After our South Africa safari, we flew to Madagascar, and spend a few days on Ile Sainte-Marie at the Princess Bora hotel.
It was nice to relax after the schedule of the safari.
It was a lovely place. If you ever wondered where the clothes in the “resort wear” section are worn – it’s here. (Alas, Sheila and I forgot to pack our flowing dresses.)
We arrived on Thursday morning. We expected to have until Saturday morning, when we were going to fly back to Tana and head out to the rain forest. We hung out around the resort the first day, enjoying the location and not having any schedule. I was napping in our room, and Sheila came in. She said “Um…I was just told by the staff that our Air Madagascar flight on Saturday was cancelled. We can be rebooked on a flight leaving tomorrow, or Sunday.”
Both options were terrible – leaving the morning after we arrive? And what would do for the two days before we left for the rain forest? But the main reason for our trip was to go to the rain forest – we didn’t want to lose a day.
We wandered around discussing this. Then a couple approached — they have overheard us, and had the same issue. Their suggestion was to charter a plane to fly us back on Saturday. Crazy, but we asked at the front desk, and it was a possibility – less than $500 per person. So, we decided to do it. As we walked back, Sheila said “we’ve become the kind of people who hire private planes!”
Ile aux Nattes
The next morning, we were told the flight wasn’t cancelled. So, we were glad we hadn’t decided to leave that morning. To stretch our legs, we decided to take a short boat ride to a very small island off the coast of Île Sainte-Marie (which, itself, is a small island off the large island of Madagascar.) We were told there was good beaches for snorkeling, and we could have lunch at Les Lemurians hotel, at the far side of the island.
The boat brought us to the top of the island.
We were pointed to the path that would take us to the far side of the island, as we set off.
After some wrong turns, we finally found the hotel for lunch.
This guy had introduced himself to us at the start of our walk, saying he was a waiter at the Lemur Hotel, and he would see us there. (I sort of rolled my eyes – what did he want?)
We saw him there – he was a good waiter, and the food was very good. Then we asked where the lemurs were – in the woods?
He said, “Oh, I’ll show you.” He led us out to the path, and made a funny call.
Near as I can tell, all lemurs are pretty crazy about banana. (More evidence came later.) Once they figured out he didn’t have any bananas, they went back to their shady spot under one of the huts.
Can’t say the I blamed them.
We walked back to the boat landing (with a little snorkeling, and more beer), and headed back to the resort. We were told that Air Madagascar was probably cancelling the flight, but wasn’t confirming it. So – charter flight?
Unfortunately, I got sick (stomach – I’ll spare you the details) at this time, and we didn’t do anything else while we were there. We could have ridden a bike around to local villages, or visited some other beaches. Next time!
Getting off the island
By the end of our time there, Air Madagascar had decided that they were flying out on Saturday at 2 PM. We confirmed with our travel agent that we wouldn’t be able to get to the national park that day (and our European friends would have missed their flight) so we went ahead with the charter flight. It was flown by the guy who owned the hotel.
I hate flying, and especially hate flying on small airplanes. But, I don’t let that stop me from going.
We survived!