Sep 17 – 20 – Days of Leisure (sort of) and a return to Antananarivo

Some photos around the resort. 

After discussions about the various activities offered, we opted to spend our first day (17^th) in the room working.  Paul has lots of work to deal with for future travel (air reservations and such) and Mary is way behind on the blog and photos from this trip.  Hopefully, we can make a dent in the backlog of work.

Today (18^th) Paul managed to get up in time for breakfast.  He brought Mary back a banana for breakfast as she was too lazy to get up.  We spent most of the day going over upcoming travels, both booked and planned, and sorted out to-do items and made a number of decisions.  Then it was composing emails (none of which we could send because Wi-Fi and cellular are pretty bad here…they will go when we have access) updating documents and otherwise getting everything more organized. 

Mary took a break early afternoon to get a snack at the bar.  Options were pretty limited and most were actually meals.  So she opted for French fries.  Theirs are very good.  Not crispy but very tasty. 

At one point we noticed some staff up in the coconut trees outside our cabin.  They were harvesting the coconuts. 

The rest of the day was spent on the computers. 

We have a visitor in the cabin.  A small green gecko.  They eat bugs so we decided to leave him alone.

On the 19^th, our last full day here, we both badly overslept and missed breakfast.  Guess sitting all day on the computers is exhausting.  And we spent another full day on the computers.

A map of the island was on the wall in the reception area.  It's are really long and skinny island.

On our last day here our flight was rescheduled to a more sane hour of 11:30.  It was originally scheduled for 8:30 but it was nice to be able to sleep in.  When it was time to leave for the airport they announced that the road to the airport was closed as the road crews were working on resurfacing the road.  So, we had to walk.  It was only a 10 or 15 minute walk and most of the walk was along the beach.  Not too bad.

A view of the waters around Ste. Marie Island from the air. 

Upon arrival in Antananarivo we were greeted by our tour guide, Jocelyn, and headed into the city.  The drive took us along a long stretch filled with rice paddies, some empty, some being planted and some already planted and beginning to turn green. 

And a couple of photos once we got into town.

Once we got to the hotel we were visited by a doctor that Paul had requested.  He has a major problem with his leg.  Turned out the leg was infected so the doctor gave us a long list of items to get from the pharmacy…antiseptic wash, oral antibiotic, oral medication for the itching, antibiotic cream, compresses and gauze.  Jocelyn headed to a nearby pharmacy to get everything we needed.  We did our first treatment right after she left.

Most of the afternoon was spent with Paul propping up his legs (another prescription by the doctor.  And we also packed for the 10-day tour that we have starting tomorrow.  Dinner was in the hotel.