Here is a second attempt at an update which (though I say so myself) was simply perfect - until I tried to publish it and it just disappeared in a puff of e-smoke. Chronologically it brings me from South Africa to Mozambique in early November:


I feel I haven't written enough about Mozambique. Veronika & Mathias had said all along that it was going to be fantastic, but I didn't dare believe them because that would be tempting fate. Instead, I went with an open mind into what turned out to be a tremendous five days.

The drive up from Pretoria was mostly dismal: scattered showers, persistent rain, torrential downpours. Thankfully Mathias was driving. We stopped to buy meat for the braai (that's a barbecue) and found some great chili bites (they look like wizened intestines - let's face it, that's what they are made of - but they taste great). Then Gary & Mercia caught up in their bakkie (that's a pick-up) and we drove on into the night, reaching Lala Lapa (that's a chalet park) with plenty of time to braai and drink beers.

We got to bed just as the cocks were starting to crow. At midnight. Bloody cocks! They couldn't shut up until we were breakfasting! And the bloody monkeys jumping from chalet roof to chalet roof couldn't put a sock in it either. Argh! Wildlife, like good Victorian children, should be seen and not heard. (I don't really think that, but I couldn't pass up an opportunity to write hackneyed prose like that.)

The next day, after a sunny breakfast and a last-minute shop for toothpaste etc, we drove to the border. It's a great border post. The road leads up to an imaginary line in the ground, and then the tarmac runs out. On the other side of the gate the rolling dunes start. We left our car in a car park and jumped on the back of the bakkie, of which Gary had let the tyres almost fully down in order to get some grip on the sand.

For the next hour we traversed just about 10km of rolling dunes and it felt like we were the first people ever to go there. (Gary & Mercia go every other month.) Every now and again we would pass a small village with a few fields and a bunch of kids who would chase the car shouting "Sweeeeeeeeeeeet!" with great urgency. One kid was so perseverent, I would have given him a sweet if I'd had some. He kept up with us for a good five minutes, only giving up the chase once we'd driven through a huge lakelike puddle in the track.

On arrival in Ponta do Ouro it was evident that the town had been quite prosperous before the civil war. Boarded-up houses and the remains of a tarmac road network bore witness to this. Also apparent was the influx of new money (power lines and a mobile phone mast). But the overall impression was one of glorious isolation from the cares of the everyday: the Simply Scuba diving centre we were to stay in was all wooden fencing, khaki tents and makeshift communal areas.

Okay, this is all in the wrong order. But I'll deal with it later.

Let's pretend you know all about how and when I got to Madagascar, how I spent a few days in the capital and how I flew up to the northern town of Diego Suarez...

I'll pick up at the point where I met Jorge. It was after wandering around several of Diego Suarez's tour operators looking for a group I could join. I finally found a company willing to take me, on the proviso that they found some other people to join the tour with me. I wanted to visit the Montagne d'Ambre nature reserve to see some lemurs and chameleons.

When the 4WD came to pick me up from my hotel (which was owned by an old Frenchman with a bad taste in muscle tops) I found not only a driver and a guide but also another paying guest. This turned out to be Jorge, a German of Spanish and Cuban extraction who likes his technology - Jorge has a digital camera which he put to good use in the park (pictures to follow on my website proper in due course).

Anyway, the upshot of all this is that Jorge and I got on so well that we decided to travel together for the next few days. Our next trip took us to Ankarana, a spectacular and huge nature reserve a little further south. We travelled there in a Renault 4 convoy with two French sailors (who were also an item - one of them is the only woman on her boat), having booked through a cheaper but dodgy-feeling tour operator a bit further out of town. It was his incessant grin that made me feel slightly uncomfortable, but as it turns out the tour was excellent.

We travelled through villages and across beautiful countryside to reach the park, then had a guided walk to see the cave of bats and the spiky limestone rock formation known as the Petits Tsingy. Then, as night was falling, we made it back to our camp for beers and delicious food cooked over a fire by the guides. We had to pop over the road into the local village to buy more beer, and this turned out to be my warmest experience of local Malagasy people. We played with the kids and talked with the locals about nothing in particular. The village itself was no more than a handful of houses set back from the main road, each with a single room, a porch and a handful of scraggy hens pecking at scraps.

The second day in Ankarana saw the French getting up very early to do a big tour, whilst Jorge and I decided to stick to the easier route (still a 10km hike) to a viewpoint over the whole park. It was spectacular! To the east we saw the Grands Tsingy (the destination for the French), pointy rocks stretching almost from horizon to horizon; to the north we saw the expanse of dense forest through which we had just fought our way, with all its lemurs and cicadas (they were so bloody loud!); to the west we could see the Mozambique Channel; and to the south we saw the saddest sight: raging forest fires, destroying what remains of the forest beyond the boundary of the park. Forest fires are ubiquitous in Madagascar. Our guide told us that the previous government did nothing about them, but that the new president is clamping down - people caught burning protected forest now face prison. I hope it is not too late to save the wildlife here. People must be encouraged to see protection of their environment as a better investment than the wood they get or the field they create - after all, the forests bring in tourist cash from the likes of me!

Jorge and I next headed to Nosy Be, the most tourist-filled part of Madagascar. But everything is relative; this country has almost no visitors (the tally for 2003 was apparently a mere 20,000 people from overseas). Nosy Be is an island off the northwest coast of Madagascar, with a handful of small fishing villages, beaches, hotel complexes and inland lakes.

We came here primarily for the diving. I wanted to remind myself how to do it after Mozambique, and Jorge is a proficient diver with 20 years' experience. How unfortunate it was, then, when after our first two dives Jorge was taken very ill! I was quite concerned for him - as was he - that he had a case of the bends. The divemaster was also worried, because there are no decompression tanks in the country. But it turned out to be an air bubble behind the eardrum which was causing the intense nausea, itchy skin and loss of hearing and sight one side - nasty.

Jorge was out of action for a few days. This gave me time to myself, which I filled with beach walks (the 'resort' we were staying in, called Ambatoloaka, has a nice long beach which stretches away north to the next resort, lined with palms and lush vegetation). The beauty of the setting was spoiled for me somewhat by the fact that the only other white people I saw were middle-aged fat men with a local girl in tow. While there is a case for arguing that this is a very effective way of getting money into the hands of the people who need it most, I cannot help feeling that there must be a better way to help impoverished communities than to expect them to hire their daughters out to tourists every week.

The poverty here is real: one driver we had for a tour of the island told us that the average monthly wage is about thirty pounds, and that a sack of rice costs ten pounds. If you are the breadwinner of the family and you fall ill, you cannot afford to take time off to recover. And if you do pay to go to the doctor, the chances are that you won't be able to afford the medicine he prescribes.

But things are getting slowly better. Madagascar's road network is woeful - the majorityof tarmac surfaces dates from before independence in the sixties - but on Nosy Be, on the road to a five-star hotel on the west coast, I saw my first fresh tarmac being laid. Tourism is growing in importance in the local economy, as traditional industries like sugar refining fade away.

But back to me: the diving was great! With Jorge I saw spectacular coral, big fish, and a turtle, as well as diving my first wreck (an old fishing boat). While Jorge was out of action, I saw sharks, whale sharks and manta rays. I have pretty much DONE sea life now!!! But diving is the sort of thing where you can never get enough. I can't wait for my next diving trip, whenever that may be...