Madgascar, contrary to the suggestions of pop culture, is not an uninhabited jungle-island populated solely by lemurs, fosa, a giraffe, a hippo, a zebra and a lion. Indeed the country has near to 20 million occupants who are as unique and diverse as the natural environment for which the red-island is famed. Just to set the context, it is currently 'goverened' by an ex-DJ who ousted his predecessor in a coup. His predecessor was a village-yogurt-salesboy turned dairy-industry-entrepreneur whose factories were burnt down by some locals in the coup, causing a significant inflation and shortage of dairy products in the country. Suffice to say, almost everything about Madagascar is a little bit eccentric and all-too-often you'll find yourself thinking 'surely not'; surely I'm imagining that, surely they wouldn't do that, surely this can't be happening.... surely not. But the answer, is always 'surely yes.' And I think that is why travelling Madagascar is such an experience; providing both absolute infuriation and AMAZING fun.
Antananarivo --> Mahajunga
Arriving just after independence day, my second visit to Tana was in a festive atmosphere with fireworks and canons going off at night and Malagasy music continuously audible in most parts of the city. As a capital city in a developing country, Antananarivo has a surprising beauty about it. The city is comprised of charming red-bricked buildings (including the occasional patisserie, cafe and ice-creamery) built across a series of spiralling hills and valleys, with rice paddies growing between. But when you look deeper you notice the paddies are quite multi-purpose; in the dry season the soil is used to construct bricks, other times for cultivating food and at any time used for fishing, washing, drinking water, rubbish and err... going to the toilet. These activities occur simultaneously and within 20m of each other. In other parts of the city are areas of accumulated sewage run off and rubbish-grounds (places that us westerners would avoid like the plague) where you will see still children scrounging around for food... This made it hardly surprising when, at the market, a child squatted right in front of me only to do a less-than-solid bowel movement. A city of both charm and charmless .... in desperate need of improved public hygiene education systems and infrastructure.
For the first few days of our reunion, this is where Bianca, Himals and I chilled, eating strawberries, ice-creams and pastries before heading north-west and away from good food.
Majanga and the Grotto:
Initially we had intended to visit Ankaranfantsika n.p, but in the middle of the 8 hour taxi brousse trip we had a sudden change of heart and ended up in Majanga instead. We had heard about Les Grottes d'Anjohibe -- caves and piscines naturelles (natural pools) -- and naturally Tarzan-like adventures had captured our imagination. To organise the trip however, we had to head to Majanga first, a 'city' that resembled something more like a western film with ramshackle buildings, frequently deserted streets and bars full of drunken (french)men at midday. Slightly more unusual, on our first night at our hotel we had a middle-aged Pakistani man arrange for the hotel workers to usher us out of the restaurant onto the quiet balcony 'just to talk' and offer us his giant platter of fish to eat. Insisting that we were vegetarian (but-thanks-anyway-for-his-offer) we headed back downstairs where the waitress, through a series of gestures and giggles, indicate that he wanted more than 'to talk.' Undeterred, he still tried to lure us out onto the balcony with his fish several times. The next day, with my rudimentary french, I organised the trip to the Grotto with Stansilas (who then came to be referred to as our 'Malagasy dad') pulling a 20 minute conversation in French -- and was surprised how mentally exhausting it was. I gained much more respect for multi-lingual people in the process.
Stanislas took us in his old-but-sturdy quart-quart (4x4) across a frequently changing landscape; wheaten sand to bright red soils, bare desert to palm lined streams and past the occasional few huts marking a village. The caves were nothing short of stunning with the most surreal structures naturally carved by erosion over time and wide chambers illuminated by natural flaming torchlight (of shrub, bush and dried leaves collected by Stansilas and his local friend). At one stage the cave had opened out into sunlight once more with long draping vines in a natural circular amphitheatre. Vines which, yes, we could swing on and climb like Tarzan.
