January 7th journal entry
January 7, 2008
It has been almost a month since the last entry of the journal. December was pretty busy month for us as we had to prepare for our 2 week trip during the holiday break as well as many activities that we got involved at Akama.
Now that we are back home still in one piece, I will try to give you our highlights of our trip from my head as I didn’t get to write down the journals during the trip:
The afternoon we left for our first destination - Toliara (Tulear) via taxi brousse with one of our students, Vazo, whose family lives in Toliara. The trip lasted about 22 hours. Toliara is way in the southwestern Madagascar from Tana. About 3 hours after leaving Tana, the driver hit a 4-5 year old boy who just simply raced across the street from nowhere. Luckily, he only had a broken leg. I have witnessed the whole thing while Vazo and Susie didn’t actually see what happened as they were talking. While sleeping uncomfortably on the mini-bus, Susie and Vazo got little spooked when the driver joined a few mini-buses group during the night drive because one of the mini-buses got stopped by a blocking car who were driving by supposedly policemen. But the driver of the mini-bus outwitted them by turning back and hailing a few mini-buses to follow him so they won’t be stopped by those ‘bandits’.
Toliara: Scorching, hot, humid. No tall trees. Many dried bushes. Outskirts of Toliara have many villages that mainly use leaves and wood for the huts. One of the best designed pousse pousse (pulling carts) I’ve ever seen here with huge wheels and incredibly long handlebars.
Ifaty: An hour drive north from Toliara on a bumpy sandy/gravel road. A couple of times, Vazo’s dad’s car got stuck on the sand, so we had to push it out. Activities: A zebu cart ride to a baobab forest, snorkeling, and a nice ride on a pirogue (a handmade canoe made out of a tree trunk).
Anakao: Cancelled this trip which is about an hour boat ride south from Toliara due to sickness that we probably got from food poisoning. (We were even stupid to try the sausages as our midnight dinner during the taxi brousse ride) So we rested ourselves in Toliara in an A/C hotel room in Toliara during Christmas Day! We got to visit Vazo’s family’s home on that day which was nice.
Ambavalao: a 6 hour drive from Toliara. Our first day of the 8 day tour with a driver and his daughter in his well-maintained Peugeot 405 station wagon. (Ortour Tour if you wanted to know which agency we booked through). Not much to see in Ambavalao other than its famed zebu market and the town to stock up for trekking for Andringitra.
Andringitra: A 3-day trekking for total of about 25 kilometers in this national park. Two nice waterfalls, lunar-like rock landscape, and fuzzy-hair cliffs during the trek. One campsite is very nice with a secluded swimming hole which connects to the waterfall. Andringitra is interesting because in only 10 km radius, the flora on the one side of the valley is accustomed to the frost and humid (small plants) while the other side of valley has rare palm trees due to the hot, dry climate all year around.
Fianarantsoa: Stayed at Lake Hotel to rest our aching bodies and we didn’t realize that Sahambavy Tea Estate which produce Madagascar’s famous tea closes on a Sunday which of course disappointed Susie greatly. We were supposed to visit this estate after trekking on a Saturday, but we decided to go straight to the hotel as we were all pooped out already.
Ranomafana: We got to see a couple of rare lemurs there: golden bamboo lemurs and greater bamboo lemurs as well as a couple of animals and other lemurs. Also, we took thermal bath there which helped our aching bodies from our trek in Andringitra. This is where we actually spent New Year’s Eve and we actually slept through the night!
Antoetra: One of Zafimaniry villages. It is well worth for a day trip for a tourist. I would have liked to take a couple of days trekking to other Zafimaniry villages because their unique woodwork is amazing on their housing and crafts.
Ambositra: Full of wood craft shops. I was disappointed to see that they didn’t have the exact replica of ‘aloalo’ that we saw at a couple of resting tomb near Toliara. The pieces in Ambositra are too touristy if you ask me.
Back to Tana for one night and end of our 8 day tour with the driver.
Next day: We took a dizzy, zigzagging route via taxi brousse to Toamasina (Tamative) where Susie actually got carsick yet she didn’t vomit at all. While in Toamasina, we took a day trip to Canal de Pangalanes which is a man-made channel that is 464 km long! It was built back in 1896 by the French yet the diggers were Chinese, Indians, Africans, and Malagasy. The canal still continues to be the main transportation for many fishermen and villagers who live along the canal as there are no main road along the villages due to the massive area of marshes along the area.
Now, we just got back home from Toamasina yesterday and today we went to Akama to join the festive staff lunch party.