Two weeks into my month in Madagascar I headed south. With Madagascan roads as they were in 1994 and an average speed of 25 kph, the 150 kilometres between Ambositra and Fianarantsoa was no short trip. After breakfast my trekking companions and I, keen to get on our way, we waited patiently for the final two seats or the taxi-brousse to fill. While waiting I surveyed our surrounds. Just to the left at the roadside women sat, smoking cigarettes, looking out disinterestedly to the world as they tried to sell their small pyramids of fruit and vegetables. Beggars hovered, seeking pens, aspirin, medication, an array of items either expensive or unavailable. Across from the bus stop was an open space where people unselfconsciously urinated, defecated and spat anyway, anytime. Just next-door was an open air market where meat hung, host to delighted flies. As the hours trickled by we, at first, agreeably sat, then impatiently stood until finally, frustrated, had a brain wave. We could simply pay for the final two seats. Not long after we were on our way to Fianarantsoa in the south-central region of Haute Matsiatra. Low hanging clouds restricted a view of the horizon which, with unrelenting winding roads, resulted in universal motion sickness, further exacerbated by the car’s fumes. After a mere hour on the road the driver stopped for a lunch break. Sigh. Rough traveling does require patience.
Fianarantsoa means “Good education” in Malagasy and the city is the cultural and intellectual centre of the whole island. Founded in 1830 this city, sitting on the eastern fringe of a forested escarpment and surrounded by woodlands, is home to some of the oldest cathedrals and seminary and a university, it was also in the midst of Madagascar’s richest wine- and tea-producing region.
Over a relaxing afternoon tea my fellow trekkers and I talked of our plans. They were to travel east to Manakara in spite of the infamous road system and forecast of heavy rain. I decided to head west instead, to sun and sand. With a plan to meet up in Fort Dauphin 10 days hence we enjoyed a farewell meal at one of the best restaurants in the country. Celebrating our past two weeks with magnificent lobster (intentionally ignoring the fact that we were miles from any coast) and French wine I enjoyed the bonds of friendship a little longer. With rudimentary French I was a tad anxious about travelling alone. Being surrounded by the language for a few weeks had dredged up a smattering of my high school French so I forged ahead relentless.
The others left late that evening and the following day I took my seat for Isalo, a Lonely Planet must-see destination. I waited patiently for the scheduled 2 pm departure. And waited. Eventually I inquired about the anticipated arrival time at Ranohira, a town and commune (local equivalent of a council) in the district of Ihosy, Ihorombe region. This was the gateway to Isalo national park. The conductor answered “Nine -Ten”. When we finally set off at 3.30 pm I recalculated the arrival time. Midnight. OK. I had enough food and water to last.
Leaving the city limits the landscape was rapidly transformed. Jaggered basalt mountains looking like prehistoric monsters basked in grassy plains, their grey rocks slowly becoming draped in the purple hues of the sunset. Then complete darkness embraced the land until a three quarter moon rose to weakly illuminate a incrementally deteriorating road of sand and potholes that was occasionally interrupted by patches and strips of tar. Music from the tape deck whined in time with the rocking and swaying of the minibus as we etched progress at twenty kilometres an hour. The anticipated six hour journey seemed to stretch on and on. Midnight came and went. Hmm, “nine/ten?” Maybe that had not been the timetabled arrival time but instead the length of the journey? Uh Oh. With a bladder near bursting I realised my arrival would be sometime after two in the morning.
The mini bussed pulled away as I disembarked to deathly silence. The only other person passenger, another vazaha, soon disappeared into the moonlight silhouette of Ranohira. I stood amidst a handful of buildings on the curve of a sandy road. With not a single sign of life I pondered my next move. Suddenly a voice wafted across from between two buildings, a guide touting for the morning tour. I craved a bed, not a tour, so I ignored him and walked to the door of a building that might have been a hotel. “No beds”. The attendant at leased pointed me to the only other hotel where I eventually roused someone from slumber. Not long after, hungry and thirsty with not potable water to drink, I dozed in a comfortable enough bed surrounded by soft white swathes of a mozzie net.
At six the next morning, serenaded by roosters and children’s laughter, I awoke to the faint pitter-patter of raindrops on the tin roof. So much for the guidebook’s claim “In the Southwest it is always dry”. After a bracing shower (cold water splashed from a bucket), I enjoyed a coffee and bread on the hotel balcony. I noticed a vaguely familiar voice. It was the guide from the night before, Fidel, who had skin the colour of milk chocolate. His lively manner and smattering of English were a relief for my weary brain so I eagerly joined the morning tour and set off on the forty minute hike across the plains to Isalo National Park.
