I Imagine Paradise Is A Lot Like Diego

PS: (as in Pre-S, b/c its before the post, but Post-S, b/c I'm adding it after crafting this masterpiece of pictures and words) You can click on the pictures to view them in their much more glorious larger versions (although still just 1/4 of the original files).  The pictures in this post are quite spectacular if I do say so myself, so enjoy!

So Tuesday morning I woke up, enjoyed some free breakfast (bread, jam, lemon grass tea, and I added an “omelette”) The jam was actually preserved pineapple, which was really really good.

 

Strolled around to the bus station and got a ticket back to Tana for the next day.  Came back to the hotel changed into swimming suit and took all the random junk out of my back pack and I was off.

To where you ask?

To the Emerald Sea!

After reading the Lonely Planet book and chatting with the girls that worked at the hotel I decided that was the place where I wanted to spend my one day in Diego.  So I found myself a taxi-camion that was going to Ramena:

It was 3,000Ar ($1.50) for 15 km / 30 minute ride to the town on the other side of the bay from Diego.  I sat in the back with all those lovely ladies and we actually had a fun time.  Half of them were Sakalava and half of them were Antandroy so I learned some cool Malagasy stuff while we cruised along.

To play: Milalao (Merina) Midola (Betsimisaraka) Misoma (Sakalava) Mihisa (Antandroy). 

They offered me some of a konikony which is a fruit I’d never heard of it before.  It was pretty good.  Other than lytchis and corosol juice I haven’t been super impressed with any of the crazy new fruits I’ve found in Madagascar (it’s a sad day when you realize the reason America mass produces and mass consumes bananas, grapes, and oranges is because they’re the sweetest easiest to eat fruits there are and there aren’t really any real secret fruits hiding out in the jungles that taste like paradise).  But the konikony was actually pretty delicious and had a good texture and wasn’t super messy (unlike many of the other fruits). 



View out the back ...er, "window" on the way to Ramena. 

Diego is located slightly out of view on the ride hand side, as in Nosy Lonja.

Towards the end of the trip they asked me what I was doing in Ramena – going to the Mer d’Emeraudes of course.  So this one older lady was like, “well you should get a massage. Have you ever gotten a massage? This girl here (a younger girl in the truck) gives good massages.” I was a little hesitant to commit to something that I had no idea about and I didn’t want to get myself into an awkward situation with some skanky Malagasy chick (she didn’t seem skanky, but that can always change lol).  So I was like, well, we’ll see.  But the girl (who was theoretically supposed to give me a massage) was really nice and showed me around Ramena.  Well there wasn’t anything to see so she took me to her neighbor/friend who owned a boat.  So I haggled with him and we agreed to 40,000Ar ($20) for him to take me out to The Emerald Sea by myself and bring me back. 

Along the way we saw a girl with crazy awesome masonjoany which is a root pounded into powder and then mixed with water to make a paste they put on their face.  Its supposed to make you look young, but when you wear it you look crazy scary so I don’t understand what the benefit is if you always wear it and you always look crazy scary.  This girl however had dope designs all over so I took a picture. 

I also met, Obama Girl.  She was friends with Massage Girl from the truck and will be part of the day's story later on.  But I thought her shirt was hilarious so I took a picture.  Oh and she had NO idea who Obama was until I told her lol. 

The word for canoe in Malagasy is lakana and they kept using that word to describe what we’d be in.  So I figured we’d be in a dugout canoe for half an hour going around a cove. 

Then we got to the beach and I realized a lakana is any small boat.  I had always wanted to sail in a Junk (I’m not sure if that’s the right word, but those Arabian-ish boats with the one big sail).  I got my wish!

I hopped in the super bright blue boat and these three sailor guys rigged up the sail and threw a motor on too and off we went. 

