Category: Madagascar

Holy crap!!

Sorry, but that is the only way to describe the road to Mahambo. All of the guides and literature and everything you read tell you it is still a tar road but potholed. Well, that is definitely an understatement.

I can’t really describe this road other than to say it literally looks like it was bombed out during some war. The holes are, and I kid you not, 3 feet deep and water-filled in many places, sharp crags of broken pavement lining the edges, sudden drop-offs with huge broken chunks of asphalt lining the bottom with large trucks in front of you manoeuvring around the craggy edges, large trucks heading towards you on your side of the “road” manoeuvring the best path forward and all of this in a slow motion 1-3 km/h ballet of finding the path of least resistance.

You usually cannot travel more than 1-3 km/hour. Seriously.

From the tar road at the entrance to Manambato, which at that point I thought I had seen everything road related, it took us 7 hours to travel a total of 131 kms! The only reason it didn’t take 10 hours was because there was the odd reprieve for about 200 metres where you could step on the gas and hit 60 km/hr for a grand total of about 45 seconds!

It was really nuts and to top it off there were literally dozens of minibuses loaded to beyond capacity traversing this route to and from wherever they were going. It was a common site to see these vans stopped on the side of the road, tires flat and the passengers lazing around the grassy areas on the side of the road where they were either (a) waiting for the flat tire to be repaired or (b) waiting for another overcrowded van to stop by and pick them up to probably get them into the same situation they were just in except maybe a few kms down the road.

We didn’t see any tents on the side of the road so we guess most breakdowns get their passengers to their destinations before sun down and we were fortunate enough to travel during the daylight hours thank god almighty and we’re not even religious. We think our Marilyn was watching over us.

We have driven some very challenging roads and this road definitely offered some on/off road challenges and as mentioned in an earlier post, BBC has a series titled “The World’s Most Dangerous Roads” and the RN5 is one of the roads they highlight. Woohoo!

The RN5 gets even worse beyond Mahambo and is more the focus of the BBC series however we are quite proud to say that we tackled 131 kms of this road without a hitch.

The few photos we took don’t really do it justice and I wish I had a picture of the bare tires that we were travelling on which did not offer comfort on these roads.

Exhausted and a little frayed around the edges we arrived into the quaint little village of Mahambo and found, without any GPS problems, our lodge for the next 2 nights. La Piroque, a very beautiful setting on the beach with an eclectic array of basic to luxury bungalows nestled amongst the palms and lining front and back along an unspoiled beach.

We were upgraded to the luxury bungalow and at 35 Euro/night a very nice surprise although we had a couple of other surprises in store.

Not realizing how difficult the travel would be on our return from Ile Sainte Marie and eventually back to Antananarivo via Mahambo we had booked Grace Lodge in Andisabe as our pit stop. A one night pit stop that now, in hindsight wouldn’t be possible.

If the ferry from ISM was on time it would get us back to Mahambo at 8:00 am. We would then have a gruelling 3 1/2 hour plus re-drive through the RN5 pits of hell before we even reached Tamatave.

Tamatave, also called Toamasina is the main city on the east coast which is at least another 3 1/2 hour drive to Andasibe.

In our calculations we were looking at a 7+hour drive on top of a 3 hour ferry back to the mainland just to get to Grace Lodge with several hours of driving in the dark.

This was not going to work so without much fuss we decided we would fly back to Antananarivo and save the hassle involved in our impossible return itinerary.

