The red island: 7 weeks in Madagascar ... in photos.

See what I've been seeing.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150203543961686.308175.543196685&l=d6c8843cb5

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150236332826686.316007.543196685&l=45e4c5496e

Tenrecs, dogs and walking adventures

Today I found a tenrec. What the hell is that, you might ask. It's just like a little hedgehog. In fact this little guy is named, funnily enough, a hedgehog tenrec. Poor thing, it was curled up on the grass, in the sun, after the hotel's dog brought it over. It really didn't look very healthy. Neither would you if you were normally sleeping all day. I went and hid him in the bushes, hoping he'd escape the clutches of those curious canines for a while.

One of them turned out to be a very good travelling companion (well mostly, when she wasn't hassling the island's other canine inhabitants) for our walk around the island. The three of us set off reasonably early this morning, headed north and then out across the island toward the east coast. We'd walked for 2 1/2 hours and attempted a bit of tyre rolling before feeling a bit like we had no idea where we were ... which was actually true. So we tried to find someone to point us in the right direction - how the hell do we actually get to the east coast?! We could see it but we were skirting it, and knew there was a lagoon to negotiate if we wanted to swim...

I fortunately came across a lovely old gentleman who was a headmaster at the local school, and could speak both French and English, so we got along fine. He suggested that further down the road was the Paradis d'Ampanihy, where we found some great hospitality and the 'specialite du Chef': Poisson avec Saus Coco. WIN.

Enroute to the mangroves after lunch, we discovered what a vanilla plant looks like. It's actually a liana, a rainforest plant that's classified as an orchid, but looks like a vine; the locals boil the pods up and then set them in the sun for three weeks to dry out and blacken. All I wanted to know was who discovered that then?! Unfortunately vanilla season isn't til September. boo. But vanilla is one of Madagascar's biggest exports, and while every mug on the street wants to sell you some, it's hard to know what's fresh and the best value. We keep asking different people to find out! And in fact, I don't even know if I can bring it into Australia or not. Quarantine is really strict on the importation of any type of plant material. But I like the idea of making my own rhum arrange - vanilla flavour - and knocking the socks off my housemates in Sydney.

Random holiday reading...

Ahhh, I got around to spot (or ten) or reading on Ile Saint-Marie, and having read all the books that we both brought with us, I did find myself a big fat book by an author I would normally baulk at - Marian Keyes and her self-obsessed, girly, relationship-focussed rubbish - but to her credit the book seems fun so far, and I must admit I enjoyed it in the end.

But what treasures a hotel's bookshelf can hold. I came across a rather interesting book called "Les Apparitions d'Humanoids: 202 recontres du 3eme type, 26 Portraits-Robots". RANDOM! Its full of kids'-style drawings of UFOs, aliens, maps of alien sightings in France and other strange bits of information. Eric Zurcher, author, must be an interesting fellow, and possibly a man-child, given his drawings.

The cover even says "COLLECTION Connaissance de l'etrange."

Something for all you UFO-obsessed strange people out there.

Six days in beautiful Ile Saint-Marie

Our final Madagascan destination, Ile Saint-Marie, and the hotel in which we planted ourselves, did not disappoint. The island is a beautiful place, wit ha small population, green, lush vegetation and beautiful palm-fringed beaches. I'm sitting here by the bay sheltering Hotel La Crique, the sound of the calm ocean lapping at the shore, birds singing in the trees, four gay French and Malagasy men frolicking in the shallows (ooh delete that part, it's ruining my description!), the sun slowly making its way down to the horizon. A short swim out to the various rocks scattered in the bay revealed sea urchins on the sea floor and some beauitful, small, neighbouring bays to explore by snorkel tomorrow. Aaaahhh, paradise found. And we still have five more days of it. I might need to find another book to read.

 

 We've never been at a loss for things to do in our little slice of paradise. Lots of swimming and snorkelling in the beautiful bay on which La Crique is situated. On the northern end of the bay there are many huge slabs of rock underwater, harbouring the hardy corals that grow on it; and between the rocks protruding out near the shore, beautiful black and white sea stars wave their arms in hope of catching some passing food at low tide. The southern end, and around into the next gorgeous bay (from where the sunset is even more beautiful) the snorkelling is the most amazing.

I think in the past it would have been a lot more so, as it seems that the marine life is in recovery mode, with quite a lot of dead coral scattered around the sea bed. The typhoons - especially the major ones in 08-09 - probably did quite a lot of damage. Still, there are many beautiful coral communities growing here on the large rocks that seem to have been planted randomly in the bay by a giant hand. Quite a few beautiful fish inhabit this underwater world, including some peculiar lobster-like creatures, mostly green with a piercing stare as they glare up at you with their Chinese-New-Year-dragon faces and try to wave their 'swimmers' at you - har har, no claws! Yeah, you better run, you little bugger, you'd taste good.

We hired a couple of mountain bikes one morning and rode the 15km to the main town, Ambodifotatra, for a look around. the town has a nice feel to it, well spread out around the harbour, and more to it than you realise. I also got the feeling that it - and the island generally - are quite wealthy compared to many other parts of Madagascar. I guess its not surpirsing given a lot of wealth flows here from the main economic activity - us spending money! But in the interior are apparently a lot of rice and cassava farms, and I think for those on the land (or fishermen, for that matter), life is still pretty difficult.

We spent the afternoon cruising round on our bikes, across the causeway which provides access over Baie des Forbans, the check out the now defunct and terribly small (and possibly quite inadquate in its time) lighthouse. Gold. Why not hang your washing out on the lighthouse.

Then we went on to our #1 destination.

 

Ile Sainte-Marie is part of Madagascar's 'Pirate Coast' (also known better as the Vanilla Coast) and it is said that there was much pirate activity here in the past, with many buried here in this picturesque location. Despite the stories of our guide, who was quite indignant at having to be our guide after we turned up, paid for a guide but none materialised!, there is no evidence that any of the stories are true, nor that any of the graves actually did belong to pirates.

I was happy to believe that they do, though. Especially the grave with the skull and crossbones on it, the grave apparently belonging to William Kidd, and the female pirate's grave, my favourite. Not only were the pirates Malagasy, but French and English pirates also got in on the act, and some of them even pilfered local people to sell as slaves, or to take as wives (though the latter never did the former crime!).

 

Funnily enough there was a long, steel 'gangplank' whose rusted, narrow length had to be navigated before reaching the actual cemetery, from where we could also see the 'pirate island' where they used to hide out after docking their boats. Arrrr!

We also checked out the cemetery for normal people, at the rear of the Catholic church, with its interesting Muslim and chinese sections (where evyerone is named Chang Khan) before heading off on a long, bumpy, circuitous ride across to hte eastern side of the island, passing through small villages, stopping off for yummy cold yoghurt to cool us down. This road definitely wasn't cut out for bicycles. Luckily - and first time for everything - our bikes were good quality, with working brakes AND gears. Woah! It made it easy to conquer the hilly ride home, which was tough after a long day's riding, but even tougher in the dark with no lights... neither on the bikes themselves or on the street. We managed to make it back without riding into any ditches. Nice one.

