, medicines etc etc.
All medications have to be paid for although they seem quite cheap by western standards: 1 antibiotic tablt costs 0.5 pence. Despite this there are many people who cannot afford the medication.
The second set of 2 weeks we have been in the local hospital, mainly in the paediatrics department. It is quite sad as there is usually at least 1 death per day. The treatments and investigations here are very limited which doesnt help. However the single most common problem is that people dont bring there kids in till they are very very sick because they are worried about the cost since many cannot afford to pay. For example 1 child was taken to their GP in january and diagnosed with meningitis, given a prescription for antibiotics but the parents couldnt afford the antibiotics. 6 months on the child has the most enourmous hydrocephalus (water on the brain). The child needs to go to tana to have a shunt put in to drain it but the parents cannot afford the 4000 arary bus cost of getting there (3500 arary = 1 pound). So we are currently giving it antibiotics and draining 50 ml of fluid off its brain every few days knowing full well that its not going to cure the problem, confounded by the fact the parents have now run out of money for antibiotics. Thats a pretty standard example of medicine here.
All patients have to provide someone to stay with them and look after them, as well as providing all the sheets for the bed and implements to eat with and out of. the relatives then fetch rice in their own saucepans from the hospital canteen.
In addition its not helped by malagasy beliefs - if the parents dont think the newborn children will survive they dont buy it clothes, medicines etc etc.
Last weekend in Tamatave
Our last weekend in Tamatave proved to be quite different to that which we may have anticipated!!!!
On the Friday lunchtime we had a phone call from Marc who was the englishman who owned the restaurant in foulepoint the previous weekend. We arranged to meet up for lunch and ended up going to the Bateau Ivre which is Tamataves poshest restaurants!! It turns out that his dad and step mum own the restaurant so we had a very posh lunch with them. They then invited us back for dinner with them. We returned for dinner where we also met the american couple who had set up the local captive breeding programme for lemurs and also the english couple who currently run the park. It was a very nice evening with massive platters of delicious fruits de mer and very very nice puddings!!! We stayed at their house on Friday night which had all the mod cons of living in western society.
The best thing about it all was the warm water on tap - I would like to say that Jen and I had had hot showers but hosed down with hot water would be a more accurate description after Em had managed to break their shower. Quite how we'll never know but she claims it fell apart in her hands!!!
On the saturday we went out to the lemur reserve. It was a 4 km walk from the main road where the taxi dropped us but the walk was very interesting with a local village where all the children greeted us as we passed through. There was a local quarry as all the locals were sat by the side of the road chipping big rocks down into stones 1 to 2 cm big ready for collection. There was also lots of beautiful plants and the road ran up the side of the river.
The park itself contained lemurs that were being bred in captivity as well as lemurs that had been released into the wild. In the late afternoon they all came down from the tree canopys and got really close. 1 cheeky lemur squeezed through the mesh into the enclosure with some captive lemurs in (the holes in the mesh being no larger than the palm of my hand). It then ate all the food in the pot and promptly left again. Another one was in the tree about 0.5 m above our head and held down its hand as if to touch us!!!!! There were also tortoises, cameleons and snakes in the park, although thankfully all the snakes here were captive!
We had a very amusing ride home in a very old renault 5 van with wooden bench seats in the back. Jen and I were too talk and kept hitting our heads on the ceiling so sat at the back with our heads stuicking out the top since the back door and ceiling didnt meet by about 40 cm. We had just dropped Em off and were on our way back to Jens when the van broke down among much smoke etc coming out of the engine. It was at this point we decided to walk the rest of the way!!!
The roads around tamatave are far far worse than any of the roads out of town come across out here. There are the most enormous holes in the road and all the vehicles, bikes, lorrys and pousse pousse swerve around all over the road to avoid the worst of the holes. As it rains so much here, the holes are often very large puddles so quite often end up wadding through them when they stretch all the way across the road. According to the locals the president and the tamatave mayor dont get on so the president has given no money for the upkeep of the city for many years which is why the roads are so bad. Apparently the mayor has just been put in prison and replaced so hopefully things will improve here soon.
On the Friday lunchtime we had a phone call from Marc who was the englishman who owned the restaurant in foulepoint the previous weekend. We arranged to meet up for lunch and ended up going to the Bateau Ivre which is Tamataves poshest restaurants!! It turns out that his dad and step mum own the restaurant so we had a very posh lunch with them. They then invited us back for dinner with them. We returned for dinner where we also met the american couple who had set up the local captive breeding programme for lemurs and also the english couple who currently run the park. It was a very nice evening with massive platters of delicious fruits de mer and very very nice puddings!!! We stayed at their house on Friday night which had all the mod cons of living in western society.
