Thriving Thursday

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Good morning all!

I hope you are all thriving today, or at least can work on taking care of yourselves so that you may thrive.

I'm feeling a bit stronger today. The knees are completely out after 36 hours of no use but my tummy tolerated a gentle breakfast today. I had 10 berries, toast, tea, applesauce and a muffin. I slept well due to a seasickness tablet. Things were rough when I went to bed and my tummy was still twitchy. I didn't want to push my luck so medicated. Slept through dh being up for a while in the middle of the night as a result and I've put him back on totally bland diet as a result.

I'm up and at it already because it is 10 a.m. here between Madagascar and mainland Africa.

We are taking 2 days to get to Mozambique. Our tour in Mozambique is just an overview of Maputo. Which is a well developed city because, during the decades long civil war, both sides wanted to use it when they 'won' and so didn't destroy it.

I'm going to take some time this morning to share reflections of each of the places we've visited. I'm sorry these are so long in the sharing but internet has been a challenge. After 5 hours of trying to send email, we finally got all the travelogues out to my list last night. But we had to break them up so I think we sent 10 emails in total - a ridiculous amount to expect people to read in one shot. Over 5 days it would have been fine.

Dh's is still working on writing up yesterday's experience at the nature preserve. Once that is sent, we'll be caught up.

I missed Bible study this morning and my next event for the day is trivia at noon.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Mauritius


Land ho!  After 6 and a half days we saw land! It was a very smooth crossing but we saw no shipping traffic (except one ship day 5) and no wildlife - no birds, no fish, no marine mammals. One of the things we enjoy most after a lot of sea days is bird song. And Ken spotted a red parakeet both in Mauritius and Reunion, the following day.

While I didn't mind doing a tour ashore, I was fully prepared to continue at sea. After a longer run of sea days, I'm usually anxious to get ashore but not this time, despite arriving in a place as interesting as Mauritius appeared. The physical attributes of the island were dramatic.

The port of Port Louis was an interesting contrast of modernity set against the dramatic mountains that form the island. We arrived at last morning so were able to easily watch the arrival in port. Face-to-face meeting with immigration was required but took only a minute. The ship had assigned everyone a time to be there and things were moved up by 30 minutes since things were moving so smoothly. We were off the ship at 12:30 for our 6 hour tour.

The countries top industries are tourism, textiles (all material is imported, cheap labour is used by high-end labels to do the sewing), and agriculture, specifically sugar cane and its by product, rum.

We noted petrol is about $1.70 per litre but the guide said that is was one of the most expensive countries for petrol when you take into account the wages.

Mauritius is now independent but was British, French, and Dutch over the years.  Cosmopolitan is the best way to describe it due to its history.

Before being 'discovered' no humans lived here.  It was a sort of Garden of Eden with few predators. Unique fauna like the dodo, quickly became extinct because it was too slow, too defenseless or perhaps too tasty to cope with the arrival of humans.

The humans came in waves, first the Portuguese sailors, then European settlers, Dutch, French, then British, who brought slaves, east Africans, and Malagasy (from what we now call Madagascar.) With the abolition of slavery, the British encouraged cheap labour to immigrate from India. The result is a mix of Africans, Indians and Europeans. The natives speak French or Kreole but they are educated in English, making school more difficult. Signage on billboards and in the shops is in English although most of the place names are French.

We started our tour in Port Louis and so saw a bit of the city as we headed out along the coast to the south west mountains of the Black River/ Riviere Noire. The area is called that because the mountainous area sheltered runaway black slaves.

I've mentioned the book club on board and the first book we discussed was The Last Brother, set in Mauritus. The story, set during WWII, starts in the town of Beau Bassin with the father working in the sugar cane fields so I was thrilled as we drove past the sugar cane still growing there.

The views were stunning.



Almost 100% of the vegetation is non-indigenous. Only about 1.3% of the primary forest remains, mostly in the Black River Valley due to it being so inaccessible.

