Mahajanga to Terres Blanches, Madagascar 8 - 10 Apr 08

Jacky Cauvin's Paradise

At lunch and dinner we met the other guests and some of Jacky and Claudine's neighbours: Sébastien and Richard Houben (Belgians from Rwanda), Yves Roussel (ex-IBM), Jean Yves and Kathleen de Vaubernier, Dominique and Giorgio. Some of them had been fishing the same morning and we saw their catch of barracudas, groupers and a large sailfish.
9 April. In the morning we went on a boat excursion with Jacky, Richard and Sébastien to beautiful little bays with caves with light tunnels. Jacky is looking to sell the Lodge des Terres Blanches now and Richard and his son Sébastien were potential buyers from Rwanda.
Jacky also showed us caves with bats and caves which were used as cemeteries about 400 years ago with canoe-like carved coffins and skeletons. Nobody knows this area better than Jacky.
Late afternoon, we walked to Jacky and Claudine’s house about half an hour’s walk from Terres Blanches. He offered us a beer and showed us round his beautiful house, beach and a convenient rock which he has flattened out to use as a platform to fish from. After sunset we spotted a mouse lemur in a tree in his garden.
In the evening we were invited for drinks at the house of one of Jacky's neighbours, Patrick Gay. It was another beautiful African-style house in wood with high ceilings and a thatched roof that Patrick had designed himself with some input from Jacky. Here we also met another interesting neighbour Patrick Rochet, who has his own ultra-light aircraft (ULM) and airstrip.