A true hidden treasure, dramatic and captivating, Isalo is rightly compared to the Grand Canyon. With a sandstone landscape of rocky outcrops, plateaus, vast plains and a 200 m deep canyon, permanent and seasonal waterways, its woodlands are dominated by the endemic tapia (ta -pee) tree, found only in the central highlands along with 13 other plant species endemic to Isalo. The Tapia forests harbour fauna and flora, and provide tapia fruits, edible insects, herbal medicine, mushrooms and firewood for the locals. The feed the landibe silkworms (whose cocoons have been harvested for centuries to weave burial shrouds) love its leaves. The thick furrowed bark renders the tree fire resistant allowing the villagers to shape and maintain the woodlands, their burning targeting non endemic trees and parasites of the silkworms.
Just a few years earlier in 1989, there were fewer than 100 visitors a year to Isalo. Our small group entered the park past termite mounds standing sentry. We hiked passed ‘elephant foot’ trees, miniature baobab no more than 30 centimetres which looked more like inflated gloves or a human heart to me. At the edge of the plains wind swept mountains formed iconic sculptures. Walking in view of these breathtaking arid masterpieces we reached a natural pool where we ate lunch, lazed and swam in the mini green oasis stark contrast against the red sandy terrain. At the end of a comfortable five hour tour emerged in the pure simplicity of nature we returned, relaxed and invigorated.
Ranohira in daylight was not so varied from its midnight counterpart. Just 20 buildings — a collection of shops, hotelys, two hotels and a few houses, it really was little more than a bus stop. Later that afternoon I sat on the hotel balcony and overlooked the lazy street below. Commerce seemed to exist mainly to supply the trucks transporting goods east and west. When the evening meal came it was a feast, for a mere 4100 MGF or one pound sterling. Gathered around a long communal table we ate homemade vegetable soup, prawns and chips, steak, rice and bananas. As the night progressed the group swelled and I soon found myself speaking Spanish for the ease of my French dinner companions. Five languages floated across the table — French, Italian, English, Malagasy and Spanish filled the cool night air. These were the precious moments of travel, random encounters, reaching destinations by whatever means possible, mishaps and misfortunes weaving together teaching us about the land, culture, and ultimately ourselves.
After a single full day in Isalo I planned to head on to the coast, to Tulear. Fidel explained the intricacies of local transport. He would have to sit and wait for a truck which generally came in the mornings and ‘negotiate’ a place for me, all for a small ‘cadeau’ of course. An I hour and a half after breakfast I became a little restless. Eventually a truck arrived. The owner, Alex, was a friend of Fidel. Negotiations handled I took my seat in the front cabin only to be unceremoniously moved to the back. As my backpack was thrown in the back and I struggled to climb up into the laden tray, I took my position along with locals atop rice sacks. It was poised to be a long uncomfortable journey! Alex, who had two friends living in Melbourne, discovered I was Australian. Insisting I join him and his cousin the driver, in the air-conditioned cabin, who was I to refuse? With relief I sat back and availed of Alex’s fluent English (he’d studied in London for a year) as we set off. In a previous life Alex had bee an English Language School teacher in the UK and France and proved to be a fascinating man and entertaining company.
The 200 km road to Tulear was well maintained so an easy drive. At occasional stops the truck was loaded with rice and wood and Alex and I drank tea or ate chicken and rice at the local hotelys. Alex insisted on paying. Mmmm, I wondered what the ultimate cost was going to be? As in most developing countries private vehicles supplement an impoverished public transport system. People piled in to the back of the truck and dropped off as we headed east, all for a ‘cadeau’ — a contribution to the police fund Alex would have to pay, a tax on human cargo extracted at each police check point. Alex transported salt eastwards, coffee and rice west and was doing a roaring trade. As the day lengthened we drove through rainstorms, passed a plague of locusts devouring corn crops and eventually approached the coast where a subtle change in the air, the feel of coastal Africa, was palpable.
I started to wonder about Alex. He wasn’t coming on to me (not a reflection of an inflated ego, just the mere fact that travelling single white female tends to attract locals looking for ‘opportunities’). Fastidious, he insisted I wash my hands after playing with local children. Perhaps he was gay? When, as we approached Tulear, he told me of his wife and 2-week-old son I was chagrined.
It was 7pm by the time we arrived in Tulear, reclaimed as Toliara its Malagasy name after independence in 1960 is the capital of the Atsimo-Andrefana, about 936 km southwest Antananarivo. It seemed little more than a village in the dark but daylight would reveal its true stature as aport town. Specializing in the import and export of sisal, cotton, rice, peanuts and soap the area also produces sea salt from its salt marshes.
Alex flagged down a pousse pousse and accompanied me to meet his friend Michellain who ran accommodation near the town centre as well as in Ifaty. The voluminous Michellain, who spoke a little English, had a gregarious spirit. Happily settled into a small bungalow I soon felt completely at home. Also a gourmet cook, Michellain invited me to eat an exquisite dinner with a friend of hers, a 35 yr old senior medical officer responsible for all doctors in the southern area. With the transport system as it was I felt for the man, imagine having to provide health services over such a vast area.
