May 30 – Durban, South Africa

Weather – 24º

Steps – 8,788

Humidity – 64%

Country #94!

approaching

Just after we woke up this morning, we heard the dreaded bing-bang-bong…right into the room – not good. A helicopter would be arriving shortly to medivac someone from the ship. Chris heard the ‘code mike’ (medical emergency) announcement in the night. Anyone on the top 2 decks were told to scram. Well…no pool for us.

second try

Around 9:00 the ship stopped, and the helicopter arrived. It seemed like it took a few tries to get the helicopter landed on the ship. We couldn’t see much from our room. The ship doesn’t have a designated helipad like some ships do. There was no landing. Everything was done from the sky, dropping a paramedic and then raising the patient. We of course didn’t see anything, but Nyoman was our waiter tonight was is on the pool deck because he is the juice man, saw it all, and relayed it to us.

The whole evacuation took about an hour. The helicopter took the patient to the hospital and then had to return for the paramedic, who didn’t go on with the patient. Maybe the ship’s medical staff

went and there wasn’t room for the paramedic…no idea.

Durban street life

We spent the rest of the morning on our back deck. It was very pleasant. We knew the sea conditions were deteriorating and that the seas were getting choppy, but didn’t realize how windy it was. The wind was coming from the front of the boat and us being on the back were completely sheltered. When we went up for Cool by the Pool, it was just that…cool. about a third of the chairs were tied down and the pool spray was being blown over anyone near. Another reason (for today at least) to love our back balcony.

For Cool by the Pool, we typically like to have Aperol Spritzes. These drinks have lots of volume and low alcohol – perfect for pre lunch. As we approached the pool bar, Georgio saw us coming. We sat down said hello and saw that he was preparing 2 Aperol Spritzes. Chris said to me: “think those are for us?” I replied: “if they are, that is

Durban skyline

incredibly impressive”. Guess what??? THEY WERE FOR US!!! I told Georgio what Chris and I just said to each other, and he said: “I see everything” – WOW. Not only does he know our drink preferences, but he also knows WHEN we like to drink WHAT!

We arrived into Durban at about 4PM, our tour wasn’t meeting until 5:45, but we also had to go through South Africa face-to-face immigration – that was painless.

Out evening tour was “Durban City and Costal Drive” ah…well…we saw the city and drove along the coast, but didn’t see a whole lot. The cruise ship terminal was close to downtown where it was obvious we wouldn’t want to be alone. If we were to be on those streets (which we wouldn’t, don’t worry Mom!) we would be the only white people. We didn’t see one white person at all. It also eventually

dawned on me that there was little to no lights on many of the streets and buildings. Even the monuments had no lights, so there was little to see.

We drove along the coast to the town of Ballito – an upscale resort town. We saw little of the town due to it being night, but what we saw were hotels, a mall, restaurants…a resort town.

We saw the stadium built for the 2010 world cup from up close and from a lookout point.

All in all, the tour was a bit of a bust. I was glad to see some of Durban, but will likely see more tomorrow as we leave town for the SAFARI!!!!!!!

May 29 – Maputo, Mozambique

Weather – 29º

Steps – over 10,000. It was suggested that we not wear jewellery, so I took off my Apple watch. To us, it’s easy to not wear jewellery in places like this, so we don’t.

Humidity – 65%

Country #93!

The morning started with a breakfast organized by the ship so we could meet the other 3 couples going on the safari with us on Saturday. This is a nice small group. There was one couple from Vancouver and 2 from the US. One of the couples has been on 5 safaris so they were a good source of information.

Mozambique

sun rise

We decided to spend the next bit of the morning on the deck, the weather was perfect at about 25 degrees, with shade and a bit of a breeze as we sailed into Mozambique. I had planned on only staying out for a bit and then making it to the gym, but Saravanan teamed up with Chris and after significant convincing (very little actually) I succumbed to a glass of wine! That Saravanan…always looking for a way to spoil us! My willpower eventually prevailed, and I made it to the gym.

