1/15/14
Manahoana daholo!
Here to tell you about my last Christmas is Madagascar, and
my trip to the fabulous north of Madagascar.
As always, when traveling in Madagascar, there were some definitely
mountains and valleys, as well as actual mountains, valleys, and even rivers
running across the road.
First off, I spent the night in Tana in preparation of
heading north, since the taxi-brousse from Tana to Ambanja is at least 18
hours, so it leaves at 1 pm (allegedly). Got into Tana in the afternoon, and
decided to treat myself to a pedicure at the spa near the PC transit
house. My friend, Arian, came with me to
get a massage as well. Took the lady an
hour to make my feet human again (I spend a lot of time in crappy plastic
shoes, walking around in the rain and mud).
After all of that, my two friends and I started to head back
to the hotel where we were saying. On a
good day, it is about a 10-15 minute cab or bus ride from the spa to our
hotel. Getting out onto the rainy
street, however, it was quickly obvious that we were going to have to
walk. Rush hour, two days before the
election and a week before Christmas, there was not a bus you didn’t have to
fight tooth and nail to get onto, and not a cab that would even glance our way. So the vacation wasn’t off to the best start,
but my pedicure and me made it back to our hotel intact. Took a bit to wash up and catch up, and then
headed out on the town. Hung out with
some of my friends that I was broussing with the next day, as well as a bunch
of the most recent group of volunteers, fresh out of their in-service training
after the first 5 months in country.
We were sluggish to get up the next day, but thought we had
plenty of time until we had to be at the brousse station at 12:30. What we didn’t take into account, however,
was the sheer madness of the capital around the holidays, met with the insanity
of the election two days away. I headed
out with another girl to hit the bank, to make sure I had enough money to start
my vacation. Every single bank we went
to, regardless of whether it was my bank in Madagascar (I gave up and decided I
could use my American card), had hundreds of people waiting in line. We walked around town for an hour (so
probably should have just gotten in one of the lines) and still came back empty
handed. So feeling a little harassed
(and broke), we headed back to grab lunch with the rest of the group.
Well, after a quick lunch, we headed out of the hotel to try
and find a cab, which was going to prove to be a herculean task. Most of the cabs that stopped just kept right
on going when they found out where we wanted to go (not even that far, but had
to cross the most congested parts of town) and one finally agreed at an
exorbitant amount, and would only take 4 of the 5 of us. So we took the luggage of the 5th
(he lives in Tana, and knows the best routes on his own) and piled in the
cab. The cabbies fears we warranted, as
we ended up bailing on the cab as soon as we thought we were close enough to
walk. The guy that left our group walked
most of the way and beat us there.
Luckily, we arrived at 1 pm, which is when the brousse was scheduled to
leave. Members of our nine-person group
came from all over town, and had the same problems we did. The rest of the brousse had the same problem,
and we didn’t leave (of course) until after 3.
Fairly smooth sailing after that…until 2 am. At that point, we came to a dead stop. For four hours. When asking the driver what the problem was,
he simply replied, “water.” After a
little more investigation, we realized that every brousse going that way had
stopped because there was a river across the road, due to the heavy rainstorm
we had passed through. The brousses
waited until after dawn to try and ford it, and our brousse waited until large
trucks had moved some of the water off the road so we could actually drive the
car through, rather than pushing it. So,
rather than 18 hours, it took us 22 to get from Tana to Ambanja.
But, it was all worth it to get to my new favorite part of
the country. I stayed with one of the
nine I broussed with, Kara, and met up with two girls that live near Ambanja,
Dani and Gabby. The rest of the crowd
that broussed with us headed straight to Nosy Be, the touristy island off the
northwest coast. Dani, Kara, Gabby, and
I had already planned to go to Gabby’s site, where she works with cacao
farmers. However, because of the
inaccessibility and limited time, we decided to hit the beach in the port town
of Ankify instead. So we spent a day and
a half lounging on the quiet, isolated beach and watching project runway all
stars. Also, playing with adorable dogs
that actually like people.
The next step: Ankarana, the national park halfway between
Ambanja and Diego, the northernmost town in Madgascar. Ankarana is a large national reserve with
great wildlife and tsingy, the notable limestone formations from Mada. We spent a full day hiking around the tsingy
and checking out the awesome bat cave.
