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20 april 2004

Madagascar 2004: Winter in Antananarivo (day 2)

DylanL
2006-04-25 18:43:24

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After a short night's sleep we explore the surrounding neighbourhood around our atmospheric hotel. Tana turns out to be a colourful city full of majestic looking -but decayed- colonial houses, narrow alleys and wide views over hills packed with houses. Our hotel seems to be in the better (business)part of the city as people on the street are well dressed and carry briefcases. Remarkable is that some of them wear thick winterjackets and some of them even wear coifs on their heads. Winter has just begun in Madagascar but it's still 25C! I wish we had winters like this in Holland.

Rija shows up right on time and turns out to be an independent touroperator. He shows a big folder with recommendations from other tourists and his permits. We study some of his tours and notice that they cover most parts that we plan on visiting. We like the idea of having our own private chauffeur and guide, and not have to plan and organise. After some negotiating and bargaining we book a 15 day tour. We'll see the west, south and east of Madagascar.

But still, some necessary arrangements have to be made. We visit the bank to exchange money, visit the airport to book a domestic transit flight (turns out to be full). We see Rija's house where he picks up his luggage. There we meet his wife, his sister in law, his wife, his puppies and his week-old son Masoandro (Masoandro is the Malagash word for 'sun' and literally means "Eye of the day").

In the afternoon we finally hit the road on our way to Antsirabe. It should be a 3 hour drive but ofcourse it takes much longer because the several (photo)stops we make. We start to fully understand why Madagascar is called the Red Island: except for the grass, everything is red. The ground is read, the brick houses are red and some people's clothes also turned red. We pass a wide landscape with hellgreen ricefields in wide (but deforested) hills and see lovely pittoresque tiny villages. It looks a bit like a mix-up between Corsica and Indonesia rather than Affrica.

As we arrive in Antsirabe we soon find a charming, clean and cheap hotel: Le Retrait. It has become dark and Rija drives us to a restaurant with the impressive name Razafimamonjy. We have an extensive 3 course meal for less than 7 euros.

Antsirabe is known for the Pousse Pousse, the malagasy version of the Riksha. Ofcourse, that's our preferred way of transport to our hotel! Together we climb - for the bargain of 50 eurocent - in the Pousse Pousse. The poor guy takes the car - with 130 kilograms of passengers- in his arms and takes us back to the hotel. Uphill, running and barefooted. If the fine fellow would have had teeth, he would have exposed them in a grin when we pay him the double amount of the met price.

In front of our hotel waits a new pousse pousse. The carrier introduces himself as Pascal Number One. He will be waiting for us tomorrow morning. We dont need a pousse pousse for next morning so instead we decide to give Pascal Number One a brand new t-shirt. Opposed to his current outfit, probably a much better reward than that 50 cents.