The countryside of Ile Saint-Marie

Ile Saint-Marie's countryside is quite similar to the rest of Madagascar; most of - actually no pretty much all - of its native forests are gone, and are now replaced by introduced trees. Interestingly the eucalypt and pine plantations of the 'mainland' are nowhere to be seen. Instead, three other trees dominate the hillsides:

1. the symbolic Ravinala, the travellers' palm, which seems to grow incredibly quickly after the forest has been decimated.

2. a silver-green feathery tree that looks very much like a silky oak or grevillea, apparently with white flowers - its everywhere, and I don't know if it was planted for firewood, but it sure has taken over the joint.

3. Again, interestingly, another Australian import: the paperbark. This tree is grown for its medicinal properties, and I was very surpirsed to recognise it here.

I'm finding it increasingly distrubing that so many foreign species have been introduced here, at the expense of replanting native forest. In many places on the mainland there have been no attempts to reforest at all, the bare hillsides glaring down at you as you chug along in your taxi brousse. The zebu may like it, but I rarely saw any of them up there. I just don't understand it. The results are spectacularly destructive in other ways ... oh the landslides! The gully erosion! It's like the earth has opened up raw wounds as a cry for help. It really makes me feel sad.

But here on our sheltered little piece of paradise its easy to leave all that behind. 

 

Traipsing around Tamatave ... and escape to Mahambo

After running the gauntlet of pousse-pousse drivers on arrival and jumping through muddy puddles to reach our hotel in Tamatave, we set off to explore the port town, heading straight for the beach; and it was indeed the port that we found first! It was pretty hard to miss. The beautiful beachfront promenade was packed with Sunday afternoon revellers, playing soccer, drinking beers under the tents erected for the weekend, riding the merry-go-round, playing sideshow games and ordering food from the wandering women and children balancing trays carefully aloft. It was a great atmosphere to enjoy a few THB beers as the sun went down and the ever-looming port slowly illuminated the shoreline with its bright lights.

Dinner at a nearby restaurant immediately alerted us to the fact that Tamatave, like Morondava and Toliara, was home to a number of ageing French men with white hair, beer guts and inappropriate clothing, either already together with, or trying to pick up, beautiful Malagasy women - many of them over twice their age. Sadly many Malagasy women attempt to take advantage of this fact, wearing extremely tight and revealing clothing in order to attract their attention. Most of htem can pull it off, but the odd one ... no. sorry love. We were consoled by the fact that the food was really good and for once, cholocalte mousse was both on the menu and available!

The next day we booked our onward travel to Ile Saint Marie via the little beachside hamlet of Mahambo. I was more than happy to be getting out of there, as while this large, seaside town provided us with the opportunity to use banks, develop photos and book flights back to Tana, it was just another city. Insert Paul Kelly quote HERE. Still, getting ourselves organised involved wandering around and getting lost (oops I mean seeing the sights), and its central, wide, palm-lined boulevards and most facilities left me with the feeling that it wouldn't be too bad a place to live - provided you could put up with the seediness of the place and the regular influx of lusty sailors!

... some of the fabulous street art advertising in Tamatave

I was even happier to have left Tamatave when we eventually set foot on the golden sands of Mahambo Beach. It had taken a few hours by taxi-brousse and a 2km walk from the main road with heavy packs - but it was definitely worth it. The only word I could think of was ... SCORE! The village was small and quiet, and while it obviously attracted a number of visitors, judging by the hotels and restuarants scattered along the dirt road, it was not yet high season in Madagascar (and since the political problems and typhoons in 08-09 led to a dearth of visitors) and we were two of a total of around ten vazaha in the place, most of whom stayed in their fancy pants hotel at the other end of the beach.

Our bunglaow was (almost) right on the beach, and we spent our time in Mahambo lounging around, swimming, enjoying local delicious seafood, nice long beach walks, reading books and hanging out with  local tourists. I love being able to order barbeque fish, have it delivered to your door, and eat it by candlelight. Why is it that we only do these things on holidays?! We tried to perfect our time in Mahambo even further by throwing in a G&T at said fancy-pants hotel - but our expensive taste in gin (well, in our defence, they for once had Blue Sapphire!) did leave a sour taste in our mouths when we received the bill (almost the same price as our bungalow for the night! d'oh!). At least we had the absurd-sound-making black and white-ruffed lemurs to keep us entertained; the hotel had two pet ones that leapt around in the palm trees. They're rather big 'cats'!

But lounging around on the beautiful beach had to end ... mainly because we wanted to go and lounge around on another beautiful beach. So we set off to meet the Cap St. Marie bus that would whisk us to the ferry landing at Sanoeira-Ivongo. Ater two police checks (in case our ferry sank, I guess) we boarded the boat and glided over to the beautiful Ile Saint-Marie, aka Nosy Boraha.

Indri-spotting in Andasibe-Mantadia

Our reason for coming to Andasibe village was simple: we wanted to see Madagascar's largest lemur, the Indri. Parc National d'Andasibe-Mantadia is the last remaining park in Madagascar that is home to this beautiful creature. The reserve that we could easily visit, Reserve Speciale d'Analamazaotra (what the?!) is only small, at 810 hectares, and is a pocked of forest separated from the Park which is 13km away but almost 13,000ha in size. But a four hour walk through the reserve's secondary forest (the only primary rainforest left in the east of the island is in the National Park) gave us the opportunity to see the large and very beautiful black and white Indri leaping around up in the trees, sometimes coming down lower, allowing us to see them at a reasonably close distance. The most hauntingly beautiful and incredible sound that I have heard in a long time came in the form o the Indris calling across the treetops to other family groups, both identifying their locations and warning the other Indris to keep out of their territory. The calling went on for about ten minutes, the males with their lower pitched calls and the higher pitched calls of the females.

During our misty early morning walk, we also saw other lemur species; the beautiful golden, white and brown Diademed Sifaka, with its black face and bright eyes, not to mention a snow-white tail (interestingly, the Indri have no tails, only a patch of triangular-shaped fur and a patch where it seems someone has removed it!); and the Eastern Woolly Lemur, a nocturnal species, three individuals huddled together, the baby and its mother peering down at us with their big brown eyes, while they tried to sleep (stupid noisy tourists!). We also came across numerous bird, insect and interesting medicinal plant species on our walk, as well as some chameleons - including the largest one I've seen here - right at the park entrance!

A night walk also provided us with the opporutnity to see two other nocturnal lemur species - the elusive mouse lemurs, their tiny eyes glowing red at us in the torchlight as they peered out at us from the roadside vegetation. No night walks are allowed in National Parks since a 2008 directive from Madagascar National Parks, stating that they were too disruptive to the flora and fauna. I couldn't agree more... and therefore night walks are always along the road, on the park boundaries. The Hotel Feoriny Ala - "Song of the forest" - was also set up on the park's boundary and in the morning you can hear the Indri calling across the forest to each other. Nice.

We wanted to go walking in Parc Natinal d'Andasibe-Mantadia, but its quite a distance from Andasibe and there is no public tranpsort to the Park; you need your own vehicle. Plus the Park closes at 4pm each day, apparently meaning that there are no multi-day hikes permitted at this stage. This is a real pity, as its the largest and least touristed area of remnant forest in this area, and it would have been a beatiful place to visit. The relatively new parks system in Madagascar still has a long way to go - but it's off to a good start.

Still, we had our eyes on Ile Saint Marie - a beautiful island resembling a mildly pregnat woman sleeping! - to spend the last few days of our time on this island, preferably lying on the beach, cocktail in hand. First though, we had to make our way to Toamasina, or Tamatave as its also known, on the est coast.

