Toby & Clutch's Grand Adventure

So, as most of you know, Matt and I made the decision to stay in Madagascar for another 2 years! If you don't know - we have decided to stay in Madagascar another two years :D Matt is now the Manager of I.T., and it was an offer we couldn't refuse, with one condition....the dogs had to finally make the trip and come live with us. Why didn't they come initially, you ask? Reason number one is that I was too scared. We didn't know what the vet care was like, we didn't know anything about flying animals, and I didn't want to put them in a situation that would harm them. So we set everything up for them as best we could in Canada, making sure the only change in their lives was who was living in our house. When the opportunity to stay another two years came up, we decided enough was enough, and it was time to bring them here. We knew enough from others here in our village that had brought their dogs that it was more than doable, and with enough research and prep we felt reasonably confident that they would okay. The process was definitely not easy, and more than a little frustrating, but it's only been a week of having them here and it was all worth it.

It started off with deciding what airline to choose and looking into pet relocation companies, of which there are many. When it came to the airline, we quickly decided to go with Air France/KLM. They are highly regarded for pet travel and all the reviews were very positive. There are a couple different ways that you can ship animals/pets. They can go as cargo or as live baggage, and can go accompanied or unaccompanied. If they are going unaccompanied then they have to fly as cargo. We were adamant that the dogs would be flying on all the same flights as us. I wanted to see them between every flight to make sure they were okay and that they were still on the same trip as us. We've all heard horror stories of the pets ending up on the wrong planes, or not getting on the planes, etc.. Another thing to note - the cost difference between live baggage and cargo is incredible. We were quoted many thousands of dollars to fly them as live cargo, and to bring them as live baggage cost us $400. When they travel as live baggage they are placed in a temperature and pressure controlled room on the plane, it's kept dark to help keep them calm, they don't leave the building until it is time to get them on the plane, and on long haul flights they are in a room that is accessible by the flight crew so they can be fed and watered if needed. When they travel as cargo there is a good chance they will be left on the tarmac with the rest of the luggage to wait for the plane, and they may not get food and water, etc.... Needless to say we felt that live baggage was the way to go. We were also lucky that they weren't bigger than they are because animals that are any bigger than Clutch typically have to fly as cargo because of kennel requirements - they are simply to big for the baggage hold.

Looking into pet relocation companies was a bit frustrating. Not one quoted us less than $10,000 USD to just do all the paperwork. I don't even want to know what they would have charged to have someone other than us accompany the dogs. Some companies made the choice real easy for me - send them an email asking for assistance moving dogs from Canada to Madagascar and they respond by telling me they only do moves out of Canada, not into Canada - yep, not hiring you, not really confident in your ability to keep track of important details.... In the end we decided that I would just take care of all the paper work and hope to hell that I didn't screw it up. Being Panic.

Turns out that when you are traveling with animals in live baggage, you can not check them through, and need to collect them and re-check them at each stop. This is great as it allows you to check in on them, but can also be vert difficult if going through many airports and if you don't have long enough layovers between flights. They recommend 3 hours minimum to allow for this, but what I learned in Paris is they are wrong, and I'd say a minimum of 5 hours between flights is more realistic. We figured it would be in the dogs best interest, and in the interest of our sanity, to do the route with the least amount of stops as possible, which took us Edmonton-Toronto-Paris-Antananarivo. We also decided to do a one night layover in Paris to give the dogs a break from the kennels and the planes and some time with us to calm them down if they were having difficulties. This added an extra level of planning because it meant that we would have to actually import the dogs into France. They said that we had to, even though we were staying at a hotel attached to the airport and not technically leaving airport property, unless we promised that we weren't going to let them out of their kennels for even a minute the whole time we were in Paris. That seems a bit inhumane......

Once we had decided on the airline and the route, it was time to make sure we could meet all their requirements. Each airline has specific requirements about kennel size, how the dogs are to be in the kennels, what is to be attached, what information you need to have, etc...each country also has their own requirements for export and for import, and you need to make sure you do it all as they say in their required time frames. Fun Times! So we had Nathan and Amanda take measurements of the dogs so we could order the required kennels. Based on Air France requirements, this meant Toby (a miniature weiner dog) needed a medium sized kennel and Clutch (an 80lb Lab cross) needed a Giant kennel. This seemed completely ridiculous so we quadruple checked and that was indeed what they said they needed. Basically the animals need to be able to stand up and turn around in the kennel. We both felt that Clutch needed only a large or extra large at most, but we had no idea how strict they were going to be so we went for the giant crate. We also ordered special absorbent pads and self heating pads, water bottles, and pet passports. All this was about $1000, but we felt we were well on our way. The rest was paperwork.