The second book I've read for the book club is The Aye-Aye and I by Gerald Durrell, about a trip to Madagascar to capture animals for his conservation program and I learned about the mating habits of tortoise in that book. Didn't expect to witness any action on this trip, but we did!

From there the tour headed on to a rum distillery. I passed on the tasting but Ken lifted a toast to his dad (who would have loved the tour!)

This was very much an on and off the motor coach tour and we had another stop to admire the scenery before heading to an Indian Temple.

The temple was at the lake Grand Bassin, which is a volcanic basin. It had altars set up for the various Gods in the water. People would wade out into the water which was teeming with fish.  

From the temple it was back to the ship. It was passed our dinner hour and we were exhausted from the heat, so we settled into the cabin and had a light dinner, salad and sandwich for me, pizza for Ken. We watched Saving Mr. Banks while we ate and then headed to bed. The next day was a very early start for an 8 hour tour.

My impression of Mauritius is that while I wouldn't mind returning again, it is not a place I'd choose to return to.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Reunion

Bonjour!

We spent last Saturday in France. It was a delightful break from cruising.

Ah, the wonders of modern travel.

Or, more exactly, the wonders of the endurance of empire.

Reunion Island is a province of France, just as Normandy or Burgundy, is. It even felt quite European with the EU license plates on the vehicles.

Reunion hosts the Indian Ocean French Naval Fleet so the areas we visited had the feel of a government/base town.

And money. Well developed, great roads, lots of commerce but also lush, green. Of course we were on the wet side of the island, the tall mountains stop the clouds from reaching the dry side of island.

I loved it there and would happily return.

Our tour was an 8 hour one, covering the urban St. Denis and the rural area around the Cirque de Salazie and Hell Bourg. We were loaded onto full size motor coaches at 8:30 and

<I interrupt this writing to call out 'Dolphins!' -  just off the port side, thanks to a fellow passenger I saw two jumping in the bow wave of the ship. Now there's a crowd of people around my window seat.>

...and drove off along the lovely motorway that rings the island. They are busy building it out over the ocean since the landslide off the cliffs are threatening the current lanes. There are two volcanoes on Reunion. One last erupted about 20,000 years ago, the other last month! Not sure if that affected the highway since the map indicates the lava flows in that direction. The guide says people take the day off work to go watch the lava flow when it happens.

Unlike Mauritius, Reunion formed much later. So although they have many similarities on the surface, geologically, they are quite different.

Reunion shares the same history of man's arrival as Mauritius so has the same mixture of cultures, although the British only 'owned' the island for a very short period of time so are not reflected in today's life.

The coast we were on received up to 8m of rain a year (that is no typo) and the area we were headed to in the mountains receives up to 12m per year. It was so lush, that in places we saw no other colour but green.

Our first stop was a vanilla plantation. We enjoyed learning about the growing, harvesting and production of the vanilla and now have a better appreciation for the price I pay at home. It is two years from bloom to bottle. And on Reunion, the flowers were hand pollinated as they don't have bees to do the work. Women do that delicate task, pollinating 1000 - 1500 flowers per morning.

The plantation owners were offering either coffee flavoured with vanilla or a coconut vanilla punch which Ken had. He commented that it tasted almost as if it had alcohol in it and I confirmed that it did in fact contain rum. He put it down but commented that had he been a drinking man, he may have found his favourite drink!

From there we started our climb into the hills. This was another of those tours with all the trigger words I'm to avoid, panoramic, scenic, vista, but at least this didn't come with specific warnings for those with vertigo or fear of heights as two of the other tours had! I took my traditional aisle seat and avoided looking down as much as possible.

As we climbed, the road had several switch backs and I was amazed at the ability of our driver to negotiate the large vehicle around such narrow roads. Oncoming cars would have to back up while we made our way around the turns but we made it in both directions without incident.

