Weird and wonderful Malagasy vegetation

Madagascar certainly is home to some weird plants. The south-west of the country is very unusual in its botanical inhabitants and we saw many of them while travelling around, as well as in the Reniala Nature Reserve near Toliara.

We met loads of baobabs, those iconic giant trees that look like they've drunk too much water and grow so slooooowly that 'saplings' can be already 50 years old. Madagascar has seven species of baobab, some with beautiful red bark, and they are important to people because they hold water, the fruit is edible, the bark is used for construction and the leaves are used for medicinal tea. Many of the trees are also sacred. The fruit, called 'renala', is oval-shaped, brown and fuzzy, with seeds inside. The baobabs at the Avenue du Baobab are estimated at over 1000 years old.

We also came across some arid-tolerant, cactus-like plants called alluadua, with their long, spiky stems with vicious looking spines, and tiny green leaves growing between them.

Another unusual, and endangered plant that we came across was the pachypodium, or elephant's foot, which also grows in the arid areas of the south-west. I loved this one...

Apparently 30% of the plants in Madagascar's forests are medicinal, and for this reason alone, preserving its native forest is extremely important. For example, the Madagscar rosy periwinkle was recently discovered to possess anti-cancer properties and has since been used to produce anti-cancer drugs.

Unbelievably, over 80% of the country's forest has been cleared and continues to be cleared at an alarming rate. This is due to human pressure - for planting rice, creating grassland for grazing zebu, timber for construction and making charcoal. Interestingly hardly any of the forest is replanted, and as a result there are miles and miles of barren landscapes; gully erosion is rife and one of  Madagascar's most serious environmental issues.

In some places though, there are hillsides of plantations - but guess which species? Eucalypts! (yet another marauding Australian species...) Apparently over 120 species have been planted here because they are good for their timber, are fast-growing and their leaves are used for medicinal purposes. Scarily, they are begining to take over the landscape. There are some pine and silky oak plantations too, but eucalypts dominate the landscape (in the few places where people have revegetated the miles and miles of barren, cleared hills. Its really disturbing how much has gone).
The national parks that protect much of the remaining forest have only secondary forest - most of the big trees are gone. It's a very fragmented system too, so there's no connections between most of them.

In many areas the traveller's palm is a dominant species, which grows rapidly and has flourished in areas where the forest has been destroyed. It's so named because it apparently always grows in a northerly direction, providing navigation, plus stores water inside, which can be accessed by thirsty travellers! This beautiful and unique plant is a national symbol of the country.

We continued to be amazed at the unique flora and fauna of this beautiful country. I just hope that the government sees fit to conserve it ... because if things continue they way they are, there soon won't be much of it left. And that makes me really sad.

Easter in Mangily & grossed out in Toliara

Besides having to sleep in its hospital, Mangily was a nice place to be for a few days! We had our ocean-facing bungalows; a champion host called Maurice that liked a drink or ten; hammocks to lounge about in; a beautiful beach to swim at; and G&Ts to slurp in the Mangily hotel up the road. We wandered around, up to Ifaty town, teasing the kids on our way, admiring the brightly painted pirogues, collecting shells, finding random things along the beach.

The main beach was packed on Easter Sunday - everyone was there: the beautiful young Malagasy girls in their bikinis; kids splashing around in the surf; families strolling along the beach; the pirogue captains making a week's wages in one day ferrying people back and forth from Ifaty village; young men impatiently awaiting the boxing match that day; the vazahas watching it all from their pricey hotels while they ate their overpriced food.

We headed to Toliara, a major town on the west coast of Madagascar, our jumping off point for heading east up Route Nationale 7. This town is nothing spectacular but we liked it - it was busy, colourful, with a bunch of old, weathered buildings and broken footpaths but a vibrant market and city centre. It was also useful for topping up the cash supplies and anything else we needed. A bit of civilisation was also good after our 'rural' adventures...