Our campsite was right by the natural pools with waterfalls and was lined with lush green vegetation that would reflect perfectly by the water. By day we splashed around like 10 year olds, giggling hysterically (literally at nothing) and poking fun at Himali every time she said "eeeeewww....eeuwwhh....ughhhh" when a rock was a little slimy. By night we flopped on the grass by the campfire and under the stars, chatting with bottles of Dzama rum .. Himali's pirate dream (minus the pirates...). In the morning, whilst dining on the stale 'national-baguette' dipped in coffee and condensed milk, we encountered a lemur ambush that set-up station on the village mini-bar (if you could call it that) and promptly proceeded to hop from bar, to pole, to our table, splashing coffee everywhere and snatching what baguettes they could; entertainment whilst you (try to) eat.
North: Diego and Ramena
From Majanga we continued north in a series of over-crammed (ie double the legal capacity and occasionally sitting on somebody's lap) taxi-brousses (minivans) that broke down successively over a series of broken tyres, engine failures and god-knows-what-else. Nonetheless, break downs were a good opportunity to stretch the legs, cool your rear (after sitting on the engine for far too long), visit a toilet (ie the bush if there was one), or twitch into dance with Malagasy music on the roadside.
On route to Diego we visited Parc nationale d'Ankarana where there was otherworldy sharp pointed limestone formations, pre-historic looking bat caves complete with giant spiders, an occasional snake (both not poisonous) and an impressively huge gaping hole in the ground at the meeting point of two dried up rivers (which flow through this hole in the wet season to the Mozambique channel... a few of you may know what I am thinking ...).
Diego had surprisingly more Vazah (Malagasy term for white person) than many other places in the country and subsequently good ice cream (which we consumed for breakfast or lunch or dinner...). But going out at night was also a bit of a crude in-your-face cultural wake up of the sexual tourism between attractive, young Malagasy women (barely legal age, if at all) and older (talking 50's + ) french men. Over time we noticed that easily 95% of the expat community around Madagascar were older French men who almost undoubtedly would be with a Malagasy lady young enough to be his daughter. Not that it was a one-way street; in a country where education is limited and won't guarantee you a good job, the money women can access for being with an 'affluent' frenchmen is much 'easier' to obtain than other means.
We limited our time in Diego itself and visited nearby Ramena; an area with beaches of Utopian quality with turquoise waters and beautiful white sand, where electricity was virtually non-existent. Journey's to dinner consisted of stumbling across boat ropes along the beach, poking our heads in a small thatched shack and dining by candlelight (albeit, an hour after you order -- everything is THAT fresh).
The taxi-brousse ride to truly, truly remember....
Then came our journey to the vanilla coast; a taxi-brousse ride that will undoubtedly stay with us forever. It was a 28 hour trip where Himali and I shared a single seat together in a 4x4-ute-turned people carrier, which passed its expiry date a good 15 years ago. 20 hours of the trip was spent on 156km alone. The 'road' was really just a muddy, churned-up and eroded track, lined with series of huge ditches and sliding slopes. 'Elf man' (a worker who wore a santa hat - hence the name) would often trot in front of the car with a shovel, removing large rocks and guiding the taxi-brousse whilst, all-too-often, more men would hop out of the car to push it from the side and steer it away from the ditches when it began to slide through the mud. Frequently, everyone would have to hop out the car and walk up the steepest, slippery slopes, removing sandals and walking barefoot through squelching, oozing mud (Himali's nightmare) as sandals only served to make us slip and slide more. Nonetheless, that was a better alternative to being stuck in the field of abandoned trucks we saw, wedged into the earth by the rain and left there for a time they could be moved again. Of course, such slow progress on this route, also made it bandit territory, highlighted by the fact our driver told us to lock our doors in the middle-of-nowhere. At breakfast time we still hadn't reached Vohemar, the end point of the Route Nationale de Torchure, having left at 3pm the day previously. Our breakfast stop was in some random middle-of-nowhere village eating glutinous rice cakes, sugared coffee and fried bananas. In this village we were greeted by overly blunt men who made rather vulgar gestures requesting sexual favours from us. As unusual as it sounds, this is not uncommon in Madagascar. Quite the contrary; the way they go about such activity is simply to go up to a lady and ask for it. More often than not, she will agree and afterwards he will give her a small gift (often money) for her time, though it is not necessarily prostitution (that is prevalent too). Madagascar is simply very liberal in this regard, as off-putting as it may be.