I was very lucky to have a very helpful vet (who has been our vet since the day we got the dogs, and also the vet of every dog/animal I had growing up), who was just as much of a stickler as I was when it came to making sure we did everything exactly by the book. Conveniently, no quarantine was required coming into Madagascar and believe it or not there will be no quarantine heading back into Canada! They only required vaccinations for Rabies, Leptospirosis, Bordatella and some deworming. Leptospirosis was the only we hadn't done annually, and proved to be a bit difficult to find, because though it's a regular vaccine in Ontario, it is not typically given in Alberta. We had to call 13 different vet clinics to find one that had some in stock, as most weren't willing to order the full case of the vaccine that would likely just go bad before they had need to use it again. Can't say as I blame them. We did find a vet that would do it, and had enough to do the initial shot and the booster - hooray! The really tricky part was making sure we had all the paper work done in all the correct time lines. Madagascar required health certificates and vaccination records no later than 15 days before travel to start the process for the import permit, and then required all the same paperwork to be completed no earlier than 3 days before travel so that they had them when they arrived in the country. France required the certificates to not be completed more than 5 days before travel but no less than 3 days before travel, etc... the list really does go on. These appointments all required that the dogs came also because they had to have a complete exam each and every time. Because that's cheap......I figure all said and done we had about 15 vet appointments, and about 2 days worth of hours into paperwork and getting everything ready. We also had to go to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and get all of the health certificates stamped and approved, saying that Canada agreed that it was safe for them to leave the country. Surprisingly that was probably the cheapest part of the whole process at only $20.00 per document.

Top that all off with poor Clutch having a botched lump removal surgery that almost ended with him not being able to get on a plane and we are in fine form. Luckily he recovered in just enough time and managed not to end up with an infection so he was able to join us, though I'm not sure how he feels about that fact at this point :) 

Poor Clutch - right after the first surgery (he needed multiple after pulling out all his sutures)

Pouty McConeHead

Hooray for dog onesies!

Fast forward to the Saturday before our departure on Sunday morning. Because we had to be at the airport at 4:00 am on a Sunday, we decided it was in our best interest to stay at a hotel in Leduc the night before so that we could limit the amount of disruption to other people. We rented a minivan to carry all the stuff and loaded up the suitcases. The dogs were not impressed, as typically the loading of suitcases meant we were leaving and they weren't coming with us. Their reactions when we called them to get in the car were hilarious - little did they know :) Once we had our little family loaded in the van we were on our way. We got to the hotel in the Leduc and the dogs were already a little unsure of what was going to happen, but they settled nicely into the comfy beds. So far so good. The alarm going off at 3:00 was met by unhappy grumbles from all 4 of us; the dogs don't believe in staying up past 9:00 p.m. or getting up before 7:00 a.m. They need their beauty sleep you know. 

Checking out the first hotel of three on this journey

Yup, it'll do!

Our arrival at the airport was less than graceful - 6 GIANT bags, 2 dogs and their kennels, multiple carryons and only 2 people is likely not the most well thought out way of doing things. Of course because we are such a sight, we got ushered to the front of the line, and I didn't even feel bad. I was a wreck. Too much concern over putting the dogs on a plane makes me less than capable of functioning like a human. We get to the counter and the very first thing the remarkably patient WestJet lady says is "That kennel is not going to fit". Great start! Turns out that despite my 4 phone calls to confirm the dogs were booked on the plane and that Clutch's kennel would fit on the plane, none of those were even marked on our file and I was assured that whoever I talked to was wrong. Clutch's giant sized kennel would not get through the door on the airplane. Matt is pretty fantastic about keeping his cool in those kinds of situations (or at least making it look like he is keeping his cool), and immediately sorted out that we had to abandon the $500 kennel and all it's contents and go to the store at the airport and spend $300 on a passable kennel to replace it. Our options for the abandoned kennel were to call someone to come pick it up for us, or donate it. Unfortunately we also had to abandon all the pads that were purchased because they wouldn't fit in a smaller kennel and give Clutch any room to get in. The one that we were able to purchase at the airport was not big enough to get him to Paris or Madagascar but would work to Toronto, so we made it happen. There was another dog there in a large kennel with no padding or blankets of any kind so we told that family to grab all the pads and blankets out of our abandoned kennel and they happily obliged. Once we had the kennel issue sorted we had to get them checked in, and we were told they could check them all the way to Paris. Cool! They also told us (as we had suspected) that they were paid for already so we didnt' have to worry about that. Once it was time to take them for their security scan and zip tie their doors shut, I was well into my panic attack. The nice ladies were trying to tell me things and I was deep breathing with tears rolling down my cheeks not really able to pay attention. They tried to make me laugh and assured me they would be okay and were blowing their tiny fan on my face lol. It was quite the scene I am sure. 

