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Published: November 15th 2008
Commander Colin here! Our second half to our full day in Antananarivo ended with us taking a taxi to the old royal get away, perched on a hill 20km from town, looking over all of the rice paddies and surrounding villages. Highlight was deinitely the chameleons hanging out in the trees. We took the taxi back and called it an early evening at about seven thirty. We Woke nice qnd early to catch a bus to Antsirabe. The bus was made for 15 but we were able to smash in 20. It was a snuggly three hour ride through beautiful highland country. saddly though every inch of the land is turned into agricultural land. We made a few stops in very rural villages. We were bombarded by beggars and if you needed to you could drop trow wherever you wanted to relieve your natural processes. Women too! We arrived into Antsirabe like Lyndsey Lohan checking in to Alcohol Anonymous. Little kids chased the bus like papparazzi and when we got out everyone wanted to be our friend. We took a pouse-pouse ride to our hotel. A pouse-pouse is a cart you sit in and a little man pulls you along as if he were training for the world strong man competition. We rented bikes and took off on a ride to some local lakes. The first lake took us about seven kilometers through the city village. We attracted lots of smiles and lots of Bonjours. The first lake was not too impressive. The second Lake was an 11km climb up a gravelly road through the little farm villages. It was very fun, and really tough, luckily we had too small wal mart mtn bikes that were designed to go up and down the most rigorous terrain. Mine kept popping out of gear and Ari s seat was low enough so that her legs were always at a ninety degree. but we made it to the volcano lake where again we were surrounded and chased by little gremlin beggars the entire time. This lake was spectacular, it is a deep crater no beach or slow drop off, just shear wall into the abyssmal. We bombed down the mountain and then headed farther away from the city despite our weary butts and knees. We continued into the country side for the third lake 16 km away. We arrived and it looked more like a pond on the edge of being dried up. We wanted to find some waterfalls close by but the sun was setting and rain looked imminent. So we got a cab to take us home. The cab ride again was snuggly, the car seemed like it was held together by super glue, and it gurggled along and puttered as we cruised home. Halfway we dropped off an old man and filled his spot with a farmer and his hundred pound squeelling pig. The pig sat in the back tied up and comforted by Ari. We dropped him off at the butcher. We made it back to Antsirabe in the dark and having no idea where the bike rental was. I tried to lead by intuition but we ended up weaving through a very long market jammed with people packing up there goods. The stench was terrible and slum babies would run in front of our tires and the streets were a mess plus it was dark so we could barely see but everyone was still there jamming up the walk way. Finally we made it into a clearing where we tried to zip away from the crowd. But as we made our escape my back wheel fell off and my nuts met the handle bars and I was left an embarrassed mess in the middle of the street with rain and a broken bike having no idea how to get back. We tried to fix the bike, but it was to no avail. So I put it on my back and walked. Me walking and carrying a bike in the dark brought us lots of attention. Again we were bombarded by pouse-pouse drivers, and people trying to help. We decided to walk. We finally found the bike store got food, I ordered a Madagascar shrimp which ended up looking like a rhinocerus the size of a rat. The shrimp here have evolved into dinosaurs again. It was very good though. We left the restuarant and met a pouse-pouse man carry the two of us the 3km back to our hotel for a buck - 1.25 each. We leave today the 15th farther south where we will soon take a train east through the jungle to the coast.
Bon Voyage
Colin and Ari
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Shayne
non-member comment
Its so good to hear you made it down safe and that things are going well. I've been cracking up reading your blogs. I can just imagine you two. Love ya and have safe adventures!