Dear all,
A little over a week ago we Monday we went back to Ifaty, a small seacoast village about 16 miles (an hour's drive) from Toliara. The area around Ifaty has several hotels strung along a beautiful beach. We stayed through Friday afternoon and thoroughly enjoyed the stunning beauty and peacefulness. You may recall that when we visited Ifaty previously we went whale watching, but only saw waves. When we arrived for our second visit, the hotel owner offered to send us whale watching Tuesday morning for free because of our unsuccessful first trip. This time we saw eight whales and followed them for about an hour! Three whales totally jumped up into the air, which took our breath away! Most of Peg's pictures were of splashes after the whales submerged, but she did get a few good shots.
Several of the nights we were there the moon was either full or almost full.
From Tuesday morning's whale watching!
Their flukes different, ranging from pure white with what looked like a bite out of it, to dark black.
When the tide was very low, people from the village nearby walked the beach looking for some kind of seafood -- mussels maybe.
The beach was rocky, with a spiny forest up above.
Each night, the view of the sunset from our room was different over the Indian Ocean.
When Peg taught the photography class, she finally learned to use her own camera's self-timer, so here we are in front of our room.
Villagers also fished constantly in dug-out canoes,
and put up sails to get out to the reef when the wind came up.
Needless to say, we loved it.
Since we got back Friday, we went with the mission team from Florida to St. Augustine, a small ocean-front town about an hour south of Toliara. This past Sunday we went to church in the bush, where there were 22 baptisms by Bishop Todd with Howard assisting, and 33 confirmed (pictures will be arriving on the website soon). We then drove to Isalo National Park Sunday afternoon, getting back to Tuesday night (September 28th). Isalo features sandstone rocks cut by deep canyons and eroded into weird shapes. The Bara ethnic group has used the caves in the canyon walls as burial sites for hundreds of years. Monday we hiked through rice paddies (the Malagasy eat rice three meals a day), across a dry plain, and into a cool leafy canyon where we saw ring-tail lemurs.
On Tuesday morning, Howard toured a sapphire mine with the majority of the group, while Peg and a small group again hiked through the rice paddies, plains, and across several streams into another canyon, looking for sifikas at the canyon entrance. Our guide had stated we might not be able to see the lemurs as the local villagers were re-burying the bones of a deceased member of the former tribal king very high up on the canyon wall at the location of the king's tomb. The noise of the villagers did in fact scare away the lemurs and they were nowhere to be found. But Peg and the others were able to see the villagers carrying the bones high on the canyon wall (we will send pictures!). Peg has taken SOOOOO many pictures in the past week and some will be heading to the website this week.
After we returned to Toliara Tuesday night, the mission team began its journey back to Florida. The team members will soon have pictures from their time in Madagascar on their website, and we will forward the web address.
This coming Monday evening we fly to the capital and then head to the rain forest east of the capital -- Andasibe-Mantadia National Park. The guidebooks and Malagasy people say if you only visit one national park in Madagascar, it should be this one. While there we will be able to see a wide variety of endemic plants and some of the eleven species of lemurs found there. We will then spend five days at St. Paul's Seminary, which is north of the capital, prior to our trip home. Howard is looking forward to teaching a course on the theology of C.S. Lewis for seminarians there.
On Tuesday morning, Howard toured a sapphire mine with the majority of the group, while Peg and a small group again hiked through the rice paddies, plains, and across several streams into another canyon, looking for sifikas at the canyon entrance. Our guide had stated we might not be able to see the lemurs as the local villagers were re-burying the bones of a deceased member of the former tribal king very high up on the canyon wall at the location of the king's tomb. The noise of the villagers did in fact scare away the lemurs and they were nowhere to be found. But Peg and the others were able to see the villagers carrying the bones high on the canyon wall (we will send pictures!). Peg has taken SOOOOO many pictures in the past week and some will be heading to the website this week.
After we returned to Toliara Tuesday night, the mission team began its journey back to Florida. The team members will soon have pictures from their time in Madagascar on their website, and we will forward the web address.
This coming Monday evening we fly to the capital and then head to the rain forest east of the capital -- Andasibe-Mantadia National Park. The guidebooks and Malagasy people say if you only visit one national park in Madagascar, it should be this one. While there we will be able to see a wide variety of endemic plants and some of the eleven species of lemurs found there. We will then spend five days at St. Paul's Seminary, which is north of the capital, prior to our trip home. Howard is looking forward to teaching a course on the theology of C.S. Lewis for seminarians there.
We miss you and love you,
Fr. Howard and Peg
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