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Kat and Ralf in Tana
Looking south from the centre of the city, Tana stretches out in all its glory: March 25 - March 28
Time to get started to update you on what has happened for the past two months. With luck I can get at least one blog entry done before I have to sign off and get something to eat.
So, I left Canada on March the 25 - starting with a snowing, blowing and frankly awful drive to Pearson International from Grand Bend. There Mom and Dad (can I get a collective "aawwww" here?) paid for the KLM lounge so I could wait in comfort for my flight. And comfort it was. Thanks guys!
The KLM flight to Amsterdam was fantastic. They fed us three times, and frankly, KLM rocks. Best airline for me in a long time (too many American Airlines flights recently). Schipol Airport was a blast - toyed with the idea of getting a massage, but save it for the way back. The flight to Johannesburg was also great. Flew over Africa during the day, but sadly, Kilimanjaro was covered in clouds so I couldn't see it. But, seeing the Sahara was pretty incredible. One more place to put on my travel list ...
Got in to Jo'burg at 9.15
One of Tana's Staircases
You can see all of the market stalls lining the sides of the staircase. It's very colourful, and actually quite pretty: pm, and also staying at my guesthouse were 14 people from my flight who had journeyed from Scotland. Turns out they were in South Africa for an extended weekend to attend a wedding. Wow. That's family and friendship! Eventually we all made it to the Emerald Guesthouse where, after 30 hours of travel or so, I collapsed and slept.
Hopped on my Air Madagascar ("Air Mad") flight the next day to Antananarivo, which is called Tana by everyone in the know. Security for the flight was, shall we say, lax. No one checked ID at the gate, and in fact, seats were wherever you wanted to sit, since the flight was only half full. Friendly stews, and it was neat to hear my first spoken Malagasy, but after KLM the food was a definite letdown. The gentleman sitting next to me turned out to be in charge of air security for the Madagascar government, and we had a great talk about where I was going, Madagascar in general, and the people. If they are all as nice as he was (in customs, he waited until I had cleared to make sure I didn't have any problems) this is going to be fantastic. (And they would be, and they wouldn't be, but more on that later).
Arrived in the airport at Tana a little trepidatious, and although it was slow, no problems getting through security. Still a little jet-lagged, but decided to change all my euros to ariary (the Madagascar currency) at once, and 800 euros got me 2.3 million ariary! Ack! Bit of a mistake! Suffice it to say I had a huge stack of bills, and that immediately woke me up. I quickly stuffed them in my pack and hustled with my ride to the guesthouse. No problems at all, but six inches of stacked money was a new experience for me (seems the largest bill in Madagascar, or at least the largest I ever saw, was 10,000 ariary).
It was dark, and Tana is pretty much unlit. My ride to the guesthouse was actually the manager, and she explained that two people from Blue Ventures (the volunteer organization I was going to be volunteering with) were already at the guesthouse. Couldn't see much of the town, but wow, could I smell it. Pollution and acrid wood smoke predominated. It's a smell I'll always associate with Madagascar, but also with, not proverty exactly, but very low standards of living.
Met Kat (from the US) and Ralf (from Germany). Both are in their 30s, and were very nice. We had a couple of beers and chatted, giving our backgrounds and histories, then I went to bed. The guesthouse was very basic, but clean. Shared toilet - but it worked!!
The next day, March 28, I watched the sunrise over Tana, and what I saw gave me a bit of culture shock. Narrow, tiny streets. Hundreds of cars, mostly old deux cheveuxs belching smoke. The air stank - of pollution and urine and smoke and dirt. Yup, this was definitely the 3rd world. We left the guesthouse, and within two minutes were in a non-touristy part of town. Not a single white face to be seen. We kept on trying to find a western kind of restaurant (yup, still hadn't gone native), and after another 15 minutes gave up. We got struggling directions from three people (including one gendarme) to get to the main drag, the Ave. de la Liberation. Found a place there to get some sandwiches and drinks, and felt much better. I ended up getting a ticket for a flight from Tulear to Tana at the end of the expedition, Ralf and Kat hit the ATM, and we started to explore the city.
My impressions of Tana, as a whole, are not good. The city basically stinks. And not a little. Pollution and smoke predominate, but feces, urine and rotten vegetables and fruit come a close second. And between the pollution and altitude, I found it really hard to breath the first few days. Now, on my return and after being in Madagascar for two months, it's not nearly as bad, so I guess you would get used to it, but it was really hard to start with.
In addition, walking the streets as a foreigner is not easy. For one, you can't really take many pictures - you tend to get mobbed by hawkers. And you get mobbed anyways, but it's not quite so bad. So, you won't see a lot of pics of Tana here, I'm afraid. But back to the hawkers - quite persistent they are. I had one old lady follow me for 100 metres, up one of the huge staircases that are around high town, trying to sell me spices. Another guy followed me for 20 minutes trying to see me vanilla. Now, I've been to places where you get swamped by hawkers, but usually a no is all that's needed to send them on. Or maybe a couple of nos. Not these guys. (Of course, I haven't been to Egypt, which I'm told is worse).
And the beggars. Every 10 or 15 feet there's a beggar asking for a "cadeaux." Sigh. Not what I want to experience, but what can you do? The good news is, if you go to the non-touristy zones, there are few hawkers and fewer beggars. Of course, this is what I'd do on my return, when I was far more comfortable with Madagascar culture, but I wasn't ready to do that just yet.
The streets of Tana are narrow and steep, and crowded with cars - the universal beat up deux cheveux taxis (painted a pale cream) are everywhere. And so are traffic jams and pollution. And the hills - Tana is built on a plateau, surrounded by rice fields, with hills scattered throughout the city (which has something like 2 million people but no one is really sure), so there are great staircases running throughout. I can see why some people could find Tana attractive (the old colonial buildings, the hustle and bustle, the energy), but not me. The spiders alone put me off (fist-sized orb weavers spread amongst all the power lines and tall trees and bushes in the city). Luckily, I'd get used to them before the end of the expedition.
So, after a brief nap at the guesthouse Kat found the restaurant we had seen during our walk throughout the city. I had a pretty good meal - zebu and frites. Zebu is the local cow - kind of like a good sized steer (not quite as big as a bull) with a very high hump behind the shoulder blades, and wickedly long horns. Used as a measure of wealth, to pull zebu carts (more on those later), and to eat, you see them through out Madagascar. And cooked well, it's pretty damn good.
We walked back, and, this being the rainy season in Tana (although not in Tulear - four different weather patterns on the island of Madagascar) we got soaked. It just poured rain. Which was probably a good thing - since Tana has no streetlights, and few buildings with power, it's very dark on the streets. And, although we were a group of three, I was happy so few people were as stupid as we were to be out at night. But no worries, we arrived safe. We would have taken a taxi, but couldn't find one, by the way.
So, tomorrow (March 29) we'd start our three day journey to Tulear. We'd be joined by 8 other members of the expedition, and I for one was looking forward to it. I wanted to get out of Tana and get a breath of fresh air ...
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gtimmermans
Gerry Timmermans
hawkers
I prefer to call them touts ... but whatever. Egypt has them but they give up after awhile. Morocco has some very tenacious (and tricky) touts, they'll follow you around for hours and they get angry if you give them the slip. India is by far the worst though imho, mostly b/c of the sheer volume.