Once we left the overpopulated impoverished precincts of Antananarivo, a completely different Madagascar opened up to us, one that is 90% agricultural. Bits of music or poetry often play obsessively in my head. In Turkey it was "Istanbul is Consantinople"; in Jordan it was Ellington's "Caravan." Here in the Madagascar countryside I started hearing "Gray's Elegy." The countryside is undeveloped and unspoiled, without a trace of corporate commercialism, viz. NO billboards of any kind. The scenes of rice paddies, terraced and otherwise, wheat fields, post-season corn fields (it's fall here now) seemed to belong to the 18th century. All the work was being done by hand. Young men walked along the side of the road with sickles. We passed many oxcarts, drawn by zebus, the local cattle, and many carts drawn by people.
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea
We saw many women and some men with large bundles on their heads. In all this not a single tractor or any other farm machinery. Threshing was done by muscle power alone. Most impressive were the herds of zebu, sprawling across the road, 20 to 30 per herd, and on two occasions 15 to 20 herds in succession, all using the same highway as we were, National 7, the only road linking the major cities of Antananarivo, Antsirabe, Ambositra, and Fiantarantsoa, and finally bringing us to the little town of Ranohira, which is the base of operations for the magnificent Parc d'Isalo. But after several hundred kilometers of this simple, toilsome agricultural life it was clear that any painter wishing to extend the work of Claude Lorrain, or John Constable, Thomas Gainsborough or Joshua Reynolds, for that matter, the subjects and settings are alive and well and living in Madagascar.
Our driver knew exactly where to stop for us to eat lunch, at very decent restaurant in Ambatulate serving French style food and patronized by other tourists, while he went off to eat from a local fast-food shop, which he said we wouldn't be able to stomach. It looked mostly fried.
The road itself would be called a scenic country back route at home. Barely two lanes wide, with no markings, no speed limit signs, no indication of what route we were on aside from the 15-inch high mile-markers on the side of the road in the old French style, cement rectangles in white with a rounded top in red, which gave the route number, "RN 7" (Route Nationale 7), and the kilometers distance to the next two major cities. These must be leftovers from pre-independence days.
The drive itself is one of the most spectacular I've ever experienced. It runs through gentle mountains, up, down and around, with nary a tunnel, offering views of field after field, rice paddies, terracing, villages, more mountains, rivers, with occasional panoramas. We went directly through every town on the route, each one a hubub of small shops, as our driver honked the children, chickens and zebus out of the way. We were constantly passing slower vehicles, from oxcarts to overcrowded vans, to huge tractor trailors, which when they came at us head on seemed to take up the whole road. Our driver always managed to find enough asphalt barely to get around them. The worst part of this "highway," though, were the potholes. Our driver seemed to have memorized them. He slowed down for every one of them, carefully going around it. During the last 100 or so km. before reaching Fianarantsoa the road is notoriously terrible. Here potholes simply become the norm, and the route is little more than a rough dirt track. Why there is no money or will to maintain this vital piece of infrastructure I couldn't figure out, but infrastructural neglect is one of the plagues of the
Third World. People also seemed to be walking great distances.We would see people alone or in groups of two to five walking with or without bundles or carts at great distnces from the towns. This was especially true since it was Thursday, market day in the region.
We stopped the first night in Ambositra, 165 km from Antananarivo, about 35% of the way to our destination at the Parc d'Isalo. We hadn't left Tana until after 11 am, since we had to work out the rental contract and visit a bank for money. The ATMs only give a maximum of 200,000 ariary, which at the present exchange rate of 2240 to the dollar, only amounts to $81.30, with a $5 service fee from my bank for such withdrawals. I suspect that the ATMs haven't been upgraded for years, and that 200,000 ar. was once a substantial sum of money. Barbara and I decided to withdraw 500,000 ar. each from the bank ($203.25), out of which we paid for half the 4x4 rental with driver, which was 305,000 ar. each. Our driver chose the Hotel des Artisans for us in Ambositra. I was impressed by the comfort, cleanliness, and imaginative decor that this hotel offered. Once inside the gates, one is surrounded by walls with carved genre scenes in two colors depicting various crafts. In addition there were wood carvings at various places around the grounds, including two poles of varnished dark wood depicting bare-breasted women and toiling men. All the curtain rod holders had wood-carved figures at each end, including lemurs and zebus, and the wooden chairs in the restaurant had similar 2-dimensional figures in marketrie inlaid in their seatbacks.
