Back to Tana (The Bus Ride from Hell II, The Sequel)

 So Wednesday morning, Busteed and I get on what is essentially a double-wide school bus on some beefy tires, and head our for our 48 hour bus trip back to Tana (Busteed would be getting off in Ambositra b/c he'd never been and wanted to see the town, and then heading up to Antsirabe cuz he'd never seen that either, and then finally be in Tana on Saturday or something).

I uploaded some videos to YouTube (b/c YouTube accepts much larger/nicer files than blogger) for you to enjoy : - )  They're available in 1080p so do take advantage!

Our first bridge about an hour or so outside of Ft. Dauphin.

The south of Madagascar is famous for it semi-arid and arid deserts.  Its a lot like west Texas or New Mexico or something

Specifically the "Spiny Forests" are famous because they're found no where else on Earth.

The Spiny Forests are full of lots of weird cactus-tree hybrids.  

We drove past a GINORMOUS sissel (sp?) plantation - I believe its a relative of the Yucca which is used to make some kind of rope.  The locals told us that this farm was made by some foreign investor/farmer.  Video below:

Ambovombe-Amboasary (At The Place of Oranges)  We made our first, and only real pit stop here in this town.  Busteed charged his iPod as fast as he could at a local hotely that had an availble prize (preez) (aka wall plug). Otherwise he wouldve had to listen to  engine noise, Malagasies, and obnoxious music the whole time.

    While we waited around, I was approached by a gaggle of children... who I believe were shouting Vazaha "foreigner" at us (which is nothing new at all, just more obnoxious that usual) and so I decided to teach them a little lesson by informing them "Hey, if you're trying to sell us food and such, you should shout "FOREIGNER" at us all the time.  I speak Malagasy so I'm not super mad, but normal white people who don't speak your language might get kinda annoyed - so call them "guest" or "Mister" or "Misses" - they might want to buy your stuff more if you're polite".  It kind worked...

    Anywho, some kids crowded around me.  One of which had learned a fair amount of English - enough to write poetry at least.  So he asked me if I could help him with his English and his poetry.  This is by far the most polite and forward thinking 14 year old I had ever met in Madagascar and so I obliged.  I asked if I could take some pictures of his poetry, and he said yes. They're pretty much hilarious, but you gotta admire a kid who lives hours from the nearest city that even has some semblance of civilization for learning English and writing poems lol.  I hope this kid makes it out of Amboasary and gets a good education and such so that he can make a difference at least for Madagascar or his town. 

The red ink is my handwriting.  Again, TotesPresh.

Some little boy in town.

Our second pit stop was in this town... whose name escape me.  This was about mid-afternoon on our first day, which if you look at the map I made up at the top of the page, corresponds roughly to the point where the road (yellow line) turns north.  In case you hadn't noticed, the first 36 hours of the trip are on dirt "road" (more like Jeep track, but not quite as bad as the Vangaindrano to Ft. Dauphin road).  It took 36 hours to reach Ihosy where we were finally on paved road for the final 12 hours to Tana.  

Here Busteed and I snarffed down some Tsaramaso sy Vary (white beans with broth on rice) during our taxibe layover.  I bought some cowhide sandals and some hats from the locals (for my CultureKit for my job - more on that later)

Also, people here are Antandrohy - which is the most difficult dialect and most African of all the tribes in Mada.  Seriously its barely recognizable to "official" Malagasy.  A guy tried to talk to us during lunch and we barely made out what he said after he repeated it 3 times.

All I can say is that I was SOOOOOOOOOO thankful not to be in another pick-up truck (like this one) for those 48 hours.  I seriously would've died.

More cactus and such.  You can just make out a small lake on the horizon

Boabab trees! I didn't realize we'd be seeing these here, but it was a nice surprise.

This sign is a small example of Antandrohy. For some reason, they used a Y in the middle of the word Tyanay instead of an I.  

We stopped in this town about dinner time (although there was nothing appetizing/safe to be found.  I started chatting with the locals, who proved to be both hilarious and education.  They're teaching me Antandrohy words for different body parts mostly.  If you're quick, you can hear me say the Merina word and then they teach me the Antandrohy word.  They're often related, but significantly different.

We drove through the night and probably woke up somewhere a little south of Betroka (which you can see on the map is about  1/3 the way [north-south wise] between Taolagnaro and Antananarivo).  Our scrubby desert landscape had been transformed into a rolling savannah! Hurray! 

