4 posts tagged “madagascar”

Up at 6am this morning, travelled a short distance to the local town, where we bought supplies for the trip down the

T Siribihina River. After reporting to the local authorities, we were cleared to start the journey.

When we arrived at the river we were accosted by children, speaking their best french in an attempt to get a "stylo" or pen from the foreigners. As we fought our way through the swarm of children and cackle of women washing their clothes in the river, we got into our awaiting Pirogue (wooden canoe type boat, carved from the trunk of a tree).

We were put in a Pirogue with a French girl named Irena and two guys named Max and Paddy (couldn't remember the second guy's name) who were aged 18 and 15 respectively.

Max and Paddy's job was to slowly row us down the river and point out anything vaguely interesting, unfortunately when they did this, it was all in FRENCH!!! Luckily for us, Irena could speak perfect English, so she soon became our personal translator :-).

After a few hours in the Pirogue we stopped for lunch in a little village along the river where there were more awaiting children ready to ambush us asking for more pens. Irena sat down under a tree and lent a pen and paper to one of the younger boys (aged 5). To my amazement, he wrote his name on the piece of paper in exemplary joined up hand writing. The village was so tiny and consisted of just a couple of huts made from the surrounding habitat. These people are extremely poor. I was amazed that these children even attended school yet alone able to write joined up handwriting at such a young age!!! I must admit that the real tear jerker was the fact that they constantly asked for pens and paper so they could practice their skills. I would like to see a 5 year old in this country with so much enthusiasm to learn!!!

Meatballs for lunch!!! Mike's favourite meal of the entire holiday!! lol all this was fully prepared and cooked to a high standard by the guides from scratch, with the minimulist of equipment. Impressive!!!

Back on the boat in the afternoon, with the chickens accompanying us on one of the other boats. We travelled another 4 - 5 hours down the river on the Pirogue to a flat sandy beach, which was to be our hotel for the night, lol, we set up our tents and sorted ourselves out for the evening. We were all sorted ready to watch the gorgeous sunset over the distant mountains, and gorgeous it was!!! Whilst we were gawping the guides were busy preparing our evening meal, a surprise to us, we were served with a thick juicy slice of Zebu Steak, rice and fresh cooked vegetables, Gorgeous.

Unfortunately this meant that later that night a shovel recce was required ;-p..........

Well after giving a £100 deposit to some random guy for our trips, we waited nervously outside the Sakamanga Hotel (http://www.sakamanga.com/eng_index.html) which was a great place to stay by the way.  Our "Travel Agent" Papoula (http://www.mada-tour.com/madatour.html), was supposed to meet us at 8.30 and by 8.40, there was still no sign...

Anyway, at 8.45, we met Papoula who kindly took us to the bank to pay the remainder of the money we owed him.  We decided to pay in Ariary as it worked out cheaper for us than Euros.  What we didn't realise is how many notes you get in Ariary and how little the actual currency is actually worth.  We withdrew 1,620,000 Ar (600 Euros) in 10,000 Ar notes which made me wish I had brought my little tin lunch box with me to store it in!!!!

First stop in our little mini bus was at the market to buy some rope to tie the luggage to the roof.  It was quite scary as this was are first real insite into the life people lead in Madagascar.  As fruit sellers tried to sell us oranges and pineapples at the windows, random beggars also tapped on the window, wanting some of the western wealth.  There was one guy in particular though who reminded me of a bad taste zombie!!!!  Scary...

After the market, we started our 3.5 hour jouney to Antsirabe, where we had lunch and bought a painting.  After lunch we left for Miandrivazo and slept in some lovely bungalows in La Pirogue hotel.  It was nice but the whole town seemed to be powered by one generator which kept stopping and sending the whole town into darkness!!!

The scenery along the way was magnificent with wonderful rolling hills.  It was definitely not what I had expected.  I thought Madagascar was going to be arid and dry, but it was extremely colourful with the green trees reflecting in the green water against the vivid red soil. Beautiful!!!

G`day, Mike here, (soldier boy) well, we started the day off well, up nice and early, straight to the airport, dropped the car off, only to find that our flight was delayed by 3hours!!! grrr!!! Finally got to Madagascar about 1500 local time, to be met by our hotel transferee, and an orange sim card................

First impressions, well what can I say.... but wow!!! It`s a total different world, in a good way, it puts you London drivers to shame!!! lol Only nearly killed 7 locals on route to the hotel, but that`s the norm here! Anyway, many local  beers later (might I say very tasteful), and a chat with a local, we`re now booked up for the next 2 weeks :-)

I shall let you come back later and sample the delights of what we have got up to :)

Mike n Rosie

xxx

Well, I haven't written in a long long time, after it all went a bit pear shaped in Australia two years ago.  Since I have come back to England and have been doing the mundane going to work and getting drunk at the weekends.  A lot has happened in the past two years, I have split up with Tony who went travelling with me last time and got me a new bloke.  What better test for a new bloke than to see if he can cope with three weeks backpacking with you......

So I chose Madagascar.  A random place I kind of picked, for no reason in particular, just on my list of thiings to do.  The flights to Madagascar are quite expensive and after lots of scouring of the web, I found the cheapest way to get there was to fly to Mauritius and then get a cargo boat from Mauritius to Madagascar.  After further research I found out the boat takes a week and there is only one every other week, so my chances of getting there and back in three weeks were slim to none.

Anyway, we eventually settled on flying to Mauritius for a couple of days and then on to Madagascar for three weeks which I will be documenting every day as I did last time.  In true Rosie style we only have the first couple of nights booked and the rest we'll have to see what happens.  So if you've missed my adventures and funny stories, come back and check my blog in a couple of weeks.  You will also have the priviledge of meeting new blokey 'Corpral Jones' and I am sure you will get to know him as the blog continues.

Anyway, bye for now and I hope you all want to read about Madagascar :)