But 'civilisation' attracts vazaha. And there are plenty of them living in Toliara, as well as many other major Madagascan centres, as we soon found out. Most of them are old, fat, disgusting French men that drive around ON QUAD BIKES. What the?! Shorts and sneakers seem to be the normal attire - even to go out for dinner - and even worse, they get around with no shirts on during the day. They look ridiculous! Surely they must be aware of how they appear to the outside world - especially to other vazaha. But unfortunately the women they attract clearly don't. It made me feel so mad, and sickened, to see beautiful, young, willing Malagasy girlfriends (or prostitutes? I could never tell) hanging off their arms, dressed to the nines, clearly taking any opportunity they can get, but having to sacrifice any taste in men that they may have had.

When I compare the young, fit, good looking Malagasy men with these horrible, wrinkly old Frogs, I feel sad for the women; but of course they do whatever they can to improve their financial situation, for their own benefit and their families'. Most Malagasy men just don't have any money, which is what they need to attract a wife. And these vazaha, while gross, provide that for them - and of course are more than willing to accept offers of companionship from these beautiful African women. What man wouldn't? 

The truck ride from heeeeeellllll!

What started out as a nice, early morning ride, watching the light gradually come on as the sun rose over the spiky silhouettes of the euphorbia in the surrounding landscape, interspersed with magnificent baobabs, turned into a fun little adventure... of epic trucking proportions! (hmmm ... sorry for using the word epic, it's way too common these days).

First up, it took us around 1 1/2 hours to actually leave Morombe, the driver doing a few laps of town in the dark (4am!) to pick up the various passengers, the truck still quite empty. When we eventually left, the road was rather sandy and bumpy in places, and we rattled along, stopping here and there to pick up other passengers along the way, our driver getting out to chat to just about everyone in every little village. Eventually we reached quite a major town, where a number of people boarded - but we were grounded there for over an hour, loading onto the truck what seemed like over 50 bags of rice. Many of them were piled onto the roof, but once its capacity was reached, the bags were loaded underneath the seats. Not so good for our already cramped seating arrangements! The little wooden benches with their metal edges weren't so comfy, and we now had very little leg room for the remainder of the trip - and we completely underestimated how long that would be...

The scenery between villages was quite beautiful and helped to take our minds off our rapidly numbing legs: rice padis smattered with hard-working villagers, busily thrashing out the valuable seeds; large swathes of dry, prickly forest dotted with pregnant baobabs. But it passed quite slowly as we seemed to stop so frequently to pick up passengers, our socialite driver who knew anyone and everyone paying scant regard to getting on the road. Soon the truck was full, not only of people but of ducks, chickens and turkeys in large round cages. These also went up onto the roof, along with the other large items such as crates of bottles, suitcases and bicycles, and any spare feathered creatures were stuffed under the seats with the rice. At a guess there were around 100 chickens travelling with us! We had to stop a few times to make them a bit more comfortable, when their squawking became loud enough over the din of the reggae music blaring out of the speakers, the general chatter of the passengers and the revving of the engine.

From here we were really starting to feel the seats biting into our arses, the roughness of the crappy road, the whipping of the trees reaching into the windows, and the repetitiveness of the same reggae record being played over and over again. We asked our fellow passengers how long it would be til we reached Mangily, and they said 'only three more hours' - to our dismay. Night was falling and we were starting to feel a bit worried ...

A half-hour stop for an invisible obstacle that grounded 5 trucks on the road, a dinner stop and mechanical tinkering, and after what seemed a million years, we reached Mangily; not that we would have known it - in fact we almost missed it, the driver not realising we wanted to get off! - and we were dumped unceremoniously on the road in the middle of the night, our bags thrown down from the roof top. It was 1am on Easter Saturday. And what faced us? Darkness. Everything closed. A pumping nightclub, not the place we really wanted to sit until daybreak!