Clutch wondering what the heck is going on! Checking in for flight #1

We walked them over to where we had to put the kennels through a security scan, and the west jet lady comes running up to us to tell us they had made a mistake and we in fact could not check them through to Paris, we'd need to collect them in Toronto. This was actually great news to us, but put us farther behind as they had to reprint all new tags and change the plan. She also told us that it looked like we had not paid for them, but she was just going to leave it alone. I could have kissed her! They of course made it through the security scan and were met by a nice man who loaded them up on a cart and took them down to where they would be waiting for their flight. A cool thing about West Jet is they have a sticker that they attach to the kennel with several tear away tags. After you have boarded the plane, and the dogs are on board, they rip off one of the tags and come find you with the tag from the kennel to tell you the dogs are on board and ready to go. That sure put  my mind at ease. Until then I felt like I was going to throw up. Matt is so good at trying to keep me calm, but we both visibly relaxed to at least know they were on the plane. I was still worried about how they would handle the flight, but a huge hurtle was crossed and I couldn't control anything for the next 4 hours so I just sat back and decided all would be fine. 

Sure enough, we landed in Toronto, and thankfully the rest of our bags were checked through to Paris so we only had to collect the dogs, which is really all we cared about anyway. We waited and waited and waited and they finally were delivered together by another nice WestJet man. Man were we happy to see them! They seemed no worse for wear other than having to pee, so we found our way outside to give them some time. The Toronto airport has a fenced in grass area just for dogs, which was fantastic! Unfortunately, the Toronto Airport didn't have anywhere in that terminal that sold dog kennels, so Matt hopped in a cab and took off to the nearest PetValue to get Clutch a larger kennel for the rest of the trip. He was able to find one that allowed Clutch to stand up and turn around and we both felt so much better about the rest of the trip. We loaded them up again after about an hour of move around outside time, where they both refused to eat, and headed off to find the Air France counter. We got in line and were sought out immediately because they were awaiting our arrival to get us all checked in. We were helped by yet another wonderful employee, who kindly told us that we had not paid for the dogs on this flight either. Luckily it was only $400 and that covered us all the way to Madagascar. Again we had to walk over to a specialty security clearance for the dogs and all went well. I was worried about how they would do with the stress they were under and the thousands of people but they were incredible! No barking or whining, so many people were petting them and saying hi and they just let it all happen with a dazed look in their eyes. Couldn't ask for much more really. Again we were met by a very friendly man who obviously loved dogs and he loaded them up and took them away to be loaded on the plane. We were told to ask at the gate for reassurance that the dogs were on the plane, and they didn't let us board until we knew they were there. I was grateful for that as well. 

Puppy area at the Toronto Airport

Clutch still loved me after the first flight!

Toby wouldn't look at me or eat his food.

We made it to Paris with no issue, though we had some turbulence and I can only imagine how two dogs scared of thunder felt about that....The airport in Paris caused us some panic, as it took us almost 2 hours to get through passport control, and all we could think about (other than wanting to get the heck out of the airport) was that the dogs had been waiting somewhere for us for that long. Once we made it trough, I went in search of the dogs and Matt went in search of our luggage. Another two hours later and we had found the place to store our luggage, and made our way to the wrong hotel. Fun fun fun. Turns out there are two locations for the hotel we stayed at that are both located at the airport. One is just more at the airport. Insert very heavy sighs here. After much begging and pleading we got a private shuttle from the wrong hotel to the right hotel and all of us were very happy to have 24 hours settled. The dogs immediately found the bed and the cushy housecoats and passed out. They didn't even notice we had left to go to Disneyland, and we had to wake them up when we were back in the room rather than them notice we were coming in the door. Good guard dogs we have. 

