Baobab Alley, Camp Amoureux, and Palissandre Ouest

Part 1 of the Madagascar Trip began in Tana, some very exciting shopping and then we flew to Morondava. We were met by Celestin and Soulo, our guide and driver for this leg of the trip. The first stop was Boabab Alley. Baobab trees grow in different areas in Africa and Australia, however the most spectacular species in in Madagascar, specifically on the west part of the island.

With Claudie standing next to a tree, you can see just how enormous they are!

 Some Baobab species produce a fruit. I'm not sure if the fruit tastes good because I've only seen it loaded with pectin and sugar in jam format.

Baobab Alley brings in a lot of tourists, which means there are always villagers around, posing for pictures and asking for gifts.

 Along with some of the regular zebu traffic (which means you have to pay attention to where you step!).

I think it would take a minimum of six or seven people to join up hands to go around the tree.

 The best time of the day to visit is at sunset. The shadows and light make the trees look even more interesting.

Louis isn't a fan of my manic-picture taking. I think this is the only picture I have of just himself where he's not making a goofy face!

After our visit to Baobab Alley, we drove a couple of hours to Camp Amoureux, where we would be spending the night. The entry of camp Amoureux has these two Baobab trees "en amour".

It got dark very quickly, however our guide wanted to take us on a night walk. I had a headlamp...but I wasn't a super fan of walking in the pitch black in the forest, so I stayed back at our lovely camping area.

But the girls and Louis saw a couple of lemurs...and something with glowing eyes.

 Then they came back to camp and got me and we went for supper.

The website for this place had no pictures, but it said that we would be staying in "English-style tents". I didn't know what that meant. It means, "a tent".

However, the tents were built on a platform, and had flush toilets

 and individual showers behind each tent.

The problem? At night, it gets to about 10*C. Today's it's +20*C and I'm wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. Sleeping in 10*C is c-c-c-c-c-cold. We had two tiny little blankets, very little winter wear, and to make it worse, I stole the blankets all night long. Louis and I DID NOT sleep very much that night. We were so, so, so, so cold.

The next morning we woke up for a nature walk. The nature walk SUCKED because we were freaking freezing and super tired. The guides were pretty crappy. I saw an owl.

After a very long forty five minutes, we went back to camp and were off on a ten hour journey to see the big Tsingys (which will be in a different post).

We went on our Tsingy adventure and came back to Morondava three or four days later for a day and a half before we were off for Part 2 of our trip. We arrived just before sunset.

We woke up late the next morning and had a sort of decent breakfast. The hotel's service has gone downhill since the last time I was there. The girls had a little bit of a fight, so Claudie went for a walk to cool off. She found a spot in the sand to sit, and it was really, really hard not to laugh as we watched a little local boy walk around her, and then sit right down next to her. But, at least it made her come back with the rest of us. (But seriously, being a teenager can be kind of sucky sometimes!)

While Claudie and Louis hung our for awhile, Laurie and I went for a walk on the beach. The beach is very, very mucky. Sometimes we were almost ankle deep in mud-like sand. Ick.

Woops! This little boy was so excited to play with his sailboat that he forgot to put some clothes on!

Claudie and Louis joined us and we all went for a swim in the Mozambique Channel. Except for Louis, who totally sucked!

We came back to our hotel and chilled near the pool. Even though it was nearly 30*C outside, it's still winter so the pool water was TOO COLD to swim in.

So we focused on our Cuba Librés.

While the girls got some sun.

We had been planning to take another drive to see the Boababs, but we loved the hotel so much that we wanted to just hang around and be lazy.

And...we found out that instead of leaving in the late afternoon, our flights had been changed and we had to leave at 07h00 the next morning...which meant another early wake up call.

[Oh, and I'm feeling better since yesterday's post.]