KalahariLog

After a short hiatus due to an unforeseen shortage of computers, we should be able to resume posting regularly in a few weeks. We had a couple of nice trips abroad in December: Madagascar and Mauritius. In Madagascar we spent a week on a small island called Nosy Be off the northwest cost, about 1000 kilometers east of Mozambique in southern Africa. Nosy Be is the size of the entire country of Mauritius but with only 60,000 people compared to the 1.2million living in Mauritius. About 15x20 km in total, Nosy Be is supposedly one of the most developed tourist destination in Madagascar but that is not saying much. There isn’t any touristy feel to it as there is little infrastructure, only a dozen hotels, intermittent electricity and no central water system. Instead of thousands of tourists, there are plenty of lemurs and chameleons and tons of mosquitoes and other assorted bugs. The air and ocean temperatures were an almost constant 30C, Nosy Be being only 10 degrees south of the equator.

Mauritius is a thousand kilometers due east of Madagascar and is about 20 degrees south of the equator. This makes for less humidity and larger variation between summer and winter. Unlike Madagascar, there is a very well developed tourist industry despite the fact that Mauritius has one of the highest population densities out there. What they lack in wildlife they make up for with spectacular food. About 50% of the people are from Indian descent and the rest is made up of Chinese, Creoles, and French -- what this all adds up to is spectacular Indian curries, fiery Chinese noodles, and fancy French restaurants. It is also good to see Hindus, Tamils, Muslims, and Christians getting along with remarkable lack of conflicts. More about both trips will follow soon and we have some spectacular pictures and movies too.