I hope you enjoyed this handy graphic that I personally created using Paint, several PntSc screen-shots, crop & paint bucket tools, and lots of patience. The yellow line represents our journey via train, bus, and truck from Fianarantsoa to Ft. Dauphin. Underlined town-names receive a mention in the post, those with stars were places we spent the night. The final destination is referred to as Fort Dauphin (Dough-FAN) 95% of the time in both Malagasy and English, but its seldom-used Malagasy name is "Taolagnaro" - lest you glance at the map and think our epic journey actually ended on the obscure capital of the main continent on Mars. This actually has a fairly high resolution, so I highly encourage you to click on it and see it in all its glory : - )
In the interest of you the more conservative of you out there (conservative as in not liking insane blog layouts in which pictures and text appear - to your unimaginative eyes - to be strewn nilly-willy across the page). This post will include only centered photos all of uniform size interspersed with text from the entry I wrote... way back in Madagascar somewhere.
Enjoy:
Tuesday morning we caught a train to Manakara which ended up being quite long and very bouncy but fun and scenic and still way better than a taxibe ride. We left the station in Fianarantsoa around 7:15am (a mere 15 minutes late!!!) and arrived in Manakara on the east coast around 4pm.
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| The first stop barely 1/2 an hour into the trip. |
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| This girl's mother was originally sitting in our seat when we got on the train, but they kindly moved, and provided a nice photo opp later ; - ) |
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| More examples of Highland scenery. |
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| The first time our train emerged from a tunnel to views of mountains and valleys was absolutely stunning - in the most literal sense of the word. |
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| Any 'civilization' we saw along the way was perched on precarious cliffs and reachable only by train...or a suicidal hiking trip. |
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| Pretty much the only time during the trip I was able to get a picture of the train itself. |
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| These pictures don't really do it justice, but the sheer height of the mountains the train straddles has got to be among the tallest in all of Madagascar |
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| Unlike taxibes which always stop at 7, 12, and 9 for food, trains (or rather the train) do not. So you're left to find snacks at the stops every half hour or so. |
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| Snack. This is a large version of what is normally called a Mofo Gasy "Malagasy Bread" - a greasy cake made of rice flour |
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| Along the way people tried to sell us everything – including an assortment of red, green, and black peppercorns |
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| The name of this town, Fenomby, is "Full of Cows" |
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| This rather friendly seeming French family got on the train with 4 personal pizzas an hour into the trip. They were actually my entertainment / sociology study for most of the journey. Because a) WHERE did they get these pizzas? I mean in cardboard take-out boxes and everything, b) WHY/HOW did they get on the train where they did? It was far enough from Fianarantsoa that it would've been near inconceivable for them to have stayed in a hotel that caters to foreigners... c) they appeared to be a father, mother, 2 white (French) teenage children, and then what I finally gather was their teenage Malagasy "child" whom I assume was adopted as she didn't appear to speak Malagasy any better than her family members d) WHY did they get off the train in an even more obscure location (an hour before Manakara) than the one they used to board the train? Basically they seemed really cool and nice and genuine, while their itinerary and composure suggested they had a pretty expansive budget. As you can tell I was somewhat fascinated by them and their engimatic ways. In the picture above the mom is listening very politely and with genuine interest to a Malagasy who was a little tipsy and therefore extremely friendly and better at French than he normally would be. This is a kind of guy Busteed and I would not have tolerated at all and they were eating up his every word. |
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| Busteed. iPod+Train Ride = Good Times. |
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| There is palm plantation like this near Tamatave but I never got a picture of it this is seriously like a square kilometer of palm trees |