If you are ever looking to fly through Paris with a layover and a dog, the Mercure at CDG allows dogs over 5kg (most don't) and I literally can't say enough about their service. Incredible. If booking somewhere else and you have a dog that's not tiny, make sure you check that they allow bigger dogs. That was actually a bit tricky to find. 

All settled in for their rest in Paris

Getting to our gate the next more was less tricky, as our priority status actually meant something in Paris, and we were immediately helped to the front of the line to get everything checked in and again we had amazing service. We got to see the dogs off until we got to security for ourselves, and they were again taken to wherever dogs go to wait for their flights. I was a little worried as this was the longest of the three flights and they were still refusing to eat, though Matt assured me that this was probably for the best as it meant they wouldn't get sick and then have to sit in their mess for the whole flight. Same protocol of waiting at the gate for reassurance and we were told they were on their way to the plane. That didn't make us feel calm, so as soon as we got on the plane Matt asked the flight crew to check and we were notified once they made it on. Phew. On to the second last leg of the journey and we'd all made it! 

Our arrival in Antananarivo was uneventful. Meet and Greet that we get as Ambatovy employees was a huge help and it didn't take long for us and the dogs and the bags to be on our way. Our driver met us with the permit he had picked up for us, and we made it through customs no problem. Of course we had too many bags/people/dogs/kennels to fit in our car so we loaded a bunch of bags in the shuttle for the hotel and headed out. We finally got all checked in around 1 am, and had to be on the road by 6 am. Matt was catching the charter flight so that he could get right back to work and the dogs and I and Marson were making the long drive from Antananarivo to Toamasina, as the charter won't fly the live dogs. We put as many bags as we could on the plane with Matt, and Marson and I were on the road home by 6:30 a.m. It was a great drive! I slept through it :) We made it to our house by 1:00 p.m. Watching the dogs get used to the new house was hilarious. They could smell us in the house already and obviously couldn't figure out why. Lots of exploration and uncertainty for the afternoon, and they lost their little minds when Matt came home from work. They slept most of the next 36 hours, obviously not having slept on any of the flights. Toby figured out pretty quickly that this was home now and was ecstatic. Clutch was not sure, and I'm not even sure he's figured it out yet. 

Toby watching the happenings of Antananarivo

Clutch was also enthralled with the bustle of Tana

Can you see both dogs?! First few minutes in their new house

Exploring their new back yard

Ya, I think they've settled in just fine!

Morning coffee porch snuggles. 

We have a housekeeper a couple times a week and a gardener and they all did well meeting each other. I was a little concerned as Clutch is a "big" black dog, and that's not usually a good thing here, but he's so friendly that everyone has loved him so far. And he has a little puppy crush on our housekeeper Marline. He follows her around everywhere. She loves it though and spends much of her time playing with both dogs, and won't leave the house without saying good bye to them. It's pretty great. 

On their fourth evening here, Toby found pretty much the only thing in the country that will kill him (a cane toad), and tried to eat it for dinner. I was BBQ-ing dinner and at first thought that he looked pretty darn cute hopping around the yard, until I realized what he was doing and I started to holler. Matt walked in the house from work just as I was in full blown freak out mode and immediately started doing research. Luckily it was just a little toad, and he hopped away - thank goodness for our toothless wonder dog - so in all likelihood Toby would just get high. Sure enough, about 30 minutes after the incident he started hopping around the living room like Tigger with no provocation, barrel rolled on the couch over and over again, barked at the wall for 10 minutes and then passed out. The next day he was a cranky old man as he came down off his high, and I asked him to please wait more than 4 days in the new country to try to end his life. He stuck his tongue out at me and walked away. I guess we will have to see what happens. 

They've now met pretty well all our friends, walked the neighbourhood and explored the beach and ocean. Toby isn't not a huge fan of the fact that the ocean is made of water, but he loved the sand. Clutch took some convincing but loved the beach! We will definitely need to take them their often. 

