#16410 Walking in the Footsteps of Pirates in Ambodifototra, Madagascar

A little more than three hundred years ago, Ile Saint Marie was home to hundreds of pirates. Captain Kidd and Thomas Tew both dropped anchor in the protected harbor—where their crews debated the flavor of lemur meat and relaxed between raids. These days, the only lingering reminder of the island's bloody past is a cemetery overlooking the appropriately named "Bay of Rogues." A visit to this pirate graveyard, overgrown with creepers and vines, gives the curious traveler a shady midday refuge from the tropical sun. Local children offer tours, instructing visitors in the correct fady (superstitions) like cracking an acorn on the grave of a particular French pirate and putting a coin under the headstone of another. Leaf-tailed geckos and Parson's chameleons scramble over tombs marked with skulls and crossbones as you relax in the favored oasis of freebooters and scallywags.