Sunday, July 27

After two days at Le Colbert, we decided to go for luxury, and took a taxi to a hotel called Note Bleue. The hotel is one of those places that you see on postcards, with a beautiful pool overlooking the beautiful ocean. It was indeed quite luxurious. That night we took a taxi back into town and had dinner with Leslie and Guy and Molly’s family. Pizza again, but good.

Monday, July 28

A very laid back day spent at Note Bleue. Took lots of naps, played lots of cribbage, ate an extravagant zebu dinner. We took one very long walk along the waters edge and encountered lots of local animals and vegetation, zebu, goats, chicken, a lady balancing a large basket on her head.

Tuesday, July 29

Today we traveled back to Antananarivo. While our trip earlier was on a jet, this trip was on a turbo prop plane. We had pathetic chicken salad sandwiches in flight, and when we got to the airport I saw who I thought was a little girl I had ridden over with a few days earlier. I tried to make eye contact with her, but she ignored me. As she walked past me I patted her on the head with my hand and she continued to ignore me. A few minutes later, as we were all waiting for luggage, I saw the girl again, and realized that in fact she was not the girl I had encountered on the plane a few days earlier, as that little girl was standing just a few feet away. We grabbed our luggage and scurried away.

At the airport we met Ellie, who was to be our driver for the next week. We loaded up the SUV and drove to Antsirabe, a very nice town. That night we had dinner at a Chinese restaurant in town. This particular town had few taxis, but many pus-pus carts. Those are the carts that hold one or two riders and are driven by a human on foot. The drivers tend to be rather aggressive in trying to acquire your business.