Lemurs in Ranomafana and missionaries in Ambositra

Another lovely name to try and pronounce. We reached Ranomafana ("hot water") by early afternoon, and there isn't much to this little town, but its in a beautiful forested setting - a huge change from what we'd seen on the journey.

So much of the contryside between Manakara and Ranomafana was completely devastated. All of the forest has been completely cleared and burned, with many hills left purely as grassland - not one tree gracing most of the hillsides. It was like driving through a green-tinged desert. We just couldn't believe how much devastation there was. The areas of slumping and landslides were common some areas had vegetatio ncover, but it was only where colonising species had begun to grow back. It amazes me that so much forest has been cleared - whether to create grassland for grazing zebu, for firewood, or wood for construction or selling charcoal - but not only that, but that nothing has been replanted or reforested in so many places. In some areas there are now ecualypt of pine plantations, or travellers' palms have grown back, but on the whole it seems that there is little effort to replant anything. And the results - gully erosion, slumping, landslides - are all so common, but the clearing continues. It just doesn't make sense.

But we consoled ourselves by staying at a beautiful hotel tucked away up on a hillside, surrounded by forest and with beautiful views over the town and surrounding countryside, most of which still has much of the forest cover intact; and the fact that tomorrow we would visit Parc National de Ranomafana, which preserves 48,000ha of the beautiful rainforest of this part of the country.

We cruised around town for the day, checking out a women's weaving co-op located in the now defunct Hotel Station Thermal, behind which still exists the thermal baths for which the town is known. The following morning we headed off to the Parc with two new American friends, who kindly offered us a ride in their 4WD. We took a four hour water through the beautiful secondary rainforest, looking for lemurs as we wandered. the rainforest here is very different from any of the landscapes we'd seen so far; for a start, it's rainforest (!) so its a lot wetter, which means the vegetation is much more lush. Because we're now right over on the eastern side of the island, the cimate is also cooler, with more frequent rain, and the elevation is up to 1200m.

Walking througg Ranomafana reminded me a lot of the rainforest in Indonesia but with a lot less mature trees. In fact we spent all of our four hours in secondary rainforest, only skirting laong the primary rainforest; because the park was only opened 20 years ago, and prior to this the community could cut the mature trees and also farm the land, the natural heritage hasn't ben protected in its original, natural form - ie, with many mature trees dominating hte forest. In fact one of the most mature trees that we did see was a eucalypt, at the site of a former village, now overgrown with saplings and vines!

For me, besides wandering through beautiful rainforest, the highlight was definitely seeing a few different types of lemurs. First we spotted a mother and her juvenile Greater Bamboo lemur, one of two species for whom the park was created to protect. Soon afterwards we were able to see three beautiful Milne-Edwards' sifaka, the second largest lemur in Madagascar, with their beautiful black and white coats. Watching them spring from tree to tree was certainly something special. and lastly we also spotted two 'huddles' of Red-bellied Brown lemurs, perched high above us having a nap, every now and then peering out at us with their beautiful white-ringed eyes. It was refreshing to see some different lemur species, as so far the most common ones we have seen are the maki catta, which are the dominant species in the south and west of the country. And whie Parc National du Ranomafana may be expensive to visit, and not so easy to visit on multi-day hikes, wlking through the rainforest today was a lovely refreshing experience.

It was also a nice walk back to our hotel along the beautiful winding road between the park and Ranomafana town, stopping for lunch at a river viewpoint, interacting with the school kids wandering home, greeting local villages as we passed, all the while surrounded by (mostly!) forested hillsides. Ranomafana certainly is a beautiful part of the country.

But its also one we had to leave to carry on with our travels. And in this we were aided by two lovely Americans, Joshua and Andy, who also stayed at our hotel. Joshua was a 'travelling doctor' and Andy worked on the National Geographic Explorer ship, both of them travelling the world and making a lot of money while doing it. They offered us a ride to Ambositra in their 4WD, which was very posh by our usual taxi-brousse standards; of course we accepted a free ride in comfort and with speed! It was also nie to watch the passing scenery in the compan yof two very amusing and interesting guys who loved a chat - and of course it was someone new to talk to.

So we arrived in Ambositra a lot more quickly (and comfortably!) than we expected, and spent the rest of our afternon wandering around the twon. Of first and utmost importance was finding the somewhat unexpected Benedictine Monastery and buying a wheel of their delicious cheese - we were definitely craving it, and it made a nice change from La Vache qui rit, which isn't real cheese at all! I can't say I've ever eaten cheese made by Benedictine nuns. It was so good ... and will continue to be for as long (short?) as it lasts!

But then we discovered the ultimate 30th birthday present. A Chess board atop a wooden box, containing pull-out drawers with more games on them - Backgammon, Checkers, Go and a special Malagasy game called Fanorona - as well as the Chess board opening up to reveal the beautifully hand-carved wooden Chess figures. There were many different ones on sale with varying levels of qualit yand size, but nothing could match the one I had my heart set on to buy for my sister Ange; it was big, it had the most games and it was beautiufl designed with marqueterie scenes on all four sides. It was perfect except for one thing = the saleswoman wanted 950,000Ar for it ($475) and we could only bargain her down to 800,000. No way. She was stubborn, too. So, after visiting all of the other gift shps in town and finding none as good qualit yas this one, we decided t ogo back the following day and try again before heading off to Tana. Being the woodworking capital and also the entre of woodworking in Madagascar, it seemed this would be the cheapes and best place to spend m oney on such an investment.

The next morning while hunting around for breakfast, we happened t omeet a Soth African woman and her eight year old daughter shopping in the main street. On nearly jumping out of her skin in surprise at fellow English speakers, she promptly invited us to her house for breakfast and also offered to help us bargain down the price of the chess set. Sold! And so we met aileen and her daughter Nikki, who had lived in Ambositra for three years, the family of a missionary working ofr ADRA. Sadly, Aileen was paranoid about the food and water, didin't work and was therefore very bored, apart from the fact that she was supposed to have home-schooled Nikki (who, at age eight, couldn't read or write properly). She hadn't bothered to learn much French or Malagasy and therefore was extremely lonely, as she couldn't really communicate with anyone except her best friend and housemaid. We felt a mixture of scorn and pity for them. But a lack of visitors also meant tey were extremely hospitable, and after hosting us for brekky they joined us at the wood carving shop, unsuccessfully attempted to bargain the price of the chess set, drove us to the other souvernir shops in town to find an equivalent product, and then dropped us off at the taxi brousse station. Funnily enough it turned out that they also knew the English missionaries that we had met in Mangily.

So we headed back to Tana, staying briefly overnight after a long taxi-brousse ride before passing through to the east. Destination: Andasibe.

All aboard! Off to Manakara on the FCE

I'm writing this entry as I sit here in the very last seat on the first class cabin, rocking methodically back and forth, destroying my handwriting. I'm surrounded by French tourists and a group of men playing cards for small Ariary notes. The railway was opened in 1936 after ten years of construction and is an improtant economic link for the banana- and coffee-producing villages along its line. We have passed rice fields, tea plantations, barren hillsides, virgin forest, eucalypt plantations and stopped at the platforms of numerous villages where an amazing array of foods have been offered to us.

