Awoke at 5am this morning when my fan stopped working to open up my windows. This was apparently one of the time periods when there is no electricity in Morondava, and I had to wait until 7am when the power came back on to be able to connect to WiFi and plan my day.
I was feeling considerably better than the day before, although my stomach was still a bit off after all that constant spewing, and was happy to spend the day in the quiet little fishing village of Morondava. At around 9am I finally got dressed and went to embrace the heat to go and find breakfast. This consisted of a plate of fruit and some fresh juice at the Baobab Café where I was the only person at the restaurant. After eating (and then dashing back to my hotel to get my wallet to pay for my meal … I had somehow left my purse on my bed instead of putting it in my handbag), I went for a sweaty walk around Morondava.
At the moment the beach isn’t very nice to look at because it’s the rainy season and the river is flowing into the ocean. As a result the water is brown so it’s not all that appealing for swimming. It’s also apparently not great for snorkelling at the moment either. Nevertheless it was a nice morning walking around and taking in the town, although there was not much to see except little shops and a few restaurants and all the local people, who kept greeting me with ‘bonjour’. There are also very few tourists in the town, in total I’ve probably only seen about five (and all of them have been older than me).
I stopped by the Loic Tours office where I got a quote on hiring a driver to take me to the Baobab Avenue and the Kirindy National Park, and they gave me an estimate of 260,000 ariary per day or about $107aud for the car hire, the driver and gas. On top of that price would be the entry fee into the national park, the cost of a tour guide in the park and the accommodation for the night at the Kirindy National Park. I would also need to hire a guide alongside my driver as the driver wouldn’t speak English. This seemed a bit steep so I told them I would give it some thought before asking what other activities they have in the region. Another guide at the office said he could take me to the mangroves this afternoon for 35,000 ariary ($14aud) so I said yes and he said he would come by the get me at 2pm.
Once I returned to my hotel I set about finding a driver who spoke English. My hotel recommended me one and he came and spoke to me giving me a quote for 200,000 ariary ($82aud) per day for him, the car and gas and he would take me to the Baobab Avenue and the Kirinidy. This seemed a bit more fair, and $25 cheaper than the other guy, so I agreed. Tomorrow at 5am he is picking me up to head the Baobabs for sunrise, then onwards to the national park where I will do a guided day tour, and then later a guided night tour where I will finally see some lemurs!! Apparently you only see 2 species of lemurs during the day, and you can find the other 6 at night because they are nocturnal, so a night walk is recommended.
Later at 1:45pm the guide from Loic Tours came to get me for our mangrove tour – the first time someone in Africa has actually been early! I wasn’t all to sure what this tour involved, but we walked to some prijoue boats and hopped into one. I thought I would be doing some paddling (so I was in my #activewear obviously), but it turns out all I had to do what sit there as my guide and the owner of the boat did all the rowing. It was very pleasant though sailing through the canal, and my guide introduced me to the 5 species of mangroves in Madagascar. I hadn’t realised that mangroves produce fruit (but it’s inedible, unlike the fruit of the baobab).
After a bit of paddling we went to shore on a
bit of land opposite of Morondava. At first I thought it was an island but it
is actually connected to the main land further up. This fishing village was
different to the ones in Morondava however, and my guide made a point of
differentiating it from Malagasy culture.
Every morning the whole village wakes at around
5am and everyone sets their boats of to sea to catch some fish (tuna, shark,
prawns etc.). In the afternoon the men bring it back to shore and the women
take it to market. Each family has their own prijoue, or several of them, as
well as their different nets. You could tell how well a family was doing by the
number of different nets a family had outside their house. There is no
electricity in the village but several houses had solar panels and TVs (which
was usually accompanied by a few boats or several different nets outside their
houses). The village was originally established by the French colonialists and
most of the catch that is made is for sale in Madagascar. Only a small portion
is exported, and this is mainly prawns and shark (of which is for the Chinese apparently).
The people in this village are very superstitious
as well and are forbidden to eat sheep - so they keep goats instead - they also
do not eat pig. While they don’t eat pig, they do keep several pigs around (I
saw a group of piglets which were so cute!!!) as quite literally, a piggy bank.
They keep the pigs, fatten them up, and when they need the money, sell them.
Another funny one is that the owner of a boat cannot make his own boat, instead
he has to commission someone else to do it for him.
We walked around the beach for a little while
where there were these little crabs dancing on the beach. My guide said that
the local people are also forbidden from eating these crabs, but will eat mud
crabs, however he also said it was probably just because they have no meat on
them and wouldn’t be worth eating in the first place. He was quite disgusted
when several kids walked by holding onto what looked like dead seagulls – they were
apparently going to eat them.
After about 2 hours we headed back to the boat
and made our way back to Morondava. It was a really nice way to spend the
afternoon learning about the culture of this fishing village. Plus the boat
ride was really nice and smooth which is my preference for any type of transport.
Tomorrow – baobabs and lemurs!! But first
dinner, Hotel Trecicogne has been very good at getting me meals without meat,
dairy and egg and after two meals here the woman who runs the restaurant has
been very good at getting me meals that suit my dietary preferences.
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