The best thing about it all was the warm water on tap - I would like to say that Jen and I had had hot showers but hosed down with hot water would be a more accurate description after Em had managed to break their shower. Quite how we'll never know but she claims it fell apart in her hands!!!
On the saturday we went out to the lemur reserve. It was a 4 km walk from the main road where the taxi dropped us but the walk was very interesting with a local village where all the children greeted us as we passed through. There was a local quarry as all the locals were sat by the side of the road chipping big rocks down into stones 1 to 2 cm big ready for collection. There was also lots of beautiful plants and the road ran up the side of the river.
The park itself contained lemurs that were being bred in captivity as well as lemurs that had been released into the wild. In the late afternoon they all came down from the tree canopys and got really close. 1 cheeky lemur squeezed through the mesh into the enclosure with some captive lemurs in (the holes in the mesh being no larger than the palm of my hand). It then ate all the food in the pot and promptly left again. Another one was in the tree about 0.5 m above our head and held down its hand as if to touch us!!!!! There were also tortoises, cameleons and snakes in the park, although thankfully all the snakes here were captive!
We had a very amusing ride home in a very old renault 5 van with wooden bench seats in the back. Jen and I were too talk and kept hitting our heads on the ceiling so sat at the back with our heads stuicking out the top since the back door and ceiling didnt meet by about 40 cm. We had just dropped Em off and were on our way back to Jens when the van broke down among much smoke etc coming out of the engine. It was at this point we decided to walk the rest of the way!!!
The roads around tamatave are far far worse than any of the roads out of town come across out here. There are the most enormous holes in the road and all the vehicles, bikes, lorrys and pousse pousse swerve around all over the road to avoid the worst of the holes. As it rains so much here, the holes are often very large puddles so quite often end up wadding through them when they stretch all the way across the road. According to the locals the president and the tamatave mayor dont get on so the president has given no money for the upkeep of the city for many years which is why the roads are so bad. Apparently the mayor has just been put in prison and replaced so hopefully things will improve here soon.
Monday, July 02, 2007
Independence day
We ended up having a 4 day weekend since independence day was on Tuesday 26th June. We went down to the beach on the Monday night and watched fireworks that were set off over the sea. It was absolutely rammed with people. The roads were also busier than I have seen them before. We got a cyclo posse home (richshaw thing pulled by a bike) which was eventful to say the least - the rider fell off twice, was almost knocked off by several cars, his brakes on the bike didnt work so stopping in the traffic jam with a trailor on the back was interesting. The final straw was the blow out puncture we had on the pousse at which point we got out to walk.
The independence day celebrations involved whatching alot of people, service men and local workers be honoured - they gqve out over 220 medals.................. They then a procession of lots of groups of people including school children, scouts, police, health care workers the disabled etc etc. It was topped off with a very nice lunch at Moniqes house and we then spent the afternoon waiting for some perormance to start............ African time though as was supposed to start at 3 ans still hadnt at 5.15 when we gave up waiting.
Hope everyone at home is well and surviving the flooding. Hope yur head doesnt hurt too much today Si and that u dont get left with too bad a scar for the wedding photos!!!!!!!!! (Having problems accessing uni email so if you want to mail me use sarahlouisepotter at gmail dot com
The independence day celebrations involved whatching alot of people, service men and local workers be honoured - they gqve out over 220 medals.................. They then a procession of lots of groups of people including school children, scouts, police, health care workers the disabled etc etc. It was topped off with a very nice lunch at Moniqes house and we then spent the afternoon waiting for some perormance to start............ African time though as was supposed to start at 3 ans still hadnt at 5.15 when we gave up waiting.
Hope everyone at home is well and surviving the flooding. Hope yur head doesnt hurt too much today Si and that u dont get left with too bad a scar for the wedding photos!!!!!!!!! (Having problems accessing uni email so if you want to mail me use sarahlouisepotter at gmail dot com
The weekend at Foulpointe
As I had to finish the last post I was writing about the beach quite abruptly as I was going to be late back from work, I start again!!!!!
We arrived at Foulepointe on Saturday lunchtime amidst pouring raining. We were escorted there by one of Jens hosts, not sure they think we are capable of sorting stuff by ourselves!!! He then proceeded to introduce us to a friend of his and asked her to take us to church with her on sunday morning.... before helping us find a bungalow. He then started to show us round, although the routs he took us were somewhat off the beaten track and involved wading through knee high streams and jumping muddy ditches only to then have to exit the field through someones front gate!