We finally arrived in Vohemar, which was something of an anti-climax. Each of the 20 hours we counted down the 156km and built into our brains this image of a magical-vohemar where smooth roads and maybe reasonable food might exist; only to be greeted with a closed petrol station (yes, siesta time) and off-yogurt. But we finally arrived, 28 hours later, to our destination; Sambava . To top it off our taxi driver from the bus to our guesthouse had bright red eyes, a flare of insanity and a cheek stuffed full of Khat leaves (leaves locals chew as a stimulant/to get high) and tried to rip us off for our journey. Overly-tired, I just yelled back at him in French, wishing sincerely I had taken the time to learn some more less-than-polite words.
La côté de la vanille.
With the only transportation to the vanilla coast the unbelievable roads aforementioned or flying, it is a largely un-touristed location. The beach itself is wild with large crashing waves (our attempt to swim even shallowly resulted in the loss of my flip flops... don't ask why i wore them in) and the surrounding environment is completely different to the rest of the country, somewhat more reminiscent of tropical south east asia. Sambava was also the gateway to Marojejy national park; a pristine, primordial rainforest of immense biodiversity and thick, lush vegetation. Eagerly I talked Himali and Bianca into an overnight trek in the park, to which I suspect they still hate me for; not long into the journey Himali was covered in large welling mosquito bites and Bianca suffered a leach attack (her one phobia). Admittedly, I just loved the place; the huge bright millipedes, spiders, insects, lemurs, thick mist enshrouding the mountain top, running streams, the fresh earth...
Less pleasant was the taxi-brousse trip back where the man in the seat behind me proceeded to spit in a cup and drink it again. And again. The whole journey. The smell of the spit.... the smell..surely not.
The vanilla-tour
Travelling the vanilla coast, it seemed fitting to arrange a trip to some plantations through the locals in Sambava. Being un-geared for tourism, the trip was indeed an interesting one. We took little wooden piroques down the river (in which the locals also cooked their meals.. with fire in wooden boats...), ate the fruit of cocoa, took walks across muddy flats (where i took an un-expected step into knee-deep mud, getting so stuck our guide had to pull me out) and visited a shallow drop toilet where you could see the mud below moving with maggots. That said, such a toilet is preferential to the 'pooing' fields in the villages where it is fady (taboo) to go to the toilet in the same place as your family and also fady to bury it (burial is reserved for the dead). Other unusual observations included seeing an old french taxi reversed into the flooded field to be washed and a motorbike on a narrow rickety piroque to be transported. Still, it was refreshing walking through vanilla, coffee and coconut plantations with the aroma of drying vanilla following you wherever you went. The local banana-coconut cakes were also somewhat enjoyable to munch, provided you avoided any of the rocks or sand often present inside. The irony is that, contrary to what the name may suggest, you cannot actually purchase vanilla on the vanilla coast as it is all sent to a corporate retailer who then distributes it for export and internal sales (so I just bought some later in Tamatave).
Antahala
Antahala is the sister 'city' to Sambava on the vanilla coast and travelling between them you frequently see destroyed and abandoned buildings ravished by cyclones. Still, where there's money (in this case vanilla) there's better infrastructure, so unlike most of the country Antahala actually has powerlines and the capacity to rebuild (sort of). Should you happen to look up at the powerlines, you will notice the largest orb spiders you have probably ever seen in your life and the site of them is like a scene from the nightmares of an aracnaphobicac. Literally dozens of these giant spiders are present in just 2 metres of powerline, dangling gracefully in the air. The coastline here is much like Sambava, wild and rough, but also accompanied with a sense of end-of-the-world-remoteness and beauty.
