Archive for the ‘Faliarivo’ tag
First day of the Village Trek
Taken from the Madagascar Team 1 Journal, originally by Pokey
We awoke to another cloudy overcast day. The two guides and porter arrived who were arranged the previous night in a pitch black hut under the watchful eyes of the senior villagers and the “chef de Village”. We persuaded them that the route they wanted to take lasting 8 days wasn’t an option. We needed to reach Sandrakaley in 4 or 5 days. After breakfast and no small amount of faffing around (the morning procedure was not yet second nature) we were at last trekking with our packs on our backs.
As the day unfolded stories of strange dreams were told. Pip had dreamt of people in the window of the school house and shouted to Suzanne to comfort her in her sleep. Mike heard people calling his name and as for myself, I dreamt we were having a number count - “FIVE” - I shouted out and then wondered why no-one else was calling their number. Was the Larium taking effect??
As we left the village of Antoetra several of the children followed us. They were all very friendly, asking our names, telling us theirs and how they were. The scenery was wonderful although the low cloud (for we were higher up than anywhere in the UK) obscured some of the highest peaks. It was discovered that Nat had an uncanny knack of falling over and falling over again and falling over gain…!! The terrain was tough, a lot tougher than we had expected. “An easy introduction to the expedition; to enable us to acclimatise to Madagascar”. NO, by the firs tnight of the village treak we were all knackered. We camped at a delightful place called Faliarivo. We pitched our tents on a flat plateau, the land dropped steeply away to woodland, streams and paddy fields.
All the villagers came and watched us set up camp and cook, they were all really friendly. The trekking was hard but overall, a thoroughly enjoyable day.
