The trip to Bucharest was totally unplanned. I spend every summer in my favorite place, a small Bulgarian town of Byala, and use it as an opportunity to visit the Russian consulate in Varna to do some paperwork. This is a lot cheaper and less time consuming than to fly from Denver to Houston. Last […]
Bucharest, Romania, July 2024 Read More »
My summer stay in Europe was over. I took a break and went to Madagascar for 2 weeks at the end of August-beginning of September, then returned to Bulgaria for 3 more weeks. From there, I traveled to Belgium and Barcelona with a side trip to Andorra. After that, it was time to start moving
Santiago Island, Cabo Verde, Oct 2023 Read More »
The next night was again in Andasibe but in a different hotel. The afternoon was free and I went to see the town alone. The houses here were of brick and wooden planks unlike the straw and twig huts in the western part of the island. A few buildings from the colonial past stood out
Back to Antananarivo, Madagascar, Sep 2023 Read More »
Madagascar East Coast After days on the road, we arrived to a serene place, Palmarium Hotel, located by a narrow lagoon which is separated from the Indian Ocean by a barrier beach. It took 40 minutes by boat to get there. Our cottages for 2 were in a thick bamboo grove. We spent our time
Palmarium, Madagascar, Sep 2023 Read More »
Mozambique Strait The East coast is quite different from West. It is humid and even cold here. I slept under a thick blanket. Before that on the West coast, a thin sheet was enough and I kept the windows open through the night. It is a lot greener here and the population is not as
East Coast, Madagascar, Sep 2023 Read More »
Tsingy National Park We stayed in bungalows in the Kirindy Forest and watched the local wildlife. The island of Madagascar separated from the African continent millions of years ago. As a result, about 90% of all plants and animals on the island are endemic. In the evening, we reached the coast where we spent two
Mozambique Strait, Madagascar, Sep 2023 Read More »
Morondava At breakfast, we exchanged our first experiences of sleeping in bungalows. Some group members told about lemurs on their roofs that screamed all nights, others found frogs in their toilet bowls, not everyone had hot water in the shower and so on. One couple took their dinner to the bungalow and left the plates
Tsingy NP, Madagascar, Sep 2023 Read More »
Antsirabe In Antrsirabe, we switched from the bus to 4-wheel-drive cars, 3 people per car plus a local driver. There are 2 official languages in Madagascar: French and Malagasy. English is not widely-spoken. Only one person in our group spoke French. He helped to interpret. In our car, we did not have a common language
Morondava, Madagascar, Aug-Sep 2023 Read More »
Antananarivo We spent the night in Antsirabe in MENABE’L Hotel. The grand building was like a palace with spacious hallways and a spiral staircase but had no elevator. The pompous hotel was probably built by the French long time ago and it looked out of place in rather modest surroundings. The room was huge, the
Antsirabe, Madagascar, Aug-Sep 2023 Read More »
After over 100 countries and territories visited, Africa remains the least explored continent for me. That is why I jumped at an opportunity to have one more African country under my belt when I saw an ad about a group going to Madagascar in August. I usually spend summers in Bulgaria rather than at home
Madagascar, August 2023 Read More »