I quickly realized that the Mer D’Emeraudes was actually quite a ways away – all the way outside of the giant bay that Diego sits on.  But the water was oohhhh so blue and the sky ohhh so clear – it was a beautiful day.  And getting the boat all to myself other than the three Sakalava guys was fun.  I chatted with them about life in Ramena and stuff and when that was done I just enjoyed the scenery. 

We got out to the beach and I took some pictures.  But apparently the main attraction was snorkeling in the actual sea. So after 15 minutes on the beach by myself, the sailor guys told me to get back in the boat so we could go the actual Emerald Sea and not just a super nice beach. 

So we rigged up the sail and off we went back towards (what I’ll now call) Diego Bay.  We get to a part of the ocean that doesn’t look too abnormal if you’re just sitting in the boat – but they’re like ‘stand up and look at the water’ – so I did… wow! It really was this amazing turquoise/green water. The water was only a couple meters deep and super clear. 

They lent me a snorkeling mask (which was super nice) and I jumped in the water.  There wasn’t a lot of coral, but some, and a few schools of fish.  I saw a parrot fish (I think) which was pretty cool.  I have to admit that ever since seeing JAWS when I was a wee lad, I’ve always been a wee bit afraid of swimming in the ocean – especially what was essentially the wide open ocean and all by myself.  So I kind of just scuttered around while trying to look for cool fish and coral and never getting too far from the boat in the off chance that I would need to leap aboard to avoid a mouthful of teeth, or worse yet, be pulled in (minus a leg) by the heroic sailors who would rescue me from bloody-salt-watery death.  Needless to say, no sharks or even fish big enough to nibble my pinky-toe were to be seen.  

I got back in the boat and off we headed into the sunset towards Ramena.There some significant roller-waves in the strait entering Diego Bay that had me a wee bit worried we might capsize and drown, but other than that it was a beautiful ride back. 

We pulled into Ramena right as the sun was setting so I stayed in the boat and took pictures and video.

As I got out of the boat, I realized a lot of people were sitting on the beach facing towards some house and not talking.  So I was like “hmmm I wonder what this is?” so I asked Massage Girl (who appeared just in time to lead me to my massage) and she informed me it was a fahoriana or a Malagasy funeral.  Apparently some guy went out diving for octupai to sell and never came back up.  So thatwas a sobering experience.  So then I walked back through the houses and Massage girl and Obama girl show up.  And by this point I decided I wanted a massage.  So Obama Girl took me over to another part of the beach and had me lay down on this straw mat (tsihy) and she gave me a massage for almost half an hour.  It was pretty nice. And it only cost 5,000Ar ($2.50). 

Then the girls hooked me up with some guy who gave me a taxi ride back Diego.  I went down to a restaurant called Le Tsarabe Vaovao which means “The Really Good New”.  Dinner there was actually kind of expensive but I was already there and really hungry.  Halfway through my meal some French dude (later 30’s maybe?) and his foza friend sat down to dinner here (this place was actually kinda classy so they were all dressed up).  They chit-chatted in French and the only part I actually picked up was her saying “Tu es un egoiste” (You’re egotistical) which to me sounds like a pretty bold faced insult for some dude that’s buying you a nice dinner (but also wanting something in return).  The whole conversation was pretty subdued though and he defended himself pretty relaxedly.  She was pretty wishy-washy about what she wanted for dinner and eventually I think he just chose for her lol.  The dessert was by far the best – an icecreamy version of nougat which is like pistachio and honey in this whipped white fluffy-ish candy stuff.

I went home and probably posted my first couple blog entries and those pictures, and went to bed.

The Road from Mahajanga to Diego Doesn’t Pass Through Hellville, but it Sure Feels Like it (aka The Beautiful Bus Ride Through Heck)

The Road from Mahajanga to Diego doesn’t pass through Hellville, but it sure feels like it (aka The Beautiful  Bus Ride Through Heck)

So I got to the bus station Sunday night at 5:30pm.  After sitting around for 45 minutes, I was like Hey can I got back to the beach at take pictures? So they said sure, and I did.  Sadly the sun had already set so I didn’t get any good pictures. So finally around 6:30 the bus takes off (by now I’ve decided than an hour late is typical bus departure time).  And I actually had the front seat all to myself (other than the driver) so I thought to myself ‘yeah, this is gonna be good!’.
Wrong.

