Driving down the coastal road, the scenery is absolutely beautiful – peaceful bays with white sandy beaches and further down, more wave action where everyone learns to surf.  Completely different vibe from the city and a welcome respite after the craziness.

We arrive at the resort and have a little group chat about how long to spend here – Amie says 1 hour for lunch, maybe 30 minutes for just refreshments.  They all decide on 20 to 30 minutes – which leaves Ed and I, and fortunately Mark, another member of the group sort of confused as yesterday when we all met to chat, everyone was in favor of lunch.  Well, the 3 of us want to eat – so somebody’s gonna have to deal!

Plopping down at a lovely table overlooking the ocean with Mark, we order THB to sip on while we chat and get to know each other, before ordering our lunch.  Others have gone down to the beach and a 4 others are sitting at the table next to us with their beers.  The waiter comes over with the menu chalkboard, not extensive, but perfect for us – mostly seafood which is what we had wanted.  I order the Crabe Farci, which the waiter tries to explain, but I get the gist of it – crab, in a shell, with cheese on top and in the oven – Ed orders the Dourade grille and Mark the Wok de crevettes (stir fried shrimp).  We notice the other table only orders drinks – which is odd since they expressed interest before.  Oh well, we hang out, Aime comes to join us with his non-alcohol beer and we spend the time waiting for our meal having a lovely conversation and making toasts to Nick to thank him for organizes the tour.   

The food arrives and honestly?  One of the best lunches EVER.  Seriously.  Ed has a whole entire Dourado – huge.  Grilled and seasoned to perfection – even I would have eaten it (although I’d never have finished the whole thing).  My crab is a fabulous stuffed crab with the most delicious seasonings and yummy cheese.  Excellent.  And Mark loves his shrimp – we are all 3 extraordinarily happy with every part of the meal.  Including the cost!  For all 3 meals, including 4 bottles of beer (we paid for Amie’s beer), the total comes to $34 USD. Kid you not.  Ed’s fish was the most expensive at $9.95.  I just have to say it again:  Best. Lunch. Ever.

Back in the van, when we start talking about what a great meal and how inexpensive, everyone else is amazed.  They couldn’t believe it was that cheap.  So, we can’t figure it out. Did they not trust eating there – it was a lovely, clean resort.  Did they not know the conversion and when they saw things that cost 30K or 40K think that was 30 USD or 30 Euros?  From their comments, maybe it was that?  We don’t know, and we just don’t get it – they all seem to be semi-well traveled and put together, so could they not have done any research to understand the location (begging) and the money conversion? Go figure.

Back into the countryside we go on our way to the waterfalls, stopping along the road to look out over the rice fields and brick works.  Amie explains that the villagers dig out the land for the clay, then make bricks to sell.  They keep digging and digging, making brick after brick, until the area is deep enough for a rice field.  Then they stop making bricks as the rice field is their goal, and far more important to them as sustenance than the bricks.  Interesting.

Turning off the National Road #13, which was just completed in recent years, we head down a narrow virtually one lane muddy, pothole racked road with foliage so think and close to the road on either side Ricky has to stop a couple of times to push the bushes and branches aside so they don’t scratch the van.  (The van is rented and it is really expensive to repaint, so they don’t want to be charged for any damage.)  As we are navigating the road, we do meet another truck coming the other way. Oops!  Chicken!  We back up, they pass – barely – and we continue on our way.

One of the ladies upfront (actually one who said she wanted to eat today, but then decided not to and tried to minimize our time at the resort) keeps asking Amie how long it will take to get to the falls and when we’ll be back to the ship.  He reassures her that it won’t take long and that he knows when the ship leaves and will get us back in plenty of time.  I mean, come on!  Nick has already told him we have to be back by 3:30 – which is a full 45 minutes before the tour time is supposed to get us back. PS – All aboard is 5pm.  And Aime says we’ll be back before 3:30.  Chill dude.

