Les Hautes Plateuax (The Highlands)

Busteed and I got back to Tana on Wednesday night I went out to Ivato to spend the night at Sr. Fanja’s house.  I spent some time exploring her lawn/garden.  She actually has a lot of fruit trees and a nice big yard.

Her lemon tree was full of lemons!

 

While wandering around she spotted a tanalahy (small chameleon) laying eggs in the ground.  I had actually just seen a Discovery channel show about Madagascar a couple weeks before which had a section about chameleons laying their eggs.  Apparently they dig a big hole, lay their eggs, and then crawl away and die – sad times!

Then we went and visited Sr. Elianne who was one of my favorite investigators ever.  She’s from the countryside around Fianarantsoa so she speaks Betsileo which is one of my favorite Malagasy dialects.  She seemed pretty ok, especially considering that apparently her husband is a super skank which was really sad.  He had seemed like such a nice cool guy when we were there, and then you find out he’s not. Boo.  Her kids weren’t home (Tsiky “Smile” and Ana) but we happened to run into them on the side of the road.

After that we visited Sr. Fanja.  Not to be confused with Sr. Fanja I was staying at.   This Sr. Fanja I taught as a missionary, and then taught her kids too.  They invited us to eat lunch with them which was actually some very tasty small fishes with green beans (on rice of course).  From left to right:

Neighbor kid, Donnie (I taught her – Fanja’s oldest daughter), Sr. Fanja, Nantenaina (Sr. Fanja’s youngest son – she has 4 kids), Sr. Fanja’s aunt, Barthelemie (Fanja’s oldest son - taught him too), Sr. Fanja (whose house I stayed at), Sr Fanja’s other daughter who’s name I can’t remember (her name is Isiah I found out), Sr. Fanja’s uncle, me.

Black and White Chameleon

Back at the house I found the chameleon again and put her on a branch.  She showed her annoyance by turning all sorts of pretty colors.

Then we found another chameleon who was black and white.

That night, Christianna and her husband Johnny treated me to Cary Poulet which is a Reunionaise dish that is super delish – it’s just stewed chicken with some spices on rice.  They invited me to go dancing with them, but I had to catch a bus early the next morning and I still had to get to where Busteed was staying in order to be closer to the bus station so I politely declined.

The next morning afforded some cool pictures from our hotel room on the top of a building in Ampefiloha (kinda close to the more ghetto section of Tana).  And I got a cool picture of the Rova (Castle built by the first Queen of Madagascar back in the 1830s or so) at sunrise. 

At the bus station I took some more pictures.  This sign says “Lots of Money! à”

 Around 8am we take off on our 10 hour journey to Fianarantsoa, the provincial capital of the south eastern part of Madagascar, and the other major town on the central plateau of the country. 

On the way we passed lemon stands.

These are called Tsangambato (standing rocks) which, from what I’ve gathered, are adopted from France.  They tell the number of kilometers to the next towns, which RouteNational you’re on, and how many miles you are from the origin of the road.   These people on the side of the road are cooking corn and chickens and absolutely bombard any car the passes by in the hopes of selling them something.

I’ve always loved the scenery of the Hautes Plateaus.

Forget Good, Better, Best.  This chocolate is just “Decent” lol.  The writing underneath reads “The series food is best for you”

I also love Merina/Betsileo architecture.  Their houses are so cool!

Roughly halfway between Tana and Fianarantsoa is Ambositra where they do a lot of woodwork. 

One of my biggest beefs with Madagascar is the kind of anticlimaticism of the scenery.  Especially the central highlands are just a never ending sea of rolling hills.  You always feel like around the bend will be an actual mountain range or some extraordinary view or a huge valley.  But 99 times out of 100, its just more deforested rolling hills.  The last 40km before Fianarantsoa is the exception.  We arrived just a little before sunset and it was quite nice: 

By the time we got town it was almost dark, and I was tired, hungry and had to use the bathroom.  So I told the taxi to take me to one of the hotels I’d found in Lonely Planet.  LP said they had rooms starting at 14,000Ar.  Now the cheapest room was 50,000.  But it had a hot water shower and seemed nice and cozy and I had to pee.  So I took it.

The room actually was really nice and their restaurant was probably the best value I’ve eaten at in Mada.  The atmosphere was super nice, except/in spite/because of all French tourists there.  I felt like I was in some little place in France.  I almost ordered some mozzarella and tomatoes (mozzarella is practically unheard of in Mada), but then I noticed something else with the words tomato and mozzarella in so I asked what it was.  Soup – Tomato Basil soup with mozzarella in it.  So I got it.  Yum!

I got magret de canard grille avec sauce vanille with pommes sautés. (grilled duck breast with vanilla sauce and sautéed potatoes).  The dinner wasn’t quite as good was the soup (which was probably the best tomato basil soup I’ve had) but it was still good.

Another plus of the hotel was free internet access in the lobby which I took advantage of. 

Went to sleep in the cozy bed to wait for Busteed who was taking a bus through the night.