Day 284, Year 5 Lost in the National Forest
Date: Friday, August 6, 2010
Weather: More Perfect Weather
Location: Lokobe National Park, Nosy Be, NW Madagascar
So much for a small compass! Tina, Barry, and their youngest son Devin, Ed and Lynne, and Mark and I went to shore this morning, found a South African camp where a boat is being built, and arranged for a young man to lead us through the national forest to Ampasipohy, a village to the northeast. We knew that the resort called Jungle Village is there and that it is a tourist destination. We wanted to walk there on the hope of seeing lemurs and birds as we walked through the forest, but we had only two wildlife spottings. One was a beautiful black and blue butterfly that I have seen showcased on post cards here and the other was a very young panther chameleon that I almost stepped on. I saw something white underfoot and hopped to avoid stepping on it. We then saw that it was a young chameleon and were able to pick it up and let it crawl up our arms. But we saw no sign of lemurs or birds on the way across. We stopped and had a cool drink, looked at the items the villagers had for sale for tourists, and then confidently started our walk home. Being confident was the first mistake and I’m not sure what was the next mistake, but somehow we found ourselves not on the path from which we had come. We used the compass and tried to find our way but in the end we walked for about two hours in the wrong direction and found ourselves on a beach on the east side of park when we should have been on the south side. Thankfully we had cell phones with us and Barry and Tina’s older children had cell phones back on their boat. Once we knew where we were, we called and their older son Michael came to rescue us. We learned a couple of lessons. One is when you know you are not on the path from which you came, go back and find the right path. The second is when there are guides available, don’t be cheap. Pay them to lead you.
Barry and Tina of Dream Catcher and Ed and Lynne of Constance came over for sundowners tonight. Barry and Tina, along with four of their children, left South Africa in April and have made it this far. This is there first long distance cruising experience and they are trying to decide whether to continue on around the world to the east or whether to return to South Africa and then across the Atlantic. Tomorrow we are pulling up anchor and going across to Nosy Komba so I can have my lemur fix, but then we will return here tomorrow evening and are going to show the Dream Catcher crew our PowerPoint presentations of our trip across the Pacific. That should be fun.
The news update on our son Justin and his wife Jo and baby Ziggy is that Justin is on his way back to New Mexico and that they have hired a lawyer who says he can get Jo and Ziggy back into the US in five weeks instead of six months. The whole situation seems surreal and we have recommended that they contact their Senators and Representatives to see if there is anything they can do. In the meantime, we now have absolutely no internet connection as the virus on Mark’s computer has gotten more invasive. So we are back to only HAM radio only for communication. That means we can only receive and send emails very early in the morning and in the 6-8 pm part of the evening. If you have sent messages to our website, we cannot read those. Hopefully, we will figure out how to deal with this virus soon, but in the meantime we are a bit handicapped. Bear with us.
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| 100806 Day 284 Lokobe NP, Madagascar–Walk to Jungle Village |
