WEATHER: Low of 15C and a High of 34C
HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: The scenery change was amazing an unexpected
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Can’t really think of a single thing
BUYS OF THE DAY: My hand made silk scarf for 12AUD
WORD OF THE DAY: Vilooma - goodbye
I really miss the PFT’s. I have an idea on what we are doing each day by my itinerary, but it changes slightly each day, which I’m okay with, but you just never know how busy your day is going to be and just how far we are going and when we are expected to arrive. In saying that I have taken it all in my stride, as Alan is really a nice guy, it’s not his fault I can’t speak Malagasy or French is it?
So I wake up in my miniature A-frame house at 6.45am and head to breakfast at 7.30am. I have to say all but the first breakfast have been a little ordinary, or it could just be a Malagasy thing. There is juice, yogurt, spreads and bread, but the bread I think maybe left overs from the day before as it toasted the crap out of and then sits in the bread basket waiting for your arrival, so it is over toasted cold bread. I’m not talking of the burnt type but of the fall to bits when you try and butter it type. Well I do need to keep up my strength and it is included to I eat like a bird and when I’m finished there is a million crumbs all over the place, but that’s not my fault right?
Our first stop this morning was only a 10 minute drive from the hotel to a tea plantation. When we arrived there was a mini coach that had just unloaded its passengers, so here was a tour that I wouldn’t be doing all on my own. Well they were French tourists and the whole tour was in French. The funny thing is having Alan as my translator was hilarious as he didn’t know the English words for half of the commentary the tea guide told us, so my tea tour came down to seeing the leaves after they were picked, they use a different machine for the black tea v the green tea, it gets dried in a massive drier and then through some machines from what I gathered refines it all and the wallah you get your end product. I guess if it was all in English I probably would have written something very similar and it wasn’t lack of Alan trying, he was listening so hard to try and get the translation right. Oh well we enjoyed a cup of tea at the end of the 30 minute tour and that you don’t need any conversation. On our way back to the car, I said to Alan it’s a shame we don’t get to go into the plantation to see the plants, and he said why not. So we only had to walk 5 minutes out the gates and there was the plantation. As usual the second your out of the car, a flock of children appear from no-where, I swear I have no idea where they all come from, so they were talking and asking my name and where I’m from when I asked Alan to get my Bernstar jump in the tea plantation, and then got an idea and got all the kids to do the jump with me, why not, and they were more than happy to oblige. I got a great photo with me and 12 kids jumping in the tea plantation, so it made up for lack of info on the tour. One for the books with my group jumps and the one I got with the 60 kids in Uganda at the equator, which will be a tough jump to beat.
So back onto the bumpy road to travel 15km in 60 minutes back to national highway 7. The traffic / people coming in yesterday to this morning was very different. A lot of people yesterday were heading home after a day at work, generally with hoes or spades slung over their shoulders and walking. This morning it looked like it was a market day for the firewood. We passed around 15 carts (also called varumba’s – they look like go carts) getting pushed along the track / road. It is tough going for them as it was all up hill, the road dodgy as well and they had anything from 5-10 sacks piled on these carts. So let’s say they are even 5kg each (the bags are massive) then they could be pushing 25-50kg uphill on a thing as big as a go cart. They all had 2-6 people pushing these things and it looked like hard yakka. But it’s the only way to get stuff around and I can now see where the road side stalls get there business, we would pass carts that had stopped and they were buying drinks from these sellers – which I am sure is definitely well deserved. Just think they have to get the carts to the village to start with to be able to pick up the stuff, so they are on a round trip already by 9am. What time do they start to even get there?
I think Madagascar is still finding its tourism feet. We all have to start somewhere and I think the Malagasy people are still to get used to seeing vazzar (white people) travelling through their villages. In Africa we stood out like a sore thumb in our massive Intrepid truck, so people could see us coming a mile away. It’s different here as there are no massive tourism trucks, most cars are 4WD, so it is only when you get close enough and they look in to see a white face looking back do they stare at you. I now have Selama (hello) down pat and that seems to break the ice. They have such serious faces till you wave or say hello and then their smiles are as bright as a morning sunrise. They never instigate a wave, but if you wave to them they are happy to wave back with big smiles and flapping arms.
