Tulear

Mangroves when the tides out

Today's our last day in Tulear, which is a coastal city in the Southwest region of Madagascar. Tulear is bigger than Fort Dauphin, much flatter and from what I've seen it seems more touristy too. We spent our first several nights, camping in a place South of Tulear, near a strip of mangroves where we could swim when the tide was in early morning and at night. I have to say, swimming in warm ocean water, among mangroves under the moon is a pretty cool experience.

Ombiasy & offering of rum

La Table

Our second night we did a hike up to "La Table" with an "ombiasy" which is basically a spiritual/medicine man, with knowledge about  medicinal plants and their uses. At the top there was a place where the ombiasy speaks to ancestors and gives offering of rum, candy or other things. He did this and asked for good fortune for everyone in the group and we shared the remainder of the rum, and watched the sunset from the top.

The next day we had the chance to go with local fishermen, to go fishing in the pirogues. It was hot out on the water but pretty incredible. The pirogues are manned by two fishermen, and they paddle out to the spot where they plan on fishing. The area where they fish is aways from shore, but still shallow so when they fish they jump into the water to set up their net. The net was extremely "homegrown" it looked in parts to be made from mosquito netting, and used pieces of flip flops for floats. The use of mosquito netting for fish netting is actually illegal, because it catches everything, including small juvenile fish, but regulations are not enforced and because the area is so overfished, fishermen resort to small fish for some protein. In the water, they drag out the net into a big circle, then bring it in to this small pocket in the end where the catch is. We caught a lot of really neat looking small fish, including small pufferfish, some starfish(which they threw back) and even a few seahorses. Some point during that time I realized I'd probably held a seahorse for the first time in my life, standing in the Indian ocean near a pirogue. Going back to shore, we sailed back. The sail was also very homegrown, made from rice sacks sewn together, and then lashed to two poles, which were tied in place.

Being in Tulear is interesting,  because it definitely has the feel of a bigger city than Fort Dauphin. It's much flatter, and the roads are in much better condition, certain parts of it seem almost modern/urban. At the same time there's those dirt side roads and street vendors all over. One cool thing about Tulear are the "pousse pousses" which are man-pulled chariots, which are everywhere. I had my first(and second) ride in one today, which was a little unnerving, but all in all not a bad form of transportation. It's incredible, these men spend their days pulling people in chariots, often running most of the way, many of them wearing only sandals on their feet.

In the pousse pousse

Pousse pousses,  lining the street all over

So that's it for now. We leave Tulear tomorrow off on our road trip back towards Tana(the capital). It's been nice the time we've had in Tulear, although it's been quite hot and I've been getting a little fried from the sun. Until next time! I've figured out some photo uploading so here's a few more random photos from the last few days...