Madagascar - Isle St Marie to Tamatave

I set the alarm but am worried about not waking up on time and so don’t sleep for most of the night. We are up before daybreak at the harbour where the Rhiziny II and the Magdeliene are moored up. People emerge from the darkness and exchange cash and tickets. Nothing is hurried. We buy fruit buns from the boulangerie and eat them out of the plain newsprint.

Some Americans turn up all speaking Malagasy – later we find out they are Peace Core and work all over the country teaching English and doing health work. The boat leaves after 6 putting out across the bay full of people. In front of us a father cradles his son while his four daughters sit in a row next to him taking turns to puke into a pair of green plastic bags he dished out the minute we set off. The boat sits very low in the water and people with their elbows hanging over the edges get them wet.



Soanieran-Ivongo is up the mouth of a wide river. No more than a collection of ramshackle huts from which a stream of touts rush to the metal landing station. The children are handed out one by one. The Americans organise a taxi-brousse. We pay our fare out of the window and then set off slowly. The road out of Soav is the slowest bit of the journey because it is so potholed and there are so many of us in the brousse – 17! Outside the town the road is narrow but has good tar and is lined everywhere with people and bicycles which our driver clears from the road with incessant hooting. We are blasted with reggae music.

We drive through village after village of the wooden huts, curious children and roadside stall of tomatoes and potatoes. In a dam, two small brown heads float backwards and forwards. Despite the squashing, the windows are open and we have a cool breeze and it feels wonderful driving through the countryside like this with the music and wind and the views.

Then we break down. The driver stops, examines a wheel, gets back in, turns the wheel, gets back out. Fiddle, fiddle. Eventually he opens the doors and we get out at the signal. Girls wander off one at a time to take the chance to pee in the bushes. The jack goes under the front and the wheel comes off. It’s the bearings which fall out in a sticky oiled mess onto the tarmac. The driver wipes his hands on the grass. Eventually another taxi comes past heading towards Soave. A message is sent to send another taxi. We wait and wait. Each taxi that goes past stops and enquires as to the nature of the problem. Eventually after another hour or so the driver gets into another taxi and heads back towards Soave.

While he is gone, another taxi turns up with a bearing but it doesn’t fit. Meanwhile the American’s exchange Taxi-brousse stories that make your hair stand on end – stuck in villages for days while the engine is put back together, flaming oily rags thrown into the engine instead of sparks.

The driver returns with another taxi containing two more passengers – so that makes 19 of us when we’re all squeezed in and the luggage has been transferred and wrapped up under canvas. Just as I start to get excited about setting off an enormous argument ensues because the first taxi driver who is not going to be continuing the journey wants payment and none of the American’s are prepared to pay. WE have already paid as have the Malagasy and Italian couple up front. The American girls yell in Malagasy and the driver holds the door open and won’t let us go. Eventually the couple in front pay him off. It is unbearably hot and squashed and sweaty and I’m starting to feel faint. When we finally set off the air blows away all ill humour and all is well again.

We drop the two new Malagasy passengers in the next town and plough on. The Americans buy corn on the cob through the windows and the guy up front buys a coconut to drink. The Americans start a game in which they say the names of three people and then everyone must choose who they would sleep with, who they would marry and who they would throw off a cliff. It’s gratuitous and loud and goes on and on – through celebrities and on to people they know – overly graphic descriptions of imagined bedroom capabilities. Then another one – would you rather sleep with someone with disgusting hair or disgusting feet and so it goes, on and on and one until they tire of their own stupidity and fall asleep in the heat.

At one of the rivers we cross there is absolutely no sign of the original bridge. The road simply ends at the river bank. There is a diversion down a dirt track and over a metal army style bridge which looks like it’s made from metal crates all linked together. Another of these bridges lies abandoned nearby.

