Isle Aux Nattes

The Les Lemurien Hotel where we are staying.

My little cabin complete with washroom at the back.

Scenes from our island orientation walk.

A black and white ruffed lemur that hung around the hotel and made incredible noises.

Walking the beach and enjoying the heat and the warm water.

The end of a relaxing day.

Sunday, November 19^th.

I had breakfast at 8:00 and met Patrick there. He looked good for a guy who had not slept all night. I reminded him that he had my sleeping back, which I need for my next trip. Florien showed up shortly after that looking slightly worse for wear.

At nine our taxi showed up, we said our goodbyes to Patrick and the four us began our island escape extension. We drove to the south end of the island where we were loaded up into a power boat for a ride of about a twenty minutes to the island of Ile aux Nottes (in English: Nosy Notta), which lies just south of Isle Saint Marie. It was great to be on the boat smelling the salt air and seeing the turquoise blue water. We arrived at Echolodge Les Lemurien about eleven and were greeted by a woman who told us about our stay. We are staying in little 'A'frame cottages. Florien has is own and now I have my own.

The first thing we did was take a two hour walking tour of the island. It is not a large island but still we had a good walk. There are two small villages on the island and the people are still very poor. But there are also a number of small lodges for tourists. This is a popular area during the whale watching season and during the summer. Right now is the end of the season and the rainy season is beginning, so it is very quiet. We walked overland through the villages and up to a derelict lighthouse built in the late 1800's. When we arrived at the other side of the island we walked back by following the coast line. Very pretty walk.

Then it was time for lunch. While we were eating a rare black and white ruffed lemur visited the lodge. He was climbing in the trees right outside the back door and we were able to get really good up close photos.

When we got back the weather had clouded up. We had lunch and were told that we had an included hour long massage in the afternoon. As it was cloudy and a bit rainy, I went for the massage first. It was a very relaxing massage and at the end she had to nudge me to tell me it was over as I almost fell asleep.

After my massage the weather had cleared and I went for a walk along the coast to find a place to have a swim. The water here is shallow but the kayakers from yesterday had mentioned a place to go. I floated in the very warm water for about an hour. It was quite lovely, but there was a strong current going down the shore, so I had to keep my feet on the bottom.

Then I came back to the hotel, had a shower, and then read while watching the sunset. The four of us met for dinner at 7:00 and had a couple of drinks. By nine everyone was off to bed. I typed for a bit before heading off too. Unfortunately the internet service here is terrible, so didn't get anything uploaded, I'm out of date by a week.