holidays are great

written on holiday

It's been so fantastic for the past week to have a complete break. I feel much more refreshed and relaxed. Three months of being the sefo/chefu/chief really took it out of me. The interesting thing was that I didn't feel it taking over or being too much until right near the end, when it was 'too late' so to speak. I hadn't really yoga'd or meditated for ages and just felt totally peopled out and burnt out by the time we left site and headed for Tulear. A week on, and I'm feeling a lot more rejuvinated and (almost!) ready to interact with people again! I needed some total 'time out' (with Justin of course) to just rest, relax, not talk to anyone, not to make any decisions and just to be. Now that I've had plenty of be-ing I feel a lot calmer internally. I'm physically and mentally restored and prepared to meet the new group of volunteers in just under a week's time. I also realise that the yoga that I had started to neglect was really important for me and that Justin and I need to take some US time away from site - just the two of us. We've resolved (well, I've resolved and he's agreed with me) to spend one night at Laguna Blu each expedition to just eat together and be on our own without any demands being placed on us. I'd also like to make sure that at least on some of the days off, we leave site and do something different together. So, where have we been for the past week? Well, we spent two days wallowing in the excesses of Tulear... Oh, okay then, it wasn't quite so debauched - we ate pastries, ice-cream and I had meals with cheese in. But two days of that was really quite enough and we headed about an hour's north (by 4x4 - probably longer in a taxi brousse) to the town of Ifaty - a Vezo village on a beach.
Similar then in many ways to Andavadoaka except that tourism is quite well established and the hotels are spread out along the very very long beach - there are three south of the village, one in the village and a few north. The village itself seems a lot more prosperous than Andavadoaka, the houses more spread out and the village itself less compact. Unlike Andavadoaka, the adults and children all greet you in French (instead of Malagasy). Like Andavadoaka, the children smile when they see you and say hello, but unlike Andavadoaka they ALL demand cadeaux first, then bon bons, then stilo (pens), and finally, if that hasn't inspired you to part with something, they just ask for cash (argent). Sort of like money with menaces - only with smiles instead of menaces.

Still, it's not as touristy or as hassly as I had been led to believe. Ifaty, like Andavadoaka, even has its own conservation organisation working in the village - doing similar things to BV. It's called Reef Doctor and we met some of the staff on Christmas eve when they came down to dinner at our hotel. Our hotel, by the way, is EXACTLY what I'd imagined when I thought about what I wanted over christmas. Our room is right on the beach, with air conditioning, a beautiful HARD bed that isn't made of foam and doesn't give me backache and a white clean tiled bathroom with a shower that you can not only adjust the temperature of, but that actually delivers water onto you from above. What's been even better is that it has french windows that open onto the beach, but are tinted, so that you can see out, but no one can see in. It's pretty private. As it's about ten minutes south of Ifaty, it's pretty quiet and isolated (not in the Andavadoaka sense of being isolated though as you can actually leave if you want to) and just very relaxing. The food is quite good too. In fact, I have a confession to make. I haven't had a proper vegetarian meal now since we were in Tulear (unless you count breakfast, which I don't). I've had fish at every other meal. At Coco Beach, the fish was just there - being served to the group, and it didn't seem such a big deal to my conscience just to take a little bit - it was already cooked and prepared etc. etc.

Here, I've actually had to make a conscious decision to order it (and therefore be fully responsible for its death) and given the lack of vegetarian choices on the menu with any protein, I have done. Worse, I've even enjoyed it too. So, my fall from vegetarian to pescatarian (or 'traitor') is now complete. I had the most delicious fish on christmas day at the very posh and expensive hotel and have been trying fish in various different sauces and guises. At Coco Beach you either get grilled fish, suspicious fish (unidentified fish in a tomatoey stew thing) or fish kebabs. There's very little done with it. Here, I've had a chance to sample fish in a multitude of ways. Still, I'm not the only vegetarian that the Madagascan diet has broken. There's been at least a few volunteers and staff over the years at Blue Ventures and on Christmas Eve, I met a woman called Emma who works for Reef Doctor and she used to be vegan before she lived here, and was veggie even longer than me - 24 years. So, I don't feel too weak for sucumbing to the lures of fresh fish. Frankly, it seems like the only way to survive out here.

Christmas day was very unchristmassy. We got up early and had breakfast and then I went out on a dive. Justin had been going to come, but woke up a little congested and so decided to give it a miss. His sinuses clearly knew something that I didn't! I was diving with Bruno, from the hotel and a french guest. It wasn't the best dive I've ever done. It wasn't the worst either, but it wasn't the relaxing, meditative experience that I had hoped it would be. I'd been looking forward to diving without anyone to be responsible for, but the current was so strong, the visibility so low (about 3 metres - five at the most) the equipment so rubbish (my regulator let in a constant stream of water throughout the dive - not enough to choke me thankfully - and there was no spare regulator on my kit to swap to) and the titan triggerfish so evil (two came to attack me - neither actually did though) that altogether, it was quite a stressful experience! I got bitten by a blue triggerfish in the Red Sea three years ago - it bit through my wetsuit and managed to pierce the skin. Titan Triggerish are bigger than blue triggers and pretty huge (up to a metre long. And chunky with it), with bigger teeth and are known to be aggressive when they're nesting. I NEVER look them in the eye and my heart rate always goes up when I'm in their vicinity. The two on this particular dive were either nesting or just liked to scare off vazaha (tourists) as they definitely looked at me and swam towards me in an aggressive fashion. I swam quickly through the territory of the first one, and calmed myself down, thankful that it hadn't come after me. The second one, later in the dive, was just too much on top of the crappy regulator and the strong current and my heart rate just wouldn't calm down. Luckily, the french tourist was low on air and we had to finish the dive at that point. I was pretty relieved. I spent the rest of the day relaxing with Justin in the hotel room, eating (we went to the posh hotel ten minutes south of ours for dinner), napping and watching episodes of Heroes which we had borrowed from one of the volunteers. We're totally addicted. And that's been the pace for the rest of the holiday - relaxing, eating, sleeping, reading a bit and watching Heroes. It's been fab. We've barely talked about work at all, whereas before, it was our only topic of conversation, and that's been very welcome too.

3rd Jan: now i am back in tulear, ready and prepared for the new bunch of volunteers and ready to face the journey back to site. it has been raining non stop for 24 hours so who knows how long the journey will take.... but however long it will take, im definitely ready to get back to our little village by the sea.....