So here I am. In one piece.. At least..
As I lie on my bed in the Ivato hotel, looking back on the journey, it doesn't seem that I have been travelling for almost 20 odd hours and though my journey has yet another leg to it tomorrow I do really feel like I have arrived. Though not without a few issues along the way...
The most recent of these occurred today as I arrived in Johannesburg to discover that my bag had failed to do the same. I spent around half an hour describing what my bag looks like to a woman who seemed more interested in what her lunch would look like, and being routinely offered high fives by a large African airport attendant who then declared, "Welcome to South Africa my friend!"
"Thanks but I'm only staying for a few hours, I'm travelling out to Madagascar." At which point he would walk off looking glum.
Finally, I filled out a form noting my final point of destination and supposedly my bag should be waiting for me in Toliara tomorrow, so fingers crossed and mind doubtful!
After that it was onto the plane to Madagascar where I arrived today at 14:55 local time. I must say the guides that Reef Doctor sent me could not have described the walk to the Bureau de Change more perfectly. Taxi drivers attack you from every angle desperate for your fare, luckily I had a taxi pre-booked through the hotel so I was able to fend them off quite swiftly with a mere point to the driver holding a card with my name spelt wrong on it.
After changing some money and attempting to get a phone, though giving up due to the line length and impatient look on my taxi drivers face, we headed out into the bright light of Madagascar. Immediately small children, maybe 5 or 6 years old, appeared with hands out begging for money. One was particularly relentless even after numerous attempts and declining in my best French he only stopped asking once he could no longer keep up with the little renault we were chugging along in.
It was a short drive to the hotel where I paid for the taxi for which I made a rather embarrassing attempt at haggling (though I guess that comes with getting used to how much the usual price for things are), paid for my room, was informed of the internet being broken as well as the phone (probably broken since they opened the hotel) and retired for the day with the plan to sleep through to tomorrow morning. Photos of my room and view out my window are below.
Though I have only seen very little of Madagascar so far, this area is very much how I had imagined it to look. The area is very poor with the houses having small wooden balcony extensions stitched on like a weird extra limb looking as though they would fall apart as soon as a leaf landed on them. There is sand and dust everywhere and the roads seem to be pretty much a free for all. Even so, everyone I have met so far has been really friendly and chatty, the taxi driver who spoke about as much English as I did French managed to hold up a conversation the whole trip to the hotel, mainly about how much he loved his car but he was a great character to first come into contact with in a very much distant land.
I think French is going to be my next big hurdle here, forcing my self to use it more and also becoming more adept at it. I certainly found my limited dialect to be quite a barrier today just checking into the hotel, and hope that I can pick it up sooner rather than later, besides I am getting sick of saying "mon Francis c'est terrible!" Also I am pretty sure it's wrong..
Location:Antananarivo, Madagascar
Excited for the next episode!
ReplyDeleteGlad you are surviving without toothbrush and clean clothes but then not much difference from the last 3 years :-)