Toamasina and beyond

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After the crocodile farm we headed to the restaurant for lunch, it was pricey but oh so worth it! It was so delicious! Chicken in mustard sauce and an amazing veal casserole, topped off by having chocolate soup at the end, basically a very thick and amazing chocolate mousse. We wandered back down to the lemur islands and watched for a while waiting for the car to return at 2 to pick us up. When it came off we went back to our hotel, the other aussie had had a great few hours in the national park and said she found it amazing since it was primary forest and most other parks here at secondary forest, so the trees were massive!
When we got back to the hotel we tried to figure out a timetable that would get us to Lac Atrea, the biggest lake in Madagascar and where there is an endangered species of lemur that lives on the floating reeds but since the access road is bad and there is only one taxi-brousse there daily we thought better of it. We relaxed until dinner time then went to bed to the sounds of the forest. 6am next morning we were up and packed and heading down to brekky,we paid the bill and walked up to the corner where we had got off our taxi-brousse 3 days earlier to visit Andasibe. We waited a while and finally a truck came and we got in the back (it is like a bus). This took us to Moramanga, one of the towns we had passed through on the way from Tana to Andasibe. There we found a taxi-brousse heading for Toamasina. Unfortunately all the t-b´s that would have passed us at the corner would have been full since they fill up in Moramanga. The ride took about 5 hours and we arrived in the mid afternoon in Toamasina (or Tamatave as the locals call it). We walked from the taxi-brousse station in the direction of the centre of town just to get away from all the pousse pousse people hastling us to get in theirs, we rounded a corner and flagged two down to take us to our hotel. Neither of them had heard of it so we just asked to drop us at the closest big hotel we could find on the map that they knew.
The Eden hotel was basic but clean, 25000 Ar a night ($12.50). We got into the room to find there is a shower but no toilet and there is a balcony but the door to the balcony doesn’t lock. We decided to always take our valuables with us because of this. We went in search of food since it was now 3pm and we hadn’t eaten since 6. We had pretty delicious and cheap meals at a local eatery down the road, even had a milkshake though it was more like malt powder mixed with milk and blended with ice… after I drank it I then thought of the merits of not consuming ice, but was too late (in the days following I did not get sick though). We went in search of internet and found a few cyber cafes nearby, but first we needed to hit up a bank since we had spent most of our money in Andasibe and there had been no bank there. We had to walk up the street to a second bank since the first had no cash left in the ATM. We then went to the cyber café and stayed literally until closing time updating blogs, emails etc. Then we went to the Joffre hotel and bought some drinks in the restaurant in order to use their wifi. We ended up staying there for almost 3 hours and ate a light dinner there too. It was a bit pricey, but that only meant we spent about $20 on 6 drinks (mix of alcoholic and non) and 2 meals, not too bad really. We then went to bed after a long conversation with our receptionist (a man doing the nightshift) who had a friend who drove a taxi who could take us to the Iviolina Zoo for 80,000Ar (about $40) and we finally said no it was too expensive. We had planned on taking a taxi.brousse to the village and then walking the 4km.
Next morning we got up early and the same receptionist said his friend would do it for 70,000Ar and we felt tired so thought that walking so much was too much and said yes. We went and had an ok brekky at the Joffre again to use the wifi and I accidently complained too loudly about the milk we had been given for hot chocolate and coffee (it was so lumpy it made me gag and Dario drank his coffee black) that they didn’t charge me for my brekky except the yogurt I ate! But we paid almost the full amount anyway by giving the staff the change as a tip.
At 9.30 we met the taxi driver at the hotel and were driven the 30 mins to the zoo gate. It is a Madagascan zoo in that it only keeps native species for conservation, education and breeding of endangered species. We saw one bug school group there while we were. We saw lots of lemurs, unfortunately all we saw of the nocturnal aye aye was some fur sticking out of his box which is totally understandable of course. I was a bit disappointed in that the cages were small for the animals inside and a bit sparse in terms of cage furniture. They have had success in breeding the endangered blue eyed lemurs as well as breeding lots of the radiated tortoises. One very enthusiastic keeper who was feeding the tortoises showed us a baby radiated and a baby spider tortoise that had hatched there. There were adults roaming around a big cage too bumping into each other to get to the food first.
We were lucky to be there at feeding time for the lemurs too which explained all the noise that we heard initially. The zoo has lemurs living outside of cages too and they were all screeching at the caged ones at one point, all to do with food me thinks. We saw tomato frogs and also some very cooly coloured chameleons. We walked through the surrounding tracks which is on land owned by the zoo, learning on the way about threatened fish in the area as there were many signs for educating the public about the environment. We made it back to the car park the long way (the map we had and the trails weren’t marked correctly and we got slightly lost) and went back to Toamasina. We ate some lunch and decided to just chill out the rest of the afternoon. Next morning we got up early and took two pousse pousse back to the taxi-brousse terminal to return to Tana. When we got there we were surrounded by people trying to get us to go with them, so annoying! Finally we found the office of a driver we met and bought tickets there since it was ready to go within half an hour, and for the first time ever we actually left within half an hour!! We stopped at various villages along the way for toilet breaks or buying produce to sell on in Tana, unfortunately though it was raining most of the trip until we got back into the highlands. Considering it didn’t rain our entire time we felt lucky that it was only raining on a travelling day, not a trekking day.