We’d barely been on the road a few minutes before the bus driver flips on his music.  Malagasy music is not like jazz or classical music or anything else pleasing to the ears.  There is plenty of good Malagasy pop that’s fun to sing along to or dance to, but the whole “late evening about to go to sleep on a road trip” kind of music is just not their style.  And there are varying degrees of Malagasy music.  If there is most annoying type of Malagasy music, I believe it is called Salegy (I’m not sure that’s the type he had on, but bear with me).  So Salegy (or whichever type this is) is a really fast driving 12/8 beat and basically its main purpose is that when girls dance to it their hips are bouncing around like kids without Ridalin.  I have a video from inside the bus with the music playing, so if I ever get enough bandwidth to upload, I will for sure.   Not to mention that it’s not big on lyrics or melodies it’s just like a bunch of guys screaming and whistling and whooping and a bunch of girls shaking like seizures.  Let’s just say, this driver liked 1 type of music, and he listened to it All. Night. Long.  Seriously I imagine it must have been like someone swallowing ten 5-hour energy pills and bouncing on a trampoline while you’re trying to nap on it.  I thought maybe this was just one song or one CD or something.  I was wrong. Dead wrong.  That music went on forevvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvver.

So about 10 minutes into the bus ride, I’m already pretty annoyed by this music. 

Then he decides he needs a smoke.  Boooo.  Cigarette smoke gives me a headache and makes me sick.  So I was about to ask him to put it out, when I realized this super-duper annoying music and his cigarette were probably the only thing to get him through the night and I (quite literally) thought: I guess him smoking a cigarette is better than him driving off the road in the middle of the night and all of us dying in a giant firery explosion.  So I kept my mouth shut. 

At some point several hours later (probably between 10 and midnight) I somehow managed to enter a dozing state.  And whilst in said state, I realized we had stopped.  Why? Why indeed. Like the driver was no longer sitting next to me and everything.  So I got out and walked around and realized we had a flat tire. AWESOME. But on the bright side – the world’s most annoying music and cigarette smoke were gone for at least the next 5 minutes.  Also, we were literally in the middle of nowhere.  Not a sound other than bugs and not a light other than stars.  The stars were pretty bright and everything else was just pitch black.  The contrast with the music-smoke-carlight situation was amazing.  So they finally fixed their tire situation and we all piled back in the bus and torture continued. Yay!

Somehow I managed to doze on and off for the next 5 hours.  At 5 I was in a not-dozing state when I cracked open my eyes just long enough to realize it was getting light outside and then I couldn’t really even try to sleep any more.  So I gave up.  The scenery was really nice though so I pulled out my camera and did my best.

At about 6, we crawled (and I mean crawl, like 10km/h tops) up this hill.  At the top we coast for a little bit and then the bus just dies.  Whaa? Why have we stopped you wonder? We’re lany l’essence.  Out of gas. Booooo.  How are we out of gas?! Like it’s not like no one’s ever been to Diego before. This company has a bus that leaves every morning and night like (Malagasy) clockwork.  You should know exactly when to get gas and exactly how much you have left and all that.  Surprises were done a long time ago.  The driver tells us all the sitch and the lady behind him just goes off on him (in relatively kind-hearted Malagasy way). “I told you down there that there was gas you should have got some there.  Why didn’t you know we were almost out of gas! Why don’t you have extra?!” You know its bad when other Malagasies are telling you you’re retarded.  So we all pile out of the car and sit on the side of the road.  The driver goes and knocks on this person’s shack and the person in the shack takes his money and 2 water bottles and pedals his bike down the hill to find some gas.  [in Madagascar, gas stations are pretty far apart so many villages will store gas in water bottles and sell it to passersby should they need it].  We watched the sun rise over the mountains while we waited.