The sail-in was lovely as sail-ins always are. As we approached Maputo it became apparent to us that this would be more big city compared to our last few ports.

Maputo street life

Maputo is the capital and largest city of Mozambique, pop: 1.1 million, metropolitan area: 2.7 mil. This is the first time we’re setting foot on AFRICA, mainland AFRICA. Really, we’ve been to mainland Africa before having visited Egypt and Morrocco, but this part of Africa is…different. Maputo is on a large natural bay in the Indian Ocean, in the southern most part of the country next to South Africa. As a former Portuguese colony, half of the people speak Portuguese. Maputo has a similar population to Calgary but is 5-10x denser.

One thing about travelling to new places is learning about the places we visit.

Louis describing Portuguese colonization

Like where exactly is Mozambique? I’ve basically learned everything I know about geography from travelling. Are there big cities here? What is it like to live here? And of course, what’s the local beer?

Today we are docked thankfully. Another (among the many, many) things to be thankful for today is that the tour is on foot, directly from the pier!

When we met up with Luis our guide and Diana our handler, there were only 2 other people with us! 4 on a walking tour…heaven! We heard some of the other groups had 14 which is still small, but we were very lucky.

Chris and Louis at the Fort

Louis first gave us a bit of an overview inside the terminal before we set out into the Maputo’s grittiness. The streets are narrow, so we mostly walked single file. The streets are lined with half decent, normal cars – Louis told us mostly they are used from Japan. We also noticed they were all clean and some were being handwashed by bucket, we figured that the ones doing the washing were not the owners and maybe it was a watch and wash situation as there were others who looked like

beers in Maputo

they may be just watching the individual cars.

We trailed behind Louis, with Diana in the rear, as he walked us first to the train station, designed by Gustave Eiffel. Outside the train station was a hive of activity – cars, busses, trucks, tuk-tuks, and hawkers. Just like anywhere else in the world, our approach to hawkers is to politely ignore and make zero eye contact. Rarely, we’ll say ‘no thanks’ but mostly just ignore – that has served us well. One of the other people with us made the mistake of asking one guy how much his hats were…good grief. This guy popped up at every spot we visited! He was not really a bother, just tailed us the entire afternoon and only talk to the one who was interested in the first place. When Louis asked him to can it when he was talking to us, he complied.

I think this guy really did want a hat and eventually bought 2 ball caps for

hello from maputo

10USD.

Although outside the train station was mayhem, inside was calm and almost peaceful. It is still a working station, but you wouldn’t know it for the lack of activity. We wandered around (listening to Adele and Bruno Mars on PA system funnily enough) as Louis described where cargo came and went from, gave us the history of the station and a bit more about Mozambique’s history.

random mural

Our next stop was at Maputo’s 18th-century fortress fort. The walk to the fort was short, but through more narrow, crowded, car lined streets. The tour description said we would be strolling the “wide boulevards of Mozambique’s capital” – false advertising…there were definitely NO wide streets.

Our visit to the fort gave Louis an opportunity to talk to us about Mozambique’s

Louis' gift

colonization by Portugal – Portuguese is one of the official languages, actually I think it is the only official language. It’s interesting to note that the other countries surrounding Mozambique speak English, but here it’s Portuguese.

Next, we were back into the bustling streets for another short walk to a café where we had a drink and a pastel de nata – the Portuguese custard tart.

Our last stop was at the Maputo Central Market. This was a typical market, with food and souvenirs. We didn’t stay long at the market. Chris asked

ship with Chinese built 5Km bridge

Louis if there would be a place for a local beer at the market. There was across from the market. Diana stayed with the other 2 who wanted to see the market and we went with Louis to a row of streetside stalls. Each stall had simple, small, low tables and either a wooden bench or those typical plastic stools we’ve seen in travel/food shows. The 3 of us joined the 2 guys who were already there. I’m not sure if anyone else spoke English, if they did, they didn’t show it. They weren’t speaking Portuguese either I figured that much out.