Roadtrip Africa is the company that we have rented our truck from and they offer a service whereby they will pick up the vehicle in Mahambo and drive it back for you for a minimal charge. I remembered this when we booked our truck so thought this is the way to go. Maybe we can spend another night on ISM, fly back to Tana and pick our truck up again at Susie’s Place where we first picked the truck up. Perfect plan. Well, not quite. We had 4 nights booked on Ile Saint Marie departing the 17th back to Mahambo where we would drive to Grace Lodge. NOT!  The only flight out of ISM we could get departed on the 16th. Okay so we’ll cut our stay to 3 nights instead of 4, book an extra 2 nights at Susie’s Place, not stay at Grace Lodge on the 17th as planned and everything will be fine. Luck was not on our side. We booked our flight and then proceeded to the ferry dock near where we were staying and asked for two one way tickets to ISM for the next day, the 13th. “Sorry, we’re full”!  OMG! Now what? One more day in Mahambo, 2 nights in ISM then fly back to Antananarivo? This is getting a little out of hand. We begged, we pleaded and voila, we have a seat for the 13th. Now all we need to do is confirm with Susie’s Place in Tana that they can accommodate us for 2 extra nights, the 16th and 17th as we already have the 18th booked. Nope, nothing on the 17th but the 16th is open. Okay, book the 16th and we’ll see what can find for the 17th. Jeez this is getting difficult but we had lunch at a nice place near Susie’s so we send them an email and ask if they have a room for the 17th. NO THEY DON’T but they will keep us informed if something becomes available. At the end of the day we were able to get a hotel near the airport in Tana for 2 nights then back to Susie’s for 1 night where we will pick up our truck with new tires and ready for the next 4 weeks of driving into the south, west and central parts of the country where we WILL have some more hairy driving experiences. Phew, now off to Ile Sainte Marie.

We set out on the 9th for a 135 km drive to Manambato, a small fishing village on the shores of Lake Rasoabe where we were met by our boat driver to take us into the heart of the Canal de Pangalanes to our accommodation, the Bush House Lodge. The canal consists of a series of natural rivers, waterways and man-made lakes and unspoiled natural beaches that extends for over 645 Sq.kms and runs down the east coast of Madagascar. It is used primarily for transportation and fishing. Major expansion of the area was completed during the French colonial period between 1896 and 1904 and additional expansion during 1949-1957.

The final 7 km drive from the main RN2 “highway” tar road to access Manambato requires a 4×4 and takes close to one hour to drive. It absolutely did require a 4×4 and the “road” was a 4×4 enthusiasts delight as there had been some rain the previous day that added to the excitement.

We finally arrived at Bush House Lodge after a 40 minute delay due to waiting for a non-apologetic Portuguese mother, daughter and guide. Our bungalow was nice and the location was beautiful but that is about all we can say about the place. The return boat transfer was 164 Euro, about $246 CAD, the meal choice, well, there wasn’t a choice for dinner and half-board was a compulsory expense at 72 Euro and the quality left much to be desired. The room cost was 100 Euro and the additional cost for 2 lunches and beer and wine was about $70 CAD. Total cost for 2 nights/days worked out to more than $600 CAD. Over-priced in our opinion.

Unfortunately the staff on site had very little training (not their fault), could not speak a word of English (again, not their fault but ours also) so it made for some very frustrating situations.

The on site manager, I believe his name was Stephan could speak English but was usually too busy dealing with his cell phone than to pay attention to the guests. We did have a couple of other issues but suffice it to say, although the location was beautiful we wouldn’t recommend this place.

A short boat ride away is Palmarium Lodge which hosts a small Lemur reserve so we did a 2 hour hike through the reserve on our second day. There were 6 varieties of Lemurs mixed with a few hybrid species and all are very habituated and will climb on you looking for food and the males leaving musk scents on your cloths so not really our kind of thing but you do get up close and personal with them, smell and all and can get some great photos.

Crowned Lemur

Indri Indri Lemur

Our boat back to Manambato departed on time at 8:00 am the morning of the 11th and from there we set out to our next destination, Mahambo, another small village on the shores of the Indian Ocean and accessible only by the notorious RN5, loosely defined as a “road”.

Our first stop out of Antananarivo was Andasibe about a 180 km 3 1/2 hour drive which turned into a 5 hour drive with a 1/2 hour lunch stop.

The road, the RN2 is the main road to Toamasina, a port city on the east coast.

We expected the road to be good which it was for a short while and then bam! POTHOLES! And these potholes were deep! For crying out loud, I thought we left these behind in Zambia! The potholes combined with large trucks travelling through mountains on very winding roads made for a fun filled drive until we finally hit some good road and were able to travel up to 70 km/hr, albeit for only short distances.

Andasibe and nearby Mantadia National Park is a prime location to search for the Indri Indri which is the largest of the lemurs in Madagascar. It has a surprised expression that looks more like a gone-wrong panda than a lemur and are known for making an eerie wailing sound that can travel for kilometres. There nearly 60 “taxa” of lemurs (species, sub-species, and populations from 33 species across five families and 14 genera). I took this info from “Wildmadagascar.com” but the bottom line is there are plenty of different species of lemurs to see in Madagascar, 113 in all.