Abandoned Ambila Lemaitso
From Antahala (NE Madagascar) we flew south to the East coast -- Tamatave. From Tamatave we decided to visit the 'Canal des Pangalenes' a natural canal system (but also extended by man) just inland of the sea and used for transporation where the boat travel on the coast is simply perilous. Our intention was to visit Nirvana: a small establishment of bungalows on the spit of land between the canal and the sea with barely any distance between. We took a taxi brousse to Brickaville and then the ferry crossing to Ambila. The taxi brousse was then guided onto the ferry which was simply planks of woods roped and hammered together, floated on oil drums. It was almost surreal; nighttime with a starry sky, floating along the water (the ferry was 'poled' along) standing next to the taxi-brousse which had broken down once more and in the process of being repaired. We arrived to the otherside only to discover Nirvana had shut down -- and that there appeared to be no accommodation. So the taxi-brousse took us further, passing small village huts but little else, until we saw one set of lights ahead belonging to a hotel. The hotel was almost-abandoned (ie the white-sheets-over-furniture-type of abandoned), but the patron was there and arranged a room for us, even hammering in mosquito nets. By now we were starving and gleefully accepted the only food there was; eggs. When we awoke the next day, we finally discovered the reason for abandonment from our view on the 2nd floor of the concrete hotel by the ocean. Cyclones. We knew it was not cyclone season (which is Dec-Mar) and we were there in July, but we later discovered that earlier that year they had been struck by cyclones as was evidenced by the devastation we could see from our hotel. Walking through the village we found half-destroyed buildings with vegetation growing throughout, a few tents in which people lived, some huts rebuilt and the village people sitting peacefully by the local thatched tuck-shops. We were approached by a man who smelt heavily of booze, but the smell was becoming so common I began to wonder if I was mistaken. He seemed friendly and talkative enough and took us around village, introducing us to people including the village president and looking for a boat to take us upstream the following day. He asked for a payment for the boat (we insisted on a 50% deposit instead, which was $3) and said he'd meet us at 6pm to talk of the trip for the next day. Incidently, he didn't show up at 6pm so the following day we decided to wait for the taxi brousse where he saw us and expressed sadness that we weren't taking the boat. He claimed he had been distributing rice at 6pm and wasn't able to make it, but had still intended to take the boat that day. We suspect he had been distributing alcohol to his liver instead with our $3.....
The taxi-brousse ride back was the usual sort of eventful. On one of the toilet stops by the bushes as I was going about my business attempting to be discreet as usual, a local lady squatting and urinating away started to quiz me in french conversationally. For the life of me, I never got stage fright needing to go on the side of the road (it was your only choice after all) but there was something about her making eye contact and chatting away that made that timid westerner in me come out..
Ile St Marie
After hanging around a bit longer in Tamatave, we had decided to spend the rest of our time in timeless Ile St Marie. I say timeless because no one actually ever seemed to know the time. I even had a debate about it being 11am when the lady insisted it was 9am (incidently I was right) and if you ordered dinner at 3pm for 6pm, it still only arrived at 8pm...
My first perojative on the island was to go about and organise a dive, but whilst walking to the dive centre i came across some people grouped around a dead man on the side of the road. The strange thing was that his motorbike was perfectly upright and he was lying on the side of the road, no blood , just looking as though he had dropped there. A few vazah were there calling emergency services, but despite a few slightly confussed expressions, no one seemed particularly disturbed -- death is quite common and in Africa life is so cheap. Of course, this didn't help alleviate Himals and Bee's concerns when we were in a taxi later that night and something quite heavy seemed to be rolling around in the boot.
Eventually I managed to squeeze in my dive and although it wasn't quite dive season there, the vis was still about 15m and there were a few amazing rose coral reefs, fish life and the song of the migrating humpbacks (which we saw from the boat). Most of the time on Ile St Marie we stayed at 'La Balliene' which had an exceptionally ricketty dock that stretched right out into the crystalline waters. Our last night was on Ile Aux Nattes, quite literally on the water, where we took advantage of our position for obligatory night swims outside our door. For the most part, this was the tourist part of our trip; bumming on the beach, long strolls, riding moto-scooters around, eating Legumes sautee avec sauce coco/ thè gingembre/ thè vanille/cafe avec lait sucre and, of course, the odd cocktail or two.
Our last day together we were up at sunrise, taking a piroque to the airport with the rising sun forming a bright red 'x' streak across the dawn sky. Himals and I left for Antananarivo where we stocked up on giant fresh strawberries and chocolate, where she then left from a few hours later -- leaving me all alone!
Travelling places like Madagascar you experience the best and the worst. Ultimately this means you either draw closer to your buddies as the trip progresses, or you drift apart realising your differences/incompatibility. Suffice to say, Bee, Himals and I became even stronger friends and for once I was actually sad going off on my own. Miss you guys! It's not too late to join me in Africa! =P
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