Louis got 2, 2M beers, the name is 2M. They weren’t too keen to take our USD,

port bustling with activity

but that’s all we had. We could have gone into the market to exchange, but in the end when they were satisfied that the bills were not fake (apparently that’s a big deal in Africa – they want brand new crisp bills) and then did the conversion on their phones, they were happy. It was a great experience.

So, we sat with Louis drinking our beer,

while he drank his water (being on duty and all) and chatted a bit. At one point he asked one of the Mozambican

tankers leaving port

guys at our table for some coins. This guy started pulling coins out of the biggest red leather satchel you’ve ever seen. I thought Louis was getting him to trade our USD for the coins to pay for the beer…no. Louis found one of each of the Mozambican coins for both Chris and me as a reminder of Mozambique. I tried to refuse, but Louis insisted.  I was very touched. In the end we paid $1USD for each of our beers.

One thing we noticed while walking around Maputo was that there were no kids (except for the 3 in school uniforms we saw at the end of the tour.) Hopefully this means that they are all in school – education is free in Mozambique, but as we learned in Mayotte, that doesn’t mean they go. This was a sharp contrast to the last 2 ports teaming with kids. We also saw an equal number of men and women working and walking around Maputo. Also, FYI…Mozambique is 50% Christian and 17% Muslim.

sunset over Maputo

Mozambique is one of the poorest countries in the world, but you wouldn’t know if from today’s visit. We saw their mostly commercial downtown rather than where people lived. It was hardly shiny and clean, but the poverty wasn’t as apparent as it was in the last 2 ports.

When the cruise started it was suggested that we might need a $500 visa to visit

another bridge shot

Mozambique. We had decided we would do it as we would likely never be back
to see the place. In the end, Canadians (and most other passengers) didn’t need one. There’s a large contingent onboard from Costa Rica – they needed visas. If you needed and didn’t get one, you could just stay on board.

May 28 – Cruising The Mozambique Channel

where we bobbed

Weather – 25º (high), 25º (low), 25º (sea temp)

Steps – 5,515

Humidity – 68%

Sea depth – 3,200m

Ship speed – 17kn before the stoppage, 19kn after

that's a lot of 25s

Today is the last day for a while that we will be able to sit at the pool. We have port days and then will be off the boat for a few days on a safari. It was a nice day for the pool. We got primo spots where the shade was only growing. That was until the boat had to be turned off! There was some kind of electrical problem. After about 2 hours we were on the go again. The ever-dreaded bing-bang-bong came through all areas of the ship. This is NEVER a good sign. We heard those sounds plenty during covid. We are 2 hrs behind, so we’ll have to see how that affects tomorrow.

When the engines were turned off, we were just bobbing in the ocean, turning
this way and that…we were soon out of the shade. We found towels for protection and once we were on our way again the shade returned. At one point we sailed through a short rain shower, I always love these.

cushion wrangling

Later in the day we received an update – we are now only an hour behind and our tour that was supposed to be at 1:15 has been moved to 1:20.

Other than the electrical issue, the most excitement for the morning was watching 3 staff try to wrangle a cushion from a pool lounger from the pool. It was quite windy on the pool deck again this morning and the cushion blew into the pool. It was quite the effort trying to get that out while the wind continued to blow, the pool sloshed, and the staff tried not
to get wet.

We got the Namibia visa sorted, now hopefully, we actually get there and this effort and $$ wasn’t useless – there’s always a chance weather, political issues, mechanical issues cause us to miss ports.

Kathie – there are 14 others on board with over 400 nights sailed, there is one couple with 800 nights!!

Stacey – glad you are caught up!!

May 27 – Cruising The Mozambique Channel

Country fair

Weather – 28º

Steps – 5,223

Humidity – 68%

Today is the ship’s ‘country fair’. See my pic for a description. Not really our scene, but we like to be on the fringes. We sat at the pool bar and watched the action. Seems like I don’t talk to bartenders anymore…I sit, a drink is in front of me within minutes – exactly what I would have ordered! Wow!