The waterfalls were lovely, the view impressive and we enjoyed our time wandering around the village of Hell Bourg, named the most picturesque village in France. We had a lovely lunch there and then headed back into St. Denis for time to wander through the 'handcraft' market there. I did see much that I would have negotiated for had I had money but we forgot our Euros and the market place people didn't accept dollars. While there was to be a currency conversion on the pier we were whisked away before being able to exchange money so the stop wasn't all that useful.

I really loved Reunion and would happily return there some day to explore more fully. But I will never rent a car to drive to the scenic parts. It was scary enough in a motor couch!

We were back to the ship on time and able to dress for dinner and enjoyed the evening talking with our table mates and then the fun show which was Pianotainment, four-handed piano with the energy and sense of fun that I enjoy in the Piano Guys. So we enjoyed the evening very much.

Sleeping in was an option the following day because it was a sea day but we were up early due to sunrise. We sleep with our drapes open so tend to wake early.

It was Sunday, so I attended church in the morning and then enjoyed the break from Lent by having a coke and, later, a Dr. Pepper. It was a sea day and I was supposed to write these travelogues but was too tired to do so. It was also formal night and I had to spend hours getting ready. One advantage to Silversea's more frequent formal and semi-formal nights is that I don't let myself 'go' in between. Tying the sari took a while too (and two tries) but we got it done. Joycie, our cabin steward was thrilled I was a) wearing a sari and b) tied it myself. Turns out she's Indian (we thought she was Indonesian.) She did tighten up the pleats for me.

We had photos taken (this ship has a photographer who does formal shoots around the ship) but I'm not sure they are worth buying. Ken and I have yet to look at them together so haven't made a decision on that. We did attend a seminar on how to look good in a photo and are paying more attention to lighting than we usually did. It also talked about being a good mood when you go for a photo shoot and my tiredness shows through on the photos he took that evening.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Madagascar – Isle Sainte Marie & Isle Aux Nattes

After a day in France and a day at sea we arrived in Madagascar. Or more accurately, Isle Sainte Marie off the north-east coast of Madagascar.

Our tour took us to Isle Aux Nattes, leaving at the ungodly hour of 7:30.

This was our first chance to tender with Crystal and it went smoothly. With 3 times the passengers of our Silversea ships, I had wondered if tendering would go poorly. Apparently it has earlier in the World Cruise but obviously logistical changes were made. Those on tours meet and then process together to the tenders so that helps a lot, they know they're taking less than a full complement of passengers to the boats at one time so there will be a place for everyone.

We landed at the main street of the town of Ambodifotatra and were walked to mini buses to take us 40 minutes out to where we'd catch the boat to Isle Aux Nattes. The rain started on the way to the buses and became a downpour. It was a toss-up as we sat waiting for everyone to be placed in a bus - do we keep the windows open and breathe or shut them and be dry?

The drive out to the boat landing was interesting. We passed the airport (a strip), villages and zebu (a cow like animal that is everywhere here.)

At the landing we sat in our little buses for ages waiting for the rain to let up a bit. We could see glimpses of blue so had hope. The water, despite the rain, had splashes of green and looked inviting. Eventually, we got out and walked past all the tempting dugout canoes to a more modern boat that took us across the 200 m to the island. There we walked to the 'resort' where we left our stuff (and I changed from my wet top and sandals from our wet landing, into runners for our hike.) The rain had let up and sun was starting to come out.

There was an adorable dog who dropped a seed pod at my feet while I was waiting for a change room. I didn't want to put my hand down or even my foot in case it bit so I knocked it with a swing of my bag and it retrieve it. This time I kicked it and later I just picked it up and tossed it, although the dog wasn't too bright and would easily loose the pod if I tossed it too far. It did understand English rather well, though.

I had been concerned about the hike up a hill because it was labeled strenuous but they talked about dividing us into slow and fast groups so Ken went ahead with a fast group. Then everyone remaining wanted to be 'fast' so I found myself struggling to keep up at times. I wanted to be able to stop and photograph things and understand better what I was seeing.

