Sights> Sausage from Switzerland

This photo taken in Thun, Switzerland (I think) surfaced from Timo's camera from the Battlelore tour. I didn't remember it until I saw it. The sausages were indeed wonderful, and so was the whole tour. Love you guys.

And this post comes from a wonderful little B&B in Central Madagascar called Country View Guesthouse. I've only been here for two hours, but I was greeted with a cup of gorgeous coffee, and I'm a sucker that way. I'd love to post photos from Mad already (the few I've taken) but the connection is painfully slow of course, so be content with the sausage. Oh - here is the trip photo album.

I spent less time and more money than I meant to on the island of Nosy Be. This was partly due to realizing that I haven't been diving enough to aim for the Advanced NAUI certificate quite yet, and partly because in Nosy Be you end up paying first world prices for third world quality. I'm not terribly picky, but I'd rather get what I pay for. And the fact that I can't get along with French (the language, not so much the people :) is aggravating at times - me and the hotel staff communicated mostly in sign language the 4 days I was with them.

The dives were good, though it took me a day to get breathing and buoyancy right. We spotted some kingfish, barracudas, lionfish and many blue-spotted rays and two occasions of eagle rays, the first being about two and half meters long from the head to the end of the tail. Above the surface we followed some mangrove dolphins around our boat - we were told not to dive in as they are very shy.