Nosy Be, Madagascar

Today, we spent the day in Madagascar on one of its islands called Nosy Be. It has a French colonial past and its capital, Hell-Ville is named after a French admiral de Hell. We’ve never been here before so took an excursion to the market in the city and to The Sacred Tree, a banyan tree planted by the Queen of the Sakalava tribe in 1836. It’s believed her spirit is in the tree.

When we reached the market, it wasn’t surprising that vendors were shouting out “vanilla vanilla vanilla” at us given Madagascar vanilla is among the world’s best. (Yes, I bought some.) The streets around the market are bustling with merchants as well as tuktuks and ox carts. Quite the sight. We then headed to the sacred tree and stopped along the way to see chameleons and see and smell the the flowers of the ylang-ylang tree which are made into perfume, one of the country’s exports.

Once we arrived at the Sacred Tree, we had to take our shoes off as well as put on a sarong-style wrap to cover our legs because I had on a short dress and Brad was wearing shorts. Once we were outfitted, we were able to walk the paths through the 5,000 metre area of the Banyan tree. (I’d hoped we’d spot some lemurs there but no such luck.) Still today, locals come to the site to make offerings there. Fascinating.Read more