Speaking of bartenders remembering our drink preferences…at the beginning of the cruise, a bartender we kind of knew on a previous cruise, asked us if we were recently on the Mariner ship…why, yes…we were. He said

country fair

he remembered us because we always ordered the same thing together.

Anyway, the fair is at the pool, so all of the loungers are put away to make room for the festivities. Last night we saw that all the chairs were away, so we knew we could laze in the morning a bit.

My first order of business today was sunglass shopping. Thankfully at the ship’s shop I found a pair I like, not as much as my last pair and I’m still aggravated, but my eyes will be happy.

On our last day in Dubai, before boarding the ship, we learned that Namibia, one of the countries we will be visiting on the second half of this trip, requires that we get visas if we want to get off of the ship. This is the cash-grab kind of visa that

hooray for us!

you apply online for. We tried in Dubai as soon as we found out but weren’t successful. The requirements for a passport photo and a PDF of our passports plus the fact that I couldn’t actually get the confirmation email to come to me to start the visa process made us give up temporarily. We figured Regent would help us out - they didn’t really. We have to do everything ourselves online. Chris got his email confirmation, so he was able to do the visa for me as well. However, he was trying to do it today in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The credit card he was using wanted to send him a text verification, cell service in the middle of the ocean is zipo, so we’ll wait until we get cell service

party nibbles

tomorrow. I’m thankful Chris fought with all of this very calmly, I’m not sure I would have been so calm. I’m not sure how other people on the cruise are fairing technologically speaking.

It was Tex-Mex day at the pool grill for lunch. We don’t usually eat lunch at the pool grill, preferring to go into the more elaborate lunch buffet at La Veranda. Today we thought a taco might hit the spot – it did.

I did end up going into La Veranda for cheese. One downside of eating at the pool grill is that they don’t have the cheese station La Veranda does. Everyday, La Veranda has 4 or 5 cheeses to c

sea bass

hoose from. I typically cannot resist, today was a typical day! I mention a lot of what Regent does well, however, one thing they do not do well is keep the cheese station stocked with Ritz crackers. The cheese station is stocked with Ritz, water crackers and those crispy-rye type crackers – note to Regent…NO ONE WANTS ANYTHING BUT RITZ!!! Every cruise every lunch time, the Ritz run out. It’s weird, but I can’t blame people…all I want are the Ritz out of those 3 choices too.

Guess what we did next?? Back to the room to listen to the recorded lecture from this morning on our next port – Mozambique, nap, blog, and read.

Before dinner tonight there was a party thrown in our honor. Well, not exactly in our honor, but kind of. As I’ve mentioned before, Regent has a loyalty program based on the number of nights you’ve sailed with them. This cruise marks the 400^th night Chris and I have been on a Regent ship. They give out pins for each guest achieving their next level, at parties such as these once each cruise. It was nice, but a bit weird. Congratulating us for taking vacations is a bit odd – Regent should be congratulating itself for keeping us, maybe that’s what the pins are about after all.

Then it was up to deck 11 to listen to Kelly with a drink I didn’t need to ask for. We did end up talking to Gorgio, the bartender, who reminded us of which ship we know him from. We remember the people, but not necessarily the ship.

Dinner on the night of the loyalty party historically has always included miso glazed sea bass and tonight was no different. This is a thick cut piece of sea bass with a slightly sweet glaze – delicious.

We made it to the show tonight – Songs of Broadway, both old and new! I have to say, the ship’s singers this cruise are particularly good. None of the shows are more than 45 minutes, so even if it isn’t your cup of tea, you’re not investing a huge chunk of time.

Chris did some post show gambling and I sat on the deck for a while – the stars were out!

May 26 – Mamoudzou, Mayotte, French Comoros Islands

Weather – 29º

Steps – 6,884

Humidity – high

Country #92!

