H'moon 3 - Mada Tsingy

We woke up early to re pack our bags. We were leaving half our luggage with Maggy so we could meet the weight requirements for the little charter plane. We ate breakfast and met our driver Bootsi, who took us to the small but relatively clean charter landing strip. On the way there, the dirt roads were incredibly bumpy and there were shacks along the streets.  People were walking everybody, alongside cars, motor bikes, and trailors pulled by donkeys.  As we pulled up, there was a huge door with a guard, when the door slid to the slide, we pulled into where the planes were.  We had to wait a bit and walked the grounds.  There was a broken down plane right nearby!  We met our pilot Ellie, Nadine took a quick pee break, and then we headed towards the runaway.  Sure enough we were taxing to the same single runway that we landed on to arrive (where the big planes land)! And off we went, it was time to hike the big Tsingy! The highlight of our Madagascar trip!

We made some observations on the flight over.  The farmed fields were interesting. In USA everything is squares. Here the agriculture works around the topography!  We also noticed a dark smog line at the horizon in every direction, and burning trees away to clear land.  As we neared our landing strip, we could see the Tsingy from the sky.  It look amazing and so vast.  We got excited!

The landing strip was barely that. Just some cleared off red earth surrounded by huge termite mounds, plus it was right after a huge cliff, so better not cut it short!  When we landed in Ambhorodia, two guides Loda/Deepo and a driver Michele met us.  We hopped in the jeep-like vehicle and rode the tumultuous trek to the Tsingy Park.  There are terrible roads, and then there is this road.  There were downed trees, puddles, ruts...if you had to hold a cup of coffee, there wouldn't have been a drop left.  But along the way we passed small villages, and also burial tombs for families.  We enjoyed seeing their culture.

We pulled up to the parking lot, and it was packed!  We got out and it was blazing hot.  We both had to pee, so they pointed to the toilet.  We walked over to it...and it was disgusting.  Standing water, strong smells...we both decided to go outside right next to it.

We walked back, put our climbing harnesses gear on, and began our 4 hour hike around 10 am.  The beginning of the hike was through a flat dry forest, and we came upon our first Lemur!  It was up in a tree notch, and when we made noise, he would poke his head out (the crazy eyes!) and pop back.  He was so cute, but we had to keep moving.  Then we came upon a cute family of Brown Lemurs, we watched them for awhile, and then finally got to the Tsingy!  The limestone rocks were majestic like a natural cathedral. They had a presence as if they had a low hum.  Smaller rocks and cables were bolted into the Tsingy, forming steps and a railing to attach our harnesses. Our guides led us on the circuitous trail up and down ladders, view points, and caves.  While we were on top of the Tsingy, it was stunning quiet but also amazingly fresh.  In a landscape that was so intense and dangerous, we felt very peaceful and recharged.  Then we came to the scary part- the swing bridge! 

Nadine had been dreading the swing bridge since she saw the first picture, but as if by magic, felt absolutely no fear as she made her way across! The trails were truly well maintained and safe. Dave also crossed the bridge effortlessly, pausing for some exhilarating pictures! 

As we made our way back to the end of the hike, we saw some pretty birds and also a huge hawk!  As rolled in, we were the only people left in the parking lot. We cooled off for a bit, and then drove to our hotel, where we took a dip in the infinity pool with some Malagasy beer before heading out for a night walk with our guide. We saw the mouse lemur, iguana, gecko, and even some jack fruit and mangoes.  Dinner was pizza and more beer at the hotel.  But Dave's pizza also had a salad in the middle, even though we aware to avoid raw veggies, it looked so yummy to Dave (and maybe he had an extra a beer or two on his honeymoon), so he ate it all.  Ut oh!  Later that morning, his belly would awaken to discover his mistake. 

Driving to Airstrip

Door to enter terminal

Outdoor bathroom (look in the mirror!)

Nadine nervous before the flight

Our plane!

Views over Antananarivo

Flying over the Tsingy...WOW!

Our plane on the Ambhorodia landing strip

Our road to the Tsingy

Driving by rural villages

Driving by burial tombs

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Tsingy National Park

Toilet at the parking lot

Getting ready for our hike!

Hiking Trail Conditions

Our first lemurs!

Ferret, Lizard & Birds

The Tsingy!

