Mora Mora Madagascar

I’ve been avoiding writing an entry for Antananarivo. I’m not sure if it has to do with the fact that it coincided with my first experience of severe heartburn, the imposing mood of a fellow traveller who’d passed his best-before date days before and had reached tipping point, or the stroll around a lake filled with gunk and which was generally quite ugly. Whatever it may have been, I just wasn’t convinced when we arrived and left unconvinced.

In all honesty I am somewhat allergic to cities. This allergy has gotten more severe in my older age and I suspect it will intensify as I get genuinely old. Like many other cities around the world, it comes with crowds, disparity, dirt, noise, traffic and inflated prices. The best thing it did for me was provide me with a pharmacy so I could treat my rum-induced heartburn and provide me with a remarkably cheap top-notch French meal at Kudeta.

Otherwise, the most excitement I got was from doing the tourist thing and visiting the curio market to blow over Ar100 000 in an hour. That bought me things like wooden bowls, earrings, a crocodile skin wallet (not for me), a hat, a basket and other such useless pleasures. I think the pleasure had more to do with spending my money on something other than accommodation, beer and zebu brochettes.

It’s not a bad city…but it’s not an allergy-defying one either.

On our way to Tana from Antsirabe, we stopped at Lake Tritriva. Admittedly, our double walk down to the lake and a fantastic swim redeemed the last leg of the trip.

The last day saying goodbye to Zina:

Veloma, Madagascar! You are beautiful (even with excessive cyclone-induced rain, persistent stomach bugs and mosquitoes in the millions.)

I even feel slow. It’s a pity about the cyclone, but had we got the train, most of the nature part of this trip would have been compromised and we probably would have complained about the 12 hours the train took anyway despite what was meant to be spectacular scenery.

Tomorrow we hit Tana a day early. It’s too late to go somewhere new. We could be regretful, but we did pick rainy season to travel in and we feel we’ve seen enough to feel full.

I like the Malagasy people. I believe they’ve made me slower and I like the fact that they defy time with its accompanying irritation, frustration, impatience and at times, rudeness.

Going against an unfortunate recommendation to avoid Zebu, that’s pretty much what we ate. Zebu is just a misleading name for what look like Nguni cows or the sacred herds in India (from which they are actually descended). They taste fine, if not a little more precise. A Zebu brochette (skewer) with Pomme Fritte (fries) is the safest option and generally quite satisfying (unless it’s yesterday). Otherwise, if you’re me, you’ll eat copious amounts of Cantonnais (I presume Cantonese) rice i.e. fried rice with veggies and your choice of Poulet (not recommended), Zebu, Porc or Crevettes (we are not on the coast), and at times, My Sao, a version of Chinese noodles.

The pizza is disagreeable, we had too much everything-in-tomato-broth on the dhow to opt for Malagassy food and our first three days of solid baguettes and Laughing Cow meant that this option got exhausted.

I have been sick. It’s still a mystery as to its source, but seeing the Zebu at the “Butcher Shops” does make me slightly suspicious. I just pretend that even in the smallest towns, in a country where electricity is an absolute luxury and fridges are as valuable as Zebu, that my Zebu or beef was stored somewhere cold until I ate it and not in a kiosk-style store on the side of the road, covered in flies and fermenting in sticky heat.

My kind sister-at-home-with-internet confirmed a cyclone ...Not that we needed much confirmation. The sky fell down, Chicken Lickens across the land got drenched and drowned and the wind howled and gusted like there was no tomorrow. There wasn’t. We couldn’t even see it and drove north into perspective as quickly as we could.

It kind of sucked to pass beautiful places when the sky cleared a little, only to head in the direction of what essentially equates to home, but so be it. We stayed in Ambositra for the last two nights. It’s a quaint and picturesque spot on its outskirts and bustling and nudging at its centre, but there’s not much to do other than look at a few wood carving curio shops, eat more Zebu and drink more beer (if you’re too lazy to walk into the country or visit the wood carving villages in the area).

We relented and took one of the rickshaws (pousse-pousse) back to our guesthouse after another Zebu and Pomme Frite meal. I'm not sure how to feel about this. It ended up being an awkward blend of one part privileged guilt, one part reassurance that we're keeping some Ambositra folk in business.

We’re now in Antsirabe, the next major town before Tana. It’s unremarkable, but we did experience our first rays of sun in over a week. I have a headache. And a bag full of curios that may not seem so quaint in a few weeks time.

Today, we did a 10km walk through the south part of I’Isalo. It was brilliant and a welcome relief after the leeches. It’s dryer, more rugged, more expansive and we only saw two bugs the whole day…my kind of thing…Additionally, there were some awesome streams, waterfalls and pools in the gorges between the canyon sandstone mountains…places I’d do anything to visit with more time to spare and without a guide. While I fully get the idea of having a guide, a 3 hour hike usually takes 6, especially because one stops for every plant and creature and gets a full explanation, description and a name in French, Malagassy and Latin.

It rained. Obviously. But not badly.

• **

It’s raining heavily now, which likely has something to do with the cyclone passing the south-west coast and hitting us directly.

Scrabble.

Jayne: 271….281
Carolyn: 285…275

It’s now 6 hours later. Even Noah’s Arc is offended.

I believe we got in the better half of our trip sorted before the rain got awkward. To put it in perspective, Zina, who has lived in Tana all his life and been driving south for 11 years, said that he has never experienced a week of solid rain like this. Normally, like JUST before we arrived, daytime temps reach 40 and “the rainy season” consists of expected afternoon rain/thunderstorms. We have mid winter, post-snow, flooding Cape Town happening here.

We’ve decided to skip our planned night’s stop at Ambalavao (3 and a half hours north of here) and head on straight through to Ambositra- 8 hours in the opposite direction to the cyclone’s path. Ambalavao only has a paper factory anyway…and an-amazing-reserve-we-thought-was-closed-but-that-is-in-fact-actually-open-at-this-time-of-year, but that will now be washed out and inaccessible…and a Zebu-market-that-doesn’t-happen-on-Tuesdays-and-Wednesdays-like-the-book-says-but-only-on-Wednesday-and-Thursdays.
The pigs next door stopped squealing. I presume they’re in the arc.