ARrival in madagascar
post by scott
After touching down in the Madagascan capital Antananarivo (Impossible to pronounce - shortens to “Tana”) we waltzed through customs (read: walked unmolested out the door) and exchanged 4 pieces of American paper for 160 pieces of Madagascan paper, the Ariary. With such a huge bundle of bills bulging my pockets, we were kindly escorted out to our van by about 12 porters all pretending to help in some way with two bags. On arriving at our hotel “White Horse” we were greeted by the awesome gang of people who we were lucky enough to spend the overland tour and the next two months with. They were, in the order of introductions:
En Tze (USA): Dive instructor, photographer, connoisseur of Aniseed flavoured drinks, barbecuer of goats and other barnyard animals, reigning cribbage champion, general badass.
Maxine (Netherlands): High profile lawyer, international business traveller, qualified African game tracker, clog wearer, dance extraordinaire. Anthony Hopkins (Australia): Paediatrician, Pom-impersonator, ice-climber, surfer, pun-lover, former victim of child labour, eater of human brains, ketamine enthusiast. Amy (England): Student of human geography (drawer of coloured maps?), instructor of correct English pronunciation, set champion, barrel diver, sister (to us as well!) Kate Hepburn (Scotland): Pianist, seafood-lover, quadruple academy award winner, zebu kebab eating champion, teller of jokes, sleep-wrestler. |
Callum (Ireland): Writer (employed!), film student, drinker of whiskey, tin-whistler, dairy farmer, Irish stereotype, booty shaker, certified “bad motherfucker”.
Petra (Switzerland): Master neuroscientist, multilinguist, lemur-wrangler (and lemur disciplinarian), hula-girl, specialist tortoise tracker. Ian (USA, USA, USA!): Ex-marine corp marine science student, handyman, friend of the elderly, booty shaker, rapper, skateboarder, animal fighter, donut aficionado, charmer. George (England): Self made web-design tycoon, scoutmaster, knife grabber, sleepy head-leaner, skinny-dipper, tan-extraordinaire, apprentice of Macguyver. Eva (Germany): Doctor, dreamer, hula-girl, Madagascan dance song inspiration, Swahili speaker, tattoo artist, smiling assassin, (also- land diver apparently). |
We sat around the “white horse” hotel and drank the first of many “three horses” beers – the local brew (all except Callum who had picked up some $2 whiskey already). Not sure about the horse theme in Madagascar because I didn’t see one the entire trip.. Everyone was already getting along like a house on fire so it bode well for a good trip. This was also a good thing considering we were to spend the next 4 days piled together in vans. The “overland tour” was essentially a four day journey by minivan from the capital Antananarivo in the central highlands of Madagascar down to the southwestern corner of the country – a city called Tulear. To break up the driving we were to stop and explore at a few of the national parks and hopefully see some wildlife. Our fearless leader and guide during this expedition was ‘double denim’ Dave. He came around to meet us the first night and instantly we were charmed by this enigmatic (and fashionable!) Malagasay man.
The overland tour - day 1
Day 1 started early and we settled in for a huge day of driving past terraced rice paddies and people with baskets of tortoises on their head. Dave told us about the ethnic demographics in different parts of the country. Broadly speaking, he said, Malagasay people from the eastern and central highlands have more Indonesian heritage from their seafaring ancestors who must have made an extraordinarily long journey from the east. They are generally shorter and look more “Asian” than the people living along the western coast, who are descended from mainland Africans having crossed the Mozambique channel. There is a huge plateau that roughly separates the two groups, but Dave informed us that the division of cultures is not merely geographical. Although they are all Malagasay, the “highlanders” don’t usually mix with the western coastal people and intermarriage is widely frowned upon.
At dinner that night while trying to decode the French menu we came across “steak a cheval”.. Horse meat? Has this European craze for eating equines caught on here as well? The brave among us (Callum and George) gave it a crack and were hoeing into a piece of meat with egg on the top and commenting on how tasty the old steed was when Dave caught onto our conversation and started pissing himself with laughter. Apparently it’s not actually horse meat but “a cheval” refers to the egg on top of the steak which apparently is “riding” the steak like a horse. We all felt a bit a bit stupid, but then again, a fried egg doesn’t look anything like a jockey and you would need to tape together lots of steak for it to look like a horse, so really it’s the French who are stupid.