The Town of Good Learning and its Environs (Fianarantsoa)

Saturday morning Busteed arrived at 5 something, crawled up to our room and went to sleep.  I had reservations for a bus to Ranomafana (“Hot Water”) which is a town with a lemur park a couple hours away, but he was feeling pretty sick so I went by myself. 

Our hotel room.

Question #11: Did the world almost end in Madagascar too?

Answer: Yes.  But lucky for all of us, they were off by 5 months here as well. 

Some buildings in the little towns along the way to Ranomafana.

Oh yeah, they stashed the geese and chickens in this basket right above my seat so I heard squawking all the way there. 

Lonely Planet always refers to Hautes Plateaux towns as “medieval” which I never really understood.  But now I guess I see it – they do look like those towns in Europe where there’s a big church at the top of the hill and a bunch of little houses cluttered on the hillsides leading up to it. 

I never really could figure out what this exclamation point was supposed to mean…

“Road!” or “Trees!” or “Sign!” or maybe “Madagascar!”    

 Ranomafana (which we got to about 2 hours later) is actually a really cool place.  In fact, this section of Madagascar (Fianarntsoa, Ranomafana, and the train to Manakara) have been the more scenic by far.  There’s actual waterfalls, and big valleys and cliffs and small mountains.  The Namorana river runs through Ranomafana National Park.  

Madagascar is full of these crazy big spiders and their crazy big webs.  No worries though – they don’t bother humans, and they’re not poisonous… to us.  

A bird!

 Ranomafana is known for its Bamboo lemurs (seriously, all they do is sleep and eat bamboo).  I actually got within a couple feet of this one. 

 

This was really cool.  The people in Ranomafana belong to the Antanala tribe which is related to the Betsileo (who are centered around Fianarantsoa).  Each tribe has its own burial traditions (the Merina exhume their dead every 5-7 years and rewrap the bones, the Vezo build whole tombs for just one person, etc).  The Antanala bury their dead in caves with very little decoration or fanfare.  But they erect these cemetery type things in the forest.  A family will pick a plot and every time they bury someone they put a new rock in their cemetery to commemorate the deceased loved one.  Big rocks mean the person was old, little rocks mean they were still very young.  When they’d up a new rock, they’d kill a cow and have a big party.  

 At the end of the hike through the forest there was a lookout point

Then the guide took me another half an hour down a trail that led to this awesome waterfall.  It was probably close to 100 feet high and by far the biggest waterfall I’ve seen in Mada.  Apparently in the rainy season (Dec-Feb) the entire thing is all water. 

I forgot that my camera was on manual focus, but these are the President and Prime Ministers official vacation houses when there in Ranomafana (built in the 60s by Ratisraka, who ruled for 30 years as a socialist autocrat).  

The Ranomafana pool which gets its name from the hot springs that feed it. 

After getting back to town, I ate some brochettes (kabobs) and these little things were still hot, so I got one.  What are they? Fried frog legs.  They were actually really tasy! Just like chicken! Seriously though, it was like eating a juicy chicken wing.

Only in Madagascar could the prizes for a drawing be: scooter, TV, bicycle, and cow. Lol

I ended up waiting in Ranomafana for 1 ½ hours until I found a spot on a bus heading back to Fianarantsoa.

Train Station. 

On Sunday we went to church in Fianarantsoa and who should be there? President and Sister Donnelly!  We had no idea they would be there so that was kind of a fun surprise.  They were really busy so we didn’t get to talk to them much.  Busteed didn’t even get to say Hi to Donnelly, but I translated for Sis. Donnelly’s Relief Society lesson which was lots of fun. 

On Monday we went on a Pentecost Monday picnic with this family that befriended Busteed (they even gave us a bed to sleep on Saturday night lol).  So we rode in the bus they rented down to Ranomafana.  Busteed’s “friend” Clementine (the girl he had almost sat next to, whose family we were with) sat next to me and was all over me.  No matter how much I moved my legs, or changed sitting positions, her hands were always resting on my legs, or running down my back, or holding my arm.  Sorry folks (and Clementine), but I was just not interested.

At Ranomafana, we hiked to the waterfall and I swam and climbed on the rocks, Busteed has some pictures.  Then we had some lunch.  Then was the Marion/Yzit/Random group concert.  Saw Yzit live which was not nearly as impressive as I had hoped (he’s a pretty good singer, but the whole “concert” thing was like a couple hundred people crowded around a tiny stage while he sang along to a backup track of his songs). 

These kids were super hilarious.  They're probably 10 years old and they would keep singing the songs under their breath and kind of dancing by themselves and then they'd look up and notice we were watching and get all bashful... until they got addicted to the fame and fortune of white-peoples'-cameras and then they were all over us.  

 Yzit!  I took this picture from about 15 feet away.  I told Busteed that if Yzit came back around I would ask to take a picture with him.  He never did : - (  Lesson Learned: Carpe Diem!

 Our closet sized shower/toiled combo.  The "shower" is a hole in the floor in the right hand corner.  But hey, it was... $5 a night?

This is the room Busteed and I stayed in in Fianarantsoa for 2 nights.  He called it a chicken coup.  And it smelled like one, b/c the toilet/shower combo did not flush.  The door on the right lead to the tiny bathroom pictured above.