Antananarivo
We had a very fun day in Tana. In the morning we confirmed our flights with Air Mad and then took a taxi (they are all Renualt 4s) to the top of Tana where the 200yr old palace, Rova, is located. Unfortunately the palace is under renovations due to a fire in 1995 (yes 1995 was 12yrs ago, and yes they are STILL doing reno’s). But the museum housed in the old prime ministers house was open. We had an excellent guide (Benji) take us through the museum. He was fantastic. He told us many stories of Madagascar history and taught us quite a bit about the current culture. We really enjoyed our time with him. We had a good lunch at the top of the hill and then began the walk down to the city centre. Due to the fact that there are no street names and the streets are windy and small we got pretty lost about half way down. But it was fun to see all the buildings and people. We eventually got back on path and went to the Lac Anosy – which is a memorial from the world war II. After this we strolled through the large covered market in Tana and bought a few souvenirs (despite insulting one store keeper with our low asking price!). We went to this awesome French restaurant for supper where Jeff finally tried Malagasy beer (Three Horses Beer) and of course I had coco punch. We also finally had a chance to check emails! We made it to bed early as we had an early morning flight the following day to Maroantsetra (which Jeff has already blogged on partially).
To keep you updated with where we are now. We are in Nairobi, Kenya. Despite some set backs with ticket changes, etc, we are headed out in about 20min for our Tanzanian safari! We will be safari’ing until Saturday. We begin our journey back to Canada on Sunday July 15th. It’s hard to believe that our journey is near it’s end. Hopefully when we get to Tanzania we will have some more time to tell you about our “adventure” in Maroantsetra!