After spending two nights there, we caught a brousse and headed the rest
of the way to Diego. Unfortunately, the
road between Ambanja and Diego is impressively bad, especially considering the
tourist traffic between Diego and Nosy Be.
So it took us awhile, and we were squished 5 across in a van that should
have sat 3, but we finally made it around 9 am on Christmas Eve.
I brought some decorations to spruce up the Diego transit
house, which is officially my favorite.
The open floor plan, cleanliness, and capacity of 8 vs 22 makes the
Diego house definitely preferable to the one in Tana. Plus, I am in love with Diego. The French colonial architecture, laidback
beach atmosphere, and care for aesthetic makes the town truly wonderful. Not to mention the amazing food! Fresh seafood, lots of Italian, French, and
Spanish influence, and coconut rice. My
three travel buddies and I met up with a few more volunteers from around the
Diego area and had a fabulous Christmas Eve dinner on the water at a fancy
restaurant. I had BBQ pork ribs, which
is the first time I have seen that in Mada.
Christmas morning, I woke up at 6 am to watch A Christmas
Story with my family watching it in Arkansas at 9 pm. Then, the rest of the people at the transit
house and I spent a lazy Christmas Day watching every Christmas special on my
hard drive and making an excellent fiesta dinner. Kara and I decided we weren’t wearing
clothes, so we donned lambahoanys, traditional wraps, and had “naked Christmas”
haha. I got to skype with my whole
family in Arkansas. The video wasn’t great,
but it was great to see them, however fuzzy.
We spent the next few days hitting all of the hotspots in
Diego—Ramena Beach, Bodega Restaurant, the pool at the Suarez hotel, and
finally, the Emerald Sea. You have to
reserve a private boat to get there, but it is the most beautiful place I have
ever been. The pristine white sand below
the water makes the water an impossible aquamarine color. There were women there who painted our faces
with traditional tree bark masks. Women
use this mask all over the country for sunscreen and cosmetic reasons, but the
north is the only place I have seen the women paint designs in them, like
flowers. We had an amazing lunch with
fish, crab, and coconut rice, and spent the whole afternoon swimming. The snorkeling wasn’t great because the whole
thing is just white sand, but it was truly amazing. And the whole thing cost each of us about 15
dollars, including lunch :) . Even the
rain held off; it had stormed all day in Diego, but didn’t hit us until our
taxi ride the 18 km back to town.
That night, my last in Diego, we hung out with all of the
groups coming from their Christmas vacations in other places to Diego for New
Years. There was probably at least 20 of
us, so it certainly made for an epic party.
We went dancing, which was an interesting experience. There were more prostitutes at the club than
real people, but they weren’t aggressive, so it was actually kind of a nice
place to dance; there weren’t creepy men trying to hit on all the girls, and
the prostitutes weren’t bothering the men.
I left the club early, around one, so I could get a little bit of sleep
before my 3 am brousse back to Ambanja to head to Nosy Be for the rest of my
vacation.
Nosy Be, while definitely touristy, was also really
fun. However, we actually spent most of
the week on Nosy Komba, a smaller island just south of Nosy Be. We rented a house that was mostly just a
veranda overlooking the ocean with a truly incredible view. We dragged the bed out of the bedroom to
actually sleep outside, listening to the ocean.
This also meant we had to drag the mosquito net out, they were so
bad! We had a kitchen, so we got to cook
a lot during the week. We also hit the
town for some amazing seafood and to buy some beautiful souvenirs. New Years was spent drinking French champagne
and eating a ton of chocolate and Roman Parmesan. Quiet but still so nice.
From Nosy Komba, we took an excursion to Nosy Tanikely, a
very small marine reserve island about an hour’s boat ride away. The day was stormy, so the colors of the
coral were somewhat diminished, but it was some of the best snorkeling I have
ever done. I saw a sea turtle! And millions of fish, coral, anemones, and
urchins. The island also had lemurs and
a lighthouse with an incredible view. We
had lunch there, and then headed back to Nosy Komba. As a Christmas present to myself, I purchased
a plane ticket home from Nosy Be.
Incredible decision. Would have
taken an hour boat ride, hour cab ride, and minimum 18 hours brousse to get back
to Tana. On a plane, it took one
hour. Merry Christmas :)
I hope you all had an amazing holiday, and I look forward to
spending the next one in America!
Love,
-Sarah
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