Last year, I traveled to this beautiful place with nice people and great landscapes.
This year, I had to come back as I had my reasons; one was to enjoy the scenery and all of the beautiful landscapes, the nature, the jungle, the trees and the wild animals; it was also an important spiritual trip to find myself and reinforce my beliefs after a long period of hardships. Just like many other individuals, I wanted to go somewhere far away, preferably a place with clean air that would exclude me from the usual stressful rhythm in my hometown. I went for a period of two weeks to find myself and solve any remaining problems with the power of thought and relaxation. I can safely call it a success, this place is magical.
There was no electricity, there was no tap water, you had to make fire and such. The people in jungle of Ankaramalaza still live in very primitive ways. They do not really operate with money and all the things that define modern society, instead, they still go with trades, they reap whatever food they sow and most of the entertainment is physical as electricity is nonexistent except for some small battery operated items such as Radios etc.
It took two days in the car to get there, and you forget about how long the trip was the moment you set your foot on the land.
Ankaramalaza is an island within an island, one must cross the lake in order to get to the center of the jungle.
Most of what is considered fast food are "mofo" (bread) and "kafé" (coffee).
The jungle has that "you're here" feeling when you first arrive, and when you leave, you start feeling like it's some very far away place that you'll never see again.
The local children doing their daily chores. It's either transporting goods or transporting clothes to be washed in bulk.
I love this place, one of the biggest reasons I do is that every one of the locals are so cheerful, bright smiled and very welcoming. Some of them may be a little invasive with their begging habits, but that is completely understandable because they do not have any real source of income to get by in their life, which makes them end up asking you for some spare change every time they get the opportunity.
More people packing up their belongings, this time to go home.
A wide variety of colors.
Two outside residents who visited the village talking to each other.
Movement, lots of it. People from different regions of the map coming to this place to attend the annual Church summit meeting.
The lake is beautiful, I always felt at ease every time we rowed our way across.
This is where I slept, it was a wooden cabin in the woods, no electricity, no water pumps or whatever luxury you could find back home, yet I still felt like I didn't want to go home. Every night I came back to this warm little wooden room and crashed in my sleeping bag, replaying the whole day in my head until I end up falling asleep.
Aforementioned were some of the reasons I went to this trip, but one very important reason for this trip is as you may already know from the description, I am continuously working on an ongoing personal project to study people, human beings, cultural diversity and expand my knowledge around the subject of social anthropology, psychology and intercultural relationships. I wanted to get close to the locals and understand their way of living, their daily needs, mental and physical, what makes them different from myself and the culture I usually belong to.
All those things add up but what I can safely conclude is that I had a great time. Enjoy the pictures.
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