Skipping to the end!

OK, I've procrastinated forever and now, I don't really feel like blogging about Madagascar anymore. I feel like I need to get to more recent events, but before I do that, I absolutely cannot skip the Sainte-Marie part of my summer trip!

I spent about 10 days in Sainte-Marie, a small island on the East coast of the country. I started and ended with some scuba-diving. The weather was wet and not so warm, but people flock to Sainte-Marie at this time of the year to see the humpback whales that come to give birth and reproduce before going back to the cold waters of Antartica. It is illegal to scuba dive with these 30 ton mammals, but while diving we could definitely hear the males trying to seduce the females with their songs. Even on our way out to the dive site, we could often see them swimming around.
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Then I spent 5 days at the Princesse Bora lodge, going to see these gentle giants up close and personal with a foundation called Megaptera. I learned so much during my time with these people that spend the season collecting data to help the humpbacks. It was a very wet experience and plenty of sea sickness to go around, but I would do it all again in a heartbeat!

You can check out http://www.princessebora.com/en/observation.php?m=7&s=1 for more information about Princesse Bora's eco-tourism project.

To find out more about humpback whales, look at http://marinebio.org/species.asp?id=39

There were plenty of other fascinating things I did and saw in Madagascar. I guess if you want to know more about it, you'll have to sit down with me! ;-)