The Bridge!

Silly Tsingy!

Mongoose, Lizard & Birds

End of the hike

H'moon 2 - Mada arrive

We landed in Mada and it was apparent that chaos would be the theme of this part of the trip.  We exited the plane onto the tarmac and officially touched our feet down in Madagascar!  Our new-found writer friend once again led the way through the informal customs and check in process. For example, the customs/immigration department took our visas out of sight and stacked them with a bunch of other travelers'.  It was up to each traveler to hear their name called and retrieve their visa.  We also paid for our visas in US cash, which was strange!  Finally we got through to Madagascar, but there were signs everywhere for the plague (AKA "la pesta")!  

Our driver Joni was waiting for us with a sign with our names on it.  He was very welcoming and greeted us warmly, but spoke very little English (we had to write words down on paper to communicate!).  We walked out to our vehicle, but then remembered we needed to get Malagasy currency, the ariary.  All travel guides indicated that the best exchange rates were at the airports, so Dave headed back inside with Joni, while Nadine stayed back to watch our bags.  We found the dirty and used-looking exchange window and Dave tried to communicate to Joni what he needed, but Joni was no help.  Luckily there were signs in English explaining that $20 bills were the largest bill accepted, and gave the best exchange rate (ie, a $5 bill had a worse exchange rate).  There was also a limit of $100 US cash that could be exchanged, but this shouldn't be a problem as we took out $500 from the USA atm.  Dave handed the bank teller 5 $20 bills, and he studied them in a way I'd never seen.  He accepted only 2 bills, and handed me back 3...what??  Dave asked Joni, but no help.  The bank teller then pointed to the year on the bills and shook his head.  The bills were from 2009, but directly from a US bank...wtf???  I grabbed more bills out of my pocket, thus scarely revealing how much cash I was carrying, and searched for bills older than 2012.  After searching through more than half my stack, I found 3 more bills.  The teller shook his head and completed the exchange.  HOW STRESSFUL!  They wouldn't accept money straight from a bank...what else was gonna happen?!

Dave walked back to the car, feeling very vulnerable with all kinds of cash exposed, and nervous that Nadine was okay.  Luckily all was ok, and we drove away towards our hotel.  We immediately were immersed into a completely different world.  Each of our first 3rd world experience, in fact Mada is considered one of the top 10 poorest countries.  We imagined similar scenes in Haiti and the Caribbean, but nonetheless culture shock was underway.  After 30 minutes we rolled up to our hotel.

We checked into our hotel, Relais Des plateaux, got onto wifi, and had a walk around. It was clear we were the only tourists out and about.   In fact, we did not see a single white skinned person for the ~30 minutes we walked around.  Everyone stared at us but we kept a friendly appearance and felt really safe (but scared of the plague)!  The town streets were so rugged and decrepit, but the people looked fit and comfortable in their surroundings.  We passed people selling raw meat and juicy fruits along the dirt streets

We headed back for a lounge at the hotel pool, then had some Madagascar beer and a fancy French dinner at our hotel.  It was the biggest calamari we have ever seen!  We also met with our tour liaison, Maggy, and got the scoop on the next morning schedule.  She was extremely welcoming and nice gave us these fun big floppy hats for the trip - with all the sun, our sensitive little white skin would need some coverage!!  We then retired to our little honeymoon suite, closed the mosquito net, and fell into a deep sleep.  Tomorrow would be the real start of our adventure!  We'd be leaving before 7a for the airport, and onto the Tsingy!

Walk off the plane to customs

Walk out of Airport

Front of Airport

Outside of Tana 

Living Conditions

Sidewalk

Sign to Relais de Plateau from main road

Entrance to Relais de Plateau

Sharp Glass

Hotel Pool

Purple tree outside our Hotel Room 

We made it! 

H'moon 1 - Fly to Mada

Saturday Nov 11

What an exciting, yet nerve wracking morning. We woke up at our cousin Nicks house, and got on the road for JFK airport.  Dave awoke early in the morning to a cramp in his right calf!  Great start to the trip!  Even walking to the bathroom was painful, how would hiking Africa all work out, ha!  We had a 10 am flight, so we got out the door by 7 am to get to JFK.  It was a freezing cold morning!  We were dressed for summer in Africa, not November in NYC! 