It’s taken me a bit to sort out where we are exactly. First you have Mamoudzou, which is the capital city of Mayotte, which is an island in the Comoros chain of islands, but not part of the country Comoros. Mayotte is a French overseas

region and department located off the south-east coast of Africa. It

sail in

used to be part of the Comoros islands, but in 1974 Comoros declared independence from France, and Mayotte stayed with France. It is about 300km north-west of Madagascar. It uses the Euro and gets some, but minimal support from France.

On Dec 14 Typhoon Chido hit the island, lasted 4 hours and caused widespread devastation that was obvious today. Much of the island’s people live in huts, shanties, and there

roadside shops

is at least one refugee camp – the storm was brutal for those people and really all of the island. We saw boats and shipping containers still imbedded in the trees.

As we drove past the bay, our guide Anne, said it used to be filled with boats and yachts – today I didn’t see one boat in the bay.

Mayotte is close enough to Africa for migrants to make the journey from southeastern Africa across the Indian Ocean. Because Mayotte is a French territory, migrants see Mayotte as a potential road to France. An estimated

ylang-ylang

100,000 migrants live in Mayotte.  

The shanties we see that made out of blue corrugated tin we learn are provided by humanitarian groups.

Anne goes on to tell us that because education is free in Mayotte many people from Madagascar come for that. Although education is free, many families don’t send their children. Families where the grandparents and parents haven’t gone don’t see value in it, in addition to this, Anne tells us that they have other challenges in their lives.

On to the tour…

comparing lemongrass types

The ship was anchored again, so back into the tenders. The wait in the theatre today was only about 20 minutes. The seating on the bus today wasn’t as tight as yesterday, but there was no AC. Well, they said there was AC, but there wasn’t - like yesterday, this is no surprise.

Also, like yesterday, the traffic was incredible. We drove about 4Km in 20 min. Not all of the island was like that, just in the town. Anne lives 40 Km from the town, and she said it took her 2 hours to

not yet ripe starfruil

drive today. She said on a good day it could be only 1hr and 15 min! People leave for work at 4am for a 7:00 start time.

Our excursion was to the Rural Excellence Center a centre for plant studies. It takes about 45 min to travel the 20km to get there and longer on the way back. Along the way, in addition to seeing the typhoon’s destruction, we see shanty towns and a refugee camp made out of shipping containers. Today’s visit wasn’t as rural as yesterday. We

living conditions

basically crossed the island, going up and over their mountains.

Once we got to our destination, we learn about this government project that promotes the island’s agricultural endeavors. We see how vanilla is harvested and the various methods and varieties of vanilla they are testing here.

Next, we follow 3 of the centre’s workers as they show and explain to us this

blue corrugated

plant and that. As soon as we got off the bus aromas of ylang-ylang hit us. It was a bit cooler here and there was enough cloud that while hot, it was bearable.

I realized I lost my sunglasses somewhere yesterday. I put out laundry today and thought I may have left them

ylang-ylang tree

in a pocket…nope. Try as we, and Saravanan might nothing turned up. I hate pictures with them on, so they are always on and off and then I put them in a pocket. I think they may have fallen out on the bus…who knows. I rarely lose things, so it was aggravating. Luckily the ship’s shop carries sunglasses.

May 25 – Nosy Be, Madagascar

Weather – 30º

Steps – 7,855

Humidity – 74%

Today is Sunday…caviar Sunday!!! Not a terrible way to start the day. It was even pleasant enough to sit outside of the La Veranda, the buffet restaurant. We watched sail in as we weren’t docking until 10:30. We also watched many dragonflies, I’ve never seen so many! They didn’t land but flew around just off the back of the ship.

We also watched 4 small, one-man fishing boats. At one point the authorities

our room in the red circle

zoomed over to them, we couldn’t figure out why – the fishers stayed, so who

our tender and the fishing boats

knows. As we were watching this drama, we also saw a giant turtle in the water, it let us watch us for a while as it came up and went down, came up and went down.

