Diane

Today was another long travel day. A 6+ hour drive from the Mantadia lodge to the Tana airport. We got there in time for check-in which was uneventful- yes you read that right- uneventful- we had no issues. Our tour company had been very, very helpful. They gave Tibor a large duffle bag and he put his smaller duffle bag and backpack into the large duffle bag and now he has one checked-bag. We just brought our one checked bag and one carry on bag and all was well. Another waiver of over-weight luggage.

Our flight from Tana to Morondava airport was a little over an hour and then we had a hour and a half drive to Camp Amoureux (now called Akiba Lodge). Our guide said he was taking us to Akiba Lodge and I asked him if he we sure because we had booked a different lodge. It’s the same place- it just has a new name.

We drove thru the avenue of Baobabs, which was quite fun but a bit crowded- especially after we have been just the two of us at all the places the last few days.

This camp hires staff from the local village.

I haven’t been feeling too well(fatigued, low grade fever, sore throat) these last few days, so the first day(26th) at Mantadia Lodge I slept most of the day while Tibor went on the walks. The second day(27th) we asked for a doctor. He came right to our room to diagnose the issue. Turns out I have a severe case of Strep throat. The doctor actually exclaimed and took a step back when he saw my throat- no wonder the Tylenol wasn’t taking care of it- only antibiotics work for the Strep throat bacterial infection. The doctor wanted to give me an IV right there in the room- I declined. He prescribed two different antibiotics and throat lozenges which he had in his very small laptop-sized black bag.

I felt better almost instantly after the first pill! It’s amazing what antibiotics can do. I did skip all of the walks on the 27th too.

But on the 28th I went full out with Tibor:

• a morning walk in the rain in a local community run primary forest- it was amazing
  • I turned around about half way and waited for Tibor and in a small covered waiting area; and then in the car when I got cold
• Back to the lodge for lunch and rest
• Afternoon visit to Lemur Island- a rehabilitation center for lemurs that used to be pets
• Back to the lodge for another rest
• Night walk along the nearby road

Then it was time for dinner and packing for our very early departure on the 29th.

We left the dry spiny forests(Berenty Lodge) for higher elevation and rain(Mantadia Lodge). We startedfrom Berenty Lodge on August 25th with an hour and a half drive to the Tolanaro Airport. We got there in plenty of time to check in. Check-in involved another issue with luggage- turns out that a backpack strapped to a duffle bag is considered 2 pieces and we are only allowed one checked-bag per person. After a short discussion which involved some yelling and Tibor being escorted back to the passenger side of the counter, we had a solution. A black garbage bag and duck tape to the rescue- put both bags into the garbage bag and duck tape it shut- viola it’s now a single checked bag.

Again they waived the over-weight luggage fees.

The 2-hour flight was to Tana. We were then driven 30 minutes or so to a very lovely hotel in Tana- Maison Gallieni.

The next day(26th) we drove almost 7 hours to get to the Mantadia Lodge. I was expecting a 3 1/2 hour drive but it was interesting and I slept/rested most of the way.

Berenty Lodge in the Berenty Reserve is our first ‘real’ stop in Madagascar.  The lodge is in the middle of the private Berenty Reserve and is surrounded by large sisal plantations.  The sisal plantations are monoculture so it is very clear where the reserve starts.  We will spend three nights here.

Berenty Lodge did not disappoint- we saw the iconic Madagascar Ringtail Lemur as well as the Verreaux sifika.  The sifika are very similar to a lemur but are more elongated and primate like.  The sifika is known as the dancing lemur because they cannot ‘walk’ on the ground because their physic is designed to climb trees- they kinda dance- it’s a move very like the ones that are done in a soccer warm-up.  Shuffle step left, turn, shuffle step right.  The sifika kinda jump between each step.  We also got to see the very small mouse lemur- it weighs about 3 ounces.  The lemurs are right at the lodge.

I liked the lemurs until they started pooping on our porch!  The staff clean up very quickly but it sure curbed my interest in sitting on the nice couch on the porch.  And it made me even more interested in keeping the door to our room closed.

We saw our first Baobab tree of Madagascar and got to walk in the Spiny forest which as the name suggests is full of thorny and spiny plants.  We are here in the middle of the dry season so there isn’t much water around and the air and ground are very dry.

We also enjoyed the night hikes where we saw more mouse lemurs and chameleons.

It was a straight-forward flight from Johannesburg(aka Joberg) to Antananarivo(aka Tana) and we got a kick out of seeing the double-decker, large jet plane right next to our small plane. We spent the night in Tana and the next morning we flew from Tana to another airport- they kinda change the names or rather places have multiple names so when we were in the airport we were looking for Tolanaro but the signs were for Tolagnaro. Luckily there was only one flight for the time we were supposed to leave but I did start looking for the flight number instead of for the place name. By the way this airport is the airport for the town of Fort-Dauphin.

We did have a bit of a surprise when we got the check-in- the internal flights only allow one SMALL carry on (and you know how much we like our multiple big carry ons) and, not unexpectedly, our luggage was overweight. After a bit of a scramble, I managed to move stuff around until I had one carry on and the agent allowed Tibor to have two carry ons so we were cleared. They waived the weight limit- the checked bag has a weight limit and the carry on has a weight limit and we were overweight on both.

Once we landed at Tolagnaro, we collected our luggage, guide and driver and headed into town to find webbing and buckles to connect one of Tibor’s carry on bags to his big checked bag so he’d have one checked bag next time. It’s so interesting in the towns to see a tire repair place next to a bakery which is next to a veggie stand which is next to a sundry shop….It’s also fun to see all the transportation options- foot, bicycle, tuktuk, trike, van, bus, truck…

It was about an hour and a half drive to the lodge and we saw the famous Zebu cows along the way. And we say many, many bags of charcoal being hauled to the big city of Fort-Dauphin.