When I first got on my mission, there was a billboard in my area that we'd always pass that had a picture of a 2-lane paved highway going off in a straight line to the horizon in the middle of a big grassland.  I knew it was somewhere in Madagascar, but wasn't sure where - Tana was hilly and no grasslands and no straight roads for sure.  Well, I finally found the savanna of Madagascar!

I really enjoyed this part of the trip just because its very unique for Madagascar.  As I've noted before, most of Madagascar is just endless hills and rain forests and desserts. So to see a flat grassy plain was pretty cool.  It also left me baffled as to why people dont live here.  I mean in America flat grassy plain = farmland or rangeland for cows.  There was NO ONE out here.  It may not get a lot of rain, but if they could figure out some irrigation... they'd be set.

About the time we got to Ihosy, on Thursday afternoon (about 32 hours into our trip), we started seeing big hills and mountains.  

Somewhere along here is the Ambalavao National Park which is mainly devoted to giant rock outcroppings that are way big with rock climbers

This picture is like THE EPITOME of Madagascar (at least in the highlands).  Rocky hills, terraced rice paddies, and zebu (cows)!

A soccer match somewhere between Ihosy and Fianarantsoa

This little baby sat in front of us the whole trip and it was pretty cute and well behaved.  I think something was a little wrong with her, but not sure what.  I imagined in my head that the mom was taking her to Tana to stay with family and have doctors look at her, but who knows.  The kids NEXT to us on our bench though... ugh always throwing up and pooping their pants and such.  

We pulled into Fianarantsoa sometime around 7pm I imagine.  I know the way to figure out exactly: Ask Busteed if he got his veggie sandwich.  Then ask him what time the veggie sandwich shop closed.  I don't remember, but I know he does. lol.
So we pulled out and off we went through the winding road of doom toward Ambositra.  We must've gotten there around 1 or 2 in the morning.  This is where Busteed said goodbye.  I groggily acknowledged that he was getting off and told him I'd see him in Tana.  And then kind of passed back out.  I woke up again in Antsirabe.  Its now like 4 in the morning.  I am delirious out of my mind having now spent a good 44 hours on this bus.  We stopped at a gas station and, if I remember/understood correctly (highly doubtful) a couple of the passengers got of the bus, and never got back on for some weird reason.  OR everyone else on the bus over estimated the number of people with us and magically created two missing passengers.  Either way we kept leaving the gas station and then everyone in the seats would freak out and yell at the bus driver telling him to go back, then we'd leave, then theyd freak out.  I was going insane lol.
At this point I've woken up enough to realize that a) I'm delirious, b) I'm FREEZING cold - it was seriously probably about 40 degrees, and c) I have to pee reeeeeeal bad.
But the bus keeps starting and stopping and the last thing I want (even less than peed pants) is to be left behind on the outskirts of Madagascar in the freezing cold.  I also don't terribly fancy announcing to the bus that I have to go pee (anything a white person does generally attracts attention anyways, and I felt this would be even more conspicuous) so I held it for a while.
After a few minutes, we actually encountered what was essentially a 4am traffic jam on the highway leaving Antsirabe.  How on earth that happened, I have no idea.  But finally we stopped long enough that I mustered up enough courage to get off the bus and relieve myself, and man was I relieved lol.
Then I bought some SCALDING hot milk w/ sugar to warm up my shivering bones (yes someone was selling scalding hot milk w/ sugar at 4am on the side of the highway...No, I don't know either) and hopped back on the bus.  I believe I got a little more sleep and re-awoke on the outskirts of Tana. When we finally got to the bus station I could barely contain my excitement... well yes I could actually, b/c I was still pretty comatose.  I stumbled off the bus and barely even thought about haggling with the taxi hawkers.  Got my bags in a taxi and home to Sr. Fanja's on the other side of town.  Took a nap for a while, took a shower with water Sr. Fanja boiled for me (yay!), and continued with my day.

After this trip, Busteed and I decided that the US could save a lot of money on prison budgets by just sending people to Madagascar on a one way ticket, and then signing them up for a series of bus trips between Ft. Dauphin (extreme south) and Diego-Suarez (extreme north) this would probably entail 96 hour bus rides (each way) and most definitely lead to partial insanity.  After 1 or 2 of these trips, you can bring the criminals home, and they will never ever ever think of breaking the law again.  Guaranteed. : - )

Alright it wasn't all that bad.  But it really is atrociously uncomfortable.  Just sitting here thinking about it makes me cringe.  But the scenery and the experience where quite amazing : - ) lucky for you, the pictures are above, and you don't have to brave another Bus Ride of Doom.