Crossing Madagascar

The journey continued with Air Madagascar taking us from Antananarivo (Tana) in the East across the central mountains which span the length of the country to Tulear in the South West with a stop off at Port Dauphin (we are still not sure where this is). We were pleased to collect all our bags and were met at the airport by Doug, another ReefDoctor volunteer.

As it is the nearest main town to where we will be staying, Doug showed us around the main streats of Tulear, where to get cash, use wifi, buy chocolote, etc. It seems relatively pleasant and calm compared to the overcrowded intensity of Tana, the main form of transport being pousse-pousse (man or bike led rickshaws) rather than cars.

The final leg of our journey was taxi-brousse. We had been warned that this would be somewhat of an experience but when we had negotiated our price and climbed in the back, I didn't think it was so bad. There were ten people and a couple of young children sat on benches along the side of a kind of covered pick up truck. Our bags were strapped to the roof and people tried to sell us samosas through the holes in the side whilst we waited to set off. However within a couple of minutes they had managed to squeeze in another ten people, filling every available inch of space and we could start to see what everyone had been talking about! On the plus side though this taxi-brousse did pump out some lively African music to keep everyone's spirits up.

The brousse was headed along the very bumpy road/ track to Ifaty, the local village next to where we are staying. Unfortunately due to the fact that the music was on super-max volume we couldn't get the driver's attention to stop at ReefDoctor. When it did stop a mile of so later and they asked us where we were going the conversation went something like:

Driver: "Vous allez ou?"
Leila: "Reef Doctor"
Driver: "Ifaty?"
Leila: "Reef Doctor"
Driver: "Ifaty?"
Leila: "Reef Doctor"
All on bus: "Ahhhhh, c'est passé!"

The driver did sort us out with another brousse to drive back the other way at least.

Anyway we made it.

Flying to Antananarivo

So day one and we have arrived in Madagascar at the beginning of nine months of travels.  After a hectic week of moving all our belongings into storage and getting our heads around packing for three months of rustic conditions, we flew to Antananarivo via Amsterdam and Nairobi. Stopping over in Nairobi airport whilst the terrorist siege of the Westgate Shopping Centre siege was ongoing made for a tense atmosphere, espectially as there had been arrests there yesterday. There was also recently a fire at the airport and it looked like operations were running from tents on the tarmac and the transfers were being organised from a whiteboard but in the end it all seemed pretty normal and flights were typically uneventful!

On arrival to Antananarivo we were prepared for things to start to get a little more interesting and it felt horribly unlikely that all our baggage would actually have made it. But sure enough it was fine, the only hiccup was that the police officer had stamped one of our passports with a date from twenty days ago. Fortunately we noticed this and got it adjusted, but you do wonder how many stamps have been wrong!

Antanarivo is the capital of Madagascar and is on the east of the island. We are staying for just one night before flying on to Toliara in the west, so just had an afternoon to explore the city. Our taxi driver, Monsieur Black, who wears a bright pink polo shirt with no front teeth, took us into town past rice paddies and busy traffic whilst rickshaws and zebu-drawn carts seemed to be overtaking us. An hour or so walking around the streets was enough to get a feel for the place before the busyness and persistent hawkers became tiring.

We stayed at Hotel Sakamanga (Blue Cat) and enjoyed dinner at its popular restaurant. Chocolate fondue seemed liked an over indulgence but we kept telling ourselves that our diet would be much more restricted in the months to come! We now just have to hope that Monsieur Black turns up at 0430 for our early morning flight out...