Everywhere we are stopped for inspection by the police and army. The first policeman is in a green uniform – trouser legs tucked into his black boots. He has a long, hanging face and bloodshot eyes and he stalks and sways around the taxi peering through the window with unfocused glaze. The army officers are in camouflage with tight brimmed hats and brown boots. The papers which require such frequent checking are kept tucked in a leather folder behind the driver’s mirror. All the cladding on the roof of the inside of the brousse has been removed and this provides storage for an extensive collection of CDs in the rim around the roof. A daffy-duck sort of creature hangs from the mirror by the tuft of its now gray hair – a yellow body, orange feet and blue stuck on eyes.

Tamatave or Toamasina is much bigger than we had expected. Loud crowded streets packed with people and pousse pousse carts. Navigation for the driver is nearly impossible as the road becomes a pot holed dirt track. There are people pushing barrows. On our right a large wooden market with hundreds of empty stalls – a few selling shiny cheap hair clips and coloured bands. At the brousse station another argument ensures because we don’t want to pay again. Well we don’t really mind – it’s not driver number 2’s fault and we don’t have a receipt. But the Americans are adamant. More yelling, more standing around. We agree to pay 10 000 more – half the original fare and they concede. Of course then I don’t have the change and one of the Americans must help. I find it all so embarrassing and uncomfortable that I hurry Rob away before we’ve actually said goodbye or thank you properly.

We walk into town and find our way more easily than I had expected. But the hotel we are looking for isn’t there. We try a few others – one is disgusting and I gather from the sign can be rented by the hour. Eventually we check into Lionel Hotel and then go out to walk along the beach front.

It is absolutely awash with people – milling about all dressed up in incredibly bright colours. The men chat up the girls and families go by carrying and dragging their children. A boy falls in a puddle and the crowd roar with laughter. One of the men walking along is wearing a shirt so new it still had the folds of just coming out of the packaging.

At the far end is a miniature Ferris wheel going round and round. A speaker blasts out music through a blue megaphone mounted on a pole. Making conversation is impossible. It is unbearably distorted.

We walk up and down the promenade through the bustling crowds. On the beach boys walk a horse backwards and forwards with children on its back. The beach is wide and long and grassy nearer the promenade. It looks out towards the harbour – only distinguishable by the fleet of tanker-sized cargo ships moored up in it. But the water front is unbelievable. On the street side vendors have set up mini restaurants with miniature chairs. People sit around drinking cool drinks from the bottle and eating with their hands. There are piles of fried balls and long pieces of kaka pijou.

We walk down side avenues where the rubbish is piled up almost waist high – Rob remarks that this is where coconuts come to die. We pass a man carrying an enormous ship on his shoulder – full sail! Almost half the size of him. These streets are a series of crumbling houses that look like they might once have been grand – now grey and moulded with plants growing in the roofs and the enormous hunks of old trucks rotting in the garden of one – their cabs sagging forward onto tyreless axles.
We walk up to the end of the promenade because we’ve seen some fairly grand houses from afar but up close they’re the same – crumbling, not far from ruins. One has been turned into an army barracks. We pass the huge hulking remains of what might be factories – empty holes for windows and sagging roofs, apparently uninhabited until you peek into their yards where amongst hens and their broods of cheeping chicks a woman will be carrying wood or a child playing in the dirt. A curtain of material is drawn across one of the window. On one street an old woman bows over a small fire, pressing sticks beneath a pot all under a small shelter. And still – Bon Jour! – and a cheery wave.

We make our way to the sea front for a beer and choose badly – a loud brash bar with a band playing Malagasy music. There’s synthesizer and microphone on the stage. There are two other European customers both with prostitutes. The one nearest is grey with a large moustache. The woman is probably late 20s – gorgeous. He makes a pretence at conversation – Do you live here? Stilted and too loud – I can hear it above the music. She says ‘No’ and it ends there for another twenty minutes. They wait for their drinks to come not looking at each other. I can’t stand it and we finish our beers as quickly as possible and leave.

We have dinner at L’Univers Cafe - Tamataves only 24 hour restaurant. Beer at reasonable price and a nice samoosa followed by fruit salad. We wonder about how wise a choice this is. Back at Hotel Lionel Rob rigs up a fan system. The pillows are awful but we sleep ok.