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.