Arranging travel in Madagascar is not unlike juggling 6 drunken lemurs while tightrope-walking over a vortex of chaos. After much haggling, calling, comparing and semi-successful attempts at communicating we were able to arrange for a 4X4 to take us to Tsingy National Park north of Morondava. What a ride! It took 8 hours to get there, over some of the craziest, roughest roads I've ever been on and a couple of most entertaining river crossings. We met many locals along the way, most of whom were very friendly and fun to interact with. Still, it was somewhat depressing to see the impact of great poverty and illiteracy/ignorance on both the people and their environment. Large portions of the land have been decimated by people whose situation makes their only concern immediate day-to-day survival rather than foresight and environmental sustainability. Many scientists have forecast that at the current rate of destruction most of the country's ecosystems and many endemic species (for example the awesome lemurs) will be gone in 20-30 years. It is a microcosm of what is happening in the world at large. We humans have the potential to be so beautiful and good, yet more often than not overall we are a plague on the earth.