Almost an hour later, we were back on the road.  At 9am we pull into Ambanja, the turn off to Nosy Be (who’s largest town is Hellville and the source of this post’s title) [Nosy Be means Big Island in Malagasy and is purportedly the nicest and most tourist filled place in Madagascar – it’s the biggest of several small islands the lie off the coast of Mada].   I’m kind of in this drugged state from the whole music/smoke/lack-of-sleep situation. We stop and all these people get out of the bus to switch to a bus going to Nosy Be.  And then the driver comes to me and is like “get out”.  Apparently I’m switching buses?! So they throw my bag on a different bus and (only b/c I demanded it) they gave me my shotgun seat which I had paid for.  I’m still not sure why I switched buses because I’m pretty sure I paid for a direct ticket to Diego. Needless to say, I’m a little confused and a little more ticked.  So this new bus I’m in has much less leg-room and then to top things off drives around Ambanja for an HOUR looking for passengers.  Every time I thought we were leaving it was like nope! Look! - another kid wants a ride to Diego.  Boooo.

At 10 we are on our way to Diego.  So I ask the guy next to me “So we’ll be to Diego in a couple hours right?!” Nope, its 5 – at least.  What?! Yeah we’ll probably get there around 3pm.  So much for “noon at the latest.” Needless to say, I was ticked, again.

This driver didn’t smoke, and his music was … well I don’t remember it so it must have been quiet or not-annoying.  But he was a chump.  Every ten minutes we’d stop for the little kid selling bananas on the road, or the lady selling cloth, or …to buy milk that was being pasteurized in pots on wood fires lol. 

Some lady was surprised when she burned her tongue on her fresh bought milk – did she not see them pore it out of the boiling pot?! Duh-face.  One time, we stopped for a good 15 minutes and I just kind sat in the front while most of the people piled out and chatted with all the locals.  There was this stand in front of us with a bunch of piles of little leafy branches on it.  Malagasies are always doing stuff with leaves – making tea, using it for medicine, etc – so I didn’t think anything of it.  The driver got back in the car with a big bunch of leaves.  I thought maybe it was cinnamon branches or some kind of spice.  So I scratched the bark and smelled a leaf – nothing.  What were these mysterious leaves for?  So the driver tears off a bunch of leaves and hands them to me.  I was like “what do I do with these?” Chew them, was his answer.  I waited until I saw other people doing this to make sure I wasn’t getting duped into chewing some sleeping leaves and falling into a coma wall they stole all my electronics and extracted my kidneys.  Once I decided it was safe, I put a couple in my mouth and started chewing. Yuck! Have you ever chewed on leaves before? Yeah these leaves were probably not much different, except that they were super duper bitter.  Everyone kind of chuckled at my face.  So what is this for? Apparently chewing these leaves keeps you awake (and it doesn’t annoy everyone around you!).  So finally I’m like what is this? And they said khat (sp?).  And then I was like hmmmm I think I remember seeing something on PBS or some other semi-educational channel that said they grow khat in northern Africa and then smuggle it into Europe because its like a semi-narcotic.  So I spit out my bitter leaves – I actually could’ve cared less whether it was a narcotic, they were just gross.  Our driver, on the other hand, thought they were awesome and continued chomping away until he had a John McCain sized lump on the side of his mouth. 

To further delay our trip, this lady (pictured below) needed to get off somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

I took a picture of her because the kids where cute and because her headdress was awesome (see above).  The reason I was able to take her picture was because she actually didn’t have any money on her to pay her ticket, and so we all sat around while her relatives scrounged up the 10,000Ar ($5) to pay for her ticket.  This time the driver was ticked.

Luckily the scenery was quite spectacular most of the time.



There were some really cool "savana" sections on the way that I thoroughly enjoyed.  The north of Madagascar (from what I saw) is rather diverse which was really nice. 