The weather got better after lunch and after Jose had gone home we headed off to the beach where we were offered hundreds of necklaces, alot of which were made out of stuff we definately wouldnt have been able to import to the UK!!! We then spent the evening in a very french fish restaurant by the sea. The malagasy wine was interesting to say the least but still drinkable.
Sunday morning its was absolutely chucking down with rain again. Ventured next door to the rather inoquous looking restaurant only to discover it was run by an englishman, Marc. He was extremely surprised to see any english people let alone 3 of us since he might see 1 per year at best. Breakfast turned out to be free and we spent most of the morning chatting and waiting for the rain to stop. Eventually at 3 pm it did and we ventured out of town to the old fort whose walls have rocks on the inside and are covered on the outside by coral and shells stuck on with egg whites! We ate at Marc's restaurant in the evening: watched shaun of the dead while waiting for dinner, although I am not sure how much the other dinners appreciated it since the humour was very british!!! We were very pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food, Em and Jen had large pieces of duck while I had Zebu steaks - one would have been sufficient but ended up with 3 pieces bigger than the palm of my hand and about 1.5 inches thick. We paid for the food but the drinks for the rest of the evening just kept on appearing free of charge!!!!
On Monday we were met at the beach by Olga who I am staying with and Moniqe (Ems host) and some of her family. We hired some pirogues with guides. These and dug out canoe type things with a stabiliser on one side made from another smaller tree trunk and they are punted along..... We went out to see the coral reef and the managed to see sea urchins, cucumbers, serpants, star fish and very fun blue and black stripy fish that the guide attracted by crushing up sea urchins and pouring the remains into the water. The trip wasnt particularly environmentally friendly as he then pulled up a lump of coral to show us!!!!!!
The drive home was long................mainly on account of getting in a taxi-brousse which proceeded to drive around foulepointe for an hour and 20 minutes before leaving trying to drum up more passengers. It was less eventful on the way home since we didnt have to get out of the bus and wade though the river, maybe because the van was less laden, althought the unladen taxi behind up who had made his passengers wade though proceeded to get the van stuck and we had a good giggle at them trying to push it out as we drove off!!!!
We arrived at Foulepointe on Saturday lunchtime amidst pouring raining. We were escorted there by one of Jens hosts, not sure they think we are capable of sorting stuff by ourselves!!! He then proceeded to introduce us to a friend of his and asked her to take us to church with her on sunday morning.... before helping us find a bungalow. He then started to show us round, although the routs he took us were somewhat off the beaten track and involved wading through knee high streams and jumping muddy ditches only to then have to exit the field through someones front gate!
The weather got better after lunch and after Jose had gone home we headed off to the beach where we were offered hundreds of necklaces, alot of which were made out of stuff we definately wouldnt have been able to import to the UK!!! We then spent the evening in a very french fish restaurant by the sea. The malagasy wine was interesting to say the least but still drinkable.
Sunday morning its was absolutely chucking down with rain again. Ventured next door to the rather inoquous looking restaurant only to discover it was run by an englishman, Marc. He was extremely surprised to see any english people let alone 3 of us since he might see 1 per year at best. Breakfast turned out to be free and we spent most of the morning chatting and waiting for the rain to stop. Eventually at 3 pm it did and we ventured out of town to the old fort whose walls have rocks on the inside and are covered on the outside by coral and shells stuck on with egg whites! We ate at Marc's restaurant in the evening: watched shaun of the dead while waiting for dinner, although I am not sure how much the other dinners appreciated it since the humour was very british!!! We were very pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food, Em and Jen had large pieces of duck while I had Zebu steaks - one would have been sufficient but ended up with 3 pieces bigger than the palm of my hand and about 1.5 inches thick. We paid for the food but the drinks for the rest of the evening just kept on appearing free of charge!!!!
On Monday we were met at the beach by Olga who I am staying with and Moniqe (Ems host) and some of her family. We hired some pirogues with guides. These and dug out canoe type things with a stabiliser on one side made from another smaller tree trunk and they are punted along..... We went out to see the coral reef and the managed to see sea urchins, cucumbers, serpants, star fish and very fun blue and black stripy fish that the guide attracted by crushing up sea urchins and pouring the remains into the water. The trip wasnt particularly environmentally friendly as he then pulled up a lump of coral to show us!!!!!!
The drive home was long................mainly on account of getting in a taxi-brousse which proceeded to drive around foulepointe for an hour and 20 minutes before leaving trying to drum up more passengers. It was less eventful on the way home since we didnt have to get out of the bus and wade though the river, maybe because the van was less laden, althought the unladen taxi behind up who had made his passengers wade though proceeded to get the van stuck and we had a good giggle at them trying to push it out as we drove off!!!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
