A long day

We were shocked to be told by Hery that we’d be called at 4.45am as it would take over 13 hours to teach the next hotel, with stops.

The used the pot-holed N7 to continue south via the regional capital of Fuanarantsoa, the academic centre of the country. We descended from the highland plateau through beautiful mountain scenery to the plains.

The first stop was at Ambalavi paper workshop where women created lovely bookmarks, books etc with flower’s embedded in the paper.

At Anja Community Reserve we walked to a wooded area to see troupes of ring-tailed lemurs among the granite boulders. There was a hoopoo bird and chameleons.

The red fertile soil gave way to savannah, cacti, termite mounds and dust. Our lovely hotel was not reached till 7.30pm so we had a rushed shower, dinner and so to bed - no time to blip or even read my book.

I did get a shock when I unfurled the shower mat - a 7 inch millipede scuttled out. I shrieked - it was a shock. St George put paid to it for me.