Progressing down the road, we finally arrive at the parking area where we will wander through this lovely garden that is used to teach villagers and children how to cultivate plants, grow vanilla and conserve the area.  Sort of like a natural greenhouse.  Any proceeds made are funneled back into the park and the area villages to continue the conservation and teach the villagers that money can be made by doing so.  Pretty good philosophy.  Alighting from the van we can se a great waterfall up in the hills – I’m thinking – yes! Let’s go hike – although most of the others would never make it up there.  But, no, that’s not exactly the plan. 

The plan is to walk down to the base of the waterfall, wander through the garden and learn about the different plants and techniques used here.  Ok.  That’s still good – I’d say cool, but there is absolutely nothing about this day that is “cool” in the temperature sense of the word.  Meltingly hot. And as we wander through the well manicured paths and into the little open air green house with all the budding plants and trees, the skies open up, forcing us to seek shelter under a little grass hut.  In a comedic moment of “how many cruise passengers can you fit under a little grass hut in the pouring rain?”  The answer is 23 (our group plus the other Cruise Critic group) plus 4 guides.  Just in case you were wondering. At least we stayed dry and I had fun taking rain pictures.

Once the rain abated a bit, we continued our wandering through the park, past a smaller set of falls, across a wooden bridge – reminiscent of Bent Creek Experimental Forest – and back past the rice fields and elephant ear plant, used for medicinal purposes somehow – but Aime warns us not to touch it as it will cause a rash and skin irritation.  Ok.  Not a problem!

Back in the van we head over to the Vanilla processing shed where our local guide shows us the Vanilla beans on the trees, then walks us through the process of picking and drying the vanilla with Aime translating.   Hard and long work – picking them, boiling them, keeping them wrapped up for weeks then drying in and out of the sun for months and drying on the flat racks that line the walls of the shed for months as well.  Notice Ed has an entire rack all for himself!

As we are getting ready to leave, one of the ladies asks about buying some vanilla – which sets off a mad scramble to go get the vanilla and bring it back down to us, because, well, the sales stall is back up at the waterfall parking lot – and we’ve already driven away to see the production shed.  This takes some time (probably much to the consternation of the “when are we back to the ship” lady) but finally a guy on a bike appears with the vanilla which we of course buy – the $5 USD pack, which, btw, is way more expensive than in Antisranana, but we feel we need to support the people here.  The lady who asks doesn’t have USD, so she asks how much in Euro, which of course is 5 Euros.  She only has a 10 Euro bill and when she asks about change gets a blank stare.  I had lots of 5’s, so I change her 10.  Then she ends up buying 2 packs.  Seriously? Eek.  All the while the husband is complaining that she overpaid coz she didn’t have US and paid in Euros. Well, she did, but what can you do?

Vanilla trading handled, we head out back down the potholed muddy road with the A/C on because of the rain. But, oh dear, the A/C couldn’t cool down a, well, I don’t know what. It is doing nothing but making us swelter and swelter. Meanwhile the rain has stopped and Aime has noticed that we are melting (me in particular as I’m fanning myself and wiping my face with a rag) – so fortunately we end up opening the windows again and a good cool breeze helps us out.  Which is also fortunate because then we can take more pictures, now of the Zebu bull on the side of the road, happily munching on the grass and thinking about looking at us.

Plus more gorgeous scenery, more Zebu, more mountains, more clouds. 

And then we are back, stopping for some beauty shots of the Journey, we make our way back into the port to be greeted by the dancers and band who have stayed here all day – dancing when we left, dancing when we returned.  Energetic bunch.

And all before 3:30!  LOL.  A very successful day – we had a blast – saw some great wildlife and scenery and experienced the Malagasy culture, had a fabulous lunch with good company.  What more could you ask for?

After refreshing ourselves with tons of water and the A/C, we hit the gym, then onto dinner which is Singapore Noodles tonight with Char Siu pork!  Totally yummy.  I do not remember the Char Siu last leg.  Awesome!

It’s the Journey Band Jazz Night tonight, and even though we are going one hour back, we decide not to go to the show – it is great, but we’ve seen it and the cabin is calling – as is a beautiful moonlit evening.   Lovely way to end an excellent day.