Back to Africa (again)

So... As some of you likely already know I was laid off from my job. Several of my colleagues said this means that I now have a lot of time to travel without having to worry about getting back to work. I had to point out that I still needed money to be able to travel. And then this one came up and I did an impulsive buy.

Fun fact; the final confirmations and payments were performed at the airport when waiting for my flight to NYC.

15^th – 16^th of April

Fly out, via Amsterdam and Nairobi and arrive at Antananarivo in Madagascar in the afternoon. Meet up with the group in the evening.

17^th of April

Driving southeast to an upland rain forest and Andasibe-Mantadia National Park where we will be getting the first views of lemurs.

18^th of April

Staying at Andasibe-Mantadia National Park where we basically have free time to either go on walks and explore or just do nothing.

19^th of April

Leave the national park and travel to a colonial city Antsirabe. On the way we will see rice paddies and a family run cookware factory.

20^th of April

We will be passing by Lake Andraikiba on the way to the village Fiadanana. Here we will have dinner with a local family and meet a ghost talker.

21^st of April

Travel to Ranomafana National Park. This day will be a mix of driving and walking while enjoying the views. This will also include a possible night walk.

22^nd of April

After an early morning walk we head south towards Ambalavao, going through Madagascar’s wine-producing region.

23^rd of April

Continue on towards Ranohira, stopping by Anja Community Reserve and Isalo National Park

24^th of April

Stay at Ranohira for the day giving us more time in Isalo National Park.

25^th of April

Moving on through desert landscapes, passing through several mining towns before arriving at our destination Ifaty.

26^th – 27^th of April

Free time in Ifaty where we can go walking, snorkeling, canoeing or just relaxing.

28^th of April

Travel to Toliara where we fly back to Antananarivo.

29^th – 30^th of April

Leaving afternoon and returning home, same route as before.

28th-29th - Last day and return

My friend left early in the morning so after saying our goodbyes I went back to sleep for another hour. Woke up, got ready and packed everything, checked out and had the hotel to store my bag until leaving for the airport.

The plan today was to go visit the Intrepid museum; basically they took the old carrier Intrepid and made it into a museum. You have access to hangars and flight deck primarily but also a bit of the gallery and berthing. The day didn’t start out too well when exiting the hotel with rain, but when I made it out and up on the flight deck several hours later it fortunately had stopped.

Coming up through the street and seeing the Intrepid appear sitting the dock I almost peed my pants when seeing what looked like a SR-71 on the flight deck (might just have been the rain, though).  Walking through the hangar and seeing the different equipment and outfitting of the internals of the ship was quite interesting, but on the flight deck they had lined up several planes and helicopters used by the navy at some point or the enemy. I also found that it wasn’t an SR-71 but rather an A-12, the predecessor to the SR-71. It was still fun to see up close, though.

North American aviation FJ-3 Fury. 

Piasecki Hup / UH-25 Retriever.

Grumman F9F-8 (AF-9J) Cougar.

Grumman F11F (F-11A) Tiger.

Grumman A-6E Intruder.

Grumman F-14 Tomcat.

Lockheed A-12.

General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon.

Israel Aircraft Industries Kfir.

Grumman (WF-2) E-1B Tracer.

McDonnell F3H-2N (F-3B) Demon.

Dassault Etendard IV M.

Aermacchi MB-339.

Sikorsky HH-52 Seaguard.

Sikorsky HRS (H-19) Chickasaw.

Bell AH-1J Sea Cobra.

Bell UH-1A Iroquois (Huey).

British Aerospace AV-8C Harrier.

McDonnell F-4N Phantom II.

Douglas XBT2D-1 Dauntless II (AD-1 Skyraider).

Mikoyan Gurevich MIG-17 / PZL-Mielec LIM-5 (NATO code name Fresco).

Mikoyan Gurevich MIG-21 PFM (NATO code name Fishbed F).

Chance Vought (F8U) F-8K Crusader.

As a bonus I decided to pay a bit extra to see the space shuttle Enterprise which was parked in a small building put on the rear end of the flight deck. It was huge up close and it was fun to experience.

View of the front half of the flight deck.

The navigating bridge.

The island.

The Space Shuttle Enterprise.

British Aerospace / Aerospatiale Concorde.

The rest of the day was spent walking around before taking the subway and AirTrain to the airport. It was surprisingly easy but taking the subway 1830 there were no seating due to it being rush hour – which was a bit of a struggle not having a chance to put down my bags so legs and feet got a bit sore towards the end. Everyone says that JFK is a huge airport but the only part I saw was terminal 1 (out of 6) with only 10 gates so it didn’t seem very impressive. (The south terminal in Gatwick where I had a layover was much bigger and more interesting). A restaurant had a sign saying to wait to be seated by a server. I saw a family of 4 go directly past that sign and started moving seats around to have space around a table – they were quickly stopped and asked to wait at the entrance as instructed by the sign. I couldn’t help but think that was a very Danish behavior – and when queuing up behind them yup; they were Danish. It felt pretty good being pulled up ahead of them as they suddenly had a single seat available. The flight from Gatwick was almost an hour delayed and not having slept much from NYC I was hoping to sleep all 1½ hours on this flight. I passed out the moment I sat down but woke up less than 40 minutes later, realizing that next to me two parents were sitting with a less than one year kid that couldn’t stop screaming and bawling. No more sleep. I think it’s fortunate for the kid (and probably me) that windows on a plane can’t be opened. I guess it was very intentional that the parents avoided all eye contact. I have never felt so relieved before when getting off a plane.