We had rented a car from near our apartment in Scranton, so we dropped it off and headed straight for the terminal.  We got to the international terminal in plenty of time, but looked like pack mules walking with our 40 L packs.  At the airport, we pseudo cut in line checking in. We walked up to check in holding our itinerary, and they sent us to the front of a very long line because they thought we already had boarding passes. (Or as Dave tells it: Nadine accidentally cut in line by mis-telling the South Africa Airways lady that we were premier class (ha!)). 

Exciting, we had our tickets for NYC to Johannesburg to Antananarivo!  Mada here we come!

We made final family phone calls waiting by our gate, took a few minutes to reflect on all the amazing planning we had done.  Now was the time to enjoy the trip!  We boarded the plane with South African attendants & accents, and then took off.  NaDave honeymoon was off!  We had 15 hrs to rest up…and finally read up on Mauritius & Reunion!…Africa here we come!

Sunday Nov 12
Flight #1 JFK to JNB: 15 hours to fret about what was to come- we were worried about a safe flight, no plague, and no other issues! The flight went smooth and at least Dave got some decent sleep on the plane. Nadine was up almost the whole time!!...the nerves about how our trip would go were certainly starting.

As we awoke we could see the African coast of Angola and Nambia out the window.  The contrast between ocean shoreline and desert coming together was beautiful.  Passing over the landscape below was all we needed for entertainment.  We landed safely and on-time to a sunny Johannesburg.  The airport is to the north of the city, so we didn't see anything in particular.  But we deplaned groggy with everyone and made our way to customs for our transfer flight to Madagascar!  We made it quickly thru incoming customs with our backpacks. but then hit a long outgoing immigration line to get to our Mada flight.  We had a 60+ minutes until boarding, so we initially felt okay.

As we waited, we heard American English spoke near us, so we politely introduced ourselves.  Turns out one of the people was from Jackson Hole, Wyoming and headed to Mada....and we found out she used to work for National Geographic (Alexandra Fuller).  She had been to Mada before, and was writing an article for a travelers website.  We asked her all about our fears about the Plague, but she reassured us that if we stayed smart, we should be okay.  But she did advise us to be careful of handling money...the money is so dirty that handling that and forgetting to wash your hands can give you a stomach virus!

As we chatted, the 3 of us noted our time was running short.  We heard the immigration agents call out our flight and say anyone on the flight to jump the line and come forward.  We hurriedly rushed ahead and got through.  As we headed towards the gate, Alexandra instructed us that to board our flight...we first board a bus, that then drives us to the plane.  If we missed that bus, we were SOL.  And when Alexandra started to run to catch the flight, we started to run too!  What a way to start our trip...we ran through a long hall of gift shops and duty free.  Our legs were tired and our bags were heavy, but we pressed on.  Dave ran ahead and got to the gate first...they were already boarding, so I waved back to Nadine to hurry up!  We made it on time and exhaled a bit.

We didn't get a long look, but already the people looked differently.  There was more of a mix of whites and blacks, and the features of each looked different than USA.  And our flight to Mada was also a different mix of people...albeit the few that were there.  The plane was less than half full, which makes sense with the Plague!  We found our seats and before taking off, the flight attendants walked up and down the aisles with an aerosol can spewing cleaner.  They also handed out cards explaining that a Plague was present...this was for real!  We finally took off and we each dozed off for a nap.  As we awoke, the island of Madagascar was below us and it looked beautiful.  We started our decent and the country started coming into focus!

South African Airways leaving NYC!

H'moon 0 - Drive to NYC

Pre-Honeymoon and Leaving USA

So before we detail out our amazing South Africa Honeymoon, some of the backstories are needed to fully illustrate how stressful of a trip this was leading into it.  Quitting our jobs, Black Plague in Madagascar, canceled trip to Seychelles, expiring Passports, and Chicago apartments…oh boy

Quitting Gentex

Back in Spring 2017, we each asked our bosses at Gentex for 3 weeks off in November 2017 (11/11-12/3), and due to the Gentex schedule, this turned out to be only 11 days of work.  11 days off for 23 days of vacation, pretty good!  We had two 9-80 Fridays, and Thanksgiving break in there.  But what happened as the summer went along, is that we decided Nadine would accept the Wilson position and move to Chicago!  Which means we needed to somehow quit Gentex, i.e. put in our two weeks.  When Nadine’s start date was finalized at January 2, the only way we felt to do this with our best interest, was to put in our two weeks the first day back from our Honeymoon (Monday Dec 4)…stressful!

