I write to you now from the WWF Office in Fianarantsoa, Madagascar’s second largest city, which—in spite of its impressive ranking—is home to only approximately 120,000 people. Tana, by contrast, supports a population of 1.2 million...It is fairly incredible to think that no city of any intermediate size exists in this country. And though Fianar may be small, I am nonetheless beyond confused as to how to comport myself in a city of any size; cars and stores and the frequency of other westerners (i.e. vazaha) confuse me. Luckily, though, we are here only for one fleeting night...
But I digress...The details of life in Fianar are fairly tangential to all that I wish to communicate with this blog post. I hope, once again, that you have enjoyed following our adventures in Madagascar from wherever in the world you might find yourself right now. We are headed once more sur terrain, and I apologize that we won’t be able to share again for some time. We leave Fianar tomorrow to head to the mountainous Andringitra National Park (Kuni, our token geologist, says, “I so can’t wait for those rocks...”) from which we will commence another three week stint sans internet, phone service, or electricity.
While our last session in the field was focused mainly on conservation awareness raising and sensiblization, our task ahead is much more concrete and, at the same time, much more unique. With the aid of a handful of WWF agents, we are investigating an overland trail route across the Vondrozo Forest Corridor, in the hopes of amassing enough information to create an ecotourism travel brochure for backpackers interested in vacationing in the region. Beyond cool, right? And if any you might be among those interested travelers, we’d love to share more upon our return.
In the meantime, goodbye, best wishes, and Happy Thanksgiving to those back in the United States (and to those in Canada, too--Christa says Canadian Thanksgiving is coming up...). We’ll return to Vondrozo on Saturday, November 27th, so stay tuned then to hear about the next stage of our adventures in the field. In the meantime, don’t miss Sergio’s new addition (in English) to the blog!
À toute à l’heure!
No comments:
Post a Comment