Through this entire process (and rather long winded blog post), I learned that it was a heck of a lot of work to get them here but it was completely worth it. Also, not one single person at any airport or flight desk or customs counter asked to see a single piece of paperwork in regards to the dogs. I had a binder absolutely full of all the required paperwork and stamped import permits and it was never opened. Of course if we didn't have it we'd have been asked for it, so I'm glad I did everything by the book, but what a waste of hundreds of dollars and countless hours. I can't even reuse them for their return in two years, the paperwork is only good for 30 days. Oh well! Dogs are resilient creatures and can put up with a lot. Now that we've been here for two weeks and are a bit more settled in, the dogs seem to know this is home, and have stopped panicking when Matt leaves for work in the morning. We can't wait to see them explore their new country over the next two years and are so proud of our trooper world traveler puppies! 

Matt and Clutch on the beach

MasterChef Madagascar

Matt and I were invited to participate in the third annual MasterChef Madagascar Cooking Competition, put on by another couple here in the village. This was our first year participating, and we completely under estimated the level of talent and work that people would put into their dishes.  I was so impressed!

Here's how it went:
Everyone interested in participating was welcome to either work on their own or as a team. Matt and I both like to cook and experiment, so we decided we would be a team. There ended up being 5 teams in total. We all met at the hosts house one afternoon, a month before the competition to find out the theme of the evening and the rules.
The theme was colours! So there were predetermined options, and a representative of each team drew 2 colours out of a hat. We ended up with purple and orange. I thought that would be very easy, but it wasn't as easy as I thought! There were to be 16 people in total, 5 teams and the spouses that weren't cooking. We were to make small, appetizer sized dishes, as there would be 5 courses plus appetizers and dessert. We also randomly selected the order of presentation and Matt and I were last - also not the best position to be in. They were to be fancy, original, not something you'd normally make at home, and your colours were to remain a secret until your plate was served. We were also not allowed to make anything with artificial colours to get our chosen colour. If you needed pink, for example, you had to find a natural way to dye the food pink. We also couldn't buy pre coloured items, just to make it even more challenging :)
To top it off, you had 15 minutes to plate and serve your meal. Yikes!

So - we found many different recipes, but had to continuously change them because of not being able to find items such as a yam, or purple cabbage. Even if we could it was hard to find in the quantities needed to not only test it out, but to feed 16 people. The competition was on a Saturday, and we finally found a recipe that we could get all the ingredients (or so we thought) on Thursday. We made ourselves a sample and it was delicious, so we sent off the title of our dish for the menu and were happy with our choice.

Saturday came and most of the day was spent doing the prep. Being the last group out of 5 we needed something that was light, easy to prep and still pretty. We had chosen a Salt Roasted Beet salad with Goat Cheese and Toasted Walnuts.

http://www.alexandracooks.com/2010/04/29/salt-roasted-beets-with-goat-cheese-and-toasted-walnuts/

Of course, when we went to the store to get the last few ingredients that we needed a little more of, they couldn't be found. So, we had a tiny quantity of goat cheese, and couldn't find a reasonable alternative. For a salad, the prep took a rather long time, and we finished just in time to shower, make ourselves presentable and head over to dinner.

The evening started at 6:30, and we were welcomed to the patio for tasty appetizers and drinks. The first team started their prep and when they were ready to plate, a timer was started for 15 minutes and we all took our seats.  After trying a course we had a little note pad to write down our thoughts, so that we could score the dishes at the end of the evening. Once the plates were served we had to see if we could guess what the colours were. The meal was to consist of mostly your colours, and no more than a 70/30 split between the two. If your colours weren't easily found then you lost points. The other areas of grading were originality, taste, and presentation. The first dish was done by another couple who were participating for the first time, and they made absolutely delicious empanadas.

Mark and Karrina's plated Empanadas. Course #1

After we finished one course, the next team started their prep. The timer only started when they were ready to attempt plating their meals. Once that timer was started, the plates had to be on the table before it went off. You also had time to give a little speech if you wanted, to tell funny stories about how you ended up with your recipe, difficulties you had when making it (there were many) or anything else you wanted to say. 

When the second meal came out, Matt I definitely felt in inadequate. I couldn't believe the level of work, or how delicious it was! 

Natsuko and Renate's "Flying Kite". Course #2.
What you are seeing is a lovely little landscape scene. The grass was made of mushy peas, the trees were dark greens, there was a kite made of deep fried seaweed, a sun made of a lime, a cloud that was the most deliciously cooked fish with black sesame seeds, and teriyaki sauce for rain. They even made tiny little flowers out of sesame seeds that were on the mushy peas. Wow!

The photo doesn't really do it justice. It was absolutely beautiful and so delicious! Their colours were black and dark green.