Bright purple chinese guava in baskets; bunches of yellow locuts; piles of carefully arranged mandarins; ruby red freshwater crayfish; meatballs and sausages, ready to be piled onto baguettes; and the usual array of fried bread, samosas, green chilis and the like.You never go hungry on this trip! The train passes through numerous embankments and a whopping 48 tunnels, covering 163km from an altitude of 1100m in Fianar to sea level at Manakara. It's a pretty amazing journey.

We passed mountainsides cleared of most of their vegetation on the last leg of the journey, bar the beautiful traveller's palms that grew back more quickly than anything else, before spending hte last hour or so in the dark before arriving in Manakar on the east coast of the country.

And then ... the onslaught of pousse-pousse drivers at the station.  They were certainly pushy bastards and eventually we chose two of them to cart us across town towards the beachside hotel we'd chosen; what then ensured was really frustraing. Frist the two drivers wouldnt accept the agreed price and wanted more $. then all of the hotels on the beachside were booked out, and as we were so annoyed with our drivers we didn't want to pay them any more mondy, so we spent the next 2 hours wandering around in th dark, looking for hotels that were either booked out or closed. Crap!

Eventually we stopped in at La Guignette Hotel and asked for some help - were ther ANY other hotels open at this time of night (9:30pm) where we could stay?! The lovely Madame Rose, the restaurant's owner, then proceeded to take us in and drove us around town to various hotels before La Flamboyant took us in, in the centre-ville.We were very grateful once again for the kindness of locals who helped us out when we'd arrived late at night with nowhere to stay!

So, the next day, we vowed that we would return to La Guignette to repay Madame Rose through patronage of her restaurant. We spent the day wandering the town, which wasn't a big place, but was so spread out it was extremely easy to get lost! I think we basically covered one end of town to the other by the time we'd walked across the bridge to the beach, eaten some rather average lunch NOT with Madame Rose (she is a good Christian woman who goes to church on Sundays!), strolled along the huge beach wall with its gushing openings, watched the fishermen in their pirogues, looked for the Jardin Tropik and its amazing insects - to no avail! - and walked all the way across to the other side of town to book a taxi brousse for the next day. Manakara certainly is a massive sprawl! But we kept our promise of patronising La Guigenette for some dessert of banane flambe and a G&T which we taught the waitress how to make - the bottle had never even been opened!

It was a nice way to spend our last night in Manakara, and the next morning we set off toward Ranomafana. Our taxi brousse only departed half an hour late, it wasn't even full, and vazaaha were the majority of passengers. WEIRD! In fact it was a very comfortable, and speedy, journey on a good road - something we'd rarely experience during our time here. Eventually the taxi brousse became quite full - but at least it wasn't packed with 25 adults and 8 children...

Parc National d'Andringitra

As we climbed along the sometimes paved, sometimes cobbled but mostly dirt road toward Andringitra the scenery became more and more beautiful: the terraced rice padis below us in the valleys, their owners' houses perched above them; the treeless hills above, bereft of all vegetation for many years. Eventually we reached the entrance ot the park, signed ourselves in and set off.

It took a good hour to reach the actual boundary of the park, but once we had crossed it, the change in scenery was quite dramatic - forested hillsides surouded us, it felt much cooler, and there were two huge cascades that confronted us at the first hill top. Said to have aided a previous royal couple conceive a child, one cascade was the male and the other the female, the King and Queen bathing in their respective waterfalls in order to bring about a miracle. They could have just had sex. It's not rocket science, boys and girls.

We made our way past a gushing river beofre scaling the first hillside through beautiful forest, huffing and puffing our way up to the first plateau to where the vegetation had a very alpine feel to it. It had suddenly become quite cold and after donning scarves and jumpers we continued our way through the Tasmanian-esque 'tundra', picking delicious red berries as we went. Another ascent - past grazing zebu who, under the Park's community agreement, are allowed to exist inside the boundary - took us up to a moon-like plateau of huge, white lichen-covered boulders, which we skipped and scrambled over as dusk approached. A lone falcon sat perched atop the red-hued rocks tinged by the setting sun and watched us quietly as we passed. What we hadn't anticipated as we continued downward toward the brilliant red clouds was a night walk - and a long one! Almost two hours later after traipsing the rocky descent by torch light, we reached our riverside campsite, disappointed we hadn't been able to see it and the approach to it at all! But walking during the night is a very different expereience, the sounds of the environment were more prounounced and we walked under a ceiling of beautiful stars. It also meant that the next day we awoke, after a delicious dinner that included zebu kebabs and chocolate bananas (yum!) and some stories by the fire with Gege and Freddie, we were pleasantly surprised to see that we were still on quite a high plateau, even though we had descended for some time and there was a river nearby.

It had been a cold night, so our next morning's start was a slow one. But like our reptilian friends, once we got going in the sun, life was good. We headed off across the rocky terrain, again on the descent and past the other boundary of the Park. We left Freddie behind and Gege then led us down into the valley; we were now surrounded by grassland, bare hills and sheer granite cliffs, the bright green padis laid out below us like mosaics. We passed htrough a small villae beofre reaching our resting place for the second night  - Mara Camp - a permanently staffed camp, well set up, with a great shared dining area. We felt a bit spoiled to arrive to our tents already set up and a hot lunch all ready for us!

After gorging ourselves on cassava and pork, it was more trekking for yours truly up the nearest mountain - Pic Chameleon, so named because the protruding rocks on the top of the mountain did resemble quite a realistic little critter. We first descended into forest - a rare signt in Madagascar and the Tsanaroa massiv, still only present in pockets such as this - and watched some maki catta (ring-tailed lemurs) playing in the trees before the rather steep ascent to the Pic.

Picking guava and spotting zebu on our way up the grassy hillside, we followed small rivers and irrigation challens dug out by the locals to feed their rice padis, and ascended the grassy hillside to hte Pic. The higher I climbed the more amazed I was that there were still zebu higher than us - right up to the base of the cliffs. The view from the top of Pic Chameleon was pretty special; all around us were huge granite mountains, including Pic Boby, Madagascar's second highest peak; the green rice padis stretching off into the distance gave the bare hills a greener tinge than they desrved, having been cleared of all their trees. On the few monutains that did still have some vegetation rose a beautiful haze that made everything glow in the afternoon sun.

On the way back down, hastily picking our way through the rocks, I took a plunge into the piscine near the camp to the amusement of Gege, who I couldn't convince to jump in with me - he's smart and only goes in when the weather is hot! I was only able to stay in the water for about ten minutes it was so cold, and the disappearing sun didn't help either. But it was nice and refreshing.

We spent the evening chatting to a couple of American & Canadian researchers studying the behavious of maki catta in both Tranaroa and Anja reserves, and learned quite a bit about their habits. They knew a lot more than the guides at Anja! they were both great company and a welcome addition to our normally-two-person conversations; and along with Emille, a student from Tana who was also assisting them, we shared an interesting meal of scrambled egg and pasta - which I now know goes very well together!

