After 2.5 hours of delays in SFO yesterday we missed our connection in Houston to Quito. The airline put us up in a hotel in Houston for the night and booked us on a new flight. The first flight they booked us on was the same flight the next day which meant 24 hours in Houston - oh no! But, after making friends with a very nice gate agent, she got us booked in business class on United at 7am (rather than 6 pm) on a flight to Panama connecting to Quito on Copa Airlines. We arrive in Quito at 5:30pm rather than midnight from the flight they originally booked us on. Since we are in Business class, we are at the airport now eating breakfast in the United Club.  Just an hour until boarding and we can resume the trip.

On our way!

We are leaving for the airport in just a few minutes. We are on our way to meet up with Cristina who left yesterday from the East Coast. Dave and Sarah are leaving from PDX too, but their flight goes through Atlanta. We go SFO to Houston then Quito since I came down to Palo Alto to meet up with Brenda so we could fly together.  We arrive in Quito just after midnight. They are on East coast time.

Almost time to leave Madagascar. There is so much more info in my written daily accounts since we didn't have internet (or electricity) most times, I went into much more detail there.

Amigo's Gold Beer is awful.Yuck. Stick with THB (Three Horse Beer).

There is a BBC film crew here. Mark knows one of them. Andrew Graham Miller. The invited us to one of their shooting locations this afternoon where they said the dancing Sifakas come by in a big group.

It's close to 100 degrees here.

They also invited us to celebrate one the crew member's birthday. Apparently they knew about this special Madagascar drink and the lodge had some.  It's white rum, ginger, vanilla and honey and they put it in a large glass jar and sits in the sun for a couple of months to ferment. I had a small glass of it. It tastes great, but it's strong.

Heading back to Tana in the morning then to South Africa for another overnight and then home.

My flight goes from South Africa to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to the Ivory Coast to Newark, NJ to PDX.  So glad I have business class tickets!

No internet yesterday.

We took a boat to the reserve to see some aye-aye lemurs. The oddest creatures. They look like a cross between uncle fester, the golem and yoda. We also saw a golden orb spider - gorgeous.  The water in the Indian Ocean is bath water temperature here around the island. It's crystal clear and shallow for a long way out. The sand is full of graphite and your feet get black as you walk in it.

We are off to the capital again to spend the night before flying out on a domestic flight to Fort Dauphin then a drive to Berenty. Interesting sight on our way to the airport at 4:45am. At the stalls selling meat, they were just hanging it all up and at each of the stalls was a stray street dog sitting and waiting patiently. As the meat was trimmed before hanging for display, the vendor passed the scraps to the dogs.

A few random bits of info -- the cars here have all been exported from other countries when they no longer met the emissions standards. The government corruption here is awful. Much foreign aid has been sent, but not used for the purpose it was sent for. The road we drove on is only 90km, but took us a bit over 4 hours to drive. Luckily out guide/driver knows which bridges are unsafe to use and it's better to ford the river.

Up early and saying goodbye to the rainforest today. We have a three-four hour drive followed by two hours on a boat to get to our island.  We'll pass by a couple of the same towns as we did on the way in before we get to the turn off. I hope we can stop and buy more custard apples and ladyfinger bananas. I'll pass on the whole dried eels though. People held up chickens and ducks by the legs offering them for sale.

Driving here is crazy - no traffic signs or lights at all.

No internet for the next few days.

Not much downtime. A walk in Antisibe national park yesterday with Indri-indri and a night walk with a ton of things. I only have about 10 minutes of generator so I'll keep this moving.  We went to lemur island yesterday at the reserve where they are habituated lemurs that have been rescued from places. They were funny and jumped all over me to get at a banana. Tomorrow we are leaving for Palmarium Island for few nights.

Might not have a lot of electricity while here. Arrived in Madagascar yesterday. It's so much different. The poverty is staggering - our guide said that education is not compulsory for anyone. (you need a guide and driver here since the infrastructure is so horrible). Everyone is on the street trying to sell something. We are in the capital -- Antananarivo (Tana) for just a bit and then off to explore.  Watching what is being sold as we drive by. Fly covered carp looks like it's been dead for a while. Glad that it's not my dinner.

It took a few hours to drive to our lodge. The roads are awful and 4 wheel drive is necessary. My head is so full of information.  It was sad to see kids playing with empty juice boxes attached to sticks with twine, but they were running and racing and having fun.

After getting out of the city, the forests are slash burned. They've been replanted with eucalyptus but the native animals haven't returned because their native foods are gone. The native forests were Palissandre, Rosewood and Ebony. Now they plant fast growing trees to cut them to make charcoal. Over 90% of the population do not have electricity and they cook with charcoal.  On the other hand, the country has banned plastic bags and straws.

Stopped for lunch at a local restaurant that our guide said was safe to eat at (yay!). I ordered coconut curry fish forgetting that I was going to be served a whole fish.