Sat, Aug 31 - Off to Ifaty

I awoke in our beautiful room at Au Bois Vert, our Tana hotel, at 5 AM and decided we could sleep another hour as our bags didn’t have to be outside until 7:20.   Bob went off to breakfast, but I relaxed and sent off another blog post as I figured I could miss a meal with all we’ve been eating!

We set off to the Tana airport and said good bye to Tuvo, our terrific driver. 

Tuvo, Bob, Nancy, Dave, Fano, me, & David

Fano, as the chief organizer for our trip flew with us to Tulear, a coastal town on the southwest coast.  We flew over farm land, and then the soil turned red and hills with steep canyons appeared with scrubby plant cover and very few people.  As we descended we could see a few baobab trees.  

We landed and got all of our luggage this time!  We have a large bus now as we will be driving quite a ways, so we’ll be very comfortable.  The sun was quite intense as this is a hot semi-desert area.  We drove for 30 minutes to Ifaty which has a very fine Spiny-Didierea Forest, a unique botanical area of mostly endemic and quite bizarre plants including Adansonia ( huge baobab trees), Didierea (spiny octopus-like trees, and many Euphorbias.

The bus took us to our fairly new and very lovely Ifaty Dunes Hotel - right on the beach with distant surf beyond the coral reefs. 

Dunes restaurant

We have a suite bungalow with a porch overlooking the beach - pretty plush!   We had Three Horses beers and grilled shrimp for lunch and then relaxed until 4 PM when the heat wasn’t so intense.

View from the Dunes restaurant

We set off a short ways to a private reserve, Parc Mosa, and hiked in on the soft red sand and marveled at the enormous baobab trees, a different and endemic species from the African one we saw in Majunga a while ago. 

Running Coua

Baobabs: Adansonia rubrostipa

 The young men who guided us found some wonderful birds for us including the lovely Running Coua.  And finally we got to see our first Tenrec, the Lesser Hedgehog Tenrec. 

Lesser Hedgehog Tenrec

One of our guides climbed a tree and found the tiny critter in a hole and put him on the ground for us all to see him.  He rolled into a ball, just like a miniature hedgehog, and eventually uncurled and scampered back to his tree!

Sub-desert Mesite

White-footed Sportive Lemur

We returned to our hotel, showered, and assembled for dinner.  Bob and I had local rum and cokes, watercress soup, and fish stew for dinner.  Bob bought the table a bottle of South African wine as he’d won the bet on arrival time in Tana two nights ago!

View from our bungalow