This car pulled out in front of us after getting the "khat" - I'm not sure of their final destination, but I thank my (very very) lucky stars that I never had to ride in something like this for any period of time, let alone probably several hours.

Maybe an hour or so before we get to Diego, my phone rang.  Something I wasn’t really expecting – who could be calling?!  So I picked up – it was Busteed!!! Never in my whole life was I so happy to talk to a white person lol.  He apparently had landed at midnight the night before but didn’t know where Sr. Fanja lived so he just walked around Ivato for a little bit, found a good spot and pitched his tent.  We chatted for a minute and then realized our credit (in Madagascar you pay for minutes at little kiosks everywhere and its actually quite expensive to call people) was dwindling fast. 

FINALLY around 3 or 4 pm, we showed up in Diego (roughly TWENTY-ONE HOURS after leaving Mahajanga).  All I noticed at first was that it was dry and dusty.  I was so tired and annoyed and bent out of shape that the first taxi guy who approached me I told to go away.  Then he came back and I realized I actually did need a taxi to take me to where I was going b/c I had no idea where it was.  I actually didn’t even have hotel reservations, but Mahajanga was empty enough that I figured Diego would be similarly vacant on the hotel side and I wouldn’t need to worry.  I told the taxi guy to take me to this hotel I had read about in Lonely Planet.  We got there and they told me a room with a share bathroom was 20,000Ar ($10).  How about a private bathroom? 30,000Ar ($15).  Hmmm, do you have any rooms with a view of the ocean? Oh yeah – Chamber #1 – it has a big bed, private bathroom, view of the ocean, oh yeah and it has air conditioning all for 50,000Ar ($25).  Dang.  So I took it.  Oh and the place had wireless internet which I could get in my room – probably the most 1^st world-ish room I’ve ever slept in in Madagascar. 

I took a shower – hallelujah! – and napped and by the time I was up and at em, it was dark.

So I strolled down the street to a restaurant Lonely Planet had recommended called La Rosticciera.  Its run by an old Italian guy and they make all their pasta from scratch in house.  I got tagliatelle with shrimp and cream sauce.  It. Was. Delicious. By far best pasta I’ve ever had in Madagascar.

 And then I got dessert:

Altogether (my English writing skills have gone the tube in the last 3 weeks – I thought all together was two words, luckily Word told me otherwise) it was around 20,000Ar ($10) which is a good price for a really good meal.

After a very long and very annoying bus ride, I was pretty happy to be in Diego, which I instantly crowned most awesome place in Madagascar.  

Joffre statue – some dude who did something important in Diego – which I stopped by on my way home from my delicious dinner)

Sunday On The Beach

So Sunday I woke up in my cheap, but relatively nice (as I would later learn) hotel room.  Luckily the room had a ceiling fan and a stand-alone fan as well as it was quite hot and humid.

This was the view from my room – not bad, eh?

 I walked down to the restaurant which was deserted (the guy had told me the night before that no one would be there on Sundays) and found this little waitress lady and asked if I could get some breakfast.  It’s always fun to deal with Malagasies who a) aren’t expecting you and b) definitely not expecting you to speak Malagasy.  So she kind of frightenedly scurried around to get me some breakfast which was relatively good.

[“Breakfast” in Madagascar, like so many other “Western” things was adopted from the French.  For all the raving about great French cuisine, they sure don’t care about breakfast. Breakfast at any hotel (which is the only place you could actually get a “breakfast” type meal, is always coffee or tea (or hot chocolate if you’re lucky), bread and jam and butter and honey (which they always list out like that as if jam and butter were separate menu items or some fancy treat) and then usually there’s some fruit juice (like 6 oz worth). Suffice it to say, this breakfast was perfectly typical, so I added an “omelet” for $2.50, which is invariably 2 eggs, scrambled and left to fry in ¼ of oil.  What usually separates above average breakfasts is how good the bread is – I vaguely remember this bread being more than the 300Ariary (15cents) street bread.]

