Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
We've done a lot since the last entry. However as we have been travelling around, Dad won't get his luggage until tonight with just 3 nights to go for him - but he's very resourceful so the couple of shirts and shorts have been enough!
Angelo has been our guide who has been excellent and I would highly recommend him if anyone wants a guide in Madagascar. He has good English, is very keen to improve and also learn other languages to try and get more work. It's actually a very quiet time of year for tourists - we've seen very few others here. So he hasn't got much work on for the rest of the year.
So we left Tana along the N7 surprisingly good road. All through very fertile land where lots of vegetable and rice was growing. In fact it could have been parts of Asia with terraced rice fields which I haven't seen in such large amounts at all in Africa before. The houses here are made of home made red brick and often two storey with thatched roofs. The farmers appear still poor but healthy and clearly work incredibly hard.
The families have tombs set just outside their house where the family relatives are buried. Ancestors remains are very important to the Malagasy people.
Stopped a couple of times to enjoy the view (sorry no pictures as on my camera, must remember to take more on the phone) and as has been the case you become inundated with children turning up from no where. Taking pictures and showing them still creates a lot of laughs and seeing a white older man with grey hair (Dad) and big hat caused a lot of laughter! I have since found they are wondering if he is my husband!! So we were soon saying our one word in Malagasy, Salama - hello.
We then arrived Antsirabe - place of much salt. An agricultural and industrial centre and the local beer THB is brewed here. A bustling town full of rickshaws- or Pousse-Pousse as they are called here. We had a traditional Malagasy lunch of zebu (Dad) and fish (me). Very tasty and pretty cheap - about £10 for both of us with drinks!
We had a bit of a tour around after lunch, including a number of local crafts people - paper making, silk spinning, zebu horn artefacts and miniature cars and bikes made out of waste - you felt slightly obliged to buy something but it wasn't hard as it was lovely stuff, good value and you knew the money went straight to the craftspeople. We also went to look at some of the old French colonial buildings. - a grand hotel and railway station. Then the pousse-pousse back along the road. An old man pulled us both along and then Dad had ago which caused a few laughs!
Hotel (Le Retrait) was basic but clean. We weren't that brave so headed back to the same place we had lunch for an early dinner and discovered they had free wifi. Never far away from emails! But it was slow so not much contact. As it was an early dinner we were back at the hotel early - with nothing to do so we both watched a couple of episodes of Bones on my iPad as neither of us had seen it before..very bazaar watching sat on my bed. Good old technology.
Next day after a brief stop at a beautiful lake that you could easily imagine the French colonials picnicking here. The temperature was warm with a breeze but not hot. Locals were playing boules very seriously. We did a bit of a walk to stretch our legs (we haven't done much exercise) but not the whole 5km circumference.
Then a long drive to the hottest place in Madagascar -Miandrivazo and it was hot. No idea how hot but high 30s maybe even into 40s.
The hotel - Rasalimo, was pretty basic again, but clean. We arrived for lunch (see photo)- had beautifully fresh whole Tilapia, chargrilled in the hotel outside bar area. Although on a hill and there was a breeze it was incredibly hot. We gulped down a cold beer and water while Angelo went to the town to sort out the paperwork to go on the river and spent the afternoon reading.
We ordered dinner - chicken (so they killed one for us I think). We showered again (but instantly sweated when we got out) and went for dinner in a power cut before they got the enervate up and running again. There was only one other couple - Dutch I think staying here. The temperature didn't feel like it had dropped at all in the evening. Thank goodness we had fans in our rooms, but even with the fan on all night neither of us got much sleep due to heat.
But next morning about 6.30am we headed down to the river with all our stuff being pushed down in a hand pulled cart to start our river trip down the Tsiribihina River. (see photos). The river was very brown/red due to the erosion of the soil around. It was really bustling with locals washing, women and children in one area and men in another but refreshingly no one was that worried about being partly naked in public - it was just part of day to day life and a time to get together and gossip. Most of them also washed their clothes at the same time. Water was also collected, which was then filtered through baskets to make it clearer. Lots of dug out canoes stopping off dripping people off including kids from nearby villages to go to school and picking up others.
