Madagascar 2001

Back to Tana and a short stay in Mantadia

Peter wrote about our journey back from Ranohira to Tana in an e-mail to a friend. Here it is:

The Journey from Hell...

Our journey back from Ranohira was eventful. First day to Fianar was just about okay (only one taxi-brousse puncture, and some of our luggage bouncing off the roof rack on to the road - luckily spotted by Julian), but the next day by taxi-brousse to Tana was the "journey from hell" - not my words, but those of a fellow Malagasy passenger. The usual problem, we're accosted by a tout selling us a space on a vehicle. "Yes, it's going in 30 minutes." "Yes, all the way to Tana."

Wish we'd checked it out first - there's the benefit of hindsight again! Two hours later, we're still the only passengers, and no sign of it leaving. Eventually, after three hours, it was "almost" full - that's nine people - so the driver leaves. Great! It's supposed to be a 6-7 hour journey (didn't seem likely to me, but that's what one book said), and we set off at a scary speed, probably double the previous day's speed (speedos never work so it's difficult to tell). At that rate it might have been 6-7 hours, but after 30 minutes - BANG! A front tyre explodes - thankfully on a straight bit of road. No problem, we had a spare. Half an hour later, we're on the move again ... very slowly. Not sure if the driver had scared himself (and us) or he was worried about the remaining tyres - they looked suspect. We passed slowly through many towns and villages, stopped for lunch, and continued to Tana - always slowly and never stopping to fix the puncture.

Inevitably, at 4.30pm, and still over an hour south of Ansirabe, another puncture ... and no spare! Hmm! We try to flag down another taxi-brousse to ask them to take our two punctures to Ansirabe to be fixed, and so someone else could bring them back. Hmm! The sun sets, the mosquitoes begin feeding, and a similar car stops willing to lend us their spare. So, we're on the move again, but slowing down and even stopping in the dark for every oncoming taxi-brousse to check if they have brought back our spare wheels. Eventually, we arrive in Ansirabe very late, and are reunited with our spares. Time for dinner! Back on the road again with an extra passenger and a full complement of wheels we set off - 10 metres only and judder, judder,... They forgot to tighten the wheel nuts! Everyone out again while the wheel is put on properly and we set off for Tana. We stop briefly 30 minutes later to tighten the nuts again. We stop to help another car with a puncture too. We make steady progress, still driving slowly.

Then, 20-30km from Tana - BANG! Another puncture! At least we have a spare. In the dark and dangerously near a blind bend, we change the wheel and set off yet again. As we arrive at the edge of Tana we stop - no petrol! We have some emergency fuel, and we travel another few kilometres and run out of petrol again at a taxi stop. The driver has had enough, and wants everyone out. After this 16+ hour journey we're more than happy to unload our bikes and cycle the rest of the way - even if it was 1am in the morning and Tana can be unsavoury at night! When everything and everyone is unloaded, the driver drives off - no petrol, really?! Apparently, everyone using taxi-brousses eventually has a similar experience - perhaps we'd been very lucky before then (or perhaps had the right idea cycling!).

[and on our flight home]...

We flew back on 27 June. Strange flight since the airline didn't put enough fuel in the plane - and this was a European airline, not a Malagasy taxi-brousse company! Thankfully they realised and we were able to make an unscheduled stop at a filling station on Corsica. Added 3-4 hours to our journey though and jeopardised our ferry booking back to the UK. It meant driving through the night from Paris to Calais, and only stopping 50km from Calais at 4am to layout our sleeping mats on the car park of a motorway rest area to get a couple of hours' sleep. A long day.

Fortunately in between we managed a day or two in the Mantadia and Perinet National Parks. We found a coach going to Moramanga and cycled the few miles from there. We stayed in the Hôtel de la Gare which had really excellent food. Mantadia Park was really wild - well worth the six hour walk, even if it did take us five and a half hours to see our first lemurs! Our guide was Etienne, who again spoke English, and our interesting taxi driver was Pierre McDonald - French, but of Irish descent. Perinet Park was much more tourist-oriented with man-made paths, but had many more lemurs.

I liked the hotel in Moramanga where we had lunch. It had obviously been a very grand place in its time, but now was suffering a little from the passage of time. Someone's restoration project, perhaps... As usual, we had to wait a long while for the taxi-brousse to depart. The driver asked us if we wanted to pay for the two spare seats then we'd be full and we could leave immediately. We were not in a rush, and besides watching the world go by on this Independence Day was quite interesting. Two people eventually turned up and off we went to Tana. It wasn't long before he stopped for an extra passenger in the "full" taxi! Of course, she sat on our seat...

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