Annette joined us in the early hours of Wednesday 23rd of May for the next month and is our guest writer for the blog - Heather very happy that she doesn't have to keep a daily diary for a while and can rely on Annette's excellent account of the next month

We arrived via the Seychelles and Mauritius in to the capital of Madagascar "Tana" to be met by a driver and a guide to take us to our hotel. Firstly we had our temperature taken to ensure we were fever free! We then bought our visas only to realise he hadn't given us enough days so had to go back to the visa counter.

Tana hit us right in the face - traffic everywhere, taxis (all old Renault 4s or Citroen CVs), carts pulled by cows (which we soon learned were called Zebu with a strange hump on their neck), pousse-pousee (rickshaws), tuk-tuk's, bikes and anything else you could put a wheel on.

Our first stop was a cash point and at 4400 Ariary to £1.00 it took us a bit of working out how much money to withdraw - for the first time in our lives we were millionaires (UK equivalent £225.00).

Dan and I had a meal in the hotel and enjoyed a new desert which was absolutely delicious and will be on our dinner party menu when we return to the UK - Lime Sorbet with Vodka!

Introducing our Danish friend Annette ………………

Met up with Heather and Dan at 9 AM for breakfast so great to see them and we just had a very leisurely morning catching up and where I moved into their room. Went for stroll in town late morning where we walked up to the Independent Place and had a look around their local market which literally started from the place and went down and then up a very long street. Followed the market for a while and you could pretty much buy everything you could think of - but it was also very crowded. For lunch we found a really lovely restaurant which was recommend by Lonely Planet - so went to Kudéta, where we had their set lunch menu - 2 courses and a drink for £6 and the food was delicious so a real bargain. At 2 PM we had to be back at the hotel since we were going on the first activity of our tour - where we would be driving out to a privately-owned bird park called Tsarasaotra. When we came down to the reception we asked if our driver had arrived and we were told he hadn't but they would call the company and check with them. The next thing we were told was that the driver was on his way but stuck in traffic. The whole time I noticed a car parked outside with a guy hanging around and suddenly it turned out that he was our guide and driver. Strange since he was there the whole time - so not sure if he just got hired on the fly. He was a kind man but unfortunately he had a cleft palate - so was close to being impossible to understand. As a matter of fact the Dane understood him better than the English and I bet he was thinking - these people claim they are from England but don't understand the language at all how weird is that :-). Heather even tried with Italian - not sure how that would help but Dan and I laughed when she suddenly said "You mean Children like bambino" - I think the guide was totally confused at that point.

The journey through the city was really interesting and we got to see a lot of the real life here - where clearly a lot of the people are quite poor. Took around an hour to get through the traffic and to the bird park where there should be 14 endangered species so expected to see a lot of special and also colourful birds. It was absolutely nothing like that - all the birds we saw where white, brown and grey and most of them were hiding on small islands in the middle of the lake. Totally admit that I am not a bird expert and I am pretty sure Heather and Dan are not either - but none of the birds looked very special to me. Walked around the whole lake but the most interesting we saw was actually a 1-month old pony, which says a lot I guess. Anyway, the drive through the city was good and we decided that it could only get better from here on. Came back to the hotel in time to have a few glasses of wine by the pool before we decided to go for dinner.

Since we had such a nice lunch based on the recommendation from Lonely Planet we decided to try another one for dinner, which should only be 5 minutes' walk from the hotel. However, this time we couldn't find the place so ended up walking into another place that looked like a posh bar to ask for directions. There were a few Italian guys in the bar who told us that the place we were looking for was closed but they would highly recommend eating in the place where they were sitting called 'Le Rossini'. Decided to follow their recommendation and had an absolutely delicious steak (Zebu), which was just melting in your mouth. For a fantastic steak, some great wine and a big glass of rum on the house in the end - we only paid £10 per person - so very happy with the Italian guys' recommendation. Finished the night in our triple room with a fair amount of Citron Vodka listening to some good music from my little iPod until it got after midnight and we decided it was time to go to bed so we could be ready for our 8 o'clock start the following day. Heather and Dan both crashed in their double bed downstairs while I was getting ready to go to bed in the mezzanine. Wasn't before I was dressed into my PJs and ready to jump underneath the mosquito net - that I realised that there was no bedding on any of the beds upstairs. Heather and Dan were far away in dreamland when I ended up walking down to reception in my PJs asking for some bedding to sleep under. Funny enough the room was never prepared for 3 people - had to ask for a 3rd towel, they only had 2 beers and 2 waters in the mini bar and then realised last minute before bedtime that only the double bed downstairs had bedding - so a bit weird they were not better prepared for the 3 of us sharing but otherwise Hotel Sakamanga was really nice.