As dusk deepened into night I slipped out with my camera to catch some of the commercial activity in the road leading to the hotel. Using the available light from the shops and an occasional car headlight I made some satisfying images of the people at the shops with their shadows. At one of the vegetable stands, a fire was lit, and people gathered round it.
Their balcony overlooked the back of the town, with a valley of rice paddies in between. I set up my camera to photograph the same scene at night and at dawn, but the gardiens took it down during the night when it started to rain. I tipped them 2000 ar. in gratitude. The room was simple and comfortable, though the lighting was dim, as it is in every Madagascar hotel we've stayed in. No TV, of course--fine with me. And all this for 58,500 ar. for the night, two dinners and one breakfast! (about $26).
We we back on the highway by 8 the next morning, heading for Fianarantsoa for lunch and to hit an ATM. Periodically we encountered police checkpoints. Most of them waved us through, but a few stopped us and examined our driver's papers. We wondered if they were expecting a bribe, but our driver offered none.
A few hours later we entered the dreaded all-pothole zone. We must have averaged about 40 km/hour as our driver gingerly tipped the 4x4 into the depressions, zigzagging from side to side of the road to find the least jarring path. I bought a take-out lunch at a fine restaurant in Fianarantsoa, while our driver ran an errand on his own. Then after a quick stop at an ATM and filling the tank, we were off to Ranohira and the Parc d'Isalo. At some point Barbara became worried that Isalo's main attraction was its geology and that there would be no lemurs--her entire purpose for coming to Madagascar. I reassured her that there were lemurs--it was right in the Bradt guide.
The last 100 km or so the serpentine road through farmlands and rice paddies yielded to rolling grasslands punctuated by dramatic granite massifs reminiscent of the Dolomites or Yosemite on a smaller scale. This turned out to be prelude to the geologic wondernd of Isalo.
We passed through Ranohira around 5:30 and picked up our guide for the following day, then proceeded to the hotel our driver had chosen for us, which was about 4 km. out of town, the Ranch d'Isalo. It turned out to be rustic luxury, quasi Western style, forward looking enough to be powered by solar generators, but not as much as to accept credit cards. The ranch was a collection of individual buildings in brick painted adobe with thatched roofs, some of which are individual bungalows. The trees and other plants are labeled, and there's a swimming pool. It looks out on the mountains that ring the park, dominated by one giant massif, an orange colored dolomite.
Barbara prefers not to use guides, but there was no choice: they are obligatory for foreigners in the park, and for good reason. Although most of the trails are marked, even with meter markings every 100 meters, Fleuris, our guide, led us on a combination of trails that made perfect use of our time, while showing us a number of very diverse environments. He had us pay our park fee of 25,000 ar. that night, to avoid the line in the morning.
Photos taken mostly out the window of the 4x4, as we drove through countryside and cities on the way to the Parc d'Isalo, a two-day drive.
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea
We saw many women and some men with large bundles on their heads. In all this not a single tractor or any other farm machinery. Threshing was done by muscle power alone. Most impressive were the herds of zebu, sprawling across the road, 20 to 30 per herd, and on two occasions 15 to 20 herds in succession, all using the same highway as we were, National 7, the only road linking the major cities of Antananarivo, Antsirabe, Ambositra, and Fiantarantsoa, and finally bringing us to the little town of Ranohira, which is the base of operations for the magnificent Parc d'Isalo. But after several hundred kilometers of this simple, toilsome agricultural life it was clear that any painter wishing to extend the work of Claude Lorrain, or John Constable, Thomas Gainsborough or Joshua Reynolds, for that matter, the subjects and settings are alive and well and living in Madagascar.
Our driver knew exactly where to stop for us to eat lunch, at very decent restaurant in Ambatulate serving French style food and patronized by other tourists, while he went off to eat from a local fast-food shop, which he said we wouldn't be able to stomach. It looked mostly fried.
The road itself would be called a scenic country back route at home. Barely two lanes wide, with no markings, no speed limit signs, no indication of what route we were on aside from the 15-inch high mile-markers on the side of the road in the old French style, cement rectangles in white with a rounded top in red, which gave the route number, "RN 7" (Route Nationale 7), and the kilometers distance to the next two major cities. These must be leftovers from pre-independence days.