Ifaty, around 25km north of Tuléar, offered snorkelling and the occasional whale. I was happy to just get some sun and warmth so the following day Michellain organised transport and accompanied me to her beach house at Ifaty. I shared a palm frond thatched hut with Michellain for a few nights where the raffia walls and leafy roof offered veiled protection from cool nights and the clear bright full moon. A French girl and her German boyfriend stayed in the main house and each night Michellain, as seemed the custom throughout the country, created a family atmosphere serving a communal meal at the large table of the veranda each night, a godsend to the solo traveller. Overlooking the beach waves from the Indian ocean crashed into a distant reef, lulling us with its rise and fall. In daylight the horizon was drawn with the ocean’s white water. Closer to shore the glassy surface was interrupted only by pirogues punting and sailing out past mudflats, pausing occasionally to gather shellfish and octopus. At sunset the sea faded from a cool blue to inky purple, then black with ripples highlighted by a perfect full moon.
Michellain’s food was as enticing as the vista. Dinnertime conversation was in French demanding concentration to participate. A rhythm of early nights and early mornings, lazing on the beach engrossed in my book, autumnal sun warming by 9am fading early afternoon. It was a little piece of private paradise, other than the occasional local emerging from bushy dunes to throw a line to the sea or gather seashells for necklaces. The tune of ‘cadeau, cadeau’ had become overly familiar so I kept my distance. I took a pirogue trip to the reef with the Vezo, the nomadic indigenous fisherman but was a poor imitation of the stunning reefs of Zanzibar. The exotic tropical fish were captivating compensations and so the days rolled on.
When the couple left I moved to the bungalow — my very own beach house. While the evenings were quieter, the solitude greater, the succulent meals and evening conversations continued. My education on all things Malagasy expanded as Michellain chatted away. Then one evening she confirmed my suspicions of Alex. He was homosexual, illegal in Madagascar. To survive he needed a marriage, a family. I wondered if his wife knew?
Leaving Tulear a week later was typical of the comedy of errors that travel can entail. A day earlier at a travel agent I was assured that I could purchase a ticket at the airport with pound sterling. The attendant at the ‘Mad Air’ ticket desk had other ideas, insisting upon US$. I argued to no avail. Scouring the airport I managed to find an informal currency exchange and breathing a sigh of relief confidently approached the attendant. He had ‘no change’ so would not sell me a ticket. “Return in three days” (for the next flight) he dismissively stated. I stood bemused, ‘He’s got to be kidding?’ I agreeably said I was happy to accept Madagascan Francs as change. Roadblocks at every turn, he had no idea of the current exchange rate. I provided it. Ah, he suddenly found the page with the exchange rate, which of course was lower than the one I quoted. Infuriated refusing to be duped, I touted for the right US$ denominations. Returning with the full amount the attendant was equally infuriated with me. He refused to sell me the ticket. When would I learn? I don’t know how but we moved beyond our impasse. Walking away with a boarding pass, it was only when the plane left the tarmac that I felt secure in my seat.
Throughout the turmoil I came across an Aussie from Queensland and his South African girlfriend. He seemed a traveller, she seems more of a tourist, with frequent complaints about the Malagasy, their very presence a hindrance and annoyance. But we hung out together as you do when travelling.
Landing in Fort Dauphin a couple of hours later, now called Tôlanaro or Taolagnaro, it seemed a tiny cluster of humanity hugging the rugged southeast coast of Madagascar. It had been a port of local importance since the early 1500s, when a Portuguese captain discovered the bay of Tolanaro. There is now a new port, Ehoala, west of the old port, servicing the expansion of mining in the region and tragically bringing social upheaval and the to date almost unknown presence of HIV/AIDS to Madagascar.
The first French settlement and the oldest town in the country, Fort Dauphin was founded on an Antanosy village, Taolankarana, in 1643 by the French East India Company. Poor trade (a little ebony and not much else) did not seem to justify the difficulties the settlers experienced from tropical disease and conflict with eh Antanosy people. By the early 1970s the poor infrastructure (roads to the rest of the country) rendered the port of little importance nationally. Export of live lobster, sapphires and mining have brought much forex over the years but tourism still lags.
Its beauty captivated me. Powerful rolling surf crashing onto cliffs reminded me of home, long sweeping beaches albeit to a stunning mountainous backdrop. Yet the colonial buildings scattered along sandy streets and the French pastries sold at a café hidden in dunes defined and claimed this coastal village as distinctly Madagascan. In 1994 the World Wildlife Fund was THE industry in town as the numerous emblemed white four-wheel drives attested.