After a few hours’ drive we arrived into the 2nd largest city in Madagascar, Fianarantosa. I was supposed to do an old town tour here today, but I actually come back to this city and stay a night on my way back, so we have made a decision to do that on the way back. Fine by me. But we did take an opportunity to go to a look-out that had a magnificent view over the whole town. I rekon we would have been 2000m up. There were children up there when we arrived, trying to sell us postcards, but when they figured out I wasn’t going to buy they dropped the seller persona and asked my name and where I am from. Their English was impeccable and they also are taught other languages at school, so they could speak Malagasy, French, English and Spanish and one girl could also speak Italian!! They were shocked to find out I only spoke English, well didn’t I feel like a dumb dumb! I asked why they weren’t at school and they work on the French schooling system and they are on holidays from July till the 15th October, summer holidays I guess. Madagascar’s future lies with these kids and they were smart and polite and I left with a good feeling after speaking with them.
After we left Fianarantosa the scenery really started to change as we left the brick and rice paddies behind, the lay of the land started to dry up, not as green and lush and large mountains started to appear. We also passed some vineyards; mmm wonder what Malagasy wine tastes like? I may have to see if I can find a drop somewhere in the next few hotels and give it a rating.
Lunch was spent in a town called Ambalavao. We got a chance to stop at a silk shop beforehand. The girl walked me through the process from start to finish on how they make and colour the silk and then the final product of course in the sales shop. Just to see it all hand-made and how much longer it takes to make things, to buy the final product for peanuts just seems wrong! But I did buy a beautiful silk scarf for 12AUD; you know to help the local community and all. I think Alan is now starting to see why I will need to see a post office towards the end of the trip to send all my goodies home. Lunch was a simple affair and we haven’t been fluffing around over lunch, we sit down, we order, we eat, we pay and then we leave – we have been getting a turnaround in 30-45 minutes. No use wasting a perfectly good day.
The restaurant backs onto a papyrus factory. It is hard to call these places factories, as they look like a mum and dad project in the back yard or a small business out of home, but it gets the job done, so I guess it doesn’t really matter where they do it. Alan walked me through the paper making process from plant to finished product and the end product was beautiful. It is papyrus paper that is decorated with local flora and fauna. Lucky for my wallet, that the shop was closed till 2pm, but Alan said we will have time to stop here on the way back, which will be good as it looked like they had some nice notebooks, which I would like to get.
Before leaving Ambalavao, today being Wednesday, it is Zebu market day. So Alan asked if I wanted to go. Hell yeah. So we only had to drive 10 minutes which got us to the Zebu yard and we got out. It was an amazing place. There was hundreds of Zebu, most of them in a massive pen that had hundreds of people in there all looking, talking and bargaining for a Zebu. Al rekons that they go for around 350USD an animal, which is like 600,000AR which is a crap load money for them. The ‘pen’ that the Zebus were penned in needed some work and as we were waling the 400m along it, some of the Zebu busted out, well you haven’t seen 2 people move so fast onto the other side of the fence as quick as Al and I did!! It was funny to watch the herders trying to keep track of their animals, with some trying to do a runner or join another group and then the herder running after it. It was a bit slap stick looking and we were getting a god laugh. Well until we got to a corner on our way our and 2 Zebus came charging around the corner with herder in tow. I got stuck between the Zebu and the railings and I all my wild life training in Africa paid off, I stood stock still no scream and waited for the beasts to pass me. OMG, I nearly had a heart attack, but I survived. No sign of Alan, the save yourself rule I see applies in his book. Good to know and mental note taken. It was an awesome 45 minutes spent there. I would have loved to have gone to the top of the massive pen, but as Alan reminded me, it may get a little dangerous up there with so many Zebus’ and after that episode, I have to agree. The last thing we saw was a stubborn Zebu trying to get led out of the pen, he was like a donkey and not moving an inch and there were 6 grown men pushing and pulling this poor Zebu to whatever fate awaited him. I still got some magic photos of this, so it was a great way to finish off our visit to Ambalavao.