We arrived in Tana after dark and we had dropped most of our passengers off before the terminal. Our driver offered to drive us to our hotel after doing the official dropoff and since we couldn’t be bothered haggling with people we said yes and he said we could pay whatever we would have paid a taxi, so we agreed on 10,000Ar ($5). We arrived at the hotel Sakamanga and hoped there was a room available. We had booked one for the following night but arrived a day early and they were full. But they directed us up the road to a nice hotel that was slightly cheaper but almost equally as nice run by a nice older French man who spoke no words in English. We dumped our stuff, got changed out of travelling clothes and went back to the Sakamanga at 7 for a nice dinner. So yummy!! Including really good icecream at the end (only really good compared to other Madagascan ice cream though), then went to bed. Next morning we slept in a bit, 8.30am felt so late to us. Had a nice brekky at our hotel, paid the bill and packed up. We took our bags to be locked away at the Sakamanga so we could go for a wander before checking in, and put our massive pile of laundry in for cleaning (most expensive laundry this whole trip so far, but same day service instead of 2 days). We walked to the nearby market which is massive, selling everything from live ducks, geese, turkeys and chickens to fruit and veg, shoes, clothes, buttons and thread etc etc. We walked around a but and found a flag for my bag, not a patch as such, just a small flag which would suffice. There are many flags around at the moment since apparently on the 27th it is Independence day in Madagascar. We walked up the big stairs towards the palace on top of a big hill where all the artesan stalls are and bought a few small souvenirs for about $1. People sell home made stamps, as in, dip in ink and stamp onto paper of lemurs and stuff which are cool, but we figured we´d never use them. We walked back to the hotel and checked in.
We had a late lunch at the snack place run by the Sakamanga, a pretty average pizza that we shared and a really cool waffle coated in nutella to finish . We had a lazy afternoon again since we didn’t have anything we wanted to see and didn’t wanna spend more money.
Next morning we got up and had brekky then went for a short walk up to the palace again but this time with the camera. Just as I was lining up a photo of Dario in front of it the guards ran over yelling, and apparently no photos are allowed… ooops! We walked back down to the market and took a pic there before heading back to the hotel to finish packing and have an amazing shower in an almost rain shower like the one at home! We had organized for a taxi at 12 to pick us up to take us to the airport, and it was there, but we only made it 20m up the hill and it ran out of petrol. The driver ran to a servo and bought petrol in a plastic drink bottle, but since the car was facing up hill the petrol wouldn’t make it to the engine, so he detached the fuel line (which apparently you shouldn’t be able to do) and sucked on it until petrol came out and he plugged it into the block again!! But it still didn’t start so he motioned his mate over and we went in his car instead, with the wife and baby in the front seat.
Half way to the airport we were stuck in a major traffic jam and seemingly in a random street. The mum sitting in front called a guy over and handed over her baby and chatted to him for a while then off we drove… seemed a little odd, but hey, she must know him. Finally we made it to the airport, checked in and then spent all the remaining Ariary we had (only about $14 worth) on some lollies and nuts etc for the flight. The flight was uneventful, but the views out the window were beautiful. We arrived in Joburg, went through immigration, got our bags in record time and called the hostel from a pay phone to come and get us. We stopped at a supermarket on the way back so we could buy some food for dinner. When we arrived at the hostel there were about 10 people sitting at the big log table eating dinner (it was empty last time) so we cooked ours and joined them after oraganising our lift for the following morning. We had very interesting chats to a guy named Shaun from Vermont who trains guide dog puppies and did research in Honduras on efficiency of evaporators for sugar cane farmers. We went to bed early since we had to get up at 5.45 next morning to be ready to be picked up at 6.30 after brekky. Gloria picked us up and drove us in to Joburg, about an hour. She dropped us at the bus station and we checked in for our Intercape bus to Nelspruit. All went smoothly and we left on time. The bus was a double decker with a trailer for most of the luggage. It was just stopping in Nelspruit on the way to Maputo in Mozambique. We watched parts of 2 movies on the tv at the front of the cabin, but the discs or the drive were broken and it kept skipping. It was freezing when we got on the bus, there was even frost on the ground in Joburg, but when we got off in Nelspruit we were way too hot!! We had to ask to to borrow the phone from the Intercape office to call Funky Monkey hostel to come and pick us up which they did. We also stopped at a supermarket to buy lunch/dinner and get cash out. The hostel is very cool, 4 pet dogs, awesome bar/lounge area outside and it looks as though Lorna one of the owners is a good artist as there are paintings with her signature everywhere. There is a pool, workout area and sauna, pool table, kitchen. We had paid for dorm beds but there is almost no one else here so we have a room to ourselves. Overall a great place. Tomorrow we head to Kruger with their tour company.

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Photos

anything can go ontop of a taxi-brousse!
even a motorbike!

cages at the zoo
with black and white ruff lemurs inside

presidents palace
technically I shouldnt have this pic... oops! i had already hit the button!