The next day's 10km hike back to the village was beautiful in the warm morning sun, and we would catch a typically crowded taxi brousse to Ambalavao. And while they didn't quite pack them in like last time, they certainly came a close second! So we arrived back in Ambalavao late morning, hoping to grab some of our favourite yoghurt or share some lunch with our lovely guide, Gege; but we were quickly shunted onto the next available taxi brousse as our friens at JB Trekking were aware that we wanted to get to Fianarantsoato take the Fianar - Cote Est (FCE) train the next day. And so we set off to Fianar, only 60km away, which meant a welcome change to our usual mode of travel - looooong journeys on overcrowded taxi-brousses!

Our first impressions of Fianarantsoa weren't fantastic - the city is a sprawling beast, blanketing the many hils on which it is built; it has shades of Tana, but is nowhere near as beautuifl despite its winding alleys, old colonial buildings, cobbled streets and numerous stairs. The city seemed dirtier and with a more visible poor/begar element, more hassle from touts and the buildings shabbier. It also has a strange layout with not rela city centre, and all the facilities are located in a random scattered manner around town. Still, you could get what you needed in Fianar, without the crowded, oversized urban mass that is Tana.

I do still however much prefer its bigger brother by a long way and was glad that we only spent one night here, before heading off on our next advneture - a 9 hour train ride to the east coast town of Makassar, on the FCE train. Toot toot!

Ambalavao

It's a bit of a mouthful, isn't it.

But this lovely little hilltop town is a beautiful place. Set high on the central Madagascan plateau, it is surrounded by soaring limestone massifs, smoothed and striped over time by the weather; emerald green rice padis; fields of cassava and maize; and herds of zebu being chased along the road by their minders. The surrounding villages have a distinctive difference to those further west, their two storey red facades glowing in the afternoon sun, balconies carved in great detail and adorned with drying cobs of corn. The town itself has a European appearance, the houses in the main street all colonial and crumbling, the wooden balconies once brightly painted but now faded and damaged due to lack of care. Ambalavao is likeable not only for its lack of cars and pousse-pousses, but its friendly inhabitants all calling out 'bonjour vazaha!' as they saunter past on foot, or glide along on bikes.

 

We were surprised at how quickly it became cold once the sun went down, and were soon diving into our bags to score thermals, socks and scarves for the cold evenings, where we scoured the city seeking out hot cups of tea and lasopy - the Chinese-inspired noodle soup.

We'd timed our visit to Ambalavao pretty well, as the following day was market day. Set right in the centre of town, the market is a bustling hive of activity, with villagers coming from far and wide to sell their fresh produce: stacks of brightly coloured raffia baskets; dried fish threaded onto skewers; piles of carefully arranged potato greens, persimmons, tomatoes and onions and handfuls of garlic cloves.

In the other part of this vast market you could find almost anything: Chelsea FC belts, battery operated radios, posters of Britney Spears, religious hangings for your loungeroom wall, hair clips, hand-made soap, vials of veterinarian injections, second-hand clothing, dried herbs and bark, traditional medicine. You name it, they sold it. The butchery section had vast displays of freshly cut slabs of meat, zebu heads and strings of sausages hung up everywhere. We had loads of fun wandering around in here.

But Ambalavao is best known for its zebu market - the biggest in the country. On a lofty, picturesque hilltop just outside of town, the people come from far and wide - sometimes walking for days on end, herding their animals to market - in order to buy and sell their stock. Zebu, the prized possession of anyone who can afford them, determine your wealth, status and ability to get married, based on the number of these beasts that you own. We wandered around the market for a while, watching the nervous animals jittering and shuffling away as potential buyers checked them out from all sides, the owners identified by the big sticks that they held and the way that they closely guarded their stock.

 

 

We could have watching the comings and goings of Ambalavao's markets all day. But we had a more interesting activity to look forward to: four days trekking through Parc National d'Andringitra. 

We'd wondered where the really huge zebu with their vicious-looking horns were as we'd wandered around the market - sure, there were plenty of them around but they were fairly small in size - but our question was soon answered as our 4x4 wound its way slowly down the hill. We passed hundreds of the massive beasts, tired from many days' walking, all bottle-necked at a certain point in the road, but obviously headed for the market. We discovered that before being allowed for sale, all zebu must be checked by the police (to ensure they're not stolen) and be given a once-over by a vet (to ensure they're not sick). Fair enough; good system. So we bid the cow police and their vet buddies farewell and headed off towards the park.

How many people can you fit in a taxi brousse?

Official record: 25 adults and 8 children.

Official capacity: 14.

Ha!

Considering Madagscar has so many police and military checkpoints - on approach and departure from almost every town - I often wondered whether any of the police or military officers at ANY of the checkpoints would stop us and say something, anything ... from a public safety perspective, perhaps? But we were always just waved through.

In this particular case, as we made our way from Ranohira to Ambalavao, and as you'd expect from such an overloaded vehicle, the engine gave way and we wondered whether we'd be sitting by the roadside for a few hours. But to her credit, our little taxi brousse sputtered back into life and we were on our way again.

And somehow, these bruised and battered vehicles manage to keep going. Australia's bush mechanics have got nothing on their African counterparts.

The stunning Parc National d'Isalo

I don't want to make you too jealous, but I am going to detail our trek in Isalo. It was amazing.

We passed through endless savannah on our moring walk to the park from Ranohira, passing herds of zebu and small huts, with the beautiful sandstone plateau rising out of the plain on our left, becoming ever more imposing as we approached. Our day's walking would take us to Canyon des Makis (Maki being the local name for lemurs), the spectacular sheer cliffs and huge boulders inside sheltering green, lush vegetation and giving us some fun scrambling activity for an hour or so. We stopped at the beautiful 'King's Pool' for a dip, and after a picnic made our way through the forest to the Canyon des Rattes before setting up camp for the night under huge mango trees.

The next morning, waking to the red blaze of the sun on the towering cliffs before us, we set off toward the rock face, and ascended up onto the plateau, iguanas watching us from their sunny perches on rocks, a family of ring-tailed lemurs out for their morning breakfast in the small pocket of forest on the way up. The sandstone mountains were spectacular, stretching off into the distance as far as the eye could see, an ever-present guardian of the vast grassland plains below. We spent the day hiking this hot, dry landscape, past burnt trees - remnants of a fire through here two years ago - and through shoulder-high grass, obscured canyons stretching away in the distance, their iron-red colour blazing in the hot sun. The rock formations of this ancient landscape were spectacular; as I sat on what seemed like the edge of the world, I mused at how much they reminded me of the Kimberley.

 

Our campsite on the second night was down in a cool valley directly facing a sheer cliff, shaded by huge pandanus that fed greedily on a beautiful pool and spring-fed waterfall. Not a bad place for our evening bath and another simple but delicious meal after a hot day's walking.

We hiked across the plateau the next morning to the Piscine Naturelle, and it was here that we encountered our first large group of tourists in the park, taking a dip in the picturesque pool, surrounded by pandanus and fed by another beautiful waterfall. While there unfortunately wasn't much water flowing and there seemed to be a lot of sand, it was a beautiful place to swim - especially when the other trekkers left and we had the place to ourselves... temporarily at least. After not wanting to ever leave, we finally trekked back across the hot, sandy plateau to a lookout over the savannah plains called The Crest. We circled the diverging canyons of the Circuit de Namaza before descending down into them to camp for the night.

The Namaza campsite was clearly on the day tripper agenda and we passed quite a few other visitors. But the presence of regular food also ensured the presence of makis! We were able to watch a large family of eight ring-tailed and six brown lemurs in their acrobatic pursuits of leaves and fruit for quite a while. One cheeky golden female even stole some of our bananas. Little bugger. Couldn't help but forgive such a beautiful creature though.

