Monday, August 10. Tolagnaro (Fort Dauphin).
This morning we walked down the hill from the Air Madagascar compound, across the coast road, and down to the beach.
Although I have never been to Hawaii, I have seen pictures of Hawaii, and I'm old enough to remember Hawaii Five-O and young enough to watch Lost, and to me this part of Madagascar looks like Hawaii. (In the same way, the Highlands of Madagascar, with their mountains and rice paddies, looks like Vietnam to me.)
It is fitting that at least one region of this fourth-largest island resembles Hawaii, because the Malagasies originated in Malaysia and Polynesia, and their language most resembles the Hawaiian language.
We picked out a sandy path to the beach, and at the bottom right of this photograph you can see Patsy and Ingrid, with Todd in the lead. Between the two umbrellas in the center of the picture you can see a stump-like structure poking up through the surf, and farther down the way another more horizontal shape in the water. These are the remnants of two of the several shipwrecks that spoil the beauty of the coast.
Despite the stunning views of the Indian Ocean, there is surprisingly little development along this coast. Patsy was very much hoping that the new parish would buy some of this land as the site for the new church. She was by no means alone in that hope, and it was one of the possible properties we saw on our first day in Fort Dauphin.
Here's a view of the Tolagnaro peninsula to the south:
There were other spectacular views that day. . .
As we continued our walk we passed the horizontal shipwreck visible in the first two photographs of this series, and here is the view looking back toward the Tolagnaro peninsula.
As we had approached the shipwreck we encountered a small gang of about half a dozen young kids, between the ages of five and twelve, and to see them play among the rusted ruins, oblivious to the dangers of stepping on or falling into jagged fragments, was chilling. It is a symptom of the government's weakness that it has no power to compel the companies responsible for these ships to remove them. Apparently many if not all of them were scuttled for purposes of insurance fraud.
Patsy took this "re-enactment" photo as we peered far off into the horizon to catch the plumes of several whales that sharp-eyed Todd had sighted. It was great fun to search out and spot the erratic sprays as the whales frolicked in the distance beyond our vision.
Finally it was time to return, and I took this last photograph before we retraced our footsteps in the sand.
Little did we know at the time, but later that evening we would enjoy one of the most surprising and sumptuous feasts of our entire Sabbatical. But that will be a tale for tomorrow!
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