On our P-days we always grocery shop and when there's time we try to do something fun or interesting. We have gone to the Lemur Park, the croc farm, shopping in the market, and sometimes just for a ride. When we travel for a project, we try to see other famous sites in the area. I decided to lump some of the fun places and adventures in one post! No particular order and kind of crazy, but I hope from this you can tell how wonderful Madagascar is and how full of fun and adventure it is! We have been to two lemur parks and also seen lemurs in the wild. We have been to the Isalo National Park, the reserve and the ocean in Fort Dauphin, the Ambohimonga Rova (the summer palace of the King and Queen from the 1700's) the ocean in Toamasina and the ocean on the other side of Mada in Marjonga (Indian Ocean and Bay of Mosambique)! Really, just driving down the street or through villages (especially on market day) is an adventure! We love our fun and adventures! We love Madagascar!
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| The brown lemur |
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| The dancing lemur |
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| Love when I caught this lemur "dancing" |
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| This little guy liked the taste of bamboo! Maybe it's salty? |
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| Ring tailed lemur |
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| On our day at the Croc Farm, we saw more than just crocs! |
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| The lizards are so cool. They wrap their tail around you (or a tree) and I love their feet - toes and how they move and climb. |
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| Lemurs are fast and all are very good at jumping from tree to tree |
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| it's hard to see all the baby crocs along the land - they look like sticks :) |
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| These are the teenagers |
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| Not a great picture, but I wanted to show how brave I am becoming by holding a SNAKE!! :) |
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| This is the enemy of the lemur, do you know what it is? The fossa! |
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| A very large tortoise |
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| ADULT croc! |
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| These are the adults! See the one in the water? They really do look like a log floating in the water! |
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A great day with friends at the croc farm! (Us, Elder and Sister Rossiter, Elder and Sister Cloward,
Temple (one of our site monitors working with us on NRT) and her husband, Eddie.
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| The beach in Toamasina is right in town and so easy to visit |
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| Love these fishing boats in Toamasina |
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| Beach and Harbor at night |
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We loved the beaches at Fort Dauphin! Can you tell which guys are Elder Nance and Elder Asay?
Hint: they are the really white guys! The other three are our two armed guards and Gaby! |
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| Beautiful - right? |
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| Saw these two ring-tailed lemurs on our way to another beach! |
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| Fort Dauphin is lush and beautiful. |
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| This is at a fishing village - they break off areas with sticks and place many traps and pull out fish, eels, shrimp, lobster and many edible things! |
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| We saw this guy at a park between Mompikony and Marjonga |
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| The lizards are great with camouflage |
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| Crossing over a croc river on a wiggly bridge! |
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| The famous Baobab tree! These two were huge! |
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| The reserve in Fort D was absolutely beautiful! |
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| Walking through here made me think of the walk to the frogs at the Arboretum! |
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We loved this beautiful palm tree. The grounds at the reserve were lush and beautiful!
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| This Baobab and the two above were seen as we drove to Maromby from Fort Dauphine. The change in the landscape from lush, green Fort D to dry, parched Maromby was stark! |
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| Now we are back at the reserve in Fort D! (I said it would be crazy - with a lot of jumping around!) |
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| Us with Elder and Sister Nance. |
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| How many ring-tailed lemurs can you see? Can you find at least 5? |
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| We also road through the small river! |
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| Our first hissing cockroach sighting! |
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| Another of the beautiful beaches in Fort D. This little girl was selling necklaces and shells. She was well trained! In English she would say "My friend, look what I have for you, my friend! I give you very good price, just for you my friend! " How could I resist? I bought one and a couple of shells. Guess what happened next? It wasn't just me and "my friend" on the beach there was suddenly many children and adults wanting me to buy! I told them they should go see my friends - Elder and Sister Nance didn't know what hit them! |
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| Elder and Sister Nance surrounded by "my friends"! |
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| This little lady looks angry, but it's just her expression! Elder Asay began to run and she cracked up and chased him! |
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| The little lady in green chasing Elder Asay! |
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| Can you see all the necklaces they are selling! |
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| It is very hot in the south and on the coasts and we will often see people take a break from their work to cool off in the water (the very muddy water!) They will swim in their clothes, their underwear, or nothing at all! We saw this area on the way to Toliara on the southwest coast. |
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| These beautiful rocks were in the Tsingy Mountains - tsingy means rocky! |
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| The beach in Toliara |
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| It was a very windy day! This cute girl came with us to help us know where to go in Tolaria (we were there to set up hotels, food, a venue, etc for the NRT project). |
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| Elder Asay wanted to have some fun in all that harder sand so he impressed and scared us by doing doughnuts in the sand! But guess what?! What a surprise, we got stuck, big time! |
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| Elder Asay trying to figure a way out - even four wheel drive couldn't fix it! |
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| All of us girls helped push - but in the end it was Hery's strength that saved us! |
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| More beautiful Baobabs that we passed on our way out of Toliara and heading to Ilakaka |
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| While in the Ilakaka area, we stopped to go to the Isalo National Park! |
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| We went on a 4 hour hike to see the blue hole and the black hole! |
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| It started out pretty easy, but soon we were climbing straight up and on small ledges! |
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| It was all worth it! Here is the BEAUTIFUL Blue Hole! |
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| and the BEAUTIFUL Black Hole! |
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| On the way back to our car we had the bonus of seeing a group of playful ring-tailed lemurs |
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The owner took us downstairs to show
us how they make these. They were also
making and carving chests and other
wood pieces.
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Heading through Amboustra we stopped at a shop
where they do beautiful wood work. This is an inlaid
wood piece
