Travel blog: By the sea in Diego

Sara LeHoullier is going exploring both on and off the beaten path on the world’s fourth-largest island for three months. She shares her experiences in Madagascar with travelbite.co.uk in her 16th blog entry:

After the horrendous, tremendously awful taxibrousse trip, we got in a taxi and came to a hotel recommended by a friend, the Kartiffa. It’s on the ocean, beautiful view, good food, huge room with a lovely bathroom and the best mattress I’ve encountered so far.

Diego is clean, hot, well-organised, with some beautiful old dilapidated architecture and some great (but expensive) restaurants. There’s a ton of stuff to do around the countryside, including several mountains and a great national park. Live music on Friday nights.

Sometimes when I speak Malagasy, people laugh at me. It’s not as if I’m speaking incorrectly (and sometimes I probably am) – it’s just that Malagasy words coming out of a vazaha sound so weird that I might as well be speaking Bulgarian.

Today, I asked a lady at the Amber Mountain Park if she was tired. She opened her mouth and just looked at me, trying to figure out how to respond, but nothing came out. Then, about 30 seconds later, as I was walking away, she said incredulously "You speak Malagasy!" and I smiled.

I threw one hundred Ariary into the Sacred Waterfall today. It’s a place where people go to commune with the ancestors, to make wishes, to ask for help with a particular problem. I won’t tell you what I wished for but hopefully it will help me figure out what the heck I’m supposed to do with my life. Even though my ancestors aren’t in Madagascar (or are they?).

I walked around the park for a few hours with a guide, John, who speaks perfect English; he even uses phrases like "take a leak" (and "drop the kids off at the pool"), and "born with a silver spoon in his mouth", among other funny quips. This was thanks to the United States Peace Corps – I guess we do some good after all!

We saw three types of chameleon (panther, blue-nosed, and the world’s smallest!), and the two types of lemurs that go around during the day – they were having a turf war, snorting and shrieking at each other in the tree-tops.

There are three waterfalls, one lake, and easy trails – it’s much cooler in the park than in town, and we had a really nice day. John packed food to make lunch – we cut up sardines, onions and tomatoes and spread them on French bread – it was a far cry from a typical American picnic, but it was really great!

Diego has been a good place. Our beachfront hotel is comfortable and has air conditioning. The food is great in town and even though it’s expensive, every meal seems to fill me up until I’m about to burst. There’s even a restaurant called ‘Bodega’, where every Saturday is paella night!

We have to leave in a couple of days – it seems like every time I get used to being somewhere, I have to move on to the next place. Almost every place I have been, I have wished to be able to stay and work there.

I have exactly one month left here in Madagascar. I know I shouldn’t be saying this because I’m incredibly fortunate to have been able to come back (thank you student loans!) – but I’m sort of tired of traveling around. I have discovered that I don’t really like being a tourist.

My favorite moments are the ones I spend talking to Malagasy people, or sitting on rickety benches eating a huge plate of rice. When people ask where I live and I tell them America, they say ‘oh, so you’re a tourist’. I attempt to say that I’m not really a tourist on a trip, but that I prefer to think of it like I’m visiting a place I used to live, a former home.

I know I’m supposed to care about the flora and fauna, the megadiversity – and I really do – but I care so much more deeply about what’s happening to the people here as a result of a string of crazy and corrupt leadership, and trade policies enforced by international financial institutions designed to keep the third world in third place.

Sara LeHoullier

Sara LeHoullier also blogs regularly on her Spotlight Madagascar website. Her Madagascar travel guide, published by Other Places Publishing will be released in 2010.