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Published: February 22nd 2019
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Finally made it here!
Happy after a long zeek of negociating to try to get yself a transport cheap enough to bring me to the south! my arrival as always was slightly dramatic, beginning with a strike at Nairobi airport, followed by sleeping on the hallaways of the airport and having to constantly question people about our chances of making it, at any point at any time that very day to Antananarivo?
Well it took from 4am till departures 12 hours later to land in a never been land at Antananarivo airport by 8pm their time.... not y plan to start zith of course as I wanted to arrive during the day; but had to make do, surprisingly going through custo,ms was incredibly easy, and a lady at custos got me a ¨friend¨ of hers to drive me to y desired hotel... a pleasant enough start to this adventure.
Imade my way to bed pretty much immediatelly to wake next morning rather happy with myself and my choice of venue, I set out to discover the city, going down the large staircase that brings down to via a on the stairs set up market down to
a restaurant zhere locals were eating lunch asI had indeed missed breakfast by waking late, I had so,e pork, with veggies and rice; not really knozwing zhat I awas ordering.... never the less I was starving and it tasted good, I wondered on, happily discovering the city by myself and surprised above all about how little hassle I was getting, I just needed to say No thanks, ad it stopped there, which is rqrely heard off in developping countries.... as we know, white skin seems to be very often= £ or$ sign, but here, they either have not been confronted with tourism in mass yet, or the people are just much ore cool, but either zay it feels greaT.
This is by now the 6th of March, i went early to bed that night, having a bottle of coke and one of Rhum in my possession and still knackered from ther journey and from the miles of wazlking I did on day 1 on day 2 feeling more acquaint with the city, as I was tying y shoe laces, a boy approached me to be my guide, as he introduced himself as Eli, I responded to him,
my nickname is eli too, which ade us both giggle, so I took him on as a guide and he walked faithfully around zith me, showing me sights and helping me around, we made it all the way to the old burned down Queens cqstle, and I got 2 long boring tours of the palaces and cqstle zhere the rouyal families had lived over the yeqrs... it was pretty much all on a climb, I passed several places I hazd already been at, but as it was on the away, I knew where to buy food to picknick with my newly acquired guide.
I spent the next fez days trying to find out how to make my way to the diverse places I intended to visit, talking French obviously help a big deal, as the locals leqrn to zrite and read in this language, I quickly realised thqt no way my budget was going to allow to fulfill all the things I wanted to see, but I was still happy enough to do it all, on a different way and to only see half of the venues hoped for.... Also it being the rainy season meant that
certain sites just are not achieveable over this period as some of it only reacheable after end of April/May, when the roads zill have dried out, the infrastructure of the roads is visibly and I hear that in the areas outside the capital even worse than zwhat one can see here in the big city.
I must admit that over my first zeek, the level of hassle, and difficulty is among the lowest that I have experienced in my backpâcking travels in the past You cant imagine to what point that is a relieve
by the way the letters are all placed very differently than in Europe hence my bqd spelling which i ll happily cortrect when I get back home.
Day 3 I spent again with my by now realising terrible bad guide zho does little or no effort to help me, not to get hassled, let alone have any knowledge of the sites, nnor help me find a proper way to travel down to the south obviously he is trying to become my guide over the zole journey, so he pushes for me to travel with someone he knows... but as I ended
up telling him, as he made sch little effort to support me or defend me frol the hasslers, he was never going to get the deal.... he, as most peole zere trying to get me to book a cr with driver at 50 Euros per day, but after having gone to a bar 50 mretres or less from where I stay, the very nice couple running the bar Jean Michel and his locql wife, put me in touch with a guy with zhoim I negociated a deal at "" Euroes per day to make y way south to Tulear, th apparently most approacheable south tozn on the coast, leading me to see the most important sights of this country and also to have the easiest road and eqsiest access to natural reserves, on mountain, which I am still in zriting this blog from, volcano, which I was at 2 daus ago, and natural reserve to see Lemuers in the zild in the rain forest zhich I did yesterday.
The level of infrastructure is among the wort I have experienced any where, but the people are sooooo friendly, so helpful and yes of course there is so,e hassle
toards the Waza= white man, but really compared to other countries even in Africa, this is a coup of tea, and I just hope it remaion that way, my only worry its the oney, it is all much more expensive than I first thought it d be so I am bracing myself and hoping the sterling pound doesnt continue declining zith this BREXIT business, but time will tell, so far I am embracing my time here!
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