Feb 16-Feb 23
We flew into Madagascar’s capital, Antananarivo, around 4am Friday morning. It’s the worst kind of overnight flight, departing Nairobi around 11pm, not long enough for sleep to add much value. Plus we had about 14 hours in the Nairobi airport, so by the time we got through customs and got shuttled off to our hotel we were destroyed. A few hours and some showers later and we were out to explore Antananarivo. We learned very quickly how poor Madagascar is. Really poor. The top ten list of things to do in the city were mostly restaurants, with one historic building that we went to visit and a T-shirt store as the remaining spots to visit. We took a walk down by the lake but it was tough walking around it. Vendors on the ground with their foods, fruits and used clothes/shoes that they are selling. Plus people have lean-to shacks built right next to the water. Very hard to be the two white people wandering around. There are some other tourists around, but they are all French, because… you guessed it… the second language in Madagascar is French! Uh oh. We don’t speak that language as our visit to Quebec City proved a few years ago. This is one of the few places over the past 4 months where people legitimately do not speak any English. No problem. Google translate and embarrassment will get us through this.
While researching Madagascar, we found out that all of the touristy things to do are really far away and spread throughout the island. We decided to go to the west coast, to a city called Morondava, to see the Baobab trees and visit a nature reserve that has lemurs and giant jumping rats… not kidding on that one. It apparently hops like a miniature kangaroo. So we were going to take the bus to get there. The problem is that the bus requires a reservation to be made by phone. Language barrier. So I asked the hotel receptionist who spoke a tiny bit of English if she could help me call to make the reservations. Nope. She immediately told me it was a terrible idea and that she should call me a driver. I protested for just a second but she was adamant that it was a bad idea, so I took her word. She found us a driver, Mr. Rudy, who picked us up early on Monday morning to make the drive to Morondava.
We started the journey, not really knowing what we were getting into. Our driver spoke a tiny bit of English and was accompanied by a guy that he called “the other driver”. This really confused us for the first 8 hours of the trip. We then realized why they would want a second driver. I’m not sure how I didn’t get this information during my research, but I thought the trip was only 6ish hours. Maybe I got mixed up when comparing different areas to visit – I don’t know. But the trip was 14 very long hours each way. The roads were horrible – huge potholes that required us to driver very slowly most of the drive, with entire parts of the road just washed away leaving just makeshift roads that locals had built. This drive also was a second reminder of how poor Madagascar is. The road we were driving on was the main road in this part of the country with what looked like the majority of the people living right on that road. So all day we saw kids walking to school and people pulling carts or carrying loads around. Everyone seemed to be dressed in clothes shipped over from the USA (I even saw a Belle Tire sweatshirt), but only half of the people wore shoes. Men in full suits walking down the road barefoot.
Seeing the kids in these towns gave me mixed emotions. We saw them walking to and from school in their uniforms (typically just a color requirement – everyone in green shirt and any time of shorts/pants/skirt, etc). So you feel good about this. But also I realized that there were a ton of kids who looked to be under 10 going to school. Where were the teenagers? So then I wonder, are they sent to the city to continue school (perhaps hopeful thinking on my part) or are they just done with school at this age to have babies and work? The kids walking to school seemed so normal – running, goofing off, playing. It makes me sad to think of what they have to look forward to and makes me feel so grateful for the luck we have of being from the USA and being able to give our children everything. Really, everything.
Here are cows pulling a cart:
So tough drive because of the roads and the poverty, but the view made it really special. The landscape in Madagascar is incredible – for hours we saw rice field after rice field (which a little corn mixed in). The green just went on forever.
We arrived just as the sun was setting and got to enjoy a few minutes of beautiful color on the beach.
After getting settled in, we grabbed some food and went to bed. Not much to do in town other than eat and go on day trips to other places. The next morning, we confirmed a nagging suspicion. The Kirindy National Park was closed because of the rainy season. This feels like something I should have known going into this. So we went to the beach instead. Our driver told us there was a resort there that we could get chairs for the day and lunch. But when we got there… it was closed. So Michael and I took a long walk on the beach. It went on forever – we walked in one direction for 30 or 40 minutes before turning around. There were some fishermen out getting dealing with their nets and their boats.
But we might have only seen 25 or so people, all locals, while walking. There were a few tourists in our area when we got back, but apparently in low season, it’s really dead.