Our night at the campsite was spoiled somewhat by the presence of the girlfriend of our cook Petray, who didn't seem to mind sharing her with Bosco in the tent next door. Weird! At least we had some local punch to soften the blow - and this time we actually got to drink it, unlike the previous bottle which mysteriously disappeared down Bosco's throat the night before.

Our last morning's hike took us through the gorge to the two natural pools along the river, Piscine Noir and Piscine Bleu, where we had a very refreshing (ok, it was bloody cold!) swim - mostly because the sun was too lazy to get up yet. A visit to the beautiful, delicate and aptly-named Cascade des Nymphes also took us through more beautiful canyon scenery before the long walk back across the savannah in the hot sun, trailing after Petray, his girlfriend and Bosco, who set a cracking pace despite carrying all of the cooking equipment and tents. We hadn't really wanted to end this trek, but we had to eventually.

I now have a new favourite place in the world - Parc National d'Isalo.

Interesting characters on the RN7

The Route National 7 is probably Madagscar's best road. And it's the one that most tourists frequent. For good reason, too; follow the RN7 and it leads you to some of the most easily accessible, and beautiful, national parks in the country, and if you're a gem hunter, straight through Madagascar's sapphire fields. We'd decided to travel the RN7 in reverse - direction, not gear, stoopid; its slow enough already! - and headed to the taxi brousse station in Toliara, planning on going to the little town of Ranohira.

Now if you go to the taxi brousse station in Toliara at 11:30am, you'll find that none of the taxi brousses actually leave until 2:30pm. You'd think we would have learned our lesson by now, and done our research into departure times - so that we wouldn't have to sit around at the taxi brousse station all day, especially as 2:30pm departure time actually means something more like 4pm.

So, we waited.

... and waited. For what seemed like an eternity. Because it was. Luckily the goings-on around the station kept us interested and amused for the first hour. Especially the four guys trying to put a sheep with a long tail onto a pousse-pousse (rickshaw).

Naturally, the taxi brousses don't leave until they're full. Unfortunately they don't fill one up, then send it on its way and start on the next one; whoever can get the business of each traveller does so, and you have a whole bunch of half-filled taxi brousses that then never leave, even when they have "14:30" plastered all over their windscreens. [end of rant about the joys of local transport]

And then, Interesting Character Of The Day Number One turns up. Initially a chatty, friendly soul, this naturalised old Frenchman became increasingly agitated when by 3:30pm we still had five empty seats. Letting everyone know his growing frustration about not departing, he stormed up to the office, smacked down a bundle of cash and paid for the remaining seats himself, demanding we depart tout suite. Deal. After a lot of yelling and carrying on, much to the dismay of the reserved Malagasy, our French friend cajoled the driver into leaving ... only to get stuck at the first police check point, the staff of which found it highly irregular that a taxi brousse was departing when it wasn't full, and loaded a couple of extras on board. We were now thoroughly pissed off with our fellow vazaha who we rapidly tried to distance ourselves from, especially when he continued to carry on at every opportunity, and expected everyone else on the bus to thank him for paying for the empty seats so that we could leave. He was extremely rude and we hated the whole situation - and him.

Didn't make things any more enjoyable when we got a flat tyre... ahh the world of public transport in Madagascar. Didn't make our French friend any happier either, who flew into yet another rage at the driver. Grrrr. Thank god the RN7 is beautifully paved, so that when we did get going again it was smooth sailing. That one, simple thing made me happy. And we were making good time, and looking like hitting Ranohira by around 8pm. Sweet.

But no! things are never that simple! hehe... a strange noise started coming out of the front of the vehicle, and we slowed down to crawling pace for ten minutes, our driving seemingly happy to just crawl along. Finally, after howls of protest from the passengers, we stopped off in Manambo, in the dark of night, at a gem merchant's office. We were in the middle of sapphire mining territory, and scattered around these parts are plenty of signs advertising gems for commercial sale.

Enter Interesting Character Of The Day Number 2. Mr Falil of Ahmet Gems Pty Ltd. Mr Falil was a Sri Lankan gem merchant who was living out here in the middle of nowhere, supporting his family back home through the gem trade. Upon finding out I was Australian, he proceeded to get very excited about cricket, the subject of our conversation for the next hour. Mr Falil organised for his 'best friend,' a certain Mr Mark - who he gushed over before and during his brief visits - to drop by to sort out the taxi brousse's axle problem and to placate our still-irate Frenchman. Mr Falil assured us that as he was the boss of his company, and VERY well connected, it would be completely safe for us to stay in his plush white office with its cushy leather lounge chairs and 'full guest facilities'. He also had security with guns (in fact the head of the district police... huh? well connected indeed!) patrolling his property, so we should not feel unsafe, but consider ourselves VERY LUCKY that we had stopped there. (did I mention that we should consider ourselves VERY LUCKY that we had stopped at Mr Falil's place?).

Mr Falil kept disappearing inside to, as we soon realised, get a swig of local rhum or other intoxicating beverage that he had hidden out the back, returning to chain smoke cigarette after cigarette. He because increasingly more free in his criticisms of Madagascan life, its 'poor people', its corrupt government with no respect for human rights, of being a foreigner in such a dangerous place. Apparently as two women travelling alone, we were taking A LOT of RISKS.

So, drunk as he was, Mr Falil was probably a good guy with a good heart. He repeatedly invited us to come to Sri Lanka to meet him, where we would experience first class hospitality - and of course, he would greet us personally at the airport; all we had to do was make the call and he would jump on the next plane - and we would discover paradise. YES!

Eventually, our Malagasy friends fixed the problem with the axle and we were able to go on our merry way. At some point during all of this our French friend had departed on the back of Mr Mark's motorcycle, to our relief, and we were able to proceed without having to listen to any more of his carry-on. When we finally reached the tiny town of Ranohira my heart sank when I saw everything closed up and no-one in the street (this happens when it's midnight in rural Madagscar). Eventually we found our bed for the night via Chez Momo, and luckily our host of the same name was up watching a football match and was able to accommodate us! We decided that being undecided about a trek early tomorrow morning - to nearby Parc National d'Isalo, the reason we'd come - was the best option, and promptly went to bed.

But it didn't take long for us to decide the next morning, after waking to the beautiful sight of the sun shining on the sandstone massif in front of us, and a decent breakfast to fill our empty stomachs, that a trek was definitely in order. We planned our route over our coffee; a four day trek into Isalo it would be, and an hour later we were setting off into the savannah-like countryside, led by our guide Bosco. It was nice to be on the move again - on foot. Enough taxi-brousses for a while.

Weird and wonderful Malagasy vegetation

Madagascar certainly is home to some weird plants. The south-west of the country is very unusual in its botanical inhabitants and we saw many of them while travelling around, as well as in the Reniala Nature Reserve near Toliara.

We met loads of baobabs, those iconic giant trees that look like they've drunk too much water and grow so slooooowly that 'saplings' can be already 50 years old. Madagascar has seven species of baobab, some with beautiful red bark, and they are important to people because they hold water, the fruit is edible, the bark is used for construction and the leaves are used for medicinal tea. Many of the trees are also sacred. The fruit, called 'renala', is oval-shaped, brown and fuzzy, with seeds inside. The baobabs at the Avenue du Baobab are estimated at over 1000 years old.