Finally around 4pm we arrived in Manakara (we left at 7am). Busteed and I were immediately bombarded by poussepousse …drivers? In Malagasy they are called poussepousse “bringers” which doesn’t make any sense in English, but they definitely aren’t driving anything either. Oh well, we’ll call them workers. Anywho, we were bombarded just as LonelyPlanet predicts (although they didn’t seem any more subversive than other pousse workers in other parts of the country – as LP accuses). We really had no idea of what we were doing, so finally we asked around and found out that the busses for Farafangana and anything south (namely, Vangaindrano) would only leave in the morning, meaning we were there for the night. Our initial pick of hotel, a low-key Malagasy establishment across the street from the train station was quickly abandoned on suspicion of sketchiness and because the old man who served as the receptionist took at least 3 full minutes to tell the possible client in front of us (a Malagasy) that there were rooms for 9,000Ar ($4.50) and rooms for 10,000Ar ($5). So I returned to LP who informed us that there was a possibly good choice called Les Flamboyants. So we got a poussepousse to take us there. He initially wanted something like 5,000 I believe, and quickly dropped to 3,000 but we insisted on 2,000 – not really knowing where this place was and he finally agreed. Whilst en route, Busteed and I both decided that this actually was more like a 3,000 trip. However, true to form, upon arrival the pousse worker pointed to his sweatiness as evidence to back up his demand for 3,000 which instantly made us not want to give him any more than the agreed upon price of 2,000. Seriously I’ve been ready to give people tips and extra money many many times in Madgascar and 9 times out of 10 I end up not giving it to them because they beg for a cadeaux (gift/tip) or try and be all tricky and demand more money. A deal is a deal, if you don’t want to abide by the deal don’t make it. All tips, cadeaux, and sympathy money is irrespective of the original deal.
So we made it to Les Flamboyants and decided it was fine. The bed was actually quite nice, and the showers and toilets, though communal, were private and quite clean. After settling in, we headed off in search of something exciting, and some food. We only ever found food – on the peninsula across the tiny bay/inlet from the mainland where our hotel was.
On the way we looked for the taxibe station, which (after a much longer walk than we expected) we found to be no more than a deserted intersection with a few deserted signs with town names on them. Luckily for us (and one luck Malagasy), said Malagasy man was standing around and pounced on us. We told him we wanted to go to Vangaindrano (or as far south as a bus would take us). He told us that there would be one the next morning. We were pretty suspicious, so we made sure he would pick us up at our hotel at 8 so we didn’t lug our stuff all over nowhere for nothing.
Our dinner was… actually I don’t really remember what we ate (shocker, I know). I remember the place was deserted and looked out over a rather squalid patch of the inlet and I think we shared a Sprite. After we finished, we discovered that it was pouring rain, so we walked a little ways and got semi-drenched until we hailed a passing pousse and went home for 2,000.
The next morning we got ready and searched for a cyber café, which I finally found with just enough time to wait 30 minutes to load my email and Facebook and dash off 2 lines to my parents – yay for less than dial-up speed!
I walked back to the hotel and the bus was waiting for us (well, me). After some kerfluffle-age, we realized that the really nice bus that had come to pick us up was unaffiliated with the random dude from yesterday and was actually a sort of client-poaching-mobile. So we pulled our stuff out and followed random-dude-from-yesterday to our actual bus which was waiting at the gas station 200 feet away. In the wise words of Ron Burgundy, we ‘instantly regretted our decision’. This new bus was bar none the sketchiest “taxi-be” we had ever seen. When I went to get in our “reserved” front seat, I found that where I would normally put my feet was a hole in the metal floor in which sat the connected car battery. Right next to the hole was an unconnected car battery. The bus itself was old, rusty, and otherwise terribly uncomfortable. Not to mention we sat at the gas station for almost an hour – enough time for us to go get cookies and drinks, for me to wait for the gas station to open and buy some delish Wow! Juice (it really is Wow!), then go back and buy some canned paté (I wanted some protein for breakfast –don’t judge me – they served it to us in Reunion) and then go find some bread to put it on, and for some girl to come to the bus and claim that I stole her seat.
Finally we pulled out of the gas station with 5 people in the bus, Busteed and I on the front row benches. We stopped to get something fixed before pulling out of town and they wanted their payment then, so we told them we would only pay 10,000 instead of … 11 or 12 that we had agreed upon, because a) we didn’t get our front seat, b) they didn’t leave ‘till 9 or 10, when they said they’d leave at 8, and c) because we were significantly afraid that we would end up stranded in the middle of Madagascar Nowhere (much worse than any other Nowhere) next to the rusted smoking skeleton of our dinosaur taxibe. Finally they agreed, and we were on our way.
