Madagascar Memories

Sadly, I am not in some exotic location right now,
but I wanted to post some more of my photos, so here are a few more of my happy memories.


Lemur on a taxi brousse! This is one of the lemurs on the ride home to KAFS to be fitted with a new radio collar. He spent most of the journey inside a big fabric bag to minimize stress, but I took the picture when they opened the bag quickly to check on him.

A small fraction of the bounty of lychees. Lychees were in season when I left Madagascar and you could get a shopping bag full for about a dollar. They are kind of addictive so when you eat one it's easy to just keep on eating them, like chips.

 This is one of my little gecko friends. There were always a few little green day geckos chasing each other on my tent or stalking insects in the thatch roof. This one is about as long as my hand and he caught a big insect, I think it might have been a dragonfly.

Run away, it's the evil duck! Some of the ducks in Kianjavato were the usual mallards and white domestic ducks, but there was also this black kind with weird red swellings on the face. This particular duck belonged to a family who kept a little store next door to KAFS. The volunteers would go to the store for cake (mmm, mango cake with chocolate icing!) and sandwiches, and this enormous duck was always there hissing at us and snaking its neck. It looked kind of demonic so I called it the evil duck.

 I have fond memories of drinking at Hotely on a Sunday afternoon. Sunday is market day in Kianjavato and everybody goes into town wearing their best clothes, going to see and be seen as much as to shop. Hotely is right in the middle of town and their porch has a great view combined with shelter from the sun or rain, and of course the cold beer. Looking at this picture I can almost hear the rain on the sheet metal roof, taste the Namaki coffee rum and Three Horses Beer, and smell the gutter you have to cross on a little plank bridge between the porch and the street. The street is usually packed solid with people on market day but this day everyone who could was waiting out the worst of the rain under whatever shelter they could find, so there were only a few people and the hotely dog out on the street. Also in the picture is the famous red car, maybe the only car for miles around. You could tell the guys driving it thought they were pretty cool, with Celine Dion blasting from the stereo.