Sonntag, 29. November 2015

One week off

It’s time for visual and mental change, so I took one week off and went on a small trip to discover the island…and believe me its much harder than you might think.
Everything starts with transport to get from one location to another.



“ One day, one bus, one seat one goal…to leave this bus as soon as possible.
We arrive at the bus station looking for one with “Fianaransoa” written on it. It isn’t hard to find. We are surrounded by people trying to convince us to get into their bus. Finally, we choose the closed one. Our luggage is stored at the roof of a small bus with other stuff like rice-bags, coal-bags, buckets of vegetables and on top of everything at least 20 chickens. The tower on top is at least the same size than the bus itself. We are asked to take a seat, the bus will leave in 10 minutes..
3 hours later we haven’t moved at all, our mood is a little less relaxed and the tower on top twice as big. It’s incredible how people can waste their time. Our ass already asleep the bus starts to move. The driver turns on the music and with incredible high volume we are forced to listen to malagasy songs and charts probably 10 years old. The highlands of Madagascar are passing by, dry land, rice fields and burned patches is what we see, no surprise anymore. Our bus driver stops a few times, to buy some food, to change a wheel or to pay some money in one of the random “police” controls we pass.
We are already 6 hours on the route, everything hurts by now our ass and ears, and the neck because we do not have a real seat back. Sun burns our skin, temperature inside is probably 35 degrees because every possible space is filled up with people.
We are more than happy by the time the bus enters Fianaransoa, it’s dark by now we spent in total 12 hours on this one seat. Again humans are crowded surround us looking and trying to help for a little money. White = rich, that’s what most of the people think here, even if we travel by normal bus and not like others with a personal driver.
This bus drive gets on my top ten of worst transport by now.”







Planning here is impossible, I learn for new to be spontaneous and not to aspect anything to work out. We decided to stay in this area for now and not take another day bus drive to get to our final location.
It’s better to discover the surrounding, than traveling again and loose time.
So we arranged a 3 days hike in the Andringitra National Park with two nights camping inside. This was actually the best choice we could make.

“Walking higher and higher, with every step we are leaving the human shaped landscape behind us. Still there is no nice view because a grey cloudy ash bubble is covering the highlands, caused from all the burnings in the surroundings. We reach the platform of the mountains 2200 meter high. Night is coming soon and we are still walking. Our guide pushes us to move further, and within the dusk we reach our camping place. On a small fire is our food cooking. Its cold here at night, with filled stomach we are getting in our tent, above us an incredible night sky full with stars and galaxies.





Next day we wake up with dawn, our plan is to climb on top of the second highest mountain Madagascar with an attitude of 2658 m . It’s quite a steep ascent but worthies to get there.
For the afternoon we need to walk further to our second camping area. Walking trough different ecosystems, leaving heathland behind us, crossing highland forest, plain grass areas and on the other side of the mountain strange tropical palm and stone formations.
One of the nicest walks I ever did, a little surreal and unique.
We reach the second night place again within the dark, tired and fascinated do we fall asleep.






 The morning we take a short swim in one of the ponds and after it we start our way back, down to reality. Smoke is welcoming us, two nice days in human isolation. Where humans haven’t settled down yet, Madagascar’s beauty is still alive, in small places still hidden from human influence.



Our way back home, isn’t much different than the bus drive before.
Traveling in Madagascar is definitely not easy, there is no real infrastructure for travelers and not many people you meet during your trip. We spend 4 days in bus, to have 4 days adventure, not a fair balance.
A country so controversial, dark and light, beauty and destructions, kindness and ignorance, everyday it shows me a different side, you never know in what face you gonna look tomorrow.”





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