Ege Denizi

Madagascar

 

About three weeks ago it seemed as if I had completely destroyed my SD card and lost a lot of photos but I have finally recovered a few of them.  I've since made my way back to istanbul and this evening I will be leaving to visit a beautiful city on the Aegean Sea of Turkey facing the Greek island.  It amazes me how different my life becomes over the course of a few long hours and three flights with mixed sleep.  Suddenly I'm back in my favorite city in the world and only a short time later I'm off on my own again in a whole new world.  This summer will continue to be this way as I'm soon to make my way back to Detroit and eventually west to visit some of my best friends in Colorado.  Somewhere down the recent line of my history my brain has shut off and I have become 100% open to watching this story unfold without doing much to manipulate it.  There is a very interesting chapter of my book being read to me in this past few months and it is taking me to some new walk of life which I cannot yet understand.  I embrace it with the same love I have embraced all other curiosities I've come across in my strange life.

Dengue Fever and the dangers of traveling alone

In my last post I felt my eyes wandering tiredly as I stared at a tiny village internet cafe computer screen.  I have had some photo problems with my camera and I was not feeling the patience to sort through technical things at the moment and since then I fear that I may have lost a lot of them.  It doesn't really matter though, at the time I was recently diagnosed with dengue fever and I had thought I was already in the recovery stage.  Today looking back just a short 8 days ago I cant help but laugh at how stupid that thought was.

Dengue makes you feel like every bone in your body has been replaced with shards of broken glass and your head becomes a throbbing ball of confusion, nausea and fever.  Simple tasks become great ones as nearly one hundred percent of your body's energy is being given towards fighting the virus and you end up spending most of your time in bed just laying and thinking and hoping you are doing everything appropriately to take care of yourself. 

I contracted the virus at the worst time as it was really only a matter of hours after I last parted ways with a friend I had been traveling with and it came to be that I would have to deal with this completely alone mostly in the surrounding of a small bamboo hut in a tiny village with no hospital.

Now it is passing and as it passes I choose to let it go.  I don't want to talk about it when I come home as it casts a nasty dark cloud over my experience in Madagascar and I don't want to assosciate such pain with such a beautiful place; the dichotomy is ironic and indescribable. 

So what do we do now?  I'm really not sure.  All this time sitting and thinking has boiled my brains.  I've hallucinated myself to sleep for a week now and rolled out a tapestry of dreams for myself.  I really don't know what I'm doing anymore and that is to say that I have never known what I'm doing.  I've been all over this world to countless places and I have developed an addiction for travel that can never be satisfied. 

I absolutely adore this country and I had never intended my blog to carry such negativity (i.e.  a few posts ago about racism or this post about dengue and internal bleeding).  I'm lost.. I'm lost and I'm in that writer's conundrum of choosing between posting this article or erasing the whole thing and leaving my ideas to rot in my head. 

My mom said something to me on the telephone the other day that was simple yet amazingly empowering to me.  She said, 'stay strong' and as simple as that sounds I thought about it for a while and I don't think in my entire life anyone has ever told me to stay strong.  Strength is an incredible gift and something I've never asked myself if I have been blessed with.  I have a stubborn mind and a brave soul but am I stong?  I guess I will never know.

Isalo.. what a strange place

 Isalo National Park has to be one of the weirdest yet most beautiful places I've passed through on this Madagascar trip.  I'm having some problems with my camera so these few photos will have to do for now but I plan to make an album when I come back home. 

The weather is incredible (in the true definition of incredible).  A few nights ago I saw a storm scrape across the sky like the inside of one of those electric balls or Tesla coils.  My camp was sufficient but this constant sleeping in a tent and being outside has taken a toll on my body.  I don't want to alarm anyone but I've been diagnosed with my second case of mild Dengue fever.  There is no real treatment just lay in bed and pop pain killers.  Actually it really sucks.. feels like every bone in my body is broken.  The doctor told me I actually have a really mild case of it and it should pass in a few days.  Of course Dengue is not dangerous, just a painful few days. 

Having said all that it has been a humbling week.  The body is an amazing machine and I'm impressed how well it holds up in so many different climates.  Humans have adapted to many different places in the world and the way people adapt in Madagascar is really great.  There is also much diversity from within the country too and it varies from region to region as I've said.

My eyes hurt.  Internet cafe wasn't the best idea. 

Jesus of the Jungle (this photo is ridiculous)