So we decided to head towards our the hotel and see if they would take us in. There were no street lights or signs, and we felt a bit lost about what to do next. We heard some singing coming from a nearby church, and headed towards it in our dazed and confused state, asking if anyone could help us with somewhere to sleep for the night. Thank goodness it was Easter Saturday, and that they were practicing for the big church service the next dayotherwise no-one would have been around at all! 

We were very grateful when one man came forward and said he was the security guard both at the church and the hospital up the road, and that there was a guard's room that we could stay in til sunrise. But we'd have to leave then, as foreigneres aren't usually allowed to crash there! Given it was 1:30am by this time, and all we wanted to do was stretch out and sleep this was a Godsend. (literally? Who knows.)

So we followed him up the sandy path to the hospital. It's not every day I can say that I spent Easter Saturday night sleeping in a hospital. They even had foam mattresses, a candle and a bathroom that we could use. Sweet!

We got up at first light the next morning, packed our bags, profusely thanked the security guards, handed them 10,000 Ariary and headed toward the beach. To our dismay when we arrived, the hotel was closed. Noooooooooo....! But to our delight, the old man watching the place said he could open up one of the bungalows for us; while it didn't have running water or electricity it was perfect - it looked out over the ocean, and had a well for water just up the hill. SOLD! We were happy with anything after our little trucking adventure. And so we settled in Mangily for a few days, to rest our weary bones. Phewwww....

More pirogue-ing - ocean style!

I've gotta say, I'm not so good at this relaxing caper. I get sick of it after about a day. It was time to leave Morondava; we clearly hadn't had enough of sitting in a cramped little wooden boat, so we decided that we would make our way down the coast to the little fishing village of Morombe in an ocean pirogue.

Farewell, Morondava, place of drunken evenings and lost cash ...

And so I find myself lying on the sail of our ocean pirogue, having set up camp for the night in a little fishing village called Ankevo. We are almost at the end of day one of a 3-4 day journey from Morondava to Morombe.

So, you think a sailing trip on an ocean pirogue, its white sail billowing in the wind while you cruise down the coast, past boat-building workshops, estuaries, sand dunes and villages, sounds nice and romantic?

Think again. When the wind has died, you're not going anywhere, the midday sun is beating down on your narrow boat with no comforts except a life jacket to sit on and your backpack to lean on, and little room to move, it's rather unpleasant! But... when the wind picks up, you're skipping along with the breeze at your back, watching the coastline pass slowly by, the small fishing pirogues out getting their daily catch, a dolphin or two leaping out of the water, it's simply grand.

Spending each night wrapped up in the sail of your boat, looking up at the stars, the wind blowing across your face while you drift off to sleep, is also a pretty special experience.

What I didn't expect was to see a fleet of fishing trawlers out raping the ocean, their metal arms protruding out aggressively, dragging their massive nets behind them. But I've forgotten about them now that we've landed, and Silver and Eric (our piroguese) are cooking the prawns and fish that we bought off the beach when we arrived.

We spent three days in our pirogue, cruising along each day, keeping an eye out for flying fish, pods of dolphins and jellyfish bobbing along the surface, watching the distant shore change slowly from small villages to coastal shrubs to huge sand dunes. We finally made it to Morombe at nightfall on the third day - and were we glad that the journey didn't last for four days! It was quite enough, thanks. I'm not sure my butt would have survived another day on those hard wooden planks. I was happy to stretch my legs in the knowledge that our next form of transport would be by road.

If only I'd known that this road journey would almost be as excruciating as three days in an ocean pirogue ...

Guavas, avocadoes, persimmons ...

locuts (which i haven't eaten, nor really seen, since I was a kid and my grandma had a tree)
custard apples
Chinese guavas (red, not yellow)
mandarins
bananas
apples
papaya
pineapple
jackfruit
passionfruit
rambutans
mangosteens! (my absolute FAVOURITE ... but a bit too expensive. D'oh!)

...and of course other random fruits I've never seen.

Theres even the fruit here that looks like it has armadillo skin; i remember it from Liberia, but I can't remember its name.