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| One of the terribly pot-holed bridges we crossed in our dinosaurmobile on the way to Farafangana |
The road to Farafangana was fairly rough. It took us an hour to go the last 20 or so kilometers (which we thought was appalling, until 3 days later). At Vohipeno (almost to Farafangana, but far enough no one would walk there) our bus was swarmed (I exaggerate not) and utterly violated by a crowd of desperate would-be-passengers. Our bus probably had room (Malagasy style) for 15 passengers, we already had 5. There was a crowd of probably 20 people who wanted on this bus (as if it were the last bus before a meteor would destroy the town). Do the math. What ensued was the most ridiculous scene I have ever beheld in Madagascar, and I’ve seen a lot of ridiculous things. Everyone was screaming at the tops of their lungs, people were jumping over seats, climbing on top of people, carrying buckets of dead fish, and handfuls of live, subdued chickens. One lady in particular was TICKED. I mean she was so utterly upset that I couldn’t help laughing. I actually had no idea what she said because she was yelling so loud and so fast and so spastically (and in a dialect I’d never really heard or spoke).
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| View of the bus after it filled up with all the peeps |
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| The lady with the red circle around her is the super upset lady mentioned above |
Finally we made it to Farafangana where we discovered we were actually on a type of Malagasy taxibe layover of sorts (a foreign and intriguing experience indeed). So we got some lunch, which I was rather unenthusiastic about eating after using the VC (Malagasies shorten the French pronunciation of WC – dooble-vay-say to Vay-Say – which comes from the British abbreviation for Water Closet or bathroom) which was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen. I’ve used plenty of VCs before, and most, by American standards, are quite gross, but I didn’t really mind them too much on my mission. This one however, was a typical wooden hut constructed over a hole dug in the ground. But the hole had filled up to just a few inches below the wooden floor/platform. The soupy waste was literally (again, absolutely not exaggerating) crawling/swimming with maggots. In fact it was probably more maggot than it was waste at the top. And they were swimming and squirming all over the place. I was somewhat afraid that an Anaconda from the darkest reaches of hell would suddenly leap out of this vile soup and pull me down into my ignominious death (which itself would be quite a relief after falling into this soup). Seriously either that or that trash monster from Star Wars. Luckily for me, and for you, I survived to tell the tale.
After our lunch, we strolled about in search of a cyber (pronounced see-bear). What ensued was another awesome experience:
After questioning several people, with no luck as to a location or even the existence of a possible cyber café, we happened upon a group of bandies (young men, usually doing nothing good/productive). The following was conducted in Malagasy, translated for your benefit.
“Hey we’re looking for a cyber café, do you guys know where one is?”
“A what?”
“A cyber. A cyber café.”
“A what?”
“You know, a cyber café.”
“Whats a cyber café?”
“You know, like a place where you can use the internet.”
“The what?”
“The internet.”
“What is the internets?”
#137: Have a conversation with people who have no idea about the existence of the internet. CHECK
In all honesty, Busteed and I still find it extremely hard to believe that these 16 year old kids would have no idea about the internet. It is possible there were playing dumb, or our Merina was somehow incomprehensible to their Antesaka ears. But either way, they gave every indication that they had no idea about what we were talking about.
With nothing to do in this unexciting and internet-less town, we walked to the beach, which was a good 20 minutes away. This again was another lesson in Malagasy-ness, as the closer we got to the beach the more Malagasy advice and posted signs would try to lead us in the wrong direction. Luckily, Busteed trusted his ears and instinct, and we made it. We stayed for about 60 seconds and then turned back because our bus was possibly supposed to leave around 3pm, and it was now 2:55 and it had taken us 20 minutes to get there. When we arrived at our bus, the people in charge seemed super ticked that we weren’t there, implying that somehow they had been waiting on us. We of course then sat in the front seat (yay a front seat!) for a good 10 minutes while they ran around trying to finalize everything while we talked to Mr Super-Drunkard who kept giving us donas (fist-bumb) and causing our already dislodged window to fall apart. Once again, I could not help but laugh at the whole ridiculous situation.