Our noon excursion ended up starting one hour late. I’m not exactly sure why, but all excursions were that late due to the tendering. We tendered (small boats that ferry us to shore because there is no where for the ship to dock) today. At

ruin of an old house

first, I thought we were using local tenders rather than the ship’s tenders, but that wasn’t it. Who

abandoned boat with kids in the distance

knows, something with the local authorities maybe, no clue. I was surprised how few people were revolting.

All tours, everyday gather in the ship’s theatre. We were one of the later tours to go, and when we got there no one had left yet! Callie calmed everyone by telling jokes, asking trivia questions and doing a Q&A. Nonetheless, my opinion is that everyone should have been told not to come to the theatre until later. We’ve experienced this before, and it works nicely. It was OK, this

resting up for the performance

way, but could have been better. They

fan screwed to the top of the bus!

also never did tell us WHY we were an hour late to go on tour – I think more info is always better than less, otherwise people make up their own theories and just get annoyed.

Once we got going, it was a 10-minute tender ride, that despite the heat was breezy enough to be comfortable.

About 20 of us packed into small island busses like the ones I described in

ylang-ylang 

Seychelles. Chris had to sit next to the driver because one couple decided to sit separately as they didn’t exactly fit into the small seats. Ah…no one enjoyed

lemurs

being packed into the tiny seats. In all honesty, I’m not sure what he could have done, but I’m not sure how that is OUR problem – half of me sat next to the wife, the other half hovered in the aisle. There wasn’t much bus time, so it wasn’t a huge deal, but sheesh!

This bus was an experience in itself. As I said, it was a tight squeeze, today there were bench seats for 2 on each side, a 5er along the back where the big guy sat and 2 singles one behind the other next to the driver. I thought Jocelyn, our guide, would sit in the very front seat next to the driver or I would have sat there – Chris sat behind that

lemur

very front seat. Anyway…as many guides do, Jocelyn stood in front of the door. Being a tour guide is dangerous business,

lemur

these bifold doors would fly open every so often as we picked up speed and took a corner. Jocelyn didn’t bat an eye, I’m sure this isn’t the first time he’s had to shove his butt against the door while travelling at top speed. Again…an island bus. It was like déjà vu from the Cayman Island bus we were on at Christmas. 

checking each other out

Did I mention there was no AC? There was no AC. It was hot, but once you surrender to the heat and humidity and think of this as part of the experience it’s almost fun – almost. Then there was a problem with the engine/clutch/gear box I don’t know, but we stalled more than once. If we had no other vehicle in front of us and

bread fruit

could go any kind of fast, we were fine, however there were many, many other vehicles, including what seemed like as many tuk-tuks as we saw in India. Plus, there were many speed bumps and valleys which we needed to slow down for. Again…it was an experience.

I didn’t worry for a minute that we would be stranded in the middle of Madagascar. We were on a Regent tour and no one on a ship tour will be left

what is it...another lemur!

behind. Tour independently, even if with a tour or guide you found for yourself, and all bets are off - I’d be very worried. We’ve been on Regent tours in the past with the vehicles have broken down…all was good in the end, another vehicle comes you jump on public transport – who knows, but you’re sleeping on the ship tonight.

Most everyone on the bus was completely fine with (or seemed fine with) the engine troubles except for the couple who sat separately…they were anything

old ylang-ylang distillery

but fine with it. After one of the stops, they went back to the ship on their own. I’m not sure what kind of transportation would be more to their liking…the only other option seemed to be tiny, ancient tuk-tuks – not my problem.

Driving through the streets of Nosy Be, reminded very much of being in India. There were tuk-tuks, roaming chickens, a few roaming cows, roadside shops and

Nosy Be street life

restaurants, very rudimentary buildings, people everywhere – many of these people were kids. According to Jocelyn education isn’t free and the people are so poor that they usually stop sending their kids after elementary school. Obviously, this

Nosy Be street life

broke my heart, but I wasn’t surprised. Jocelyn said some of the rural families have 10 or more kids - wow.

