Advertisement
Published: December 5th 2007
Green fields to Tana
Rice paddies & cloudsAfter freezing in London, it was quite a blast to get out of the airport in Antananarivo after 23 hours of travel time, out into 25 degrees... or so it felt!
Tana. What most people seem to call this bustling city of rolling hills covered in houses and people.
The ride in was a lot of green to me...green rice paddies, green trucks carrying green bananas, but not a very green country environmentally...or higienically!
Bel Zebu, Bub Well done, please. It is actually the local buffalo, served everywhere, often cheaper than pork! Zebu steak, delicious! In some local places it costs actually less than a Euro, with rice and broth...the beer costs more!
6 Horses, 4 Fish, 1.5 Lobster Okay, I am a firm believer in coincidences (not!), so when these things happen, I just have to laugh!
Puzzled? Me too, but, here goes:
In Toamasina, as far from home, as I have been in years...one of many hotels in town...a couple from Ibiza, my age group, that I have never met before!
Imagine, we only live kilometres apart, went out to the same places, meeting for the first time at
Lobster Laughs
Dinner with 3 Horses Beer the beach in Madagascar!
Wait! It gets better...we went to have dinner to celebrate, an Australian joined us, so our conversation weaved and dove between English and Spanish, fun and ecclectic, it turned out that we were all Pisces!
So much for the four fish, we then shared two Three Horses Beer, which I ordered as 6 Horses, the one and a half lobster? Well, that is what we each got, absolutely finger-licking delicious and at about 7 Euros, a total splurge, but, the best dinner here!
Oh! I forgot to mention that it was a splendid full Moon and that we could not go swimming, because there were too many sharks near the shore!
Mura Mura Connections I decided to return to Tana, what was to be a 7 hour ride... turned into a 9 hour, cramped, mini-bus ordeal. Mura mura, means slowly or patience...and you really, really learn it here! From internet connections, to travel, to information, to power cuts...Mura mura and a smile!
At one stop, when everybody else was buying lichees, I got to kick a rag ball about with some boys, everybody had a laugh!
Misaotra GeGe Thank
Toamasina Beach
No swimming, Sharks! you, Gege! One of the very first words he taught me in his splutter, due to his two front teeth gone missing in one of his multiple careers, from karate teacher to sailor in Marseille to government official...to tour guide, who I met and hired on the second day as I was escaping from beggar children. He was patient and got me better deals than alone, cheap hotels and food and no sickness risk!
Veloume Vanilla Bye bye Vanilla, one of the many exports of this incredibly varied and rich country that has been ravaged by just about everybody, from the French to the Indians to the Japanese...all have profitted except for the Malgache themselves...from the look of things, it isn't going to get any better, despite being independent as a government, Madagascar remains very dependent as a country.
To wrap it up, a lovely and interesting experience, to be enjoyed with plenty of time to travel and friends to share the idiosyncracies of this wonderful country!
South Africa next on the menu...
Advertisement
Tot: 0.093s; Tpl: 0.009s; cc: 11; qc: 48; dbt: 0.0502s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
