[Rain Man]

A problem quickly arose. We were expecting "dirt cheap" on the island, but the prices ranged from Denver-level to expensive.

We didn't have enough cash in Ariary to last the week, and we were seriously worried because the typhoon had taken out some lines, so our hotel told us that they could no longer run credit cards. If the bank also had the problem, we were totally hosed and were going to be living on power bars for part of the week. So we had to go to the bank.

On foot.

Six miles.

Each way.

In the rain.

(It actually stopped raining the second day, but we didn't know that, so we walked in the rain.)

The hotel guy told us it was six kilometers, but we think he was a really bad judge of distance. My wife and I are both tall and walk at a reasonable pace, and on our various trips into town it took us a minimum of 1 hour, 27 minutes on a nice day and about 1 hour, 45 minutes in the rain. The road was a bit rugged in spots. The picture shows one of the worse areas, which occurred maybe every quarter mile or half mile.

The funny thing is that we took a taxi back from town one day after we got our money and were feeling good. The taxi took 40 minutes since the road was so bad. At one point we were passed by an old guy riding leisurely on a bicycle.