We also came across some arid-tolerant, cactus-like plants called alluadua, with their long, spiky stems with vicious looking spines, and tiny green leaves growing between them.

Another unusual, and endangered plant that we came across was the pachypodium, or elephant's foot, which also grows in the arid areas of the south-west. I loved this one...

Apparently 30% of the plants in Madagascar's forests are medicinal, and for this reason alone, preserving its native forest is extremely important. For example, the Madagscar rosy periwinkle was recently discovered to possess anti-cancer properties and has since been used to produce anti-cancer drugs.

Unbelievably, over 80% of the country's forest has been cleared and continues to be cleared at an alarming rate. This is due to human pressure - for planting rice, creating grassland for grazing zebu, timber for construction and making charcoal. Interestingly hardly any of the forest is replanted, and as a result there are miles and miles of barren landscapes; gully erosion is rife and one of  Madagascar's most serious environmental issues.

In some places though, there are hillsides of plantations - but guess which species? Eucalypts! (yet another marauding Australian species...) Apparently over 120 species have been planted here because they are good for their timber, are fast-growing and their leaves are used for medicinal purposes. Scarily, they are begining to take over the landscape. There are some pine and silky oak plantations too, but eucalypts dominate the landscape (in the few places where people have revegetated the miles and miles of barren, cleared hills. Its really disturbing how much has gone).
The national parks that protect much of the remaining forest have only secondary forest - most of the big trees are gone. It's a very fragmented system too, so there's no connections between most of them.

In many areas the traveller's palm is a dominant species, which grows rapidly and has flourished in areas where the forest has been destroyed. It's so named because it apparently always grows in a northerly direction, providing navigation, plus stores water inside, which can be accessed by thirsty travellers! This beautiful and unique plant is a national symbol of the country.

We continued to be amazed at the unique flora and fauna of this beautiful country. I just hope that the government sees fit to conserve it ... because if things continue they way they are, there soon won't be much of it left. And that makes me really sad.

Easter in Mangily & grossed out in Toliara

Besides having to sleep in its hospital, Mangily was a nice place to be for a few days! We had our ocean-facing bungalows; a champion host called Maurice that liked a drink or ten; hammocks to lounge about in; a beautiful beach to swim at; and G&Ts to slurp in the Mangily hotel up the road. We wandered around, up to Ifaty town, teasing the kids on our way, admiring the brightly painted pirogues, collecting shells, finding random things along the beach.

The main beach was packed on Easter Sunday - everyone was there: the beautiful young Malagasy girls in their bikinis; kids splashing around in the surf; families strolling along the beach; the pirogue captains making a week's wages in one day ferrying people back and forth from Ifaty village; young men impatiently awaiting the boxing match that day; the vazahas watching it all from their pricey hotels while they ate their overpriced food.

We headed to Toliara, a major town on the west coast of Madagascar, our jumping off point for heading east up Route Nationale 7. This town is nothing spectacular but we liked it - it was busy, colourful, with a bunch of old, weathered buildings and broken footpaths but a vibrant market and city centre. It was also useful for topping up the cash supplies and anything else we needed. A bit of civilisation was also good after our 'rural' adventures...

But 'civilisation' attracts vazaha. And there are plenty of them living in Toliara, as well as many other major Madagascan centres, as we soon found out. Most of them are old, fat, disgusting French men that drive around ON QUAD BIKES. What the?! Shorts and sneakers seem to be the normal attire - even to go out for dinner - and even worse, they get around with no shirts on during the day. They look ridiculous! Surely they must be aware of how they appear to the outside world - especially to other vazaha. But unfortunately the women they attract clearly don't. It made me feel so mad, and sickened, to see beautiful, young, willing Malagasy girlfriends (or prostitutes? I could never tell) hanging off their arms, dressed to the nines, clearly taking any opportunity they can get, but having to sacrifice any taste in men that they may have had.

When I compare the young, fit, good looking Malagasy men with these horrible, wrinkly old Frogs, I feel sad for the women; but of course they do whatever they can to improve their financial situation, for their own benefit and their families'. Most Malagasy men just don't have any money, which is what they need to attract a wife. And these vazaha, while gross, provide that for them - and of course are more than willing to accept offers of companionship from these beautiful African women. What man wouldn't? 

The truck ride from heeeeeellllll!

What started out as a nice, early morning ride, watching the light gradually come on as the sun rose over the spiky silhouettes of the euphorbia in the surrounding landscape, interspersed with magnificent baobabs, turned into a fun little adventure... of epic trucking proportions! (hmmm ... sorry for using the word epic, it's way too common these days).

First up, it took us around 1 1/2 hours to actually leave Morombe, the driver doing a few laps of town in the dark (4am!) to pick up the various passengers, the truck still quite empty. When we eventually left, the road was rather sandy and bumpy in places, and we rattled along, stopping here and there to pick up other passengers along the way, our driver getting out to chat to just about everyone in every little village. Eventually we reached quite a major town, where a number of people boarded - but we were grounded there for over an hour, loading onto the truck what seemed like over 50 bags of rice. Many of them were piled onto the roof, but once its capacity was reached, the bags were loaded underneath the seats. Not so good for our already cramped seating arrangements! The little wooden benches with their metal edges weren't so comfy, and we now had very little leg room for the remainder of the trip - and we completely underestimated how long that would be...

The scenery between villages was quite beautiful and helped to take our minds off our rapidly numbing legs: rice padis smattered with hard-working villagers, busily thrashing out the valuable seeds; large swathes of dry, prickly forest dotted with pregnant baobabs. But it passed quite slowly as we seemed to stop so frequently to pick up passengers, our socialite driver who knew anyone and everyone paying scant regard to getting on the road. Soon the truck was full, not only of people but of ducks, chickens and turkeys in large round cages. These also went up onto the roof, along with the other large items such as crates of bottles, suitcases and bicycles, and any spare feathered creatures were stuffed under the seats with the rice. At a guess there were around 100 chickens travelling with us! We had to stop a few times to make them a bit more comfortable, when their squawking became loud enough over the din of the reggae music blaring out of the speakers, the general chatter of the passengers and the revving of the engine.

From here we were really starting to feel the seats biting into our arses, the roughness of the crappy road, the whipping of the trees reaching into the windows, and the repetitiveness of the same reggae record being played over and over again. We asked our fellow passengers how long it would be til we reached Mangily, and they said 'only three more hours' - to our dismay. Night was falling and we were starting to feel a bit worried ...

A half-hour stop for an invisible obstacle that grounded 5 trucks on the road, a dinner stop and mechanical tinkering, and after what seemed a million years, we reached Mangily; not that we would have known it - in fact we almost missed it, the driver not realising we wanted to get off! - and we were dumped unceremoniously on the road in the middle of the night, our bags thrown down from the roof top. It was 1am on Easter Saturday. And what faced us? Darkness. Everything closed. A pumping nightclub, not the place we really wanted to sit until daybreak!

So we decided to head towards our the hotel and see if they would take us in. There were no street lights or signs, and we felt a bit lost about what to do next. We heard some singing coming from a nearby church, and headed towards it in our dazed and confused state, asking if anyone could help us with somewhere to sleep for the night. Thank goodness it was Easter Saturday, and that they were practicing for the big church service the next dayotherwise no-one would have been around at all! 

