Madagascar Travelogue: The most difficult trip you’ll ever love

Detailing our trip to Madagascar in the summer of 2008 to visit Gabe, our Peace Corps Volunteer son.

The most difficult trip you’ll ever love. That’s the headline Gabe gave to the itinerary he sent us a couple weeks before we departed. We didn’t know what was in store for us on our trip to Madagascar, but we were pretty sure it would be an adventure. Wow, were we right about that.

Gabe Krieshok is our son, and he is a Peace Corps Volunteer, or PCV, serving in Madagascar. After the first year of his two year tour of duty he invited us to go over and visit him. Actually, he never really had to invite us. As soon as we knew he was going to Madagascar, Peggy, my wife and Gabe’s step-mom, announced we were going to head over to visit him. I never raised an objection, and publicly I always was on board with the trip, though in my own mind I was always a bit dubious. I would argue with myself, “Are you kidding? Are you REALLY planning to go to Madagascar, that’s totally on the other side of the world?” Another part of me knew better than to even let my rational brain consider NOT going. And still another part of my rational brain knew not to question Peggy’s judgment. The smart part.

So we started making plans for the trip, many many months ahead of time. We bought our tickets about 6 months out, and were dismayed that the best price we could get was about $2,500 per person. Ouch. But we love Gabe, so we paid it and went to step 2, shots. In order to go to Madagascar, you need shots for pretty much everything on earth. Several trips to the travel clinic and over $1,000 per person later, we are good until the year 2257 for every disease that exists or will exist on earth. Pretty comforting, just hope I don't over estimate my invulnerability and step in front of a bullet or a fast moving car.

We invited my sister Ginger to go on the trip with us. Ginger is the real world traveler in my family, having made several trips to Africa, Europe, Alaska, places pretty far apart, decades before I ever got my passport. But she spent the last many years closer to home, helping to take care of our aging parents and keeping the home fires burning. For awhile it looked like Brett, one of Gabe’s step-brothers, might join us as well, but his work schedule had him flying to many places during the summer.

Benj, one of Gabe’s brothers, committed to going, as did Gabe’s mom Sue, and his step-dad Carroll. We might have considered all traveling together (we’re like that), but Gabe said the biggest group he could accommodate would be three, having to do with the many trips we would be making by car, taxi to be specific, a point that ended up being bigger than we could have imagined. So Peggy, Ginger, and I planned our 16 day adventure for late July and early August, while Sue, Carroll, and Benj would head out about two weeks after we got back, to go on their own 10-day leg.

Gabe had instructed us to pack very lightly, no suitcases with wheels, as we would be going lots of places where the little wheels on suitcases would not work. We worried, and I attacked the problem by doing lots of online research and making several trips to travel stores and camping stores. In the end I bought too many things for the trip, including a suitcase I suspect I will never use again, but which my grandchildren (I will have them some day I trust) will fight over about 25 years from now. I also bought a hat that I still think is pretty cool, good for keeping the sun out of my face, off my balding head, and off my neck, and pretty sexy looking too, or so the ad implies. There’s even a little water proof pouch in it into which you can hide a secret $20 bill. I am hiding a secret $5 bill because that’s who I am, though I guess now it’s not much of a secret.

We (okay, maybe it was just me) spent the first couple weeks of July laying things out for the trip. By the time it was time to pack, I was pretty sure I was going to need all three of those big trunks Tom Hanks used in Joe vs. the Volcano. Much to my surprise, when the moment came, I was actually able to squeeze most of the stuff into my allotted carry on and one bag (the one my grandchildren are fighting over). Ginger had taken the train in a couple days before we left, just to be on the safe side, so we enjoyed hanging out with her, catching up and sharing our anxieties. She managed to get all her stuff into two smallish bags. Show off.