I easily spotted the village general store and telecom shop. And financial shop in that people here use their mobile phones for money transfers as well.

The homes were built on stilts for the rainy season. They use the traveling palm tree for the walls and roofing material.


It was a 4 mile hike in total. At the top of the hill at the lighthouse, my group caught up with Ken's and I was able to use him for support on the way down the hill. I'm still upset I've forgotten my walking poles at home and my knees are struggling as a result.

The views from the lighthouse were gorgeous and I would have loved to spend more than a minute there but the wind and thunder indicated the storm was moving quickly.

At the lighthouse, the noise we had been hearing was confirmed as thunder. The lightening was impressive too. We skedaddled down from the high point of the island quickly, hoping to get down to flatter ground before heavy rain made the path slippery and dangerous. On the way down, one of the guides said 'the thunder is calling the rain' which was a lovely thought. I was so impressed with their use of the little English they had.

The thunder may have been calling the rain but it never came to us (it did hit the main island, though.)

Back at the resort we had a lunch of seafood salad and bbq lobster. I had one bite of the octopus just so I could say I had tasted it (yuck) but just ate bread and had a coke (breaking Lent) because I can't have shellfish.

After lunch some local black and white lemurs showed up for a visit (they are creatures of habit so will reliably drop in daily.) I was thrilled to get to see them since we hadn't expected to see them on this tour.

The lemurs were fun to watch. The village children were pretty cute too! They had danced down the road, arms linked, to the music from the villagers cultural show.

After that we had a glorious swim in the ocean and played more with the dog. He jumped off the dock into the water ahead of us and would paddle around barking to get us to join him. In a shallower spot, he would jump to catch the water droplets that Ken would splash up in the air.

He got out of the water long after I had started to dry and I told him to go away to shake and he did walk away, shake, and then rejoin us! Told you he could understand English!

The views were wonderful, wherever we looked.

Out on the sandbar, people were fishing by beating the water with sticks. Closer to where we ate, a woman was fishing with what might have been mosquito bed nets. I've read that this is the latest aid project gone bad - the mosquito nets are distributed for free and are excellent for fishing. Unfortunately, the chemical they are treated with is poisoning the fish and the people. An example of how complicated aid to Africa can be, treating one problem at a time doesn't work, in this case, they put eating above protection from malaria.

It truly felt like a paradise island.

Although we were 40 minutes from the ship, the distance wasn't that far and from a few points we could see our ship anchored in the distance. It is the poor roads (and poor buses - I wasn't thrilled to see our driver adding water before we left!)  that slow travel down.

We had the option to return early and so took it since I had originally booked a 6 hour tour which was changed to 8 hours at some point. The Crystal rep suggested we take a dug out canoe back to the buses and we jumped at the chance to pay a few dollars for the ride. Punting was quick although there was about 100 meters where he had to paddle and the motor boat overtook us there but then spent time spinning around and backing into the beach on the other side to minimize the wet landing so we ended up on the shore first.

From the moment Ken saw the canoe in the morning he wanted to ride in it! I'm glad we got a chance to do so, it became the highlight in a day of highlights.

It was back to the town and straight back to the ship to shower, short rest and dress for dinner.

Many of the people we talked to had one of their best day touring ever and I'd have to say the same was true for us. At this point, I can't think of a better day.

Unfortunately, we (along with many of the others with us) picked up some bug at either lunch or in the water so the days following haven't been near as wonderful.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Madagascar - Toalanaro

(This is written by Ken)

Okay, now it is my turn to try and write a travelogue in the shadow of Kathryn's wonderful writing.  I hope you will bear with me while I try to express some of the wonderment of today's touring.  Sometimes my ideas are a bit disjointed and there were a lot of notes I made about things I heard of during the day.

