MADAGASCAR

We still can not comprehend the fact that we have arrived in Madagascar. Its stuff of childhood dreams! We already saw Lemurs and are on the lookout for chamaleons. People are beautiful inside and out we fell great here although some safety measures are required in bigger and or touristic places. So far so good. Clearance procedures are easy and officials insist in saying the 1st month is free even when they give you a bill of nz$10 to pay, oh well, our French is pretty bad so i will blame on that. The local produce is fabulous and the meat splendid (oh how we missed red meat!). The local rum has provide us with some lovely nights and sore mornings but we love it. They have the most amazing sailing canoes and trade boats (up to 30 ft) with triangular lanteen sails, no engines. All taking full advantage of the land/sea breeze effect. A sight not to be forgotten. Carbon footprint of these people is as close to zero and civilized as you can get. We have visited some very remove villages in the north west, traded with the locals for food and other goodies. You would be surprised how many bananas you can get for an empty plastic water bottle! All in all things are pretty amazing really. We have another 30 of paradise before we are hoisting our sails seriously again to attack another serious piece of water: the Mozambique Channel to Sth Africa.