Madagascar

So this trip was quite a huge undertaking for planning.  We split up the trip between us (Nadine planned Seychelles, Dave planned South Africa, etc)…and then for Madagascar, we found out that you needed a 100% guided trip.  When we finally figured out our trip plans, we found out there was no way we could do it all driving…we needed to have private planes!  And when we did some early searching, we quickly found out that a Mada-based company was the only way to not break the bank.  We got several quotes, some over $10k!  And some people even told us they couldn’t even do our itinerary, ha!  A true NaDave trip!  We finally settled on two companies…Cactus Tours & ??...and in late August, we put dates to our “Day 1, Day 2, etc plans”.  We put Mada on the back end of the trip to ensure anything that may happen (get sick, etc) wouldn’t spoil the whole trip.  Well…the companies reported back that the Tsingy Nat Park & nearby hotels would be closed by late November due to the rainy season, and the only dates to guarantee openings was the 1^st stop on the trip.  So we had to completely rearrange the order!  (No more South Africa first!) 

It was early September when we finally got our two quotes…and ?? was cheaper but they were much worse at responding.  In fact, we had to take a phone call during our tour of the 9/11 Museum in NYC to finally get in touch with them!  As October approached, we knew we needed to commit to a Mada itinerary.  We went back and forth several times, and even made some last minute changes, which Cactus Tours responded much quicker too.  In fact, we even called them too to confirm some details (who woulda thought we’d be calling Madagascar…ever?).  Then came the crazy news about the Black Plague (what, the plague?)  Yup, we freaked out.  It was international news that Mada had the plague, and it was so bad that other countries were canceling flights to/from Mada.  What do we do…we thought this can’t be that bad, right?…but it was Cactus Tours gave us the true heads-up.  How?  They saw our flight leaving Mada to Seychelles was canceled, with only 4 weeks to go.  What???    (see Cancelling Seychelles below)

After getting our post-Mada plans figured out, time was running out to book Mada.  Every day we went back-and-forth….would it be safe, should we risk getting sick, etc.  Since Cactus Tours had quotes that would expire in price (and we had some planes get booked that changed the prices)…we finally had to make a decision on a Saturday morning by 10am to avoid another whole re-quote.  We woke up, nervously ate breakfast, talked it through one more time…then booked the most expensive 6-day trip ever in our lives (thank you honeyfund!)  We were relieved, but also stressed…the joys of traveling!

Cancelling Seychelles, booking Mauritius & Reunion

So when we found out our flight from Mada to Seychelles was cancelled, we figured, okay, no sweat, just book another flight to Seychelles.  We found out that since the airlines cancelled our flight, they would 100% refund us or arrange our next flight.  We found a 1-stop flight through Mauritius and figured let’s do it.  So we had them book it…oops

The next day Nadine got a message from the STEP program about the Mada plague, and how Seychelles was quarantining anyone who had been Mada the 7 days prior.  She checked another site…Americans were currently in quarantine on the island….sure enough, we were screwed. 

There was no way we could go to Seychelles after Mada.  Our heads were spinning, what do we do.  Cancel Mada?  Rearranging the whole trip was too crazy, we were only ## days away.   

Nadine was super bummed, our luxury beach location for our honeymoon was taken away from us.  What do we do?  Where do we go?  We called back the airlines, but couldn’t get our flights back…money down the drain. 

What about our booked flights leaving Seychelles going to Victoria Falls.  We called Priceline…and we needed to re-book the next 3 flights, as changing the 1^st flight messed up the other flights because the first country was changing.  We got some money back (after spending an entire afternoon on the phone fixing our flights, all on company time, ha!)…but lets just say booking flights around Africa 3 weeks out is not cheap.

So what did we do, instead of Seychelles?  Nadine had read about other islands off the east coast of Africa.  Mauritius and Reunion were east of Mada, and they were allowing people from Mada to visit.  Starting only # days before our honeymoon we started planning 6 months prior, we planned trips for two islands (both of which Dave had never heard of until that week!).  We winged all right.  We booked AirBNBs where we could, we rented cars(Reunion’s price for an automatic was highway robbery), we just made it happen!  We also cancelled all our Seychelles plans where possible.  In the end, we were fortunate that we saved money to keep our honeymoon trip alive.