And then taking the train I ended up sitting close to another screaming baby. Life, why do you hate me?

Big thanks to Lisa for her company and amazing positive attitude to everything. Apart from the demon spawn this was a great trip. A week in NYC was well timed, I could probably spend a couple of more days but after that I would probably start having to do more intensive searches for activities I’d be interested in. I (we) ended up enjoying the entire time, never bored but never stressed either. City trips will not become a habit but it was a nice variant from my usual wildlife/climb/trekking trips.

27th - Artsy fartsy

Due to yesterday’s episode with The Rock and the weather looking reasonable we started the day with both of us going up into the tower. Almost no queue which meant that after 1½ hour after arriving at the building we were leaving being satisfied with the results.

Looking north.

Looking south.

We continued to the 5^th avenue to St. Patrick’s cathedral for the Easter parade there which is known for people wearing weird hats. Apart from it not really being a parade but rather just a large gathering of people it was pretty fun walking around seeing people wearing pretty ridiculous hats.

Hats!

More hats!

Fancy hat!

St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Even more hats!

Just a plane hat.

Rabbit ears hats!

Happy hats!

From there we split again; she wanted to go to the 9/11 memorial and I ended up going to The Met (The Metropolitan Museum of Art). I am not much of an art lover – at all – but I do appreciate the workmanship required to create some of the pieces. A couple of paintings were amazing, likewise some of the roman marble statues. But the modern and contemporary art is still very… strange and confusing to me. Apart from art they also have historical material; treasures from Egyptian graves and tombs, tools etc. from ancient civilizations and armor & weapons from medieval times, both European, Asian and Middle Eastern. All in all, despite not liking art much, 4 hours at the museum was overall very enjoyable.

Interior of Saint Peter's, Rome by Giovanni Paolo Panini.

Absolutely amazing detail.

Moden Rome by Giovanni Paolo Panini.

Even the paintings in the painting has amazing detail!

The Met didn't only have art.

Perseus with the Head of Medusa by Antonio Canova.

Ugolino and His Sons by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux.

We met up back at the hotel and found a steak restaurant that looked promising. We ended up getting 4 courses for a good price. Or rather; we ended up getting 4 huge courses. I ended up getting fried calamari (could have fed 4 as a starter which meant I only ate half of it), tomato/mozzarella salad (huge tomato slices and large chunks of cheese to match the size), surf’n’turf (a great filet with a large lobster, great sauce and mashed potatoes) and ending it all with a dense cheesecake. We both left full and happy. That was an excellent last meal in NYC before leaving. It was an amazing place and the waiter was awesome.

26th - Giants

Morning was normal and today’s plan was to go to the History museum and see how long we would end up spending there and from there find out further action for the day depending on time. We arrived at 1030 and didn’t leave until they closed at 1745.

The place was huge; they have a dome cinema where we saw a movie about the universe and an IMAX cinema where we saw one about the US national parks. But the – literally – big thing was the many dinosaur skeletons they have. My favorite was the T-rex but it seemed like they had a bit of everything. The issue was that this was without a doubt the most popular thing with the kids which meant chaos and a lot of noise made it at times almost unbearable. We walked through a small part and almost rushed through the rest 4/5 of the dinosaur exhibition because we realized we had already spent more than an hour, getting hungry and soon were supposed to catch our second movie.

Yutyrannus huali.

The T-Rex!

Stegosaurus.

Triceratops.

Mastodon.

Plesiosaur.

Blue whale hanging in the aquatic area.

The entrance hall with a baurosaurus protecting its young from an attacking allosaurus.

After the movie we went our separate ways the last 1½ hours before closing. I briefly went through the aquatic animals and rushed primates, woodland- and prairie Indians and Pacific peoples before leaving. That was skipping African mammals, diseases, various peoples (which was almost two full floors compared to the single floor with dinosaurs) and various other smaller exhibitions. Plenty of material for a 2-3 days visit if you don’t want to rush anything.

When leaving we walked back to the hotel and had dinner on the way. From there we split again; due to clear weather I returned to Brooklyn to do the bridge walk again like a couple of days ago hoping to get clear shots and doing the Staten Island ferry to get some skyline night shots. Surprise; ferries and long shutter times do not mix well.

Brooklyn Bridge with Manhattan in the background.

Manhattan from Brooklyn Bridge.

Manhattan from the ferry.

New Jersey, Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Returning to Manhattan.

Coming back I was informed that it had not been able to do The Rock as all tickets for the evening had been sold out, so she ended up getting a ticket for the following morning at 1010. If the weather is good I might join her – this will probably be the only time I get to do a high view of the city in daylight.