So I ate as fast as I could (which as most of you know is not very fast) and went back to my room to get ready for church. Took a cold shower (which was nice considering how hot it was), put on my wrinkly white shirt and headed off to the church.  Found a taxi that took me there for 3,000Ar ($1.50) and found the church relatively easily.  Wow, the church was full to the brim.  I was about 15 or 20 minutes late and I had to take a seat on the back row.  I talked to some kambanalahys (twin brothers) who had been baptized a year ago or so ago and were stoked to go on a mission.  Halfway through the meeting, E. Oyouko (he’s from the DR Congo) came over to me and asked if I would bare my testimony (is it bear or bare?) at the end, so I said yes of course.  So I did, which was fun and a little nerve wracking.  I felt like I could still speak pretty well, but when I tried to read a scripture I was struggling with pronouncing some of the words.  I went to JAS (Young Single Adults) Sunday School which was funny to be back in Mada at a YAS thing instead of a missionary.  The kids were really nice and cool.

After church I chatted with some of the JAS (Tahiana said “I got to go get me some grub and hit the sack” and he said to tell Hansen Hi and that he’s still kamo be lol) and the Branch Pres and his wife and Oyouko and Kurtis (his companion).  Oyouko and I spoke mainly in French which was fun – we talked about Congo and the church and political situation there.  Kurtis had originally served in Reunion so we talked about that and how much better P-days were in Mada ;  - ).  After that the missionaries walked me out to the bus station so I could go to the taxi-brousse station to get a ticket to Diego. 

Once I got my ticket (be here at 5pm, you’ll get to Diego by noon tomorrow at the latest, costs 52,000Ar [$25]) I just started walking around town.  Mahajanga was DESERTED.  Seriously no one anywhere.  I think because there are lots of Muslims they all take the day on Sunday and don’t go to church and don’t run their shops.  But I strolled around and took some cool pictures:

Ate lunch at the Kohinoor which is a good Indian restaurant.

Story time.

So I took a poussepousse there (rickshaw).  The poussepousse drivers in Mahajanga are all Atandroy (a tribe from the far south with crazy accents) so when he took me to the restaurant I didn’t have change to pay him and he didn’t have change to give me.  So was like “oh, hold on a sec I’ll get some from the restaurant”.  So I walk inside and it is equally deserted.  No one.  Then this vazaha (white dude) gets up from the corner and approaches me.  The following conversation ensued:

Him: Bonjour

Me: Bonjour…. Euh, est-cequevouzparlezMalagache?

Euh, non.  Qu’est-cequetuveux?

Euhhhhhhh. Je doit changer le vola pour la poussepousse ?

Quoi?

Je mila..dangit. Je doit… Ilfautque je euuhhhh.  Je veux manger ici, mais aloha je doit payer le poussepousse

Tuveux manger ici?

Oui, je peux manger ici, n’est pas?

Euhhhc’estferme.

Ah bon. Je ne peux pas manger ici?

Maintenant?

Oui. Pour le dejeuner.

Euh, iln’y a pas des cuisiners.

Vousservez le dine a quelleheure?

A 5 heures.Tuvuex manger ici?

Oui.

Attend.

(So I waited)and then this Malagasy lady comes out – hallelujah!

Manahona blah blahblah

So she explained to him (in what I swear was Malagasy) that I wanted to each lunch here, but I needed change to pay the poussepousse first.  The guy was like Oh! So I he went and paid the poussepousse himself and I sat down and they told me to order the bhiryani, so I did.  And it was good.  Then I actually chatted with this guy and found out he was from Reunion but his wife was Indian and her brother owned the restaurant and they were just here on vacation.  So we actually ended up chatting about Reunion and New York City (of course, lol) and Madagascar.  Somehow our second conversation was fairly pleasant and understandable, while our first one was a disaster.  Ate my yummy bhiryani (sp?) and got a pousse back to the center of town.  I took some pictures at the Big Baobab:

Went back to the hotel, packed up my stuff, got a taxi to the bus station, and I was on my way.