OK, on to the actual tour stops. First, we stopped at a ruin of a 3-story building and an old, abandoned boat that had something to do with slavery. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any of what Jocelyn was saying. Here we had a cup of cinnamon tea and a couple of sweets. It was here that we also watched a group of women do a cultural dance.

Next, we visited a zoo kind of place where the main attraction were different types of lemurs. You can’t come to Madagascar and not see lemurs. I say a kind of zoo, because the lemurs roar freely. I’m not sure how big the area of land is

tuk-tuks

where the lemurs are, but we didn’t see the edges of it. I’m not sure how many individual lemurs there were, we saw about 50.

local beer

We wandered around with Jocelyn and another guide while they told us all about the lemurs and plants we were seeing. I tried to keep the types of lemurs straight, but eventually gave up

By this point we were plenty thirsty. We stopped at a hotel along the beach for a drink. Chris and I both had local beers. The beach was thronging with kids frolicking in the surf. Where we had our beers was a kind of low balcony area overlooking the beach. It was here that a ton of sellers approached us with their wares – we didn’t (as most people) didn’t buy. These sellers were (women and kids) persistent! Not as aggressive as i

mansions on the hill

n India, but persistent. It was easy to say no ‘thank you’ or just ignore. Some people were bothered by this, but we’ve experienced this plenty and although it seems rude, I just ignore.

At one point a group of about 5 boys around 9 years old, tried to sell us bananas as we were sitting on the bus waiting to leave. Their sales pitch was ‘these are the best bananas for a very good price’, in their sing-songy voices - they must have said it over a hundred times. It turned into a bit of a game for them, they were laughing, we were laughing. 

kids playing soccer

Up on the hills around the beach hotel were very fancy looking houses. Jocelyn explained that there were rich people living here from France, China, South America. It is a very striking contrast looking up there remembering the shacks you just drove through.

Our last stop was for only about 10 minutes at a souvenir markets – almost no one bought

 me and kids chasing the bus

anything. In addition to the usual junk souvenirs, likely made in China or elsewhere, there was ‘local’ ylang-ylang and vanilla – who knows if it was local, but it’s definitely produced here.

At the pier as we waited for our tender, we were treated to another cultural dance.

more tuk-tuks

Depending on which source you look at, Madagascar is the 6^th poorest country in the world or maybe the 9^th – doesn’t really matter. There was poverty all around us today, it was obvious, but people didn’t look desperate, I suppose they are of course, but not in the way we have been conditioned to expect. I’m not sure how to describe it. My way of living life isn’t necessarily the best way, I know that, but I’m pretty

market

sure that not going to school and having 10 babies is going to improve the lives of a country’s people.  Jocelyn didn’t get into any of that, I wish he did, but I understand why he didn’t. It was a very thought-provoking day.

I didn’t ever at any point today feel unsafe. We were very, VERY obviously tourists – Nosy Be gets around 25 cruise ships each year from Nov-May. We are the last until November. Jocelyn guides land tour also, so isn’t totally out of work. He speaks 6 languages including Japanese and Chinese. I asked him how he learned all the languages, he said in school, and he TAUGHT HIMSELF CHINESE! WHAAAAAT!?! That is one of the most impressive things I’ve ever heard!

As Chris put it, it is for days like these that we travel, to see how the world lives, to see how other people do things, to soak in the variety of humanity, to

street life

appreciate what we have. The ship is nice, but we appreciate it so much more after being on shore.

the town's name is Hellville

Plus, we don’t have to fly halfway around the world to sit on a boat.

The stars were out tonight! I almost tried to convince Chris to forego dinner out and stay on the balcony.

WOW, that was a post! I'm out of breath. If you're still with me you've got stamina!!

Lori – 88 IS amazing - how about 91? We rechecked our count and today was country 91. The tortoises were extremely cool. We saw more today, some baby and some giant!

Dear anonymous – My favourite country of course would be Canada, but for

farewell performance

travel…extremely hard question, but Turkey would be very high on the list as would Japan!

Mahe, pro…maw-hey; Seychelles, pro…say-shell (no plural and no ‘The’, just Seychelles)