So back on the road again at 2pm. Each day has been beautiful blue skies and not a cloud to be seen. I am starting to get a truckers tan on my right arm, but know I will be able to even the tan on the return journey. Being in the front seat also, my face is getting browner by the day and my left arm does get some sun, so I am not too lopsided. The scenery is now reminding me of Namibia. The rocky mountains are exactly like Spitzkoppe, but on a larger scale. With the blue sky, the yellowing dry grass, some green paddies and the grey of the mountains, my photos are MAGNIFICENT. It makes for some great pictures. The next 2.5 hours was of this scenery and I didn’t get tired looking at it once. As we are now well and truly in the ‘country’ based on no cell phone reception and no radio signal for our tunes. So when this happens I pull out my IPod and play some tunes from its speakers to keep us jiving while driving. Alan and I try and guess the singers name when a new song comes on, so we have a competition on who gets it first. The roads have started to straighten up a little now, well when we aren’t climbing mountain ranges) and we even got to 80km today as a maximum speed, woo hoo let loose Alan!! But there is less traffic on the road and the only ones we saw today were some large trucks and the local taxis also called taxi brousse to get locals and their goods around the countryside.
We left the national highway around 3.30pm and we only had 25km to get to the hotel, where we were going to spend the next 2 nights. Well with a stop to pay for a road tax and one to pay the national park fee. It took us 90 minutes to travel 25km. I am not sure where the road tax has been going, but the road, no dirt track, was in terrible condition and some of it was made out of the granite of the huge mountains we have been following for the last few hours. Alan did an amazing job navigating us over some pretty hairy bridge crossings and massive pot holes to get us safely to Camp Catta at 4.30pm. WELL DONE ALAN. That was a tough day’s drive. The hotel is at the base of one of the massive granite mountains and every time I look out from the bar I just see massive rock faces. It really is a beautiful spot and definitely worth the drive for 2 nights. You certainly wouldn’t do all that driving for 1 night that is for sure. We get to spend the day in the national park tomorrow and form what I have made out it maybe a whole day of hiking!!! Hmmm considering I am not a hiker, I will need to check with Alan just how involved the hike is – I don’t want to get stuck on a cliff face and have to be rescued by Heliflight or the Malagasy equivalent and make national TV here. No thanks – I better check that.
There are campers here tonight with their tents pitched. They look a little soft as they are pitched under cute little tin roofs. Ahhh the memories, I had a good gander at one that was unzipped as I walked past and they seemed to have a pretty good set up in there. Oh well on I walked to my free standing A-frame for the next 2 night’s, with private facilities, 2 beds, a mozzie net over the beds and electricity between 5.30 and 9.30pm tonight. There doesn’t seem to be anywhere to charge my appliances though, so I will need to check with the bar re: this.
Dinner was pre-ordered as we checked in. It has been like this at all my stops and some of them have how many serves are left, so if you don’t get in first I would imagine you have what is left. They give you an option of three things per course. It is a little hit and miss for me as Alan’s English translation of the foods is a little general. So for main I had a choice of rabbit, zebu tongue or pasta – no guesses on what my pick was, sorry I am not going to try zebu tongue, no way. Pasta ended up being 2 minute noodles with veggies and omlette through it which is fine, but isn’t not technically pasta right? Our tables are numbered by our room numbers, I guess this helps them with who is here and who isn’t, but I like the idea as you know where you are sitting without having to look around the restaurant like an idiot to find somewhere to sit.
I had to charge my camera battery in the restaurant, as they have no power points in the A-frames. They have sort of like a charging station you can plug into, which is pretty cool. I also go the guide who takes the hikes come over during dessert. The hike is 6 hours tomorrow. He says it’s nice and flat and you hope to lemurs, water pools, a walk through a local village, cascade waterfalls where you have lunch and then back to camp. It sounds pretty good, and really what else is there to do in the national park, suck it up princess, I’m going hiking tomorrow for 6 hours! Lord even the gorillas was 3 hours. Yeah let’s just see how flat and easy it is, looking out and seeing granite mountains and hills surrounding us.
I was finished dinner by 8.01pm ( yes Intrepid, I waited till after 8pm), and I was stuffed, so I headed back to my room to make the most of the power till 9.30pm. Well I didn’t have to wait too long as I fell asleep reading and woke up at 9pm. I couldn’t be bothered getting out of my mozzie netted bed to turn off the light knowing that the power was going to be switched off at 9.30 anyways, so I just rolled over and went back to sleep.
Another amazing day in Madagascar and I have now seen the terraced paddies, small villages, bustling cities, national parks and now the beautiful granite faced mountains. The many faces of Madagascar all seen in one day. She certainly is a beautiful country.
No comments:
Post a Comment