After the beach we went back to hang out at the guest house. The baobabs are best seen at sunset and sunrise, so we had a 4pm departure time. The trip out to see the baobabs was a bit stressful. We passed the Avenue of the Baobabs and kept driving. The driver explained himself but we couldn’t understand what he was saying. After about 30 minutes of driving past, he stopped and asked for directions. uh oh. We then turned around and turned off on some side road. At this point, sunset was fast approaching and we were heading away from where we thought the avenue was… the thing we came to see. The only thing left because we aren’t going to see any giant. jumping. rats. At one point the driver thought about turning around. It was hectic, we didn’t know what to do and finally, we pulled up to an area with vendors and parking. We had arrived at Baobab Amoureux… Baobabs in Love.
They’re in love. Because they’re intertwined. We took pictures and were like… ok! Let’s go!! Love is cool… but the avenue at sunset! We had some anxiety rolling pretty thick at this point. And then – we saw a rainbow super far away. It’s hard to see in this picture, but it’s there:
Seeing that rainbow was a “relax, calm down and enjoy the moment” reminder.
While googling a second ago to get the official name for Baobabs in love, I found out that Baobab Trees are in the book The Little Prince. They are a dangerous menace that were believed to be rosebushes at first but then were feared that their roots would destroy the small planet. Apparently I need to reread this book because none of this rings a bell.
Additional googling shows that baobabs are considered to be sacred by the locals, with traditions stating that the baobabs were the first trees that the gods planted. But since the gods were inexperienced, they planted them upside down which is why they look so funny.
So – we made it back in time to walk the avenue during sunset. It did not disappoint.
One of the tough things about this stop is all the children begging for money. Maybe 40 of them.
This picture was toward the end as people were leaving but you can see how many kids are begging. It’s horrible. But leave it to Michael to make a ton of tiny friends. This age kid is his bread and butter. He just knows how to get kids so riled up. We knew the rules – if you take a picture of them, they will demand payment, so we were pretty careful not to photograph them, but within about 20 minutes of watching the sunrise, he was high fiving them, they were hanging on his arms and generally just rough housing.
This picture is not the most representative, but I was trying to sneak a picture. We had some money – but not enough to give to each of the kids, so we weren’t really sure what we were going to do about it. At one point, Michael had about five hanging off of his arms. It was actually really refreshing to see the kids just being kids and having fun. They would sometimes revert back to their “muuuuhhhhhneeeeeyyyy” (said in an abnormally deep tone unlike anything you’ve ever heard come out of a child), but mostly they just played with Michael.
Towards the end, Michael gave one of the older girls the cash we had and it was really interesting. She ran away with it, but then she came back and monitored the situation. It seemed that all of the kids were basically ordered to leave us alone. We had given them something and now we had earned our peace. But I kind of missed them following us around and I definitely loved Michael playing with them. They are the age so close to so many of our nieces and nephews and it made me miss them so much (and super grateful that they aren’t out here begging for money).
Another interesting thing? That rainbow followed us around for about 40 minutes. Isn’t that incredible?
OK – so really incredible.
After the Baobabs, the next best thing about the west coast was these prawns. That is a normal sized dinner plate. The prawns are huge.
The next day we drove back to Antananarivo. Another super long 14 hours. We spent a day here in the capital – getting hair cuts and running errands, including but not limited to buying 15 liters of water to take with us to Cape Town. Note, Michael’s haircut was fine. Mine resulted in additional cutting when I got back to the hotel with a tiny pair of scissors. I have no business cutting my own hair ever.
But today we’re off to South Africa! We are super pumped to be going back to a city that we love so much and we’re also pumped that we’re meeting our good friends Jeff and Vanessa there who will be taking the long flight from Philly today. Although there is that whole Cape Town running out of water thing, we are still incredibly pumped and cannot wait. I can’t say that we’re going to miss Madagascar. It has been an education for sure, not just in the country, but also a reminder that you can plan things to a T and things might not work out the way you want to. I wouldn’t say that we did Madagascar “right” and I’m bummed that this is the only lemur that we saw:
He was in a cage at the guest house we stayed at on the coast. Not really what you envision when you think of the animals in Madagascar. But with seven days here, it was apparently the best Michael and I could do this time. More planning, any understanding of French, or an English guide may have helped. But I’m grateful for that rainbow and for the kids playing with Michael and the beautiful country that we were able to see. And that’s just going to have to be good enough for our visit to Madagascar.