WEATHER: Low of 13C – Tops of 28C
HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Interacting with some children today
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Can’t think of a single thing
BUYS OF THE DAY: Shop shop shop today – how about a Zebu bangle for 1.50AUD
WORD OF THE DAY: Misowcha – thank you
Good morning Antsribe!
The mornings seem to be a little cool at 13C and then by 10am it has warmed up to a beautiful 29C. I was up at 6.45am, for breakfast at 7.30am and we were on the road by 8.30am. Breakfast was again a luxurious affair. They had set up tables outside and inside, so I decided on outside and everything was bought out to me on white bone china, freshly squeezed juice, and my own vanilla tea pot again. Man I LOVE this stuff.
After being on the road for the first time yesterday and speaking to the Paris couple last night, it seems that the most popular way to see Madagascar is hire a guide/driver and car. I haven’t seen any tour buses or trucks, and I think it would be quite difficult for a large group to move around the country side anyway. I know Gap Adventures have some tours they run here, so it would be interesting to know how they do it. But I am not in the minority with my private tour, it is the norm. So you get to see the same people and guides at the same stops if your all going the same way, as we are all doing the same thing. I just feel naked not having a posse of some sort to hang with and wait for.
We had a few more things to see in Antsribe before leaving. Our first stop was a small house, where a man made miniature bicycles out of drink cans. You see these things getting sold all over the country, so it was pretty cool to see how they are made. The frame is made out of can, the spokes of the wheels is made from fishing line, the rim of the bikes are from plastic medical tubing and the middle of the wheel is made from brake line. The process to make a bike is 15 minutes and the wheel takes 2 minutes. He showed us the process from start to finish with the wheel and the man was a machine, I am guessing he has made a few in his time. The tools of his trade were a battery for the winding and size, a tin for the wrapping, a piece of wood for the tapping and a soldering iron for the joins. I was just going to buy a bike as I had seen all the work that had gone into it and guess what the prices was 5,000AR not even 3AUD!! Insane. But I didn’t get one, but instead bought 2 punch bugs that he also makes out of can and they were super cute also for 5,000AR, so I didn’t leave empty handed. Next door was the stitchers. They embroider anything that can be embroided and I met the guy who free draws on the cloth the pictures and then the women pick the colours and then get to work. It takes them 3 days to complete a small table cloth with about 20 pictures on it. They looked great, but I did hold back here and walked out with just my punch bugs.
Just up the road was the Zebu Horn art. A Zebu is like a cow, but has a hump behind its head. It is a very important animal to Madagascar as they are used for meat, horns, milked and used for transport. These demos can be hard at the best of time, let alone going on your own. It is tough when there is just you, normally you are there as a group and you have each other to feed off and other people to ask the smart questions. But it was just me so I walked in there prepared to be nice and ooohh and ahhh when required, but it turned out to be a super interesting demo. They showed me the process to get a spoon made out of a Zebu’s horn. Right from the start of boiling the horn to get the marrow out (it was disgusting and looked like another horn which they use for fertilizer) to then heating the horn to make it soft and pliable, to snipping it to the right shape, to putting it into a mold to get the right shape and then you have the basic spoon. Remembering that this is all using a Zebu’s horn. It then gets sanded down, buffed with dirt, more sanding and then buffed again with some oil and the spoon now looks amazing, it’s all shiny and looks like a piece of marble, exactly. It was so cool. Well you then get taken into to the shop and it was all black and shiny merchandise looking back at you. How can you say no? So I bought a horn bangle, 2 horn rings and a pair of horn earrings all for the grand price of 10AUD!!!! I tell you unless you know; you would never guess that the pieces have come from a Zebu. I guess your next question is customs in Australia. Well I ain’t going back for a while, so I will worry about that down the track, I don’t think they would like Zebu horn getting into the country.
Our last stop was a semi -precious stone shop. Not really sure what the point of this stop was. The whole 10 minute tour was in French, so I really had no idea on what was being said, but the rocks were really pretty and we were all given a free buffed rock and then we were able to pick our own rocks from a massive pile at the back of the shop. I had picked up 2 small blue quartz when the guide dude came over and saddled me up with like 7 different stones, so I wasn’t one to offend him and say no, so I have taken then and no-one understood when I cracked a joke about my excess baggage weight with all the rocks in it, but I got a laugh that they didn’t laugh, so it wasn’t wasted, nothing like laughing at your own jokes!!! J I also got to meet Alan’s brother here at the stone place, he is also a guide, and Alan was showing me off like a proud dad. There were a bunch of other guides there with their travellers and I think they were all comparing the boring ones to the fun ones. For the record nothing was bought here it was a little out of my price range.
Well that was Antsribe. We have 250km to travel today, and even though that doesn’t sound much, when you see what National Highway 7 looks like, you can see why it took us 7 hours! Most places you are lucky to hit 4th gear and maximum speed generally is 40km. It is a slow process, but I don’t mind, as it gives you a better chance to see things and to also photograph things. Poor Alan, every time I pull my camera out for a shot he slows down so I can get it before accelerating again. I have told him to not worry, if he did that every time I take a photo it would take a week for us to get anywhere, but he doesn’t really understand and keeps doing it, so bless him and hopefully he will just jack of it and just stop doing it in a few days’ time.
