Wedding Blog

We just got back yesterday from…paradise! 

[a zillion more pics below the story]

Seriously, our resort - Anjajavy, in northwestern Madagascar - is the most amazing place on earth!! And as Mrs. Pumpkin said about her honeymoon, well, it was definitely the best honeymoon I’ve ever had!

Our villa was gorgeous (it was “the best one” according to several employees, who say most repeat guests request it since it’s the only one that’s really right down on the beach). The beach was spectacular, the food was to die for, the pool was gorgeous, the people were amazing, the landscape was incredible…plus there were LEMURS ALL OVER THE PLACE!!! They are seriously the coolest creatures ever. I wanted to hug them and snuggle them forever and ever but, um, that’s kind of frowned upon. Bah.

Regardless, the whole honeymoon far exceeded our expectations! We went on a number of 1 to 2 hour hikes (some on our own, some with guides), got a free couples massage, went on a boat tour of the mangroves at sunset, rode in a traditional Malagasy pirogue, ate three course lunches & dinners every day (plus huge breakfasts and teas), sat & swam by/in the beach & pool a LOT, visited two extremely tiny nearby villages, saw the fossilized skull of an extinct lemur species about the size of a gorilla, saw a million varieties of bird/lizard/bat/crab….and spent several hours every single day watching the lemurs! There were 3 groups of sifaka lemurs that roamed through the area and several groups of common brown lemurs as well. Both of them loved a number of types of tree that were all over the resort, so they just hung out there! Like all the time!!!

Every time we realized we hadn’t seen any lemurs in a few hours, one would just bound by and then we’d see the whole pack up in a tree, or bouncing around like crazy people. Seriously, for anyone who wants to see lemurs in the wild, Anjajavy is the place to go! It’s right on the edge of a nature reserve and they have strict policies forbidding any feeding/touching of the lemurs so they are totally wild, and react about the same way to humans as a squirrel would. Except they are also really curious and stare at you sometimes trying to figure out why YOU’re looking at THEM. It’s awesome.

Okay, all that said (but more is coming with part 2)…now it’s time for pictures!! (Split into two posts since even though I narrowed this down from nearly 1300 photos (yes, I said that right), there are still a ton)

First…our dinner in Paris:

Our first view of the resort from the little prop plane (the only way to get there)…okay you can’t actually quite see Anjajavy itself in this pic, it’s like a sixteenth of an inch off the left side of this though.

The plane we arrived on, and the dirt runway!

Our villa!!

View from our hammock of the Indian Ocean/Mozambique Channel

Sunset from the mangrove cocktail boat tour (also free for honeymooners!)

Ahhh the pool. How I miss you! And the main building (restaurant/lobby/pool table etc) behind.

Hehe I love how the sifaka lemurs just hang out.

And look how awesome their feet are! That’s why they can’t walk normally and have to bounce around.

View from the main building across the lawn to the pool, and the ocean beyond

The main beach (it was amazing to swim in but there were only EIGHT GUESTS for the majority of our stay, so there aren’t any other people in any of our pics)

The villas from the beach (ours is the half-visible one on the far right, set closest to the water)

Super scary staircase cut into the cliff that we had to climb down for our private picnic on the beach (all waiting for us, prepared by the resort). There are 5 small coves that you can hike to and choose whichever one you want your picnic in!

Hehe couldn’t resist. (And yes, this took several waves coming and going before it came out right, and yes, Mr. Bluebell mocked me a lot for it!)

Hello scary crab!

A grey egret at low tide

As part of turn down service every night they put the sheer curtainy things down around the bed (not for mosquitos - there were none - just for prettiness!) and flowers on the bed.

An over 2,000 year old Baobab tree. The diameter is at least ten feet, and you have to walk clockwise around it because the local Sakalava people consider it sacred.

A common brown lemur. They make the funniest little grunting sounds ever!

I’m just having a chat with my brown lemur pal.

To be continued…