Boats in the harbour

So not quite the ubiquitous sunset picture, but as close as I could get

Lighthouse near the harbour

A flowering baobab?

Poussepousses!

The ginormous famous Baobab tree

Twenty Pictures! You'd better be happy.

Bainina! He's so awesome.

from L-R. Sr Hasina (owns the store wit her husband Fr. Fidy) Sr. Fanja. Vaniala (the VA in VA-HA). And in front, Bainina (real name Hajaina = HA) who, as I said, is awesome.

Example of traffic in Antananarivo.

Playing Kanety Be (big marbles) or Petanque (French) - its a pretty big deal in Madagascar, something the French imported.

Two beggar girls who were actually kind of nice (not like the ones in my post)

Question #3 Can you buy an iPhone 4 in Madagascar?
Why yes you can.

Just leaving Tana.  The water was really clear and made for a beautiful picture!

A typical Merina town in the highlands on the way to Mahajanga.

Beautiful day.  And I love Merina architecture.

Outside of Anjazobe, on the way to Mahajanga (about 150 km from Tana). Notice the width of the road, and the approaching truck.  Madagascar is either made of magic, or a statisticians nightmare, because it doesn't make sense how all the cars don't just crash into each other.

Example of the "riding in an airplane" comment by Gino.  Amazing views! Oh and it wasn't even hot = double plus.

Haha I love Malagasy town names.  This one means "At the Straight Path".  The road here is actually relatively straight for a long time (and on top of this big long hill) so I guess its rather appropriate.  Its a tribute to Madagascar terribly curvy terrain and hills that this is probably the only place in Madagascar that could be reasonably called Andalamahitsy.

Question #4: What is the architectural inspiration the traditional Pizza Hut buildings?
Answer: Sakalava homes.  Each tribe in Madagascar builds their houses a different way.  You can tell when you've left the capital province and entered a different one by the when the houses change.

Whoever did this deserves a high five lol.

Question #5 Can you ever take a picture of someone in Madagascar without them asking for a copy of it?
Answer: Nope.  This lady asked me to take a picture of her and her son (she was on the bus with me). Her son, on the other hand, clearly was not interested in a picture hahaha. When we got off the bus in Mahajanga she gave me her number so I could call her and I give her a copy of the picture when I develop them... typical.

The Betsiboka River (this bridge is also the scene of the above picture)

Kind of fuzzy, but this is the scenery once we descended from the plateau that Tana sits on.  I love the palm trees - like the ones we had in Florida kind of.

Question #6 Are there any suspension bridges in Madagascar?
Apparently, yes.  I had no idea.  Cool!

Sunset on the road to Mahajanga

This friendly fellow greeted me in my hotel room that night.  There were a good handful of lizards in the room - luckily only one cockroach, which I killed and kicked outside.

The Descent to Mahajanga

So the post you've all been waiting for - the trip to Mahajanga.

On Saturday the 28th I woke up at 5 in the morning.

Sr. Fanja insisted that we leave by 6 to get to the bus station by 7:30 for a bus that left at 8.  I still needed to repack and take a shower so I woke up at 5.  After repacking and organizing my stuff, by about 5:30 with no work Sr. Fanja or sounds from downstairs, I realized that Malagasies do not shower every day and it probably did not even cross her mind that I might want to take a shower.  Oh well, at least I had a shower yesterday, right?
So I got downstairs and also realized there would be no breakfast.  Oh well - I can buy that on the street.

Around 6:15 we left to catch a taxibe (if I haven't already explained this, taxibe is a "big taxi" - an 8 passenger mazda van that they cram 24 people into to get around town.  Price: 300 Ariary or 15 cents per ride).  Other than the typical Tana traffic (a fairly smart church member once told me that they have not added road surface in Tana for a hundred years - aka they've paved cobblestone and dirt roads, but they haven't added any new ones - in the meantime, car use has exploded... = traffic nightmare and urban planning disaster).