I was sad not to have Kathryn with me.  I was through the illness in 24 hours, but Kathryn's illness started 12 hours after mine and so she was still not well enough to come on tour with me today.  The illness was very widespread amongst those on tour with us two days ago ... but only those who had the seafood salad (octopus, squid and fish).  The couple I met where he had the salad and she didn't, he got sick and she didn't.  I didn't really enjoy the salad but I didn't think I'd get sick from it ... and Kathryn only had one bite of it ... we were both stricken.  At dinner tonight, Kathryn and two other wives were absent due to illness from the table of four couples.

But enough said about being sick.  I spent Tuesday in bed recuperating and doing nothing, and Kathryn had to do that Wednesday on the day we were to go together to see lemurs at a wild-life preserve in Madagascar.

Such a contrast between Isle St. Marie two days ago and here in Toalanaro today:  the poverty is the same, but the handling of it was very different.  Today there was a lot of outright begging, pulling at clothes and objects in my hand, pushing babies in my face, calling aloud and mayhem.  The people in Isle St. Marie were respectful and seemingly shy ... perhaps even self-conscious.

I think that is all I'll say about the people and I'll focus on the country and the tour.

There are 6 provinces in Madagascar, two on the inner plains and six around the edges.  Madagascar is the fourth largest island in the world!  I guess I never thought of which islands are that big.

The port we docked in is owned by a mining company, 75% of which is owned by Rio Tinto and 25% by the government.  It is used to ship out the titanium that is mined here.  It sits on the edge of a mountain range that practically drops into the sea except for a sandy area on which people scrape a living.

These mountains protect the communities from the wind of cyclones (including one a few weeks ago), but they get the rain:  1.5 meters of rain per year.  The other side of the mountains is desert.

About 600 people are hired by the mining company and they live on a gated community near the port.  There was no walking on the industrial port, so we had to take a one-minute shuttle bus (longer to board and deboard) to get to the market area.  Kathryn summoned the effort to go to the market with me before my tour left, and she practically collapsed in bed when we returned.  The sandy area meant that the wind coming off the ocean stung with the grains of sand, which was very uncomfortable.

But the market was not as uncomfortable as the bus ride!  Our guides commented before we left that the bus ride itself was part of the attraction.  Perhaps so ... it was an old-fashioned non-air-conditioned school bus with seat belts, and if I wasn't belted in I would not have been able to stay in my seat!  The company roads were paved, but the country road to the game preserve was rutted with vehicle and rain damage.

The first of the lemurs to be seen in the preserve was the small bamboo lemur, but he was pretty shy and difficult to see between the shoots:

Next we saw a chameleon, but he was presented to us on branches.  I asked our guide and it turns out the person holding the branches in this case was a preserve employee, but through the day many children came up begging for photo tips with chameleons on branches they had.  We were told that the colour of most chameleons has nothing to do with the surroundings, but with their mood (angry, romantic, scared, comfortable, etc.).  These are two pictures of the same animal, taken about 10 minutes apart:

The second lemur we saw was the "dancing lemur", so named because its legs have evolved (lengthened) such that the lemur is now primarily a tree climber and so when it is on the ground it has to jump instead of walk.  The ones we saw stayed in the trees:



The third type of lemur we saw was the brown lemur, though this guy was shy.  In fact, in the cool of the afternoon breeze all of the lemurs were very active.  The morning tour saw some of the lemurs but the lemurs were too hot to want to move much ... the ones we saw we had trouble finding and then keeping up with them!  The brown lemurs are distinguished male/female by the colour of their faces.  With most lemurs you cannot tell the boys from the girls.

Chasing the lemurs took the tour group through some rough wet terrain ... (Kathryn's note: from the pictures, I'm relieved I didn't go!)

We were finally rewarded with the prize viewing of a conspiracy of ring-tailed lemurs (that is the group name)

It turns out that while lemurs of any given species are very territorial, lemurs of different species are tolerant of each other:  there isn't fighting between the species, only within the species.

