You can buy an interesting variety of things on the side of the road in Madagascar. For example, very small bananas. They are about 1/3 of the size of bananas we are used to, but come in bunches of about 18 or so. There is a green spiny fruit about the size of an ostrich egg that I have never seen before. Stools….. baskets…..eels. Yes – that’s right, eels. As we drove along we would see women and children holding up a bunch of eels, maybe 10-15, waving them at us. I guess they catch them in the rivers and eat them.
We stop at one of the larger villages, full of fruit stands to buy some water and so Alin can buy some soap. We get out of the car and immediately several children, perhaps about 5-8 years old swoop down to us selling what appears to be overripe bananas in plastic packaging. My French is limited and I use that as the excuse to buy them, but one persistent girl keeps coming up, trying to sell them to me. I walk away, feeling guilty, but truly, I don’t think I could have eaten them. A well-dressed Malagasy man walks up to us, speaking in near perfect English. He another of Ben’s guides, driving another couple around. We chat for a little bit, he tells us that the Malagasy government rarely issues VISAs to their citizens who wish to travel outside of Madagascar. He has never been able to leave, even when a former client of his offered to pay for the flight and his expenses in Europe. Its sad. James and I discuss later the possible reasons around this. On the whole, while desperately poor, the Malagasy seem to be a very happy people. There are always smiles and waves as we pass by. There is little to no violent crime. The government, on the whole, seems relatively stable. Their connection to the outside world is very limited, and perhaps the government keeps it that way, if you don’t know what you are missing, then how can you get upset about it?? If too many Malagasy left and saw how much of the world lived, they would realize the implications of their current situation…….
We finally pull off the main road for the next harrowing 6 km to Hotel Les Acacias, our next set of accommodations. This road was even more harrowing than the bumpy ride into Vakona. These roads weren’t just bumpy but also muddy and slippery. Alin tells us that if it has rained recently, you can’t get to the hotel. James and I look at each other with wide eyes, and hold on. The car slides through the mud, narrowly missing the embankment on either side of the road at times. We travel over a wooden bridge that is essentially 3 narrow pieces of wood, laid across the riverbed, on either side for your tires, and covered in narrow reeds. There is a rough illustration below. There are no guardrails or any sort of protection on either side. As we carefully cross, Alin looks back at us with a smile on his face and says, “CRACK!!” gleefully. James and I laugh appreciatively but nervously. We knew Madagascar would be an adventure, and every day it seems to be a bigger and bigger one!! After carefully navigating more mug and a huge puddle that spans the entire road, we finally pull up to our hotel.
Hotel Les Acacias is a common vacation spot for the Malagasy, according to our guidebook. In some ways, it is perhaps a bit reminiscent of the Caribbean, we have our own little hut/bungalow that reminds me a bit of girl scout camp. It is built with traditional Malagasy construction…basically a wooden structure with thin reeds as the walls and dried leaves of the “umbrella plant” for the roof. We have a double bed and single bed, both covered by mosquito nets, and a private bathroom with a cold water shower, which consequently never was used. It’s cold and drizzly so we spend the afternoon hanging out in the open air meal/ hang out/ business conference area. We waited a pretty long time for lunch…..well, we always waited a long time for lunch, but here it was even longer than usual. We invited Alin to have lunch with us and finally got him to loosen up a bit and talk, the rum with vanilla actually did the loosening, we did the talking. We asked what he did in the evenings and he raised his glass to us. He said “ I can get a girl or I can have rum….because of the aids and my wife….I have rum”. Alin’s a smart man. We have a nice conversation about culture, economics, music, and family. Our lunch arrives in the form of the strangest calamari I have ever seen, it’s conical and spiny, and quite tasty actually. We spend the majority of the next 8 hours with poker, THB, rum, gin (game not drink), and zebu. Later in the evening the guides of the various tourists get together, break out the guitar, and do the Malagasy version of “Sweet Caroline”.
The electricity went out around 10PM (this is normal in Madagascar) and so we lit a candle as we were getting in bed. We must have dozed off, but all of a sudden I started to smell something burning. I looked over and the plastic top of our 100% DEET bug spray was on fire – an aerosol can!!!!! Thank goodness we saw it before it exploded, in a hut made plants, that would have been a disaster. That night was a rough one for me, since I’m a light sleeper. You can hear just about everything through the paper thin walls, so I woke up frequently that evening with every gust of wind or slight noise. The roosters starting crowing around 4AM, followed soon after by the sounds of people building a n new bungalow about 20 feet away from us. I am a bit out of sorts this morning, but find my ear plugs and go back to sleep for another hour, while James takes his book and goes out to the beach to read. Eventually I join him. We are both a bit grumpy at this point – new hotels every night, bad weather, and little to do. It’s a shame because it is beautiful where we are, but the weather is too rainy/chilly to enjoy the paradise around us. We also discover, much to our dismay, that we are nearly out of Ariary (local currency) and we have another 2 days before we reach Tamatave where we can get to an ATM, and you can’t use credit or debit cards anywhere. Embarrassingly, we have to short people on tips, to ensure we have enough money to pay for our meals at our next stop, Palmarium.
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