Madagascar part 2---Trekking along "La route du sud"

This part of my trip was a big gamble: I was going to test "the feet" out. Could I now manage to walk for more than an hour? Time to give it a try. If it didn't work, I had my diving gear....

If you look on the map of Part 1, this "route du sud" (Southern route) goes from Tana (Antananarivo) to Fianaransoa and then goes West toward Tulear. My plan was to make it all the way to Parc National de Isalo and back to Tana, 8 days South and 2 days without stopping to make it back to the capital.

The reasonable thing to do on my first trek is to take that 2 hour trek, in and out of this region. BORING! If I'm in this part of the world, I need to live it up a little, so I went for the overnight trek over the 2 mountains separating me from the Zafimaniry people, known for their woodcarving, in the village of Sakaivo at the other end.... I was told it would take 5 hours to get there and the same amount of time to come back, the next day. Guess what? It took me 3.5 hours!!! Wooo-hooo! The feet survived!!! re-wooo-hooo!!!


When I got here, all the adults were out of the village, building a road to get here. There were only kids around. They were so camera shy, I couldn't believe it. All that changed when I was able to show them right away the pictures I was taking. Then, they just wouldn't leave me alone! Here, I'm holding up the camera towards us, but on the other side, there are a few little boys holding on to the camera, looking at the screen. I don't know if they had ever seen themselves (I didn't see any mirrors), so they were all asking for a photo and wanting to see it right after. What an experience for all of us!