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.