June 18-21 - Onward to Nosy Be

June 18 - Out of our lovely eco lodge and back on the dirt road, this time not on the bikes, rather in the bus to avoid riding the same bits of highway as before. The 15 km of dirt road took an hour fifteen minutes by bus - tells you something about the road, doesn't it...

...only one flat tire...

 It was a long bus ride - over 400 km - to the hotel for that night - scenery much as we had seen the previous few days.

June 19 - Then two days of cycling, a bit over 100 km each day - very hot.

the road as usual is a steady stream of people on foot...

...even little ones who try (and almost succeed) to keep up with the bike.

amazing - the geese just followed him presumably to where they needed to go.

and bicycle transport for what looks like a dozen stools or something like that

We began to see a bit of mechanization - this little traction device that even
us slowpokes passed easily

...and even tractors - we'd seen only four of these in the last six weeks
 and suddenly we saw four in one day, none of them in the fields, all of them
doing what zebu or people would normally be doing.  

Rivers here are everything...

Ducks, zebu, laundry, all in the river.

This is the main highway that we're on, through one of the towns. Don't think for one minute that motorized vehicles take priority here. The dog was asleep a few minutes ago. On the open road, they tend to drive down the middle, moving to the side when there's opposite direction traffic, because there are people at the side everywhere. In town, be patient.

Overnight between the two days was beside a river - very welcome to be able to swim - maybe not a hot shower but we were well rinsed and refreshed nonetheless.

 

David's office outside his tent... with a bit of supervision

 June 20 - Another hot day with a bit more climbing than yesterday, and a deadline to meet to catch speedboats to take us to the Island of Nosy Be - popular with French and Italian tourists - for two rest days.

 ...our accommodation for three nights above the beach... we aren't suffering...

sunset from our accommodation

 June 21 - eight of us went on an all-day snorkeling trip from the resort - an absolutely superb day - delicious seafood lunch...

 

 ...then we snorkeled and swam with the sea turtles.

 

 

our boat when we returned just before sunset

That evening we celebrated our 20th anniversary with Annegrete and Bill who we know from previous TDA adventures, Annegrete on Bamboo Road, Bill in New Zealand.

June 22 - another rest day with blogging and other housekeeping items on the agenda. Tomorrow we have to get back to the docks and across to the other side before we start the 100 km bike ride - we're anticipating that it will already be late and hot (mid-30s) by the time we start so we'll probably all be moaning about the heat tomorrow.