YUM!

Morondava and rhum arrange

Rhum arrange (n): the (in)famous Madagascan fruit-infused moonshine, with an alcohol content to knock your socks off.

Morondava: the location of a number of days of lounging around by the beach, staying in beautiful wooden bungalows, watching the fisherman bring in their catch, swimming, reading and relaxing.

We enjoyed the company of our new-found Japanese friends Kenta, You and Rie and their wonderful cooking habits, including charcoal-barbequed prawns and fish on the beach, and chicken hot-pot cooked inside their bungalow, out of the wind, the feathery remnants of the chicken still flying around the hotel grounds.

"When exactly are you leaving?" the bemused hotel staff asked them after they had plucked their unlucky feathered friend and attempted unsuccessfully to dispose of all of the feathers.

A Madagascan personality I won't forget in a hurry is Rasta Jean. The quietly spoken, over-relaxed rasta Malagasy owner of L'Oasis Bar and Hotel had certainly put in a lot of work on that head of dreads of his, not to mention his pot smoking habit. He'd also clearly practiced his 'legalise' song quite a lot, which he played a number of times in between the jam session of his loyal followers, all the while handing out free rhum shots to his guests in the front bar. These guests included myself and You, who had stayed in the bar long after Anna had taken a drunken Kenta home, but soon the guest numbers dwindled - especially after You took off as well, leaving me none the wiser in the bar after returning from the bathroom. So in defiance, I decided to stay, hanging out with a lovely English lass and her beautiful, dreadlocked, tall, muscly boyfriend, and convinced them to take me to the local nightclub with one of the best names ever: My Lord.

On arrival, after carving up the dance floor, attempting to dance African style, I headed to the bar and made instant friends with the bar girl by ordering a way-too-strong vodka, and a drink for her, when really I didn't need any more alcohol after all the shots of that lethal rhum that Rasta Jean had handed out.

So, my memories of the place after being behind the bar and talking to the cute guy that had followed me to the club were basically nil, and I woke up in a random house the next day, the bright sun shining in the open door, no-one around, my bag still over my shoulder. Unfortunately someone - whether it be the bar girl, the cute guy or some other random - had taken the liberty of removing all of the cash from my wallet after delivering me safely to the couch. But THANKfully, they had left me unharmed, and spared me my camera and credit cards. So everything was intact except my cash - and of course my dignity.

I stumbled around for a while, the elderly inhabitant paying me no attention, as if the sight of a disoriented vazaha woman in his house was a normal occurrence, and finally walked out into the hot sun and the local market before making my way back to concerned friends and a comfy bed.

Thank goodness Morondava was a good place to chill out for the next couple of days. I gradually got my dignity back, after a good sleep, an explanation of what I thought happened, and then those dreaded flashbacks which filled in some of the gaps. But not all of them.

Note to self: watch how much you drink on holiday.

Noted. Gratefully.

A day-trip out to sit amongst the ancient baobabs was one way to take my mind off the events of that evening. Getting there by motorbike certainly got the pulse racing, especially when the roads are not of the highest calibre, being sandy in many places, and the chances of stacking it are rather high. Anna may be a very competent rider, but the road in one place was no match for her! So over we went, luckily escaping any injuries nor damage to the bike. We visited the Baobab d'Amour, an unusual sight of two baobabs that had grown very close together and subsequently entwined themselves in each other's romantic embrace. Awwww....! Giving it an embrace of my own, I hoped that I might be more lucky in love! And of course the few hours we spent walking amongst giants, this time in the bright sunlight, was again a highlight of the trip. The Avenue really is a magical place.

Three days in a leaky boat

... actually, watertight pirogue would be more accurate. No leaks. Thank goodness!

