17 May - first day on the Bike

First rider meeting yesterday. Amongst other things, this is the itinerary for the first three days of riding at which point we get a day of rest and the opportunity to visit the national park at Isalo...

It was a short day to ease us into the routine, so 0800 breakfast for a 0900 departure. The owner of the hotel and some of his staff were up at the road wishing us well on the ride. Hotel Belle Vue in Ifaty if anybody is motivated to spend some time in a nice establishment on the beach completely out of mainstream western life.

In this photo, the flagging tape that TDA uses to mark turns can be seen behind Ursula's right shoulder. The bus is one of our support vehicles setting out to mark the route and to get lunch ready - yes, we're looked after.

The road was a terrible one when they scouted the route a year or so ago. Then it got paved and is the best road we've been on in Madagascar. The ladies on the left of the photo were breaking up rocks using larger rocks on smaller ones by hand.

Probably more ox carts on the route than motorized vehicles...

 

We were never far from the sea as we followed the coast to the south to Toliara - south of the equator so sun behind us.

Some mangroves along one stretch of the coast...

If anyone has gone back a couple of blogs to the one in the nature reserve, you may notice that my brother has kindly added some comments identifying the birds. Thank you Bruce. To make sure you have something to do today, here are a couple more, one sort of pigeon-shaped on top of a cactus (cactus by the way are not endemic, rather they have been imported from the Americas), and the other a darkish heron with some Egrets near the shore.

 

Here some of us together as we get near to Toliara - Annegrete who we've known on three previous rides, Michel who we know from Bamboo Road, Fiona from Australia on her first TDA ride, Bill who we rode with in NZ last year.

 

The hotel tonight is the Victory, the same hotel we were in during the two previous stays in Toliara. Swimming pool appreciated by all.

That's it for day one. Next post who knows when as we will not always be connected to the world.