After the second course, we were asked to look behind our chairs and see what colour dot was stuck to it. Those of us with yellow dots had to gather our drinks and note pads and move clockwise to the nearest seat vacated by someone else with a yellow dot. This was to make sure that we chatted with lots of different people through out the night. Then it was time for the third course.

Stephanie (our host and the mastermind behind the evening) and Delphine's Sun Mezze trio. This was a very interesting meal with interactive pieces of the dish. In case you can't tell their colours were yellow and light green :) This was also very delicious.

The fourth course was served up immediately, and I was very curious how they achieved the vivid colours. Many unexpected and delicious flavours in this "Grand Trio". It looks like it should be all sweet flavours, but they were all savoury. I suppose I should mention that no one was allowed to make dessert. 

Sophie and Mariam and their tasty concoctions! Look at that pink! They achieved those colours by dyeing the ingredients with beet juice!

Again, between the 4th and 5th course, people moved chairs, this time those with blue dots on their chair. Then it was our turn! Because we had made a salad that didn't require any heating up before serving, we didn't need a lot of time before plating the meal. Just chopping up some oranges for garnish and then the timer was started. It takes a lot longer than you'd think to plate 16 salads in a pretty fashion, and we didn't start serving the plates until we had just under 1 minute left on the timer.  The photos look like we aren't in a panic, but I was totally in a panic :) Those that know me should not be surprised.

And here is our finished product:

Tada! The dressing was an orange reduction, so the idea with the oranges as a garnish was not only to see our colours, but to give people the option to squeeze some fresh citrus onto the salad to enhance the citrus flavour. 

We were a little bit disappointed, as it wasn't as delicious as the first time we made it for ourselves, but we blame the lack of goat cheese (everyone only got about 5 tiny little squares of it), and we didn't put enough dressing on the salad. Other than that it was exactly what we were going for with a nice light last course. 

We were then given a chance to anonymously score each dish out of 10, and while the results were being tallied by independent parties, we played a game! The hosts had put together a play list with songs that had a colour in either the song title or the artists name. We were separated into teams and had to guess what the song was. We started out with 40 seconds to listen and ended up at 5. Then the last round, one member of the team had to listen with headphones to the music and hum the song for the rest of their team. It was so much fun, and I finally got a little validation for my "terrible music selection" on my iPod as I knew many of the more obscure songs and artists. Ha! 

After the game, we all returned to the table for an absolutely delicious desert of B52's, red velvet cupcakes, caramel pecan bark, and a tasty coconut snowball type of treat. Suffice it to say, Matt and I did not win the competition. The luck winners were Renate and Natsuko with their Flying Kite meal. Second place was the Sun Mezze Trio. The winners received a trophy, and a Masterchef Madagascar apron that the hosts had made for them. 

The winners! Well deserved as well - I scored their meal 10/10!

Matt and I finally made our way home around midnight, with full tummies and having fully enjoyed ourselves. I couldn't thank our hosts enough for the amount of effort that went into the full evening. Not only did Stephanie participate in the challenge, but she also made all the appetizers and the desserts, as well as decorated the house, hired staff to help with the evening, and invited us all into her home. Definitely inspired us to do this once we return home. I'm sad we won't be here next year to participate again and up our game! And regardless of the challenge, it was a lovely evening with great people and amazingly delicious food!

Easter at La Pirogue

So we are a little behind....again.....
Something I learned when home this summer is that even though things here may seem same old same old to us, to those of you at home they are still new things. So, I/we are going to try to update our blog with the things that we missed, and keep up with it again for our last 10 months here. So, I'm going to start with Easter weekend, which we spent up north at a resort called La Pirogue.

La Pirogue is near Mahambo, which is a place Matt and I have gone before. We stayed at Le Recif last year, and we often go to Foule Point for a Sunday at the beach. Mahambo is about 30 minutes north of Foule Point, and is much quieter. The beaches are private, so we aren't constantly bombarded with people selling shell necklaces, massages, and weaved baskets. To be honest, we both prefer Foule Point because of all the action, but for a nice quiet weekend away, Mahambo definitely takes the cake.

We went with our friends Alex and Dave, and arrived bright and early Friday morning. We had rented the deluxe bungalows, which looked like this:

Pano view from the second story balcony

Upstairs was where we slept - no power means no fan or air con,
so you sleep upstairs with the balcony doors open for some air flow.

