Day 45 – (Tuesday March 25) Last day in Madagascar

Alas, this is my last day in this beautiful country. We made the slow return from Tamatave to Tana, stopping along the way in the D’Andasibe-Mantadia National Park to say goodbye to the lemurs. Once again the two young ladies who were our guides were very concerned about locating lemurs. They should have not bothered because our star was shining brightly, so we had excellent sighting of the giant Indri lemur, the brown lemur, boas, chamaleons, and even the elusive Madagascar giraffe (no, it is not the big African animal, but a bright red insect with an impossibly long neck).
Back in Tana we landed, quite by chance, in a workshop of model ships. I never realized that there was such a craze for scale models of famous ships, nor that this small shop in Madagascar is well known for the quality of their research, nor the workmanship of its artisans. We got the deluxe tour by the proprietaire, who obviously delighted on having a visitor to see his ships. They are as small as a foot or as large as six feet, and the exhibition hall would have put to shame many maritime museums. So I finally got to see my pirate ships after all!

I said goodbye to Floriel, and to this charming country, with an excellent meal of slices of baguette with toasted smelly cheese (yumm), followed by a delicate langue piquant (tongue with peppers) and a generous serving of a cheese and potatoes cake. I am now ready for the next leg of the trip.