On Christmas Day we decided to splurge a little bit and headed over to the “vazaha” fancy hotel pool for the day!  We ate a delicious three-course lunch and swam in the amazing pool all day.  It ended with phone calls home to all of our families.  Merry Christmas!

{why yes, that IS me in a child’s pool floaty and a Star Wars LegoMan backpack}

{back right corner!}

{the gang at the swim-up bar}

{me & Em after the first course of our lunch}

{part of the group in the pool}

{closing up the pool for the day}

The day after was more low-key.  We wandered around Diego, doing some sight-seeing and shopping.  We headed to the market to find some “complets” (comb-PLAYS) - it’s two pieces of fabric, one that you wrap around your head and the other that you wrap around your body.  They’re in really cool, funky, pretty patterns, and the two best places to buy them in Madagascar are Diego and Mahajunga, so we wanted to take advantage of our time to find some good ones!

{fabric stall}

{Emily putting her bargaining skills to good use}

{yu being the mpivarotra (seller)}

The fun thing about Diego is that you get to take these Tuk-tuks around everywhere!  It’s only about 25 cents per ride, and they’ll take you wherever you need to get.

{Emily and Brittany}

{Emily & Brittany + random Tuk-tuk driver}

To continue our tourist sight-seeing, a few of us went over to see the British War Cemetery, which was beautiful and very well-maintained.  I had met a super nice Australian couple when I was in Isalo National Park with my parents, and they had asked me to go pay a visit when I was in Diego - and I stayed true to my promise!

After visiting the British war cemetery, we walked across the street to the general, older cemetery.  Kind of interesting to see the different languages and tombstones.

For our last day in Diego, we made sure to get in one last big beach day and went back to Ramena beach!  It was a really nice day, with clear blue skies starting the day and morphing into a stormy setting by the mid-afternoon.  It definitely made for some cool pictures, that’s for sure!

{little kids jumping off their dad’s fishing boat}

{amazingly clear!}

{our set-up spot underneath the palms}

{taking a dip in the ocean}

{watchin’ the storm clouds roll in}

{sunset from the roof of our hotel}

Real quick, before I wrap up this AMAZING Christmas vacation, here are just a few pictures from our nights out in Diego.  They’re the tame ones, I promise.  ;)

{classy ladies}

{purple}

{AHHH stampede!}

{we found santa!!}

Until next time!

T