Its Monday 1st November and here we go again on a trip to Madagascar. This time I am going with Dutch friend Leo vanderHoeven who I will meet in Paris and then we will take the Air France flight to Antananarivo. We arrive at 23-50 hrs. local time and were met by a car and driver arranged by Alfred Razafindratsira which took us to the Hotel Cheval Blanc. We had a few Three Horse Beers and went to bed quite tired but excited for the rest of the trip.
Tuesday 2nd November
Woke up at 6-00 am only having had about 4 hours sleep. Its raining outside but quite warm with temperature about 20 degrees. Got ready and went down for our first breakfast of the trip. We telephoned Alfred to say were ready and he sent his driver to collect us and took us down to his house. It was just as I remembered it from the last time, it did not seem that it was 15 years ago. After looking around Alfred phoned for our driver to come and take us to his nursery which was the other side of Antananarivo. Lots of really nice plants in his nursery but of course mostly all habitat collected. eventually got taken back to Antananarivo to change some money. We changed 700 Euro and ended up with over 9 million Ariary which was a huge block of notes (Millionaires at Last). Went back to Alfreds house for permits and then carried on to the Hotel Cheval Blanc for a few beers and the evening meal. Back to the room at about 10-20 pm after deciding that we would head for Antsirabe in the morning and hopefully end up in Tuleare.
Wednesday 3rd November
To Be Continued:-