The itinerary we had outlined for our trip to Madagascar involved multiple taxi-brousse legs between Antannanarivo and Tulear along the most respectable of the potholed highways in the country. I credit the success of the first leg entirely to two men. The first, our private taxi driver, expertly navigated the narrow, spider-web layout of streets in the capital city to a soundtrack of Celine Dion. At the taxi-brousse station, he handed us off to another man who led us through the chaos of unmarked minibuses and made sure we stuffed ourselves into the correct one. After four hours intimately wedged between my husband and a man sitting on a footstool in the aisle, I was happy to get out when we arrived in Antsirabe.
While walking to the town center, we uncommittedly chatted with the several enterprising young guides who cordially and persistently courted us. That evening we reviewed our itinerary again. It was hypothetically doable, but we knew it didn’t leave much room for the unpredictability that seemed to characterize travel in Madagascar. In the morning we went to Chez Billy hostel to find out more details about the tour scheduled to leave the following day. The 6-day Tsiribihina river tour included the Parc National des Tsingy de Bemaraha, a remote labyrinth of karst spires and fins, not part of our original, self-guided itinerary because of its inaccessibility. The cost was reasonable, but quite a bit higher than what we would spend traveling independently around the country. The visit to the park, a Unesco World Heritage site, appealed to me as did having transportation and guides arranged for us for part of our trip. We reviewed the contract, signed, and agreed to pay half the cost that day and half upon departure.
The guide association only accepted cash, so we walked to the BNI Madagascar bank in the center of town. A security guard waved us into the room with two ATMs and shut the door, allowing us to extract our money alone and out of the view of all the people loitering outside. We started taking out money in increments of the US equivalent of about $100, received in twenty 20,000 Ariary bills, the largest bill. The ATM would only give a specific number of bills in any one transaction; we repeated this transaction several times before depleting the machine of Ar20,000 bills. After spending enough time to draw an uncomfortable amount of attention to ourselves, we folded and tucked away the thick stack of bills amounting to the portion due that day. My once discreet travel wallet bulged under my clothing at my waistline as we walked back to Chez Billy.
Back in a corner of the dimly lit hostel lobby, we carefully counted out 1.4 million Ariary and slid it across the table to the guide. He carefully recounted the colorful mélange of bills, arranging them in Ar100,000 stacks on the table. I glanced around the lobby to see who was witnessing the shady-feeling operation, relieved that the bills would no longer be in my possession. “I feel good about that,” my husband commented as we walked away. I agreed; it felt like a good way to spend our money. As I mentioned in my previous post, the poverty rate is high in Madagascar and tourism is lagging despite all the country has to offer. Hiring guides can contribute to the local economy and incentivize responsible use of the country’s cultural and ecological resources.
Later in the afternoon I took a walk around the village, visiting several artisan shops and buying a few small souvenir items. I took the long way back to our lodge so I could observe how everyday life happens in ways unfamiliar to me. The road I walked dipped down to a stream flanked by rice paddies. Just upslope, several people picked through a small trash dump, a scene I observed on several occasions in Madagascar. Trying not to stare as I passed, I glanced over and noticed that one of the people sitting in the rubbish was a young girl holding an infant. I looked away and walked on by.
We had dinner reservations that evening at Chez Jenny, the upscale restaurant attached to our lodge. We were seated at a table overlooking a pond and botanical garden. The waiter promptly came over to give us menus and light the candle on our table. We unfolded our napkins from their fancy configurations. Our meals came artfully arranged on their plates. In the U.S. the whole experience would have cost much more than I would choose to pay for a dinner out. We decided to split one dessert, because we were fairly full from our meals. We pointed at one of the French names and descriptions on the menu that had the word for chocolate in it. It arrived on a small plate – a mound of whipped cream – with two spoons. We excavated the sweetness to uncover two cream puff shells filled with ice cream, one vanilla and the other chocolate, both exceptionally creamy and rich in flavor. I’m not sure I’ve ever eaten anything so decadent.
Circumambulating the Globe 