Just NB

For future reference (mine a well), I've divided the trip (and my future posts) into 4 different trips. I haven't posted any of my vacation posts in order, so until I'm finished this will always be the first post you see on my blog. Trip #1 On this part of the trip, we flew from Tamatave to Tana, had an appointment with a local jeweler and designed our own jewelry, and then flew to Morondava. Then, we visited Baobab Alley , spent the night at Camp Amoureux  (eek). The next morning we drove to Bemaraha Park, where we spent the night at Vazimba Hotel. The next morning we took a quick tour along the Manambolo River and then finished the very long drive back to Morondava. Trip #2 This was the adventourous part of our trip. We took a very early morning flight from Morondava to Tana, then drive from Tana to Anstirabe and spent the night at the Royal Hotel. The next morning we took a tour of Antsirabe town and drove to Ranomafana Park . We spent the night at Setam Lod...

Ah, Isalo National Park. Finally we arrived. Our last real stop on Part 2 of our vacation. We were pretty excited to stay at this hotel . We were originally booked at it's sister property , but for some reason our travel agent changed the booking. For once, it worked in our favor. Loved this place the moment we arrived. However, we needed to get some business resolved. We were spending three nights at this hotel. The girls wanted to hang out near the hotel and Louis wanted to take a half day hike in the canyons. Three girls - one boy - we ended up wining. Although Louis pouted a little bit. We were pretty tired our first night there so it was a quick supper,  a quick warm up by the fire, and then off to bed.  Our backyard was full of cacti.  And mountains! This is taken from our hotel room.  Louis and I decided to get a massage in the afternoon.  We decided to go to the sister property for lunch before our spa day.  O...

So that meltdown I was talking about . It was just kinda stupid. Where to begin... Oh, I know! I DON'T LIKE HIKING . It's all great to get out, and walk and stuff, but it bores me to death. I love the things that I see while hiking, but I just think it's like...I don't know. Painful almost. (Which again makes my Mount Kenya adventure sound even more stupid). The Isalo hike sounded like fun. Okay, no, it did not sound like fun, but the things that we were going to see and do sounded like fun. The last hike we did was in Ranomafana Park and I wore long pants and my hiking shoes. I was super uncomfortable and hot. So for this hike, I decided to a skort (I hate that word) and what I refer to as my "grandma sandals". They are kind of like hiking sandals, that I bought last year when I was in Tofino , but look like something that a grandma would wear. The hike started off pretty early, so I made sure to drink enough coffee. Off we went. You can see the major...

The last stop of Part 2 of our vacation was in Isalo National Park. We arrived mid-afternoon, spent the entire next day at the freaking craziest, most amazing hotel , and then the next day went on our hike (we had to choose our route the day before so our guide could get a Isalo guide. It's interesting how many guide's guide's guides we had to pay for!). We decided on the 6-7 hour excursion. All-in-all, it was about 14km, with lots of stops for swimming, resting, picture taking, and a lunch break. It all started around 8h30 or so. Our poor General Guide was always having to wait for us, so we tried to actually be on time for one morning. Our hotel was about a fifteen minute drive from the entrance of the park. While we were paying for our park passes, two different people came up to me to say hello. It was so surprising to see someone I knew so far away! They were people that used to be my driver when I first came here! After talking to them, I found out that their ...