Sometimes A Mountain Is Just a Mountain

    Okay, I'm sorry this won't be an in-depth post.  I'm kind of tuckered out from wrestling with the Blogger interface in order to get up the first post of our new documentary blog, The Ox and the Dolphin!
    So y'all know that tomb on top of Angavo Mountain I was all excited to see?  Ain't no tomb.  Just rocks.  Pretty amazing rocks, though, similar to what I imagine the boulders and cliff faces in Yosemite are like.
    Thursday morning I packed a lunch, biked to Ebobaky, and went on foot toward the mountain.  A guy came running after me to summon me back to the village, where another man wanted to talk to me.  Evidently this second guy is a representative of QMM, the mining company that controls virtually everything in this area.  He's tasked with making sure that no vazaha go climbing in the mountains alone and then get attacked by bandits.  Very bad press for the village, you understand.  I have several pretty sound reasons to believe that there are no bandits in said mountains, but of course there's no sense in taking chances.
    The QMM agent paired me with a guide and issued me a stamped hiking permit.  The guide, M. Gilbert, took my arrival in stride and started off down the trail, as relaxed as if he was heading to the 7-Eleven a block away to pick up a Milky Way.  No backpack, no water bottle, not even adequate hiking shoes.
    Oh, I know how this is gonna go, I thought.  In an hour this guy's gonna be going at the exact same leisurely pace and I'm gonna be beet-red and wheezing.
    And sure enough...
    We never did climb the mountain's tower, because of our lack of rock-climbing equipment.  Therefore, I'm inclined to consider the grassy ridge as the actual summit of Angavo.  Hell of a view of the Indian Ocean.  It's pretty neat to stand and look south and think that after the beach there's nothing but water, all the way to Penguinland.
    From there we descended into the forest on the mountain's southern face.  We saw a lemur!  Just one, like a big chocolate-colored cat with an extra-long tail, a fair ways off in the forest canopy.  Couldn't get a shot of it, but I didn't even expect to find lemurs outside of a national park.
    That day was exactly my six-month anniversary of arriving in Manambaro.  Nice way to celebrate.