How to summarize three of the best weeks of my life? Highlights, I suppose. Friday I returned to the little island I call my temporary home from 18 days in Madagascar in the company of Kira (Oregon), Anne (Missouri), Even, and Martine (both from Norway.) Amazingly enough, the five of us boarded our luxurious Air Austral flight sane, healthy, and still laughing after having taken a tour of the southern half of one of the world's most incredible countries. We spent time in the following areas:
Ranomafana National Park: thick forest, lemurs.
Isalo National Park: Easily my favorite part... similar to Colorado in some ways, but with random waterfalls and sandy gorges winding through rainforest-like vegetation. More lemurs.
Tulear: Overrated.
Ifaty: Beautiful beach, pirogue ride and snorkeling in the Mozambique Channel, zebu cart tour through a Baobab forest.
Fort Dauphin: Very cool. Reminded me of Reunion, with a little more of a romantic, "once upon a time" feel.... not to mention more African.
A very long ride up the south eastern coast to Farafangana, then directly back to Antananarivo.
Our main mode of inter-city transportation were the infamous "taxi-brousses," ("bush taxis") which are basically 15-passenger vans of various degrees of disrepair, usually stuffed with 20-25 passengers. Traveling on major roads, taxi-brousses are frequently stopped by various Gendarmerie or other uniformed intimidating men. When it comes to traditional meals, there's not much variety: rice, rice, a little meat or seafood, and more rice. Or of course, little cakes that look a bit like biscuit-shaped pancakes but taste suspiciously like, you guessed it, rice. It's easy to find a cheap meal at a hotely, which is usually a charming little wood shack with plastic table cloths serving such meals (in portions that are more than abundant for the weary-stomached traveler) for approximately one dollar. Not safe to consume: tap water, fruits or veggies that may have had contact with such water, any dairy (including icecream, sad.) or anything sold from street vendors. Strict adherence to these rules did not keep me safe from the presumably improperly-reheated meat at our favorite hotel, Chez Alice.
This fantastic compound of well-equipped bungalows won me over in the first ten minutes: running water, a shower, and a normal toilet with TP supplied! At just over 80 hours in since our arrival in the country, these were already luxuries. Good thing these amenities were available, too, because the aforementioned meat created quite a need for the use of a proper bathroom for myself and one other in our group. Soon enough we were back on our feet and on to more astounding, beautiful, uncomfortable, life-changing experiences.
There were children EVERYWHERE. And they were just as charmed and fascinated by us as we were by them. There were beggars everywhere. They weren't nearly as respectful of our personal space as we wished to be of theirs, but we had no real issues (unless you count the man with the toy gun who grabbed Anne and made her dance...)
Anyhow. I could write chapters about this, my first of hopefully many African adventures, but I'll keep this post readable. The whole trip was everything I could have ever expected and more, and our group was thrilled to arrive in Antananarivo 24 hours before our flight out. We spent the last day walking around the city, a stark contrast to the rural setting we'd been trudging slowly through along the east coast for days, and we met our good friends from La Reunion the last night. It was wonderful to see friendly faces, share stories, and give some encouragement and advice to those who were only three days into their adventure.
More blogs to come shortly. I'm a bit behind, I know.