On evening of the 7th it was raining and cold.

Regardless of what the weather would be the next day we decided to do a hike the next morning to search for the Indri Indri and other Lemurs that inhabit the area. There are several options. For some reason or another I’ve had a bum knee now for about three weeks. To top that off Joyce and I have been pretty well sitting on our butts for the past 7 weeks so we opted for the flattest hike in the area so we could slowly break in our atrophied muscles. We visited V.O.I.M.M.A Community Reserve for a 2 hour hike through secondary rainforest. The reserve is community run and all proceeds flow back to the local community. There are two family groups in the area comprising about five or six members each as well as others such as the wooly lemur and bamboo lemur. The weather was cold and wet with a misty rain falling during our 2 hour hike but it was great to get out and stretch our legs. We did see two Indri although high in the trees. We saw a Giraffe Weevil and Parsons Chameleon, the second largest chameleon in the world. Like any wildlife spotting trek, the luck is in the draw.

Below is a Giraffe Weevil pic I stole from the internet.

Joyce’s Weevil pic, Parsons Chameleon and the Sacred Vine, named from the red sap that flows when cut.

Below is a frame-grab from my video of the Indri Indri. Not the best but proof we saw them!

 

 

 

 

We departed Ivato, a suburb of Antananarivo on September 7th, heading off for the next 5 weeks in a 4×4 Nissan with tires that look like they have been used for the full 93,000 kms that are on the truck odometer.

Our fingers are crossed as the spare doesn’t look much better and in about 5 or 6 days we will be travelling on the RN5, one of the worst roads on the planet according to a BBC series titled “The World’s Most Dangerous Roads” and the “Land Rover Camel Trophy”! We shall see.

As our luck would and wouldn’t have it, the Pope, yes, the one, the only Pope Francis, was scheduled to arrive on the afternoon of the 6th. Fortunately we arrived in Antananarivo on the afternoon of the 5th. We have no idea what kind of mayhem we would have encountered had we arrived the same day as the Pope.  The airport is very small so it would have been chaos.

Before leaving on the 7th we talked to the front desk manager at Susie’s Place, a very nice home converted into a B&B in Ivato where we spent two nights, and asked him if the route shown on Google Maps and Maps.me would take us around Antananarivo rather than through it. We have very little respect lately for our little electronic navigation helpers. He wasn’t too sure but it looked like the routes would take us through rather than around the city. As he tried to explain an alternate route and our eyes were glazing over due to the fact we didn’t have a clue what he was talking about one of the office assistants handed him a piece of paper. “Pope visit road closures”! 

Hmmmm…not looking too good.

Where there is a will there’s a way and with that we paid one of his staff to guide us out of the city on his motorcycle. It took close to one hour until we finally reached near the outskirts of Tana but it was worth it as we saw amazing sites and scenery on our way. Below are some iPhone pics from our drive through Tana.

The day after we arrived, September 6th,  Joyce and I were able to get some Ariary (Madagascar cash) from a nearby ATM. At Ivato airport there are two ATM’s and both were out of ordedr upon our arrival and the exchange rate offered at the currency exchange desks were pitiful so we crossed our fingers we could find a bank the next day. In the afternoon we had our truck delivered and were enjoying a beverage on the terrace when we heard a very loud commotion not far from our B&B. We walked out our gate and to a small road just metres away and we witnessed an extraordinary event that typically only happens once every 7 years “Famadihana”. Below is from Wikipedia.

“Famadihana is a funerary tradition of the Malagasy people in Madagascar. During this ceremony, known as the turning of the bones, people bring forth the bodies of their ancestors from the family crypts, rewrap the corpses in fresh cloth and rewrite their names on the cloth so they will always be remembered. Then they dance to live music while carrying the corpses over their heads and go around the tomb before returning the corpses to the family tomb.”

 

We departed Johannesburg on September 5th for a short 3 hour flight to Madagascar landing in the capital city of Antananarivo.

We have a Nissan double cab 4×4 rented for 5 weeks, equipped with camping gear and a small electric refrigerator in the back.

Although we’ll be staying at lodges through our driving journey we have the camping gear for any “just in case” situations.

Below is our driving route with the blue colored portion indicating our flight to the north. After 5 weeks we’ll hop a plane from “Tana” and head to the Northwest for some much anticipated beach time.

Please stay tuned!