Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Madagascar, baby!!

After reading Tyler on travel, we got ourselves busy and.....

It's official, the Angus family summer vacation has been set. We goin' to Madagascar! Lemurs, Sifakas, Chameleons, Fossas, Baobobs, Spiny Forest, and Tsingy!

Specifically, we plan to visit Perinet, Berenty, Kirindy, the grand tsingy du Bemeraha, and Ampijoroa (note that the Malagasy people have helpfully renamed a lot of these places, along with their currency). Time to brush up my French and learn a little Malagasy. It was amazing how happy people were in Tanzania to hear us speaking a little tiny bit of Swahili. It's great to learn a few basics in the local language whenever possible.

Here is a story about a trip to Mad, written by a cool guy we met and made friends with last year on our trip to Tanzania, Andrew Solomon.

If any readers have further or alternative suggestions for what to do in Mad, we'd love to hear from you (note that we don't travel this far to go to the beach though).

Some anticipatory pics:





1 comment:

Shawn said...

Dear Sir,

A friend of mine who is a regular reader of your blog sent me a link to your page. I am a former peace corps volunteer from Madagascar who has remained on to live and work here. I am a libertarian and a big econ fan.

I currently manage the NGO, Reef Doctor in Ifaty (20Km North of the city of Tulear in the SW). Ifaty is an amazing place with gorgeous coral reefs and an incredibly interesting clash of cultures between the local Vezo people, more educated, middle class tourist trade employees, ex-pat foreigners, and some dirt poor migrants.

I highly recommend a visit to Tulear and to Ifaty (also called Mangily). You can read about the place in any Madagascar travel book. Also, you are welcome to come stay with us here at Reef Doctor we have basic accomadations and even more basic food but we should more than make up for it with local knowledge and good company.

Check out our website at www.reefdoctor.org and send me an email, or just pop in if your interested. speabody-at-gmail-dot-com