There doesn’t seem to be as many trucks and cars on the road today. There is always the local taxi’s on the road. They are generally Toyota Hi-Aces or larger people movers and they are always crammed with people with their belongings strapped to the roof. They just stop anywhere anytime to pick up people and to drop people off. The goods on the roof vary from live chickens, to motorbike and mopeds to gallons of water all strapped to the roof. It is amazing that things don’t fall off, well maybe they do but we haven’t seen that yet. We have seen 2 accidents, one yesterday where a truck missed a bend and ran off the road and today a 2 car accident. The accident was long done, but they have just left the vehicles where they had stopped and not a sole was around. Alan said they have all gone to the police station, but nothing like clearing up an accident to avoid another one.
Driving along, and only at 40km, you do get to notice a lot more. There are lots of children by the road, all playing, or sitting or unfortunately working. Seriously there are children carrying massive loads of firewood, bricks or water and they would be no older than 7 or 8 years old. I know it is their way of life and they know no better, but it is tough to see it in this day and age happening when they should be at school learning and hoping for jobs when they get older. But I am not one to judge, for all we know their family rely on them to do these jobs whether for the family unit or for the money, but they are children. Another thing I have noticed is that not many people wear shoes. They are all barefoot. I would have to say 80% of people in the country don’t wear shoes. So they are walking on the road, rocks, gravel and in the bush with no shoes on. Once again I guess their feet are hardened to the ground but it was another observation that just lets you know just how poor the country is that they don’t even wear shoes.
We arrived into Ambositra at 11.30pm and before lunch we made our last craft stop for the day at a wood art place. It is like applique but using wood. So we walked around to the back and I watched this guy make a small heart pendant. He started by stenciling on a piece of thin wood a love heart. He then used a small hacksaw hooked up sideways to a holder to cut out the heart. He then traced the heart onto another piece of wood of a different colour and then cut a hole the same size and shape of the heart. He then inserted the heart into that hole, glued it in, sanded it up, punched a hole and wallah you had a 2 toned heart pendant. It was pretty cool and I got to keep the piece to which I tipped 2AUD and walked away with a small piece of original art. They obviously do larger pieces and more intricate but it gave a quick overview on the process from start to finish. Well their shop was amazing needless to say. There were a lot of large boxes and pictures mainly which were far too big for me, but I did find some secret boxes, the ones that you have to find the secret slide on the box for it to open. Alan and I couldn’t find it so we had to get one of the staff to show us and then I bought it for 5AUD with some wood applique on the front. It is a pretty box in my defence. Lunch was at a local hotel where I had Zebu steak and fries before getting back on the road.
The scenery just gets better the further we move on. We are still seeing a lot of rice paddies and mud paddies that they make the bricks from. It looks like every piece of land is used for some form of agriculture, no land goes to waste and the views are amazing as we drive. Alan has stopped a few times at great points for me to get some photos (a smoke break for him as well) and each time you stop, there is a flurry of little people as they come over and say hello. Some of them try and ask for pens or lollies but once you say no they stop asking and just want to touch you and look at you. I got some great photos of kids at 2 of the stops we did and they are just always so smiley and happy to just look at you. Bless them and they don’t mind having their photo taken and haven’t yet learned to ask for money for it, I hope it stays that way.
We turned off National Highway 7 and entered the Ranofana National Park at 4pm. We still had 30 minutes to drive, but the scenery as you would expect, is not rice paddies for the first time in 2 days as we are now in national park land. It is protected rainforest covering 41,000 hectares, so now we are driving by tall trees overhanging the road and also less traffic on this road and quite bumpy and slow going at times.
We arrived at the hotel at 4.30pm. Alan was off to the village to organize a guide for my walk in the National Park tomorrow to go Lemur spotting, so with a good-bye and a meeting time of 8am tomorrow morning I headed up to my room. The hotel is on the side of a hill and I was on the second top tier having to climb 2 sets of long stairs. Thank goodness I don’t need to carry my bag, as soon as you pull up there is a bag guy there to take it to your room. I do tip them and only 1AUD; I hope that that is enough? This accommodation was also a self-standing bungalows the size of a large lounge room. I certainly cannot complain on the size of the rooms. No internet here, so I sat outside and listened to the river babble away as I typed up the day’s before blog. HOORAY – I am nearly up to date which is an awesome feeling.
Dinner was at 7pm. The sun goes down here around 6.15pm and at 6.50pm the power went off. It was pitch black, but I am lucky I decided to bring my torch, I left my head lamp at the hotel in Tanna, but a last minute decision to bring the torch paid off. I did see a torch beam shine outside not long after the power went out, so I think they were just making sure I had some form of light, as I had to climb back down those stairs for dinner in the dark if not and that would have been very challenging! I’m not sure how they did it, but the food was hot and cooked properly when I go there just after 7pm. They had candles on all the tables, so there was enough light and very romantic if you had some-one to share it with. I had remembered my book, so I sat by candlelight my book and I and had a scrumptious meal of crème of carrot soup, Zebu steak and rice and nougat ice-cream stuff that was a little too sweet for me. This meal was a little more simple, but we are in a national park but you couldn’t take away the taste, it was delicious! As I was about to leave at 8pm the power came back on, so great timing for my stair climb back to my room. It must happen a fair bit as there are candles and matches in the room I discovered when I got back, but I didn’t have to use them in the end which was good. I did take a minute to look up into the night and see the magnificent stars all sparkling down on me. When there are no street lights and no room lights, it really makes you appreciate the night sky. It is a shame that not everyone gets an opportunity like that to just take it all in and think if there are other life forms doing the same thing on a different planet. Will we ever know?
I’m off to bed to rest up, as I want to move it move it tomorrow with some lemurs.
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