Adventures of LP: Family visit!

My mom and sister, Meredith, took 2 weeks out of their busy life and work schedules and endured ridiculous hours of travel to come visit me here in Madagascar! Seeing them was indescribably awesome. We went to Marojejy National Park, spent an afternoon in Ambohimanarina meeting all my friends and Malagasy family, saw the cities of Sambava, Tamatave, and Antananarivo, and relaxed on the beach and saw humpback whales in Ile St. Marie.

The highlights:

Lemurs in the wild are really awesome. In Marojejy we saw silky sifakas, white-fronted brown lemurs, and bamboo lemurs. Pet lemurs, however, are kind of freaky, especially to Meredith. For some reason we could not grasp, the tourists in St. Marie find them cute and endearing.

At the entrance to Marojejy

Whales are also really awesome. We saw humpback whales a stone's throw from our boat, which was awesome but also a little terrifying since they are huge!

Another awesome thing: hot water. We had some mishaps trying to control the hot water flow in our various hotels, but it was definitely a luxury to have even a few minutes of hot water.
Sundays are useless. I always forget this because Sunday is the day that everyone in the village is around, but in the city almost everything is closed. Luckily this allowed us to do some laundry, use internet in our hotel and relax a little after hiking for 3 days in Marojejy.
Food is awesome. We ate sooo well!

Marojejy breakfast!

I can still use a fork. Just barely. Here everyone eats with just a spoon, so I found myself struggling a little in the fancy places where they gave you forks and knives and often no spoon.
I eat a lot of rice. I didn't quite realize this until I saw the expressions on Mom and Meredith's face when I started serving giant spoonfuls of rice onto their plates.

Cramped car ride.

I can't take a serious photo. I don't know what it is, but I can't help myself from making silly faces.

Nothing better than drinking a coconut!

It was super awesome to see my family and also to have a nice vacation. I was certainly sad to see them go, but it won't be too long before I see them all in America.