I dont even know where to begin

WOW! these past two weeks have been absolutely nuts! I have been traveling Madagascar's east coast, studying carbon reserves, and doing everything else immaginable along the way. There is no way that I can properly describe it in a reasonable amount of time so I will just give the breif summary and if you want the real deal you will have to ask me when I get home in a few weeks (scary).

OK so I have been traveling by almost every means available here. I have gotten where I need to go by commercial plane, twin otter air plane, taxi, river boat, dug out canoe, hiking, wading, 4x4 pick up, bike, motercycle (just kidding mom), and minibus. The only one that I missed out on was ox cart but I did that last month.

First I was in Maroansetra, a city of 20,000 in the little notch of Madagascar, on the east coast. It was unbelievably beautiful. The rain forest covered the mountains and they ran right up to the beaches. I was working with the Wildlife Conservation Socitey (WCS), studying their reserve called Makira. They are in the process of recieving carbon credits for the avoided deforestation. The situation there is very delicate because they dont have the carbon credits yet so they cant pay the villagers. As a result the villagers are currently worse off since they cant cut wood to sell, only to use. There were some other problems as well but for the most part the project has potential, once it gets the $50 milion in carbon credits, to really help the people there as well as avoid lots of carbon emissions, thus slowing the process of global warming. Beacuse of the tenderness of the situatoin, I could only see the park and one of the 120 villages with a local NGO. After than WCS was too busy to help me much so I decided to head south, following a lead from another student that there was interest in carbon finance in Mananara, a town 115km south along the coast.

The drive was absolutley nuts! It took 18 hours to go 115km! We packed an outragous number of people into this pickup truck. There were 5 people up front, in the half cab, not to rediculous. Then in the bed of the truck, they had made a wood frame to cover the bed, and then put benches down along the sides. we put all of the lugage on top of the frame, including 4 live chickens. Then they packed 6 people in on each side. I couldnt believe it. I was on the end so I had one but cheek on the bench and one of the tail gate. I was thinking, this is going to be rediculous. Then two women, one with a baby hopped in and sat in the isle, taking up all the foot room. I was thinking, there is no way that we can fit anyone else in here, there is literally no room to move. Just as I had that thought, but before I could nock on wood, another guy jumped in and sat on the middle of the tailgate, esentailly right on my lap, our legs fit togheter like part of a zipper. It was rediculous, I couldnt move and of course, I was too tall for the inclosure so I had to crank my neck down so I didnt hit it every two seconds. Then just as we were leaving two more guys ran up and hopped on the back, standing on the bar and holding on with their hands like garbage men. We somehow fit 17 people in the back (plus a baby) and 5 in front, making it 22 total for a regular 4x4 pickup truck.

Neadless to say the ride was the most painful and the most amazing experience of my life. The road was esentially a boulder feild, unpassible by anything but a 4x4 or a motercycle. However we were following the ocean and had countless views of amazing tropical beaches and amazing tropical plants. The car broke down twice. Once it was a tire poping, the other time the suspension broke. At that point I decided to just hike up the road. I got in an hour and a half hike in the jungle before the truck cought up to me and picked me up. Another time we couldnt cross a bridge because it was made of thin plands of rotten wood so we had to wait for low tide so the truck could drive throught the river. I got two spend 2 hours on a trapical beach, swimming twice and just living it up. There were also tons of river crossings, most were on legit ferries but one was on a ferry made of bamboo rods. Other than the adventures the actaul driving was hell, every time there was a bump, everyone would scoot down and just about push me out ot the truck. I had to hold on the the wood plands that made the ceiling for the entire ride. My hads were definitly blisterd by the end, but I guess I got in a workout holding on like that for so long. I couldnt believe that the truck didnt skink. We finally arrived in Mananara at 2:30am. I definitely looked at it as an excercise in mental toughness. It was an unbelievable experience, one of the most painful yet beautiful things that I have ever done.

I can tell about the rest later, it is lunch time now.