Nadine’s expiring Passport

So Nadine typically tackles all the visas to enter countries.  We checked our passports early, and neither of them would expire until 2018.  But Nadine’s would expire in early 2018…kinda close but should be okay, right?  As she was checking out Dubai, she read that your Passport needed to be good for 6 months after your entry date.  And Nadine read this in mid-October, Ut-oh, she needs a new passport!  Turn-around times to mail-in your passport are 4-6 weeks…too late.  So we freaked out again, and then found out you could drive to NYC and have a passport updated on the spot.  So Nadine took a personal day on Monday October 23 (she drove to NYC the Sunday before from Philadelphia, where we did our Philly trip!).  She stayed with a High School friend Rian Morgan, then got to her appointment at 9am, then while waiting for the passport to print she went to Ellis Island (what a crazy girl!), then got her passport and drove back to Scranton.  Oh man!

 

Chicago apartment

So the final piece to this crazy puzzle, was that we realized we needed to have an apartment already picked out in Chicago if there was anyway we were going to successfully move between Dec 14 (our last day at Gentex) and the Holidays…not to mention Matt & Meagan’s wedding on Dec 31^st and Nadine’s 1^st day at Wilson on Jan 2.  The only weekend we could squeeze in a Fri-Sat trip, was the 980 weekend before the Honeymoon.  What?!  We had assured no plans for that weekend, we’d stay home and rest.  Not anymore!  Long story short…we drove to Newark Thus Nov 2, arrived into our Arlington Heights AirBNB around midnight, met Nadine’s boss for breakfast at 7am Friday, met our realtor at 8am, then Dave went off to a pseudo-interview in Elgin for lunch, then we saw ~10 apartments & didn’t like any of them, then we went home and searched some more & Dave found 614 S Dunton, we saw it 10am on Saturday, then went to the office to sign papers until 3pm, then hopped on a 6pm flight and arrived back into Scranton 11p Saturday.  Good lord!

Friday Nov 10

Okay, time to start the trip!  We had purchased all of safari shirts, hats, and pants…and sprayed them down with super duper bug sprays.  We had all of our books, and packed them all up the night before. 

We left the Gentex office a little early (and little did they know, we would be putting in our two weeks when we returned).  One the way home, I dropped off Nadine to get our one-way rental car…and she got a free upgrade because she told them it was our honeymoon!  Gotta love having a rockstar wife.  We were a little late getting out the door as we tried to get the global SIM card we had purchased to work on Dave’s phone, but no luck!  What a waste of $$, and a start to the trip.

It was finally time to take the first step of the journey!  We quadruple checked, kissed each other as all honeymooners should, then headed for NYC!  We were excited but nervous (as all the details above explain).  We safely got to Nick Lippas house on-time, and waited for him & his GF to finish dinner.  We stayed up talking and eventually crashed on their air mattress.  We both kinda slept, but mostly tossed and turned.

Saturday Nov 11

Dave awoke early in the morning to a cramp in his right calf!  Great start to the trip!  Even walking to the bathroom was painful, how would hiking Africa all work out, ha!  We had a 10am flight, so we got out the door by 7am to get to JFK.  It was a freezing cold morning!  We were dressed for summer in Africa, not November in NYC! 

We got to the international terminal in plenty of time, but looked like pack mules walking with our 40L packs.  Nadine accidentally cut in line by mistelling the South Africa Airways lady that we were premier class (ha!), so got our tickets quickly and the real trip was starting!  Exciting, we had our tickets for NYC to Johansessburg to Antanarrivo!  Mada here we come!

We made final family phone calls waiting by our gate, took a few minutes to reflect on all the amazing planning we had done.  Now was the time to enjoy the trip!  We boarded the plane with South African attendants & accents, and then took off.  NaDave honeymoon was off!  We had 15 hrs to rest up…and finally read up on Mauritius & Reunion!…Africa here we come!

Honeymoon Schedule (before we had to cancel Seychelles!)

All of our stuff for the trip!

Out the door in Scranton we go!