Around 6pm, we arrived in Vangaindrano. By Malagasy standards, Vangaindrano is a respectable, if small, town. There is a bank, a taxibe station, a large market, a police/military/national guard outpost, a radio tower, electricity and multiple buildings made of concrete and brick (super boony towns are usually just constructed of bamboo and wood and palm tree stuff). By Busteed and my standards, however, Vangaindrano is quite easily our least favorite place, ever. You will soon come to agree.
When our food arrived, there was a whole chicken (head, but not neck, removed) with the edible inards still on the inside. I’m not sure exactly how they “rotisseried” our chicken, but let’s just say it was nothing we would call rotisserie in America. Busteed had a plate of pasta with some light tomato “sauce” on it, and chunks of Malagasy cheese in it (which missionaries always called Butt Cheese for its … distinctive smell and flavor). I had a large plate of verrrry soggy greasy potatoe wedges that went cold quite quickly. Luckily this bounteous feast, delivered to our room, was only a total of $4, plus $1 for our liter of cold Orange Fanta.
We ended our Wednesday by falling asleep to the expectation that in the morning we would finally be on our way to glorious Ft Dauphin. |
| The only place in town that had internet. Basically this dude ran a print shop and then in his house he had internet on his personal computer which he let us use for the fee of $2.50/ 30 min. |
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| This kind of sums up my sentiments of Vangaindrano and Mario (on the left) |
Mario, a man we found Wednesday night who attached himself to us like a leech and “took care of us” by getting us our “tickets” to Ft Dauphin (and charging us 50,000Ar a piece, and then begging for a cadeaux), appeared on our doorstep while I was in the shower and told Busteed he had a spot for him on a motorcycle leaving for Ft D in 30 minutes. And a spot on a bus for me in an hour. So Busteed asked (when I got out of the shower) if it were alright if we split up. I said sure and Busteed was stoked about his motorcycle ride. Half an hour later, he re-appeared, very down trodden and informed me that the motorcycle trip had been cancelled by the driver’s boss who didn’t need him in Ft D after all. So we waited rather expectantly for our bus.
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| Panoramic view from our hotel room - not bad, eh? |
None such came. Finally Mario told us one would come in the afternoon and we would have good seats up front on it.
In the afternoon he told us that they would come in the evening.
In the late afternoon we were informed there was some sort of gas strike (which we later learned happened to one company all over the country – the only company that serviced Farafangana where our “bus” was) and so they had to sit in line for a long time for gas.
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| This lovely lady's name is Shakira. Not even joking. How she ended up with that name at least a decade before anyone even knew who Shakira was, I don't know. Busteed and I loved this lady because she was awesome and crazy. She was always singing in a very genuine and enthusiastic but off-key way. She (along with most of the staff) was a case study in Adult ADHD. Other than that, she was just kind of crazy - in an awesome/weird way lol. |
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| One night I gambled and went for the "fish with french fries" and received this. Actually pretty good and lots of easily accessible fish meat |
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| My thoughts exactly. Whenever I see President Obama on TV, listen to Thriller, or think of South Africa I will now think of instant hot chocolate and bad marketing. Also, who IS the man second from left? |
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| Full moon above Vangaindrano... not the definition of romantic |
In the evening we were informed they would get gas in the morning and be here (Vangaindrano) by 7am.
In the morning at 7, they had their gas, but their boss had decided to have a meeting with them.
At noon they were still “meeting”. (Busteed and I never figured out what the heck this was all about or if it was even legit).
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| View of what was below our hotel |
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| The room itself was rather spacious, if simple |
By the early afternoon, they had finally left Farafangana (hallelujah!). After they had not appeared a couple hours later, we called. And found out that they were back in Farafangana after being stopped by the police and turned back for lack of some documentation they needed because they were carrying a generator – which is the first instance either I or Busteed had heard of in which the police (which stop every vehicle entering or leaving a significant town) actually doing something other than looking you up and down and taking a 2,000Ar bribe/tip.