An interesting difference between the people in the north (where we were two days ago) and here in the south is their respect of their ancestors.  In the north when someone dies they are buried for five years and then their bones are dug up and retrieved and thus the ancestors are kept in the home much like one might do with ashes.  In the south they do not practice exhumation.  Ancestors are buried deep in the forest along a very narrow but well-defined path (so that the ancestors spirits can find their way back to the home) but it is taboo to go to the burial sites afterwards.  Rather, markers (much like tombstones) are placed at the head of the path indicating which ancestors are buried within the forest.  In both cultures the ancestors play an important role in directing the living in making significant choices (schooling, careers, etc.).  Mediums are called in to help to convey the message if the people are not getting a clear enough message from their ancestors on their own.

On the route there and back we saw lots of zebu:  a humped cattle incredibly important to the economy and culture in Madagascar.  A person's wealth is in direct proportion to the number of zebu they own.  A zebu is often part of the dowry of a wife, and in some ways is a bank (you invest your money buying zebu and reclaim it by selling zebu).  The bus had to stop for a number of herds that were being herded across the roads. 

The lobster industry is past its prime and the country is now in periodic shutdown of the fishery because of conservation efforts.  While it provides some employment, that employment is now infrequent.

A last point we heard about was regarding home construction:  there was a mixture of homes with traveling palms as roofs (and walls) and of homes with metal roofs.  It turns out the palms last longer than the roofs because of the salt air near the ocean rusting the roofs through!

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

There!

You are all caught up on my travel.

It has been weighing on my mind that I've barely described the wonders that we have been seeing.

Reading Ken's description of yesterday, it sounds like I would have enjoyed it, but there was/is no regret about missing the day. I was so sick, it was obvious that I couldn't do it and really didn't care at all.

Now that I've distracted you all for ages, first thing in the morning as well, I'll send you all off to have a thriving day.

Do take time, though, to appreciate the little things we all take for granted. Roads. Readily available food. Running water. Electricity. Solid homes. Reliable transportation (except maybe Elizabeth but even then, when her car is in the spa she has public transport to fall back upon!) We live truly blessed lives and are thriving all the time when compared to others in the world.

[BookSaver]

Good morning, villagers ~
Thanks for opening the thread today, Kathryn. I always love your travelogues. I'm glad you are feeling better.

I am up ridiculously early because the cat woke me up and I misread my alarm clock. I thought it said 5:00, which is within my allowable window of time for getting up. (DH sets his alarm for 6:00 but hits the snooze until 6:30, which annoys me so much that it's a better start for my day if I get up before that stupid beeping every 5 minutes.) After I was fully awake and downstairs feeding the cat, I looked at the kitchen clock and it said 4:15, not 5:15.

My guess is that the cat decided to let me know that the smoke alarm in my office had started to chirp for a new battery. Unfortunately, we don't have a 9V in our battery drawer, so I am having to endure the noise until I can get to a store later.

In the meantime, I have eaten a graham cracker and am sipping cold coffee leftover from yesterday morning. I have a menu plan worked out for the next couple of weeks, and a grocery list to take to wm.

I'm going to catch up on a blog and watch a camping video until DH leaves for work, then put a load of jeans in the washer and take a nap. I don't feel able to drive the highway and face wm on this little sleep.

[BookSaver]

PS: New registrations RunKitty and Molly's Nana ~ thanks for coming out of lurkdom to join us.

[DeeClutter]

Thank you, Kathryn (and Ken). Just spent the last 20 minutes or so reading your itinerary. Very interesting. Sorry you've been sick through some of it though.

I've been awake for a while. I'm s2s but that's it. Now it's time for meds, breakfast, wash my hair. Think then I'm going to make a quick run to W mart for a few things -hopefully while it's not so busy.

Thrive away, friends!

[Lynlee]

I enjoyed reading of your travels Kathryn and Ken. Hoping you are over the bug soon Kathryn, and your knees recover too.

I need to move on my dishes, drink some more water, maybe make some tea.
We are still stuck with warmer than normal temps. Wondering if some of you are out of winter yet.