But I digress. First we had to get to the Tsiribinha River. So we packed our bags and left Tana for the west, travelling to Miandrivazo via Antsirabe with our three new Japanese travelling companions. The scenery around Tana is amazing: every available piece of land in the valleys planted with rice, the local people busily harvesting the small padis; piles of fluorescent orange persimmons and juicy pineapples for sale on the roadside; balconies crammed with bright yellow ears of maize, drying in the sun; aluminium cars and trucks made from coke cans arranged in little wooden stands; gushing waterfalls hidden behind stalls of raffia handicrafts targeted at tourists. The terraced hillsides, mountains in the distance and beautiful valleys with terracotta-red houses adjacent to rice padis.

But what astounded me most was the sheer extent of erosion and land degradation of this beautiful countryside. All of the trees cleared for constuction, firewood or to create grassland for grazing zebu, the hills now bare, there is nowhere for the water to go but down - taking the red soil with it. So many areas are now rife with it, the rivers a muddy red-brown and the gullies like open wounds on the landscape. But as we drove into Miandrivazo early that evening, we were treated to a beautiful sunset over the mountains and this problem was forgotten ... for now.

First task early the next day: carting our luggage to the river, where we were to depart in our river pirogue. Calling all pousse-pousse drivers! The humble pousse-pousse, similar to the rickshaw, is a major form of transport for people and goods in small towns in Madagascar, and their brightly painted forms and unique identifying slogans are a common sight. While well-designed and well-balanced, they're still hard work - as I discovered when lugging around the bags of five vazaha, to the amusement of the locals!

With our guide at the stern and his two accomplices Joseph and Elia at the rear, we set off from the ferry landing to a crowd of on-lookers, lined up in the pirogue one behind the other, our luggage crammed in between us, slathered in sunscreen, hats and sarongs to protect us from the harsh sun.

The next 2 1/2 days would be spent cruising slowly along the Tsiribhina River, watching the scenery slide by, spotting herons and nightcrowns, finches and crocodiles, chameleons and lemurs peering down at us from the tree canopies and eroded river banks, mats of water hyacinth accompanying us on our way. We camped in tents at a village on the first night, and on a sand bank on the second, enjoyingh te cooking of our guides, telling storeis around the campfire and playing with the local kids. The large red river was continually with us, its gold-specked sand smothered by the red clay, washed in by the rains and forever sticking to the soles of our feet as we walked. Lunch on the first day was served next ot a beautiful waterfall in which we leisurely splashed around until our food was ready. Life is good! Mora-mora...

We finally arrived at the end of our boat journey - but there was one more part to go: the famous and oft-photographed Avenue du Baobab.

We arrived just as the sun was setting, but were still able to spend some time amongst these beautiful, 1000+ year old giants. While we weren't the only visitors - it was the first time I'd really seen a number of tourists in one place in Madagscar, and there were still a handful of them, plus the locals passing through on their zebu carts - we still felt we had them to ourselves, as the sun set and the mighty trees cast their long shadows and reflections in the small wetlands dotted around. It really is a special place and one I plan on visiting again.

Where the streets have long names ...

... or none at all! Welcome to Antananarivo, Madagascar's capital, and the one with the longest name in the WORLD (although I wonder if Ougadougou in Burkina Faso just beats it?) Anyway, no-one calls this town by its actual name. Tana, or Tanarive, it is.

And speaking of long names, let me give you an example of the street names. Rue Rainibetsimisaraka. Or Rue Razanakombana. Even the names of some of the parks are difficult to pronounce! Jardin d'Antanimbarinandriana; I give up! Actually it doesnt really matter, as most streets don't have signs anywhere anyway so it doesn't matter if you can't pronounce them. Just keep walking til you find yourself lost. Its very easy to do here. We've spent the last couple of days doing it.

But I think I may have just found my new favourite city.

