Where the Adventurous Heart Leads!

 I have spent way to much time on ship in the past little while. Yes, I have been off ship in the evenings but I wanted the chance to explore Tamatave. I wanted an adventure! On Friday night, I was chatting with some friends and we were trying to figure out what to do the next day. We all agreed that we wanted to do something adventurous. The plan was to meet at 8:30 in the dining room after we had eaten breakfast. The next morning 8:30 rolls around and only half of our group is together keep in mind that this is Africa, so we run on laid back schedule. Before we could even leave Nash and Will bailed on the trip as they were sick. By the time we left it was 9 o'clock we walked to the port gate and grapped a tuk-tuk to the Pangalanes Canals Pier.

We wanted to take a boat downstream for a couple hours, spend the day in a local village, and catch a boat back to Tamatave. Pedro and Eunice practiced there French skills with the locals bargaining for our boat. We soon learned that there would be no returning boat later in the afternoon, but we could possibly walk back if we wanted. After talking it over we decided to travel two hours down the canal to what they called an oasis and would figure out a way home later. 

Eunice, Shanna, and I. Shanna just happens to be hairdresser onboard and is from Chilliwack! What are the chances, that would not only end up in the same cabin but as bunkies! 

Since we had some time to kill before the boat would leave, decided to go to the local market. 

The meat in the markets is disgusting, surrounded by flies and sitting in the hot Malagasy sun!

Eunice was hungry so tried some Malagasy noodles and soup, it was delicious.

The local kids were fascinated with us, we took pictures and then would show them and they loved it. However, when Pedro tried to talk to the kids they were scared because they are told that if they don't go to the sleep the "vazaha" or white man will come and take them. When Pedro even looks in the direction of the young children they will start crying. 

Off we go! Loading the boat, the engine of course didn't work right away so we just floated down the river for awhile. Every time they would get the engine running it would just stall again, after 10 mins of working on the engine we were finally off. No, this does not mean we were moving fast at all, but we were moving. 

Two hours later, we arrived in the village of Tapaklia. 

We wanted to make sure that we had a way home, so we chatted with some of the locals. They told us that there would be no boats coming until Sunday morning, and drew a map of the path we could take  walking back.

If you look closely at this picture, on the right hand side of the page you might see a cluster of white right above the ocean that is the Tamatave Port.

We spent an hour enjoying the ocean it was amazing after the trip down the canal it was super refreshing. We just started walking down the beach with no real plan in mind except to head towards the ship. We walked down the beach for two hours it was amazing we don't really know how far we walked, but we think at least 12 kms. 

When we reached the outskirts of Tamatave we grabbed a pousse-pousse and headed towards the boat. 

This wasn't one of our pousse-pousses that we were taking back, but it was just sitting along the side of the road.

On the ride back to the port Eunice fell asleep she managed to get out of the pousse-pousse before falling back asleep, while we waited for Shanna and Pedro.

We are home!

I am so glad that I got off the ship and went on this adventure!