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| It had a nice balcony though |
By late afternoon they were still in Farafangana obtaining the necessary paperwork.
Late Friday evening, they told us they finally had all the paperwork, and would be coming in the morning: leaving at 5am, and getting to Vangaindrano by 6.
We called them at 6, to find that they had not yet left (surprise!), but would be soon.
At 7, they had finally left.
At 8:30, they FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINALLY showed up.
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| The car on the right is 4x4 Mercedes pick-up truck. Busteed and I rode in the back, with 3 Malagasy dudes |
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| Thank you random lady for approaching us while we were posing for our picture with Mario |
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| Much better |
We gave Mario our 50,000Ar each, and hopped in the back of not a taxibe, or a Landrover, or Jeep or other type of 4x4 as we had expected, but instead a small Mercedes pick-up truck.
The one front seat was occupied by the “boss” who did absolutely nothing during the entire trip other than hand over a piece of paperwork at each of the 11 ferry crossings on our way to Ft. D.
So we sat in the back, which was a small pick-up bed, covered by some metal structure and a tarp (and lots of junk on top). There were some small, slightly cushioned benches which we sat on. In the back with us was a large (2ftx2ftx2ft) generator which filled up half the available space, and a large spare tire. Oh and there were 3 other passengers with us.
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| *Snigger* |
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| This man was WASTED OUT OF HIS MIND and would not shut up until I had the idea to take his picture. He was supposed to be helping load the truck, but mostly he just caused trouble |
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| Can you get a sense of the scale we're talking about? |
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| One of our fellow passengers |
We finally left at 9am, in what Busteed and I were dreading to be a long, extremely uncomfortable, 230km, 16 hour ride to Ft. Dauphin.
What we couldn’t understand was how exactly it could take 16 hours (as we were told) to go a mere 230km. That would mean averaging barely 14.4 km/h, or just 8.5 mph. EIGHT MILES PER HOUR?!!!! We could bike that fast. And we were going along the eastern coast, so its not like the road should be bumby or curvy or hilly, or anything other than flat and straight, even if it were made of dirt. Surely this must be a miscalculation or a mistake.
Little did we know. Oh how little did we know.
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| The scenery just outside of Vangaindrano |
The first couple hours we the flattest and straightest. And they were no walk in the park. I sat up against the cab looking backwards, and soon got quite sick. A cramped space with little view of anything besides the bumpy road speeding backwards made me nauseous and dizzy.
Luckily we hit our first ferry right as I was about to surrender myself to certain shame. I got out of the truck and sat around and enjoyed the relatively pretty scenery of the river and mountains.
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| One of our first river crossings. Kinda nice, eh? |
The river crossings were amazing. They reminded me a lot of the time I spent in the Orcas Islands in Northwestern Washington with my Aunt and Uncle – truly great scenery.
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| Kind of cool too. Thanks to Busteed for the idea. |
Once on the other side of the river, I rode on the back of the truck, hanging on to the tied down luggage on the roof, to keep from getting sick again. It was actually a fairly enjoyable experience, other than the fact that it was pretty similar to riding a horse… who is trying to kill you, or a mechanical bull.
By mid afternoon we were at our 2nd ferry, and stopped for lunch. Normally in Madgascar, hotelys (small Malagasy “restaurants” that serve simple local food) have a selection of laokas which is typically a type of meat stewed with a vegetable or bean: beef with greens, fish with green beans, pork with peas, chicken with broth and this is served on top of rice. What Busteed and I soon discovered, however, was that this extremely remote stretch of Madagascar was so remote, and relatively dry, that no one grew vegetables or beans, and no one transported them in. So for the remainder of the trip we were subjected to laoka tsisy fangarony (just meat, no veggies). And no pork! Missionaries almost always prefer the pork dishes because pork usually is relatively tasty, soft, and meaty – rather than fat, skin, bones, and grease of other meats/dishes. Usually it was a choice of chicken or beef, and sometimes fish. All of which are generally a big gamble (chicken is hard to eat with a spoon and fork, not to mention very little meat, and often still covered in small feathers, beef is usually tough and greasy/gristly, fish is almost always an entire small fish – head, fins, some scales, etc, which you must somehow remove about 1oz worth of meat from without choking on a the bones.)