Tana is beautiful; on the on hand it feels like Europe, with its terracotta-tiled roofs, cobblestone streets, brightly painted buildings and MANY stairs - this city was built in a very hilly place, and you definitely get a workout wandering around. But doing so is much more a pleasure than a chore, especially in the Haute-ville which still has that old French colonial villa feel. The rest of the city slams you back into Africa, from first glance; its hectic and dirty and smelly, there's rubbish lying around and beggars asking for money, not to mention the pickpockets at the very vibrant and busy markets selling everything from car batteries to torches to traditional medicine and all sorts of fruit and vegetables.

But its the people here that have surprised me most; it's such a diverse and interesting mix. The people here are called 'Malagasy', which means 'Malaysian (Mala) people (gasy)'; hundreds of years ago, people came by sea from Malaysia and Indonesia to settle here; they are most evident in the central (where Tana is) and north/eastern parts of the country. We often wanted to start speaking Bahasa Indonesia to them! Others came from Africa, mainly from Kenya I think, and settled in the western regions. And there is also an Arabic influence. So when I look around at the people here, I don't just think of Africa - I think Indonesia and the middle east too. It's a real melting pot - there are those with the typical dark African skin and hair, some very light-skinned (and dark-skinned) 'Indonesians,' with more Asian features, and everything in between.

From what I've heard of the language, there is a real mix of influences too. Some words are similar to Indonesian, but the language is difficult to understand to my ear. Hopefully I'll pick up a bit of it while I'm here. So far: 'salaama' - hello. One down, a million to go...

Sitting atop the highest hill of Tana is the Rova, which is the old royal palace for the Medina Kings and Queens that ruled Tana before French colonisation. Its unfortunately closed due to slow renovations from a fire that happened there a few years ago, but what was salvaged from the palace is housed in a nearby museum (which has another massively long name that I can't remember!), which used to be the Prime Minister's residence. Interestingly, the last 3 Queens of pre-colonial Madagascar all married the one Prime Minister, who was a nasty piece of work. He killed his first wife, in order to marry her cousin, who then became the second Queen; she then died of the flu not long after they married, and the Prime Minister then helped himself to a third, and much younger, woman to marry and crown the third Queen, before the Frenchies came along.

This city lends itself very well to just wandering around (and up and down...) for a few days. I havent gotten tired of it at all; its really beautiful. Every little passageway leads to a new view of the city, another crumbling abandoned mansion, a small art gallery or artisan's shop, another old cinema or Salon du The in which you can sit and watch the world go by, nonchalantly munching on your baguette and drinking your coffee. The French certainly did leave a good legacy food-wise.

But we can't stay here forever, as pleasant as it is. So it was great that a guide randomly approached us one night and asked whether we'd like to make a river trip by pirogue to accompany 3 Japanese tourists.Why not? We were planning on doing it anyway :)

Three days cruising in a pirogue, spotting lemurs and watching river life go by? I can handle that. So, Tsiribinha River, here we come!

Golly gosh, a safari!

I've always said that I don't like the idea of safaris because I was always worried about seeing more jeeps than animals. Not to mention that they're one of the most expensive things you can do in Kenya (which, surprisingly, is quite an expensive place). However, Anna and I decided, after some advice from various people, and given it is currenly low season, that we would head to the world famous Masaai Mara National Park and do some animal spotting, aka 'game drives'. I find this term rather perculiar - like we're going hunting the big 5 or something - but that's what its called.

So, Monday morning we jumped into our white pop-top van - perfect for scanning the countryside for elusive creatures - and headed off towards Lake Naivasha, before turning off toward the town of Narok and entering Masaai country. Dry, dusty, with scarce, thorny vegetation dotted around and not much else besides herds of cattle, goats and sheep being driven by red blanked-cloaked Masaai men across the countryside in search of food. Here and there we passed shabby towns dotted in between the Masaai villages with their telltale circular fences made of tree branches for keeping the animals at night.

Even before we reached the gate (not before enduring the backbreaking, pot-holed road for a good 5 hours) there were herds of zebra and giraffes grazing elegantly, nonchalantly watching us as we passed, wary families of warthogs trotting off with raised tails and solid African buffalo chewing their cud.