Side note: I'm sitting in the lobby of my hotel looking over the bay in Diego, and I just realized they're playing country music on the radio.  This has actually happened several times now this trip country music in taxibes, hotels, on the radio.  What the heck lol.

Ok so we get to the taxibe station (where I catch my bus to Mahajanga) at about 7:15.  Oh, and there was the expected mob of people trying to sell me tickets / corral us into their taxibes.  We make it to our taxibe's little shack station thing (seriously its a little 5 by 10 foot shack where they sell tickets and then park the bus next to it.  After waiting around for 10 minutes I went and bought credit for my phone.  When I got back, I was informed that our bus would actually be somewhere down the road, so a dude picked up my duffel back and I took my backpack and Sr. Fanja took my pillow and we set off down the road (road here should read "narrow strip of asphalt crowded with literally dozens of mazda vans, scores of passengers, and hundreds of people hauking (sp?) aka selling everything from cookies to combo screwdriver-flashlights").
We got to the bus, now its about oh, idk we'll say 7:40.  They throw my duffel bag up on top with the other luggage.  I went and bought some cookies and bread then said goodbye to Sr. Fanja, and got into my front seat with my backpack and pillow.
And then I sat. And sat. And sat. And sat. Finally around 8:30 (30 minutes past when we were supposed to leave) I realized that no one was in the van except me.  So I poked my head outside and asked whoever was standing there if we were leaving soon. They didn't answer.  So I sat some more.  Oh and all the while these two kids where outside my window literally tapping on the window for 15 minutes straight and if I so much as twitched in their direction they would stop tapping beg for money and then keep tapping.  Maybe I'm heartless.  But they were super annoying I mean like probably the most annoying mpangatakas I've encountered.  As a missionary, its actually part of the rules that you don't give to beggars - pretty much b/c if you do, then you (and all other missionaries and anyone who wears a white shirt and tie) instantly become targets for all beggars b/c they know they give out money.  And then you can't get anything done without being mobbed with people asking for things all the time.  So I'm already pre-disposed to not give to beggars in Madagascar and then my personal feelings about it, especially after seeing Slum Dog Millionaire (which is not a documentary, but draws on some true situations) are that one of the main inhibitors to Madagascar's success is a mentality that many people here have (which is basically thanks to France and their atrocious colonization of this country) white people = money and should therefore give money to Malagasies.  Its annoying and wrong, but more importantly a country (or any individual person) cannot progress if they operate under the that somebody owes them something, especially just because they are white and/or the perception of being rich.  The sooner the idea that Madagascar (obviously over-generalizing here) cane break with the idea that white=money the sooner they can start progressing faster.  A better mindset would be white=business oppurtunity or white=tourist coming to see my country (which means they're creating jobs) or maybe even white=why would someone come all the way from America/France to here?.  Maybe this is too harsh of a view of the whole situation, but thats how I feel for now.

So finally around 9 o'clock we get on the road (apparently the policy is wait for all passengers, no matter how late).

The trip to Mahajanga itself was actually really nice.  I remember Gino (a member from Ivato who is now a missionary in Madagascar and one of my best Malagasy friends) told me that he really like the ride to Mahajanga especially compared to Tamatave.  He said "Tena milay be l'izy. Mitaingina tendrombohitra foana rehefa mankany dia mahita tanety oay tena tsara be. Ohatra ao anatin'ny avion. Ka ny mankany Tamatave kosa dia ao anaty ala foana sady mivezivezy be the lalana dia mampa te handoa"
"Oh its great! You ride on top of  mountains the whole time - its like you're in an airplane.  Oh but going to Tamatave, blegh - you drive through a forest and the road is really windy.  It makes you car sick."

Alright well, I have 20 pictures uploaded on a different post and I need to get to my bus soon so I'm going to finish this one up later.