The late afternoon, however, was the adventure of a lifetime. While both Busteed and I agree you probably couldn’t pay us to go do that trip again (not unless you’re in a private 4x4 with air conditioning, cold drinks, hot food, and a trailer to sleep in, with lots of friends), our afternoon and the next morning was one of the most spectacular experiences ever (and yes, I realize this entire trip has been filled with superlatives, but I swear on my box of Robert’s chocolates I’m munching on right now in Guilin, China, that all of my rather extreme adjectives are quite justified, especially for any of you who have never been to Madagascar – and if you don’t know, swearing on a box of Robert’s chocolates is not for the weak hearted).
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| Can you tell how dirty I am already. Also, excellent example of Malagasies and their crazy clothing. I would have DIED in a coat and a beanie - how he survived... no idea. |
The late afternoon, however, was the adventure of a lifetime. While both Busteed and I agree you probably couldn’t pay us to go do that trip again (not unless you’re in a private 4x4 with air conditioning, cold drinks, hot food, and a trailer to sleep in, with lots of friends), our afternoon and the next morning was one of the most spectacular experiences ever (and yes, I realize this entire trip has been filled with superlatives, but I swear on my box of Robert’s chocolates I’m munching on right now in Guilin, China, that all of my rather extreme adjectives are quite justified, especially for any of you who have never been to Madagascar – and if you don’t know, swearing on a box of Robert’s chocolates is not for the weak hearted).
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| Pretty much Middle Earth. |
There is a mountain range that runs just south of Vangaindrano along the coast all the way to Ft Dauphin which is at the extreme south-eastern tip of Madagascar. The middle 75km or so of the trip from Vangaindrano to Ft D runs through a set of dry rolling hills covered in golden grass and studded with the occasional tropical plant, or ravinala(Traveller’s Palm). The effect is a spectacular landscape that looks like a cross between somewhere in Middle Earth (Lord of the Rings/New Zealand) and a Dr. Seuss book. Between the clouds and the setting sun, and the fact that I was once again galloping on the back of our bouncing-swerving truck, I felt like I was riding through some movie or novel. (It may have helped that, inspired by the scenery, I chose to listen to the LOTR sountrack on my iPod ; - ) Busteed, who is big mountain climber and knows a lot about mountains, said that the mountains looked almost as awesome as the ones in Patagonia, which is famous among outdoor enthusiasts for its incredible mountains. I, who being from Texas, and having much less experience with big mountains, despite my desire to be a much more outdoorsy/moutainy person, and therefore having much less knowledge and authority, wholeheartedly concur. <<<---I believe that is a correctly structured inverse double-layered dependent clause sentence... of doom. Boo ya.
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| Busteed climbed up on the back pack of the car with me and was loving life |
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| If only my skin we really that tan and not as a result of red dust being caked onto my face |
Around 5pm, we pulled into the ferry at Manantenina which is where our 3 other passengers were from. We let them off at their little community across the river from the actual town and proceeded to the cross the river. Once in the town, the sun had finally set and it was getting dark.
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| The whole town came out to meet us and welcome home their husbands/fathers |
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| Did they ask for a copy of the picture? of course. duh face. |
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| Last river crossing of the day. |
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| #ferry_positioning_FAIL |
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| Luckily they fixed the ramp before driving the car onto it |
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| This is Mr. Boss Man. He pretty much just sat in this seat the whole time. |
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| I was going for a NorthFace advetisement look, which I don't think I really achieved, but cool nonetheless. |
After letting off our final passenger, the boss in the passenger seat decided to inform us that we were spending the night.
WHAT???!!!
Busteed and I were ticked.