It was straight into the 'game drive' when we arrived late afternoon, and for the next couple of hours we drove the grassland plains of the Mara looking for our soon-to-be-familiar companions in the park. While it's low season, which thankfully means few tourists, this is because there are also few animals - not huge numbers of them that you see in David Attenborough's nature documentaries. Its the end of the dry season and only the animals that stayed in the Mara - choosing not to migrate back to the Serengeti in Tanzania with the others - were to be found. Come August/Sept the millions of wildebeest will be back, along with the packs predators and the other herds of animals, chasing the food that the rains bring.

So, while this meant we had to drive a lot further to find smaller numbers of animals, there were still plenty to be found. We were greeted by herds of grazing giraffes, zebras, elephants and Thompson's and Grant's gazelles in their hundreds. Other animals to be spotted included water buck, antelopes, buffalo, warthogs, guineafowl and numerous other little birds flitting about. We were also extremely lucky to spot a beautiful leopard hiding in the grass, feeding on something we'll never know about; a pride of sleeping lions and their cubs, lazing around under the bushes, oblivious to (or ignoring) our presence; a couple of male cheetahs, just cruising around; vultures and secretary birds, perched in the few acacia trees growing on the plain, and two solitary hyenas.

The animals are active in the early morning and late afternoon, when the searing heat of the sun has gone. In the meantime, all you can do is sleep! ... as we did, heading back to our tents in the middle of the day when the sun was too hot for us too.

Other sightings during our time in the park included two beautiful crested cranes, their yellow head feathers crowning them in gold; a family of hippos wallowing in the lake, ever watchful of the giant croc sunning itself on the river bank, as were the Maribou storks standing quietly on one leg; a family of lions out for a morning stroll, mother not keen to feed all 4 of her cubs at once but having little choice; another group of cheetah cruising around; a huge male lion, sunning himself right next to the road, not caring if we pulled up right next to him; and a mother leading her twelve baby ostriches across the plain, all in single file.

Most exciting for me was coming across a cheetah on the prowl; she'd lined up some Thompson's gazelles for a kill, but failed fairly quickly when the gazelle moved too far away. Our driver/guide quickly noticed however that she immediately went back to the same place, and it was then that we discovered she was a mother, and three tiny cheetah cubs emerged. they were only 2 weeks old and still maintaining their afro hairstyles - in the form of baby fur.

And so we were sad to leave the Mara for the long drive to Lake Nakuru, the next part of our trip; but we were also excited, as Nakuru is home to thousands of flamingoes who live there, feeding on the shrimp in the saline water; We'd also read that since the introduction of tilapia fish into the lake, large numbers of pelicans had also taken up residence there. What we didn't expect were the thousands of pelicans that seemed to have taken over the place, hanging out with the Maribou storks, and while amazing in their numbers, there were so few flamingoes that their pink feathers were difficult to spot amongst the sheer white masses of pelicans. Apparently many more flamingoes are normally present in Lake Nakuru but they return with the rainy season. Still, the numbers are extemely low compared to what once were there.

One fantastic thing about Nakuru is that it is the only totally fenced National Park in Kenya. Why is that fantastic, you may ask? Well, the fences keep in the endangered black and white rhinos that have been relocated there for conservation purposes - and keep people out. We came across ten white rhinos on our first drive there, and up close they are certainly magnificent creatures. On the second drive we were also extremely lucky to see a black rhino (though you can't tell the difference by the colour; they look exactly the same! You have to look at the shape of their mouth to differentiate them).

Other animals we spotted in the reserve were gazelles; antelopes; rock hyrax, resembling giant guinea pigs; big families of baboons, many with tiny babies; water buck; guinea fowl; and stately giraffes, wrapping those long tongues around the spiny acacia trees to get at the leaves.