Soon Jean-Claude , our boat man turned up in what looked like a too small dug out canoe for the four of us and our luggage (all camping, food (see photo of chickens) and our bags - excluding Dads of course). But we got all loaded up and got in ungracefully to the amusement of everyone around.
The canoe was surprisingly stable and very peaceful with Jean-Claude paddling (he must be incredibly fit), Angelo doing a bit every know and again and Dad also doing a bit (I had a go but I wouldn't say any more than that). The river was shallow, we had navigate around to avoid getting stuck in the sand. The routine over the two and half days was early start - up at 5.30, in the river by 6.30 and then stop for lunch to be prepared at about 10.30, then off again about 12.30 until about 5ish. So long days in the African sun (hence my red nose despite sun cream and hat wearing and when it got really hot using a parasol to keep the sun off). In the afternoons progress was slower as the wind got up but this made it less hot. In total we went 150km so a long way - towards the sea so at least with the current. But we got to see three different types of lemurs - jumping massive distances between trees aswell as smaller ones up close near the river edge ignoring us. Very David Attenborough! Also lots of birds, bats and chamelians.
At night we camped on sand banks, a tent each and Angelo prepared beautiful fresh, tasty food for lunch and dinner- staggering considering where we were. We did some help putting the tents up but we were basically taken care of the whole time.
The stars were beautiful and very little mozzies or other nasty creatures . Although i did manage to gt a frog in my tent with me one night. Clearly no toilets - just the sand and on the second night I put my bikini on and washed in the river and my shorts local style. Although sandy I think the river was quite clean and we only saw two small crocodiles on the whole trip!
Lunchtimes we stopped near very remote villages, kids everywhere again - playing in the river, eating mangoes - it's the start of he mango season and mango trees are heavily laden with green mangos. In fact I played doctor at one lunch stop as one boy had a nasty cut on his head by thowing rocks at the trees to get the mangoes to come down - and one landing on his head. Not sure what good I did but I trimmed his hair around it, cleaned out with antibacterial wipes and put some cream on it.
We saw no other tourists on the river although I'm sure it's busier earlier in the year. The river varied as you might expect over that distance - one area was through an impressive gorge, different types of forests, tabacco growing areas and big rock cliffs. At one lunch stop we walked up to a stunning waterfall with clear water pool so we stripped off to our underwear (thank goodness for M&S sensible cotton pants I bought for the trip) and swam in the pool and showered under te waterfall. So refreshing after the time in the river and all the sand we camped on.
Free lunch on the third day we pulled in to the end point. We hung around for a couple of hours (in a resting area for boatmen) to get out of the heat of the day. Then a cart was loaded up with all our stuff, two zebu yoked up and on top of all our luggage, Dad and I clambered on for a 5km very bumpy journey to the next big village. A young lad was driving us on what wasn't even a track at times - through dips and streams. Probably our most unsafe and uncomfortable mode of transport (and still hot) but unique and worth doing. We arrived at he large village of Antseraraka to spend the night. A very simple guest house, no electricity or running water but welcome buckets of water to shower and flush the loo with. Another hot night and Dad woke up with a cockraoch inside his mossie net in the pitch black of the middle of a very hot night - which caused some panicing!!
The next morning, a relaxing start and Dad and I walked the length if the village. Again the only tourists around. We then set off in a 4x4 on dirt roads taking our time I arrive at the avenue of baobab trees (see picture) just before sunset when you get the best pictures. Staggering beautiful and unique setting that feels like it should be a world heritage site. A few other tourists around but not a lot.
Then onto Morondova, a laid back beach town where we stayed in what now felt like luxury - the Baobab Cafe Hotel. Hot showers, air con and a bar and restaurant overlooking estuary. We found our flight back to Tana had been pushed back a few hours (and later found out his included three stops so the 1 hour flight took four hours - in a 737 air Madagascar plane with no allocated seating so free for all!). So we had a relaxing morning including a lovely walk along he beach over looking the Mozambique channel. Stretches of clean white sand and warm blue water.
So If you've got this far - wel done, a long entry and written on my iPhone so probably full of spelling and grammar errors so apologies.
- comments