“We’re sleeping here.”
“What?! Why?”
“Uh, if we drive through the night, people will stop our car, kill us all and take our all our money and valuables.”
“No they won’t. We need to keep going. Also, we don’t have any valuables.”
“Yes they will, and the ferries.”
“What about the ferries?”
“Uh, its not ok to cross them at night.”
“What do you mean, do they no go at night?”
“Uh, its not ok to cross the ferries at night”
“Why not?!”
“Its not ok, something something paperwork something blah blah.”
“Why didn’t you tell us in the first place we wouldn’t be driving straight though?”
“We’re spending the night here.”
“Hey we have a place we need to be at 9am in Ft. Dauphin. We need to get there tonight”
“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh we’ll leave at 4am”
“But will that get us there by 9?”
“We’ll leave at 4am”
Needless to say, Busteed and I were quite frustrated, but there wasn’t anything we could do about it. So we found a hotely and ordered some food. I actually had tiny lobster laoka. It was actually probably the best lobster I’ve had, but serving lobster on top of rice can only be so delicious. We walked back to where they had parked the car – at a “hotel”. Busteed and I decided to break out the tent (his tent) b/c we hadn’t used it yet, and we were out in the boonies anyways.
There was a midnight (well actually it was only 7pm, but it felt like midnight because all the lights were out, the sun goes down early in the winter, and Malagasies go to bed way early) mass at the Catholic church right next to our hotel / camping spot which was kind of cool. And the stars were kind of nice. All in all, it was an interesting experience, despite being extremely inconvenient and ruining our plans for church in Ft. Dauphin.
The rest of the journey passed much as the day before – hilly, bumby, bouncy, windy (there was no wind, is windy (breezy) and windy (curvy) the same word?) road, intersected every hour or so by a river and a ferry crossing. Sunday’s ferries, however, were no longer diesel engine powered, and were now simply pulled across the river by cranking a rope. All the ferries, nonetheless, were donated by the European Union from the depths of their big socialist hearts and budgets. What person in Brussels decided it was a wise use of European money to buy 11 ferries for a remote stretch of Madagascar? I don’t know, but whoever they were, I sincerely thank them, because otherwise that trip would have been either impossible, or even more painful, if that is possible, which I seriously doubt.
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| While this trip definitely took me through the most remote places I've ever been in the world, people would magically appear like mushrooms whenever we arrived at a ferry. It was like they hid in the woods waiting for a car to come to summon the ferry so they could cross for free to the other side |
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| This low water crossing was not a river, but it could've used a ferry anyways |
We finally arrived in Ft Dauphin at 2pm, an hour after church had let out. It had been more than 5 and ½ days since we left Fianarantsoa and its relative civilization. FIVE AND A HALF DAYS!!! To go what was essentially 500 miles.
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| This very fine picture of Ft Dauphin is courtesy of Google Image search but I use it to illustrate what kind of city Ft. D is. |
President Danielson (that is his name and yes he is Malagasy) works for Rio Tinto, a mining company that is mining titanium (?) from the sand around Ft. Dauphin. The company has constructed a little company neighborhood on the outskirts of town which is basically like a very tidy small trailer park. But for Madagascar, it is absolutely revolutionary. The idea of a gated community with identical houses with running hot water and separate rooms along straight streets with street lights is so far removed from Malagasy society it’s like being on another planet. For all the talk of evolutionary rarities like lemurs and chameleons, this neighborhood is truly the most alien thing in Madagascar
Needless to say, Busteed and I were beyond excited for a real hot water shower and a real bed on a straight street with its own gutter in a quiet neighborhood where everyone has a grass lawn surrounding their identical houses, each with its own satellite dish. In fact, Laurenti ( the nephew) heat us up some beans (yay they have beans in Ft Dauphin!) on a real stove, in a relatively normal kitchen – they even have a sink, and refrigerator!
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| This is how dirty and exhausted I was right before my REAL HOT SHOWER yay! It had been an adventure of a lifetime, and it was finally (and sadly) over. What a week it had been. |
