Looking at life on the beach

This is the first day since we arrived to Madagascar we haven’t got any plans to do anything. There is a few different options here we could go out snorkeling, diving or looking at the turtles at a nearby reserve. But we decided just to spend the day relaxing at the hotel and the beach. The hotel has a great location right down at the beach. Down along the beach front the hotel has dedicated half of the length of the beach to a restaurant with an amazing view and a pool with just as amazing a view. At for the first time the water in the pool is actually warm and the water temperature in the ocean is decent as well. Water temperature has sure gone up after we got down from the mountains.

There is a lot of local life on the beach. From the restaurant we can see a lot of boat in the distance sailing around with the rough sails. And after breakfast we decide to walk a bit around and have a look at the different fishing boats and their catch of the day. The small boat usually go out to the reef with three men onboard and then they arrive back with the catch of fish.

We watch as they divide the catch of the day – some boats got a big fish or a gray fish of some sort – but some boats only got some smaller fish which are divided between the grew. Then they sell some of the fish for very cheap at the beach – three smaller fish cost only 1¼ €. The price the local pay make me wonder what happened with the money we paid at the hotel restaurant yesterday – the owner must take a huge mark-up on the fish he buys. The rest of the small fish were divided into three stacks with a couple of fish each probably for the dinner of the boat grew and the rest was put in a bucket. Apparently they ask the driver of the local taxi-brousse to take the fish to the market in Tulear where they sell the fish and the driver get 2½€ for his trouble. The fishermen don’t get much money – I guess it is just enough to buy some rice and maybe some vegetables from time to time to supplement the fish in the diet.

We spend the rest of the day watching the daily life of the people living here and going for a quick swim. So we are fairly well rested before we continue our journey around the country.