Hopped up on antibiotics and popping pills like a 1980s supermodel, I’m working my way back from the razor’s edge of illness. I went out for a short, slow run this morning to try and sweat out the toxins (the humidity percentage here has to be high 90s and the temperatures are roughly the same […]
I wanted to take a moment today though and talk about the concept of taboo. The word itself derives from the Tonga term “tabu,” and was first introduced to the English language by Captain James Cook. According to Wikipedia (which ye gods I’m relying on far too much for my knowledge of the world these […]
June 20, 2017 – Long Day’s Journey Into Night Into Day June 21, 2017 It’s gonna be one of those days. The shuttle to the airport is picking us up at 11 am so we can catch our flight at 3 pm Tana time on the 20th and arrive at the home airport at 11 […]
June 19, 2017 – Long Day’s Journey Into Night This day has sucked. I’ve got a close to 2000 word piece on today but a lot of it I’ve chosen to hold back and use as contemporaneous notes for a followup discussion with Marathon Tours. It’s enough to post here that I am very disappointed […]
June 18, 2017 – The Madagascar Marathon I spent the night with a clammy, nasty undiagnosed fever. I was cold, with blankets pulled tightly around me; then I was hot and would kick off the layers. I thought it was dehydration or a low-grade dysentery or malaria or food poisoning. I almost typed “mild” instead […]
June 17, 2017 – Mine, Mine, Mine! It was supposed to be a tour of one of the largest sapphire mines in the world with a Swiss geologist providing insight into the history of sapphire mining in Madagascar along with the qualities and grading of the stones themselves. What it turned out to be was […]
June 16, 2017 Our hotel was apparently built by a former French paratrooper. Legend says he parachuted into this area by accident and decided it’d be a great place to build a resort. Arriving last night after much delay and miscommunication, I was less than enthused and grouchy and scrunched from a long bus […]
June 15, 2017 The ugliest hotel artwork I’ve ever seen? Certainly bottom four. Hotel Colbert, Madagascar, June 15, 2017 *** So much noise. A gaggle of people is always loud; as mom pointed out at dinner last night, the volume tends to get louder as the alcohol flows. But it’s only 11 am here at […]
Roughing it in Madagascar — I have spotty internet connections and attempts at uploading photos have consistently proven Sisyphian. As a result, while I’ve written a couple of posts, they aren’t ready to be published. More is coming but for now we will call this a temporary time out. Off to see the lemurs. -KSH
Our city tour was slated to include the Queen’s Palace in the morning, a buffet lunch, and the Malagasy Academie natural history museum in the afternoon. Along the way, traveling through the streets of Tana, one couldn’t help but feel the first world guilt of plenty and waste, passing by masses hawking wares or begging […]