West Coast Vacation

Dear Friends and Family,

So the last posting was a bit of a long entry, and this one will be a bit of a rushed entry as I am heading back on the bus this morning after being away from my site for quite some time. I left about 2 weeks ago to go on the Tsirabina River Trip to visit the Tsingy and then the Baobob trees. The canoe(pirogue)trip down the river was really nice and relaxing. There were lots of beautiful birds to see, sun to soak in, and people on the shore greeting us.

Often the people on the shore were little kids asking us to give them any number of items we had; empty water bottle, candy, umbrella; if they could see it, then they asked for it. We only saw a couple aligators in the water from a distance, but out canoe paddler took us to a small island in the middle of the river where a dead aligator had washed up on shore. We wanted to collect some of the teeth to make necklaces as kids in the town where we stopped for lunch one day said that they were not afraid of aligators as long as they had necklaces with a tooth of a aligator.

The day we visited the Tsingy was a long tiring day as we climbed in and around the jagged rocks for several hours in the morning and then a couple more in the afternoon. It was fun to climb into the cave of the Tsingy as well as to see it from above. We took a 4X4 on the road to Morondava to see the Avenue of Baobobs at sunset. The effect of the setting sun made the tree trunks look a deeper shade of red. It was really beautiful and a perfect ending to a long day of driving.

Take Care!
Teena