There was so much I did not get to experience in Madagascar, from seeing wild lemurs, evocative of the exotic (I did pet a few domesticated lemurs along the way), the pirogue trip down the avenues of baobabs, the distinctive train trip east, nor Nosy Be, I did float down calm canals from Fort Dauphin to Evatra. The three hours canoeing a dead calm glassy water way flagged by palms, lilies and vines reflected in the mirror like surface of the canal was pure peace. The images, snapped picture perfect by my camera, seem unbelievable, artificial, as I look at them now.
Our overnight packs were shunted into the guides hut in the little village of Evatra as we walked for an hour through coastal vegetation reaching an idyllic bay, which at low tide exposed a sandy link to the small island of Lukar, or Nosy Lokaro as Google now tells me. Picnicking on freshwater fish, fried on coals, followed by prawns eaten with bread and lemon was an exquisite experience. Clambering over rugged and craggy rocks to comb the sands, swimming in the chilly surf to be warmed by the tepid sunlight I clicked photos of miniature shells as the sand and sea moved to the rhythm of the tide. The images I captured even today remind me of the freedom and isolation of that moment.
Wandering around the tiny island we witnessed the Malagasy’s daily toil. Barefoot on knife sharp rocks, naked other than bikini bottoms, spear in hand, the fishermen frantically ran back and forth with the motion of the waves gathering mussels. Every so often a freak wave nearly claimed their soul to the sea. Perilous and majestic, their dance with the ocean was memorising. Witnessing that frightening and powerful clutch of the sea was a part of home I sorely missed.
Relaxed and subdued we returned to Evatra the late afternoon and set up tents. After a meal of coconut water, pasta and banana flambee we hit the local bar — a palm frond shack, 8ft by 10ft. Barely audible local music emitted from a minuscule radio as the battery supply slowly dwindled. Drawn to the spectacle of dancing vazaha heads poked through the fronds and reeds of the walls, adults and children alike grinning, eyes alight with delight at the free entertainment — perhaps something they might tell their children one day who might tell their children? The music halted, batteries finally spent, disappointment was keenly shared. More precious batteries were found and the dancing continued. Fun and wholesome, it was an exhausting night as we danced into the wee hours — till 8pm at least.
Heading back to Fort Dauphin the following day demanded fighting a strong wind, the 3-hour journey extending to 4 hrs of punting and rowing. With no oars to assist my task was to bail water as it rose in the pirogue. Made from a tree trunk it seemed to be dissolving before my very eyes. Frequent stops to mend the boat — stuffing the splits with grass, cloth or whatever, did little to instil confidence but we did eventually make it back to Fort Dauphine in once piece, and dry.
Fort Dauphin had a population of little more than 20,000 in 1994. Considered ‘lobsterville’ Malagasy cuisine continued to impress. The Lonely Planet described it as the place where a good rage might happen every month, not every day. Ever keen to explore the local nightspots and local music I followed the Lonely Planet’s advice and head to Panorama Bar. Laughing to myself I realised my canal trip guide’s invitation to ‘panorama’ had not been a rouse for a late night walk around the panoramic cliff tops! I strolled to the bar on my own meeting up with some backpackers I’d dined with earlier. Adapting quickly to the Malagasy dance style I seemed to entertain the crowds yet again. It wasn’t long before I teamed up with the attractive, friendly and lovely ladies of the night, yep the local prostitutes. Feeling a flu descend I called it a night at 2 AM, earlier than I might have otherwise done, glad that Yvonne, a local guide (of the accommodating non-hassling genre) walked me home with the scent of the ocean filling the air, this night culminating weeks of incomparable travel.
I made it to the airport by 8 AM only to discover my booking, made in Tana nearly four weeks earlier, did not exist. Thankfully seats were still available so all was not lost. Encountering my travelling companions from the first 2 weeks was akin to meeting up with life long friends and I eagerly listened as they regaled me with riotous tales of their own adventures in the southwest of the country. Arriving in Tana early evening we decided to lash out booking into a more up market hotel. Dining well, meeting other travellers, sharing stories, we were euphoric. I felt the flu lurking but ignored my body in preference to a night out dancing with some German guys. Surrounded again by the local working girls I realised they were the only other females in the nightclub.
On our final day in Madagascar was Zoma, the renowned Friday market where the Araben ny Fahaleovantena area of Tana was converted to the second biggest outdoor market in the world. Raised octagonal umbrellas created a sea of white canvas under which an array of Malagasy handcrafts, clusters of limp vegetables, second hand items were sold for a few francs. As I purchased a supply of straw hats for the children of Ashweld Court back in Marondera and baskets to add to my growing collection, sadness sept into my soul. There was so much more to see of this stunning island but after a month free of responsibility, expectations and frustration, another life awaited back in Marondera.