Pretty stones and gigantic boat hanging from the ceiling

Main floor living room area. The door on the left is the toilet, the
area on the right is the shower room.

The stairs to the second level - extremely terrifying in the middle of the night
with no lights. Just ask Matt.

We spent two nights in the resort, and had lovely quiet days. Lots of beach time, tasty food, and great company. Alex and I decided to try to drink our way through the cocktails menu, but got distracted by the drink called Sexy In The Drink.....

About a 40 minute walk from La Pirogue is the spot where the Marahiboha River meets the Indian Ocean. It's really a neat place, because the fresh water meeting the salt water allows for some amazing plant growth right in the middle of the mouth of the river. It was a lovely walk near sunset and we got some beautiful pictures! I even managed to avoid stepping on the sea urchins!

That night we went to dinner at the resort and had a lovely evening sitting and chatting. 

Unfortunately this was also the evening of the Huntsman spider incident....

After many bottles of wine and some scotch, conversation became about politics. Alex and I decided it was late and boring, so we headed off to our bungalows to read and catch some zzzz's, while the boys stayed at the restaurant and chatted. I got to the room, went upstairs, and attempted to close the curtains on the balcony so I could put on my pjs. As I pulled the curtain closed, in the folds was a GIGANTIC SPIDER!!!! I said some choice (not very lady like) words as I hopped back and tried not to cry. I had to work myself up to walk past it down the stairs to get help, as there was no way I was going to be able to move knowing that thing was anywhere near where I was going to be. For those of you that don't know what a Huntsman spider is, here are some pictures I found on the internet:

So ya.....

Anyway, I went running to the restaurant because I literally couldn't get away fast enough. Of course the closer I get to the guys I see they are laughing, because they've been able to see me for a while. I explain what is wrong, just saying there is a big spider because at the time I didn't know what kind it was. Both Dave and Matt rolled their eyes, Dave asking Matt what the chances were that it was as big as I said it was. Matt said that there was no way, and he would deal with it so Dave wandered off to get some more drinks. As we approached our bungalow, from the ground I pointed up to the second level and showed Matt that we could see the spider through the curtain, and that I in fact was not making it up. Matt's response? "I'm not touching that!!".... so I ran off to get help. I didn't get far, as Dave was on his way over to see if we needed help. The both stood on the ground looking up, trying to figure out exactly how to deal with this. They went inside, found a container I had brought with cookies, and decided to catch the spider with it. I stayed on the ground yelling as I heard them banging around. It was a Glad square container, one of the sandwich sized ones, and the spider was too big for it :( I kept yelling to see if it was dead, and they kept banging around trying to catch it. After a couple seconds of silence I asked if it had been killed, and they told me it had. I demanded proof...obviously. They then had to admit that it was too fast, but they had chased it out of the bungalow under the thatch roof. This was unacceptable to me, as I was convinced that it was in fact running away to get all it's other 8 legged freak friends to come back and exact it's revenge. 

The boys, sure that the problem was sufficiently dealt with, left to get their beer and come back to hang out on our patio, because I wasn't going to be able to sleep. I sat on the couch unable to move until they came back. Matt then had to come in the house and wait for me to get in my pjs, and then ensure that once I got on the bed I was completely engulfed in the mosquito netting with no possible points of entry for the spider, or exit for me. I still basically laid perfectly still for the rest of the evening, terrified that an army of gigantic beasts was on its way. Not to mention there was a rager of a party on the beach that kept me awake. 

Turns out that Easter in Madagascar is quite the party. Everyone arrives at the beach on Saturday and begins to party - and I do mean party - around noon. It's basically rave music for the next 24 hours. Sunday morning has a lovely brunch and fancy breakfast, and the party continues. Those that can't do the whole weekend spend the whole day Sunday at the beach. I seriously couldn't believe it. When we rolled out of the resort on Sunday after breakfast, the amount of people on the road walking to the beach meant that it took us an extra 1.5 hours to get home. You simply couldn't drive. 

All in all it was a lovely weekend. A little expensive for where we are, I believe our bill for the two nights was 1.2 million Ariary, which is about $600.00. That was a little hard to swallow when we only spent $25 a night at Le Recif, just up the beach. And Le Recif had solar power so we had fans all night - and most importantly, I didn't have an incident with a spider. That being said, it's probably the "fanciest" place we have found in a relatively close proximity and it made for a great weekend out of camp.