Tuléar is only 250 km from Ranohira but it takes us 7 hours to get there. The joy of public transport. Not only is the little van overloaded with people, but you should see what they put on the roof! Stuff like a mattress, a chicken cage, big bags of food, suitcases and backpacks are piled up almost as high as the van itself. No wonder the driver is bribing every police officer at the checkpoints to pass with a taxi-brousse for 14 passengers holding 22 people and carrying way too much weight on the roof. We must have been stopped about ten times and every time money was ‘discreetly’ passed on from one drivers’ hand to an officers’ one. Yes, the police, your trustworthy friend! LOL
We sleep one night in Tuléar and the next morning we take the taxi-brousse to Mangily, a little beach town 2 hours from there. This time we are taking the bigger taxi-brousse: a truck that should give a seat to about 29 people but heaven knows how many we were! When you think that the truck really is full now, just then they manage to squeeze in more people. Then the truck takes off and you think that’s it… while on the way they pick up 4 more people. Oh yes, I think the saying ‘the more the merrier’ was invented here in Madagascar! LOL
Hugging a baobab tree
Our transportation
After two hours of my legs being cramped by on one side ice blocks underneath the seat and on the other side a woman and child they managed to squeeze in, we arrive. Not the most comfy ride I’ve ever taken but definitely an experience! The next four days we chill out on the beach of Mangily. The beach is beautiful, the sun is shining and the water temperature is just right. But life is hard as we’ve gotten a very nice bungalow for the price of the cheaper ones. One can be so unlucky! LOL
Our evening ritual: watching the sun go down from the terrace of the bar
What is unfortunately very obvious in Madagascar is the presence of sex tourism. In the capital you can’t miss the bastards that take advantage of young girls desperate for money, and here in Mangily it is the same. Young women walk along the beach with a way older guy. Those men are always French as Madagascar used to be a French colony. And as the French are not really famous for their amazing ability to speak other languages, this is an easy option to them. When we were at the natural pool in Isalo on the second day of our trek, this older French guy arrives with two other men and a young woman. The guy can barely enter the pool by himself, just to tell you he’s not in the best shape of his life. At one point he asks the girl ‘Est-ce-que tu m’aimes ?’. She answers coolly that she doesn’t. The French guy finds it funny but you could tell that it was an honest response. I don’t want to jump to conclusions every time I see a white guy with a (younger) local woman, but trust me, love is more than often not present in ‘relationships’ here.
Anyway, after 4 days of relaxing we leave our bungalow at 5.45 am to go to Tuléar and catch a ride to Tana about 900 km up north. As a lot of tours end in Tuléar empty cars drive back to the capital. We might be travelling local style but there is a limit to my willingness to sit in a taxi-brousse for two days straight. So we drive back up with Nary who was a nice, easy going guy and who has a comfy 4x4. Aaaah,this is how one should always travel in Madagascar. If only we weren’t that cheap. LOL
No comments:
Post a Comment