Mythical Madagascar

"To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive"
-Robert Louis Stevenson

The Seychelles are technically in Africa, but I didn't feel as if I'd really arrived on the fabled continent until I left the airport in Madagascar. Although many of the people still resemble their Indonesian ancestors who settled here long ago, the shacks, red dust, raw smells and teeming population of this huge island are plainly something new and different.
While I genuinely like Madagascar and hope to come back to explore it more fully, many of my experiences here are, at best, ambiguous and trending to the negative.
Back in the airport, I stood in the immigration line listening to some poor man who claimed to be from Tanzania but had "lost" his passport, as he tearfully begged the uncaring airport authorities not to be sent back to Dubai. As most of the watching crowd laughed, he knelt on the floor and sobbed on the shoes of the customs bureaucrat, and I wondered "What was he so desparate to escape?" Visions of abusive virtual slavery in the home of some Arab oil-prince flitted through my imagination. What fears motivate a grown man to sob and grovel on the floor in front of hundreds of callous strangers? He seemed completely petrified of returning to the Mid-East. Unfortunately, life is not like the movies with a resolution to everything and I'll never know the answer as I hesitated to get involved and soon my golden US passport carried me through the gates to the country beyond. Maybe I'm just a sappy liberal American, but I hope he's OK.

In the Disney flick, the lemurs and foosa all speak English, but in reality, Madagascar and its capitol Antananarivo ('Tana,) are beaucoup more French than the Seychelles were and my admittedly weak language skills got a high-impact workout. I stayed at the Sakamanga hotel, an unexpected cool and quirky midrange midtown place with funky rooms, decor and a neat vibe. It's owned by a neat older French couple and winds back through its own alleys and courtyards full of hidden treasures. I just wish their internet stayed open past 8.
http://sakamanga.com/ - stay there if you ever go.
Widely scattered over 12 steep red clay hills with reminders of its politically turbulent recent (2001) past everywhere, 'Tana is a crowded and bustling but definitely not modern city. Many of the streets are cobbled or packed dirt, most of the buildings seem to date from the colonial period, (which wasn't that long ago, come to think of it,) and very few are more than five or six stories high. The street toddlers - too young to be called kids - make the beggars of Asia seem like prosperous yuppies, and the smells and unspeakable debris from the local markets were enough to drive even me inside to the local restaurants for every meal. There I found French menus and meals at low prices but I should have wondered, "What is Zebu? I thought beef was le boeuf...?" I'll reveal the answer later...

I spent a day wandering the downtown area and local markets - doing errands, changing some money and making travel plans. Big Tana drawback - in Asia, there was a used book store on almost every corner and a book-trade shelf in every guesthouse. In Mad., I only found one bookstore, and it was Catholic where the only book in English was on local saints of the 19th century. Lonely Planet?- Forget it, I'd have to rely on the web...

Fat chance, there seem to be only two internet cafes in town and the radical one closes at 8PM, 6 on Sundays. It turns out the military semi-dictator, finally turned out of office in 2001, (but he's hoping for a comeback,) didn't believe in the web and the current president is trying to catch up.

Like I said, I really liked the eclectic Sakamanga - every room (I had three different ones in three nights,) was decorated differently and they were thoughtful enough to provide candles for the more romantic guests. Or so I thought, by the third night there, I realized the candles were in response to the daily evening 30 minute shower, which resulted in the daily evening multi-hour blackout. There's nothing like being jolted awake at 2AM when the ceiling fan and every light in your room simultaneously kick on.

I set up my Madagascar adventures with a cool local guide named Zephyrin, (Jefferson,) and we spent my last full day in Tana checking out the local history, palaces, and some markets scattered around the city. I capped it at a very nice French joint named Villa Vanille, (guess the menu focus,) with an awesome meal and carafe of Bordeaux. I caught a French family of six making fun of my language skills as I ordered from the French-only wait staff. But they can "Baisez mon cou" as my Grandpa used to say - the girls had faces only a Thoroughbred could appreciate and the boy's ears stuck out so far, they could hear things happening behind them better than in front.

Despite it all, Madagascar was really starting to grow on me and I eagerly looked forward to the next day's adventures in the jungle rainforests of the Perinet...

Au Revoir,
Clement