Morondava

A full day’s drive through many villages and different landscapes took us to Morondava where we’d picked up our second car and driver a few days back.
Slash and burn agriculture - chopping down trees to make charcoal (which is the main cooking fuel source for most), burning off the remaining grass and bush so new grass will grow that livestock can eat and, eventually, planting crops - is a common practice here. It’s most devastatingly obvious when in and around some of the national parks where we’ve seen dense forest on one side of the road, and barren, charred land on the other. Sadly, the poverty is so extreme in many areas that it seems people have no other option to survive. The hardest to see is many young kids working (in fields, carrying bricks, breaking rocks, etc.), not going to school, and begging on the side of the road.
We arrived at our odd, but comfortable hotel on the beach looking out over the Mozambique Channel.Read more