All in all it was a great wildlife-spotting adventure. We even topped it off with a slice of luxury accommodation at the Sarova Lion Hill Game Lodge (inside Lake Nakuru NP mind you; go figure) and its massive buffets and cool leafy gardens full of colouful and cheeky little wrens, weaver birds and finches vying for your breakfast left-overs. And so it was back to Nairobi for one last night before the REAL adventure.

MADAGASCAR.

Jambo Kenya!

Ok, so I've arrived on the African continent! 21 hours of flights later ... via Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Doha - and now I'm in Nairobi. It was great meeting up with Anna again. We have also caught up with our friend Noriko who is working here for the UN - so it's been a Simeulue reunion, 2 years in the making!

We've already had a few adventures in Kenya, land of the eucalypts. We've been staying in Nairobi, and are very grateful for Solange allowing us to stay in her lovely apartment while she's not here! The city is not like I remember it 5 years ago; the main thing I remember is the central Masaai markets. But i have not felt anywhere near as unsafe as the Nairobbery tag suggests. The city seems pretty clean, but has a faded, 70's retro feel to it's CBD due to the type of buildings scattered around; it's a low-rise centre with the worst traffic congestion I've ever seen - Sydney, you're beaten hands down!

We visited a giraffe centre and elephant orphanage around Nairobi, both of which were great for interacting with these beautiful creatures. The giraffe centre breeds Rothschild giraffes for release back into the wild; the orphanage rescues baby elephants orphaned by poachers, drought, snares and falling in wells, and also rehabilitates them to go back into the wild. Such dedicated people undertaking such important work.

We've also spent a few days in Naivasha, about 2 hours north west of Nairobi. Watching a family of 12 hippos wallowing in the shallows of Lake Naivasha has been a highlight. The lakeside camp we stayed in also had a number of other interesting visitors, such as beautiful black and white Colobus monkeys, superb starlings, guinea fowl, herons and a number of waterbirds. The nearby crater lake also provided us with some beautiful hiking around the rim of the now extinct volcano, being watched all the way around by five giraffes grazing down in the crater.

The camp also was in close proximity to Hell's Gate National Park, one of the few parks where you don't need a vehicle to visit. Cycling leisurely past herds of zebra, warthogs, Thompson's gazelles, African buffalo and a stately family of loping giraffes made me really feel that I was in Africa. We hiked Njorowa gorge in the sun, and found the hot springs that form part of the vast geothermal reserves that led to a power plant being built IN THE NATIONAL PARK in 1981. Something wrong with this picture? Seeing the plumes of steam rising out from behind the ridges was quite surreal, as was the constant hissing noise of the released steam in the background. Apparently this has little impact on the park, but I'm not so sure - I would think the wildlife would be happier without it there.

Coming back to Nairobi was an interesting adventure ... we took a matatu (minivan) from Naivasha town and on the way we broke down due to running out of fuel ... so we sat there for half an hour or so, all the while the sun is setting and its getting dark, waiting for our driver and his able assistant to go for petrol, listening to the raucous Swahili conversation of the Kenyan women who had come from a hard day's work and wishing we could understand it! We even got entertained by Peter Andre thanks to 101.1FM - All Kenyan, All The Time! (insert deep breathy voice here). Radio gold.(I'm even listening to MC Hammer's Can't touch this as I type. Ha!)

 

By the time we hit Nairobi's insanely packed out bus and matatu station, which seems to take up a whole block, it was half seven and we had to somehow get home amongst the ridiculous crowd. Not the best place to be as a mzungu when you don't know where you're going! But luckily our saviour came in the form of Nancy, a young, strong Masaai woman who wasn't afraid of being mugged in downtown Nairobi, and after arguing with some motorbike taxis and refusing their high prices, she delivered us through the throngs to the right departing point. Not sure we would have made it without her! Thanks, good Samaritan .. although a 100 Kenyan shilling payment was requested, and granted. :)

So now, our next adventure awaits: a 4-day safari in the Masaai Mara and Lake Nakuru National Parks. Dammit - these safaris are EXPENSIVE - but I can't wait!