Quinzième Semaine

So I have not fallen off the face of the earth. After we finished up our final projects and tests, we’ve been traveling a lot again to finish up the semester! Unfortunately I was hit with the sick one last time before leaving Fort Dauphin which stopped me from going out with a bang, but everything still went very well in terms of finishing up academic stuff. 

We left Fort Dauphin by plane into Tana and crashed at our beloved Raphia hotel for a few short hours before loading onto the Tata bus again at 5am the next day. We spent two whole days on that Tata traveling up north, stopping in Port Berge and some other place that I don’t remember on the way to rest. As we made our way up the island and down the plateau, the weather got a lot hotter and so did the food. We have eaten very well in the North since the food tastes so much better!! The growing conditions for things from vegetables to unique spices are much better up there than anywhere else on the island. Part of these successful crops is Khat, which is a mild drug plant. It's a very mild upper, like less powerful than caffeine, that people chew to help concentration, stay awake, or suppress appetite. So, ofcourse, when we got to the north, we all had to try it. Basically, it was the grossest thing ever. You chew on the leaves which are bitter and dry out your mouth and make you drool at the same time while turning your mouth green! You put in a whole branch full and keep it in there for 3-5 hours!! It was disgusting and needless to say, it did nothing. I actually fell asleep while chewing it which is the complete opposite effect you'd expect. I would have had the same experience chewing on any other random plant. But it did make for some really fun times while we were laughing at eachother's commiseration.

One of the stops we made on our way up was to the tsingy!! There we saw the fattest gecko ever…  don’t know what they’re eating but it’s working. The tsingy was one of the main sites I had been looking forward to this entire trip, right after lemurs and giraffe weevils. So it was really exciting to go and walk across them and learn about them. “Tsingy” comes from the Malagasy word “mitsingy” which means to walk on tiptoes! They are limestone that was once under the ocean and over millions of years weathered down to a spiky gray field of rock. Pretty awesome. 

Amber Mountain was our last major stop before the city. This was a pretty chilly place in a unique forest where essentially French colonists decided to plant various things from the other side of the equator “to see how they grew here” so the forest is so bizarre with strange evolved forms of pine trees and vines and all sorts of crazy stuff. It actually very much reminded me of the movie Avatar, if all the plants were glowing and there was a huge tree in which all the people lived. It was there that we found and held the smallest chameleon species on the mainland of Madagascar!! The second smallest in the world! They were almost too small to be real. They moved like little stick figure dinosaurs across your finger. That was really just amazing to see. I wish I could have slipped one in my pocket and safely carried it home. We also so the coolest tree gecko which basically becomes part of the tree and is INCREDIBLY camouflaged. It was pretty amazing.

The city of Diego-Suarez is very touristy! When we got there, it was Sunday, and apparently on Sundays the entire city just SHUTS DOWN. It was really creepy to see a huge city with NO ONE around. I felt like we were going to be attacked by zombies. The next day we went out very early and took small boats out to this island beach in the Emerald Sea. The water was the most beautiful teal blue color, absolutely crystal clear. The sun was out and there were no gray clouds in the sky. It was hot enough to swim but not too hot to run around. Literally the perfect day. We spent a little time snorkeling, when I stalked this one parrot fish for half an hour until I swallowed a bunch of sea water and got sick. But once we got to shore, I was fine. We were called for lunch where we were served coconut rum punch, French fries, salad, etc. Then we see the other boat bring in this GIGANTIC fish from the ocean and within 25 minutes, it was on our plate. Perfectly spicy… followed by grilled chocolate bananas for dessert. Easily the best meal in this country. The rest of the day was spent playing in the gorgeous water and laying in the sun on the soft sand then sailing back to the mainland in the afternoon. It was a wonderful way to say goodbye to the Indian Ocean. 

In the city we found way too many places to get good snacks, pastries, and icecream! But we were only there for a short time. Things were also pretty expensive in most places since it was a much more “vazah” inhabited area. So we didn’t go too crazy before leaving. But our time there still felt much too short. We flew back to Tana and got last minute shopping done. One person lost a bag along the way which was very stressful. Everyone is preparing to leave or has already left now.

Allie, Maddie, and myself are on the same flight from Tana to Paris on the day that was supposed to be my birthday but as it turns out after many hours of investigation that everything is delayed 24 hours. And so, my 21^st birthday will not in fact be 32 hours long, just a normal 24 hours, spent entirely in Tana. It could be worse, I suppose. One extra day in this city isn’t too bad. Just another excuse for me to eat too much icecream and pastries and gain a few more pounds before coming home. :)