We were very grateful when one man came forward and said he was the security guard both at the church and the hospital up the road, and that there was a guard's room that we could stay in til sunrise. But we'd have to leave then, as foreigneres aren't usually allowed to crash there! Given it was 1:30am by this time, and all we wanted to do was stretch out and sleep this was a Godsend. (literally? Who knows.)

So we followed him up the sandy path to the hospital. It's not every day I can say that I spent Easter Saturday night sleeping in a hospital. They even had foam mattresses, a candle and a bathroom that we could use. Sweet!

We got up at first light the next morning, packed our bags, profusely thanked the security guards, handed them 10,000 Ariary and headed toward the beach. To our dismay when we arrived, the hotel was closed. Noooooooooo....! But to our delight, the old man watching the place said he could open up one of the bungalows for us; while it didn't have running water or electricity it was perfect - it looked out over the ocean, and had a well for water just up the hill. SOLD! We were happy with anything after our little trucking adventure. And so we settled in Mangily for a few days, to rest our weary bones. Phewwww....

More pirogue-ing - ocean style!

I've gotta say, I'm not so good at this relaxing caper. I get sick of it after about a day. It was time to leave Morondava; we clearly hadn't had enough of sitting in a cramped little wooden boat, so we decided that we would make our way down the coast to the little fishing village of Morombe in an ocean pirogue.

Farewell, Morondava, place of drunken evenings and lost cash ...

And so I find myself lying on the sail of our ocean pirogue, having set up camp for the night in a little fishing village called Ankevo. We are almost at the end of day one of a 3-4 day journey from Morondava to Morombe.

So, you think a sailing trip on an ocean pirogue, its white sail billowing in the wind while you cruise down the coast, past boat-building workshops, estuaries, sand dunes and villages, sounds nice and romantic?

Think again. When the wind has died, you're not going anywhere, the midday sun is beating down on your narrow boat with no comforts except a life jacket to sit on and your backpack to lean on, and little room to move, it's rather unpleasant! But... when the wind picks up, you're skipping along with the breeze at your back, watching the coastline pass slowly by, the small fishing pirogues out getting their daily catch, a dolphin or two leaping out of the water, it's simply grand.

Spending each night wrapped up in the sail of your boat, looking up at the stars, the wind blowing across your face while you drift off to sleep, is also a pretty special experience.

What I didn't expect was to see a fleet of fishing trawlers out raping the ocean, their metal arms protruding out aggressively, dragging their massive nets behind them. But I've forgotten about them now that we've landed, and Silver and Eric (our piroguese) are cooking the prawns and fish that we bought off the beach when we arrived.

We spent three days in our pirogue, cruising along each day, keeping an eye out for flying fish, pods of dolphins and jellyfish bobbing along the surface, watching the distant shore change slowly from small villages to coastal shrubs to huge sand dunes. We finally made it to Morombe at nightfall on the third day - and were we glad that the journey didn't last for four days! It was quite enough, thanks. I'm not sure my butt would have survived another day on those hard wooden planks. I was happy to stretch my legs in the knowledge that our next form of transport would be by road.

If only I'd known that this road journey would almost be as excruciating as three days in an ocean pirogue ...

Guavas, avocadoes, persimmons ...

locuts (which i haven't eaten, nor really seen, since I was a kid and my grandma had a tree)
custard apples
Chinese guavas (red, not yellow)
mandarins
bananas
apples
papaya
pineapple
jackfruit
passionfruit
rambutans
mangosteens! (my absolute FAVOURITE ... but a bit too expensive. D'oh!)

...and of course other random fruits I've never seen.

Theres even the fruit here that looks like it has armadillo skin; i remember it from Liberia, but I can't remember its name.

YUM!

Morondava and rhum arrange

Rhum arrange (n): the (in)famous Madagascan fruit-infused moonshine, with an alcohol content to knock your socks off.

Morondava: the location of a number of days of lounging around by the beach, staying in beautiful wooden bungalows, watching the fisherman bring in their catch, swimming, reading and relaxing.

We enjoyed the company of our new-found Japanese friends Kenta, You and Rie and their wonderful cooking habits, including charcoal-barbequed prawns and fish on the beach, and chicken hot-pot cooked inside their bungalow, out of the wind, the feathery remnants of the chicken still flying around the hotel grounds.

"When exactly are you leaving?" the bemused hotel staff asked them after they had plucked their unlucky feathered friend and attempted unsuccessfully to dispose of all of the feathers.

A Madagascan personality I won't forget in a hurry is Rasta Jean. The quietly spoken, over-relaxed rasta Malagasy owner of L'Oasis Bar and Hotel had certainly put in a lot of work on that head of dreads of his, not to mention his pot smoking habit. He'd also clearly practiced his 'legalise' song quite a lot, which he played a number of times in between the jam session of his loyal followers, all the while handing out free rhum shots to his guests in the front bar. These guests included myself and You, who had stayed in the bar long after Anna had taken a drunken Kenta home, but soon the guest numbers dwindled - especially after You took off as well, leaving me none the wiser in the bar after returning from the bathroom. So in defiance, I decided to stay, hanging out with a lovely English lass and her beautiful, dreadlocked, tall, muscly boyfriend, and convinced them to take me to the local nightclub with one of the best names ever: My Lord.

On arrival, after carving up the dance floor, attempting to dance African style, I headed to the bar and made instant friends with the bar girl by ordering a way-too-strong vodka, and a drink for her, when really I didn't need any more alcohol after all the shots of that lethal rhum that Rasta Jean had handed out.

So, my memories of the place after being behind the bar and talking to the cute guy that had followed me to the club were basically nil, and I woke up in a random house the next day, the bright sun shining in the open door, no-one around, my bag still over my shoulder. Unfortunately someone - whether it be the bar girl, the cute guy or some other random - had taken the liberty of removing all of the cash from my wallet after delivering me safely to the couch. But THANKfully, they had left me unharmed, and spared me my camera and credit cards. So everything was intact except my cash - and of course my dignity.

I stumbled around for a while, the elderly inhabitant paying me no attention, as if the sight of a disoriented vazaha woman in his house was a normal occurrence, and finally walked out into the hot sun and the local market before making my way back to concerned friends and a comfy bed.

Thank goodness Morondava was a good place to chill out for the next couple of days. I gradually got my dignity back, after a good sleep, an explanation of what I thought happened, and then those dreaded flashbacks which filled in some of the gaps. But not all of them.

Note to self: watch how much you drink on holiday.

Noted. Gratefully.

A day-trip out to sit amongst the ancient baobabs was one way to take my mind off the events of that evening. Getting there by motorbike certainly got the pulse racing, especially when the roads are not of the highest calibre, being sandy in many places, and the chances of stacking it are rather high. Anna may be a very competent rider, but the road in one place was no match for her! So over we went, luckily escaping any injuries nor damage to the bike. We visited the Baobab d'Amour, an unusual sight of two baobabs that had grown very close together and subsequently entwined themselves in each other's romantic embrace. Awwww....! Giving it an embrace of my own, I hoped that I might be more lucky in love! And of course the few hours we spent walking amongst giants, this time in the bright sunlight, was again a highlight of the trip. The Avenue really is a magical place.