The drive itself is one of the most spectacular I've ever experienced. It runs through gentle mountains, up, down and around, with nary a tunnel, offering views of field after field, rice paddies, terracing, villages, more mountains, rivers, with occasional panoramas. We went directly through every town on the route, each one a hubub of small shops, as our driver honked the children, chickens and zebus out of the way. We were constantly passing slower vehicles, from oxcarts to overcrowded vans, to huge tractor trailors, which when they came at us head on seemed to take up the whole road. Our driver always managed to find enough asphalt barely to get around them. The worst part of this "highway," though, were the potholes. Our driver seemed to have memorized them. He slowed down for every one of them, carefully going around it. During the last 100 or so km. before reaching Fianarantsoa the road is notoriously terrible. Here potholes simply become the norm, and the route is little more than a rough dirt track. Why there is no money or will to maintain this vital piece of infrastructure I couldn't figure out, but infrastructural neglect is one of the plagues of the
Third World. People also seemed to be walking great distances.We would see people alone or in groups of two to five walking with or without bundles or carts at great distnces from the towns. This was especially true since it was Thursday, market day in the region.
We stopped the first night in Ambositra, 165 km from Antananarivo, about 35% of the way to our destination at the Parc d'Isalo. We hadn't left Tana until after 11 am, since we had to work out the rental contract and visit a bank for money. The ATMs only give a maximum of 200,000 ariary, which at the present exchange rate of 2240 to the dollar, only amounts to $81.30, with a $5 service fee from my bank for such withdrawals. I suspect that the ATMs haven't been upgraded for years, and that 200,000 ar. was once a substantial sum of money. Barbara and I decided to withdraw 500,000 ar. each from the bank ($203.25), out of which we paid for half the 4x4 rental with driver, which was 305,000 ar. each. Our driver chose the Hotel des Artisans for us in Ambositra. I was impressed by the comfort, cleanliness, and imaginative decor that this hotel offered. Once inside the gates, one is surrounded by walls with carved genre scenes in two colors depicting various crafts. In addition there were wood carvings at various places around the grounds, including two poles of varnished dark wood depicting bare-breasted women and toiling men. All the curtain rod holders had wood-carved figures at each end, including lemurs and zebus, and the wooden chairs in the restaurant had similar 2-dimensional figures in marketrie inlaid in their seatbacks.
As dusk deepened into night I slipped out with my camera to catch some of the commercial activity in the road leading to the hotel. Using the available light from the shops and an occasional car headlight I made some satisfying images of the people at the shops with their shadows. At one of the vegetable stands, a fire was lit, and people gathered round it.
Their balcony overlooked the back of the town, with a valley of rice paddies in between. I set up my camera to photograph the same scene at night and at dawn, but the gardiens took it down during the night when it started to rain. I tipped them 2000 ar. in gratitude. The room was simple and comfortable, though the lighting was dim, as it is in every Madagascar hotel we've stayed in. No TV, of course--fine with me. And all this for 58,500 ar. for the night, two dinners and one breakfast! (about $26).
We we back on the highway by 8 the next morning, heading for Fianarantsoa for lunch and to hit an ATM. Periodically we encountered police checkpoints. Most of them waved us through, but a few stopped us and examined our driver's papers. We wondered if they were expecting a bribe, but our driver offered none.
A few hours later we entered the dreaded all-pothole zone. We must have averaged about 40 km/hour as our driver gingerly tipped the 4x4 into the depressions, zigzagging from side to side of the road to find the least jarring path. I bought a take-out lunch at a fine restaurant in Fianarantsoa, while our driver ran an errand on his own. Then after a quick stop at an ATM and filling the tank, we were off to Ranohira and the Parc d'Isalo. At some point Barbara became worried that Isalo's main attraction was its geology and that there would be no lemurs--her entire purpose for coming to Madagascar. I reassured her that there were lemurs--it was right in the Bradt guide.
The last 100 km or so the serpentine road through farmlands and rice paddies yielded to rolling grasslands punctuated by dramatic granite massifs reminiscent of the Dolomites or Yosemite on a smaller scale. This turned out to be prelude to the geologic wondernd of Isalo.
We passed through Ranohira around 5:30 and picked up our guide for the following day, then proceeded to the hotel our driver had chosen for us, which was about 4 km. out of town, the Ranch d'Isalo. It turned out to be rustic luxury, quasi Western style, forward looking enough to be powered by solar generators, but not as much as to accept credit cards. The ranch was a collection of individual buildings in brick painted adobe with thatched roofs, some of which are individual bungalows. The trees and other plants are labeled, and there's a swimming pool. It looks out on the mountains that ring the park, dