Postcard: The Nile

Felucca captain; Nile River, Aswan, Egypt.

Ankarafantsika to Bekopaka

The morning we left Ankarafantsika we breakfasted early on bread, butter, and jam. The day before we’d had large chunks of baguette and spreadable cheese, but this morning the bread was sliver thin and there was no cheese. We got the impression that the two baguettes we bought on the way into town were being stretched after the generosity of the day before.  After packing up and loading the minivan, we set off for the drive back to Tana, where we would spend the night before flying down to Morandava in the south on the Mozambique Channel.

We knew we had a long day of driving ahead of us, and so we urged our driver and Ndemy to play their own music in the car to pass the time. They hooked up Ndemy’s phone to the stereo, and we enjoyed listening to some Malagasy music, which seemed to us to be akin to folk music, with harmonies and a guitar-like instrument.

Madagascar: Ankarafantsika

Our ferry trip back to the mainland from Nosy Be was pleasantly un-chaotic, by comparison to the other direction.  As we approached the port (ok, the shoreline) at Ankify, we spotted two men wearing green Cactus Tours shirts, and they definitely spotted us.  It was the two men who had sold us our original ferry tickets, and later carried us bodily onto the boat.  We had second thoughts about having given them the shirts—we hope they wouldn’t abuse the logos to pose as Cactus Tour representatives.  They pulled our luggage off the boat for us, and we met our new guide, Ndemy—pronounced Dem-bee—and our driver (we didn’t catch his name, and it became awkward to ask again later).  We got into a minivan, and settled back for a day of driving south.

Postcard: Giza

Decorations on a camel’s face; Giza, Egypt

Madagascar: Nosy Be

After spending much of our days hiking in Montagne d’Ambre and Ankarana, we had some lower intensity days of travel and relaxed day trips scheduled. We headed northwest to the coast, where we would take a ferry over to our next destination, an island in the Mozambique channel called Nosy Be (pronounced Nosy Bay). That is where we would finally be reunited with our luggage. We had been in contact with Rina, from our tour company, and she promised that it had already been delivered to our hotel. It’s funny how much attachment and affection we had for that small amount of stuff that comprised our worldly goods. When you’re excited to be reunited with your bras, you realize how much your life has been changed by 8 months of travel (David was more interested in his hat, razor, and the battery charger for his camera).

Collection: Spiders & Webs

I’m leading with an image of just a web in consideration of those readers with strong reactions to spiders.  Now is your chance to move on—you have been warned.  I have no particular love for spiders indoors, but over the course of our travel year, I became fascinated with photographing them and their webs.  I think that fascination comes from both the technical challenge of capturing a web in contrast to the background, or a sharply focused close-up of the spider itself, combined with how beautiful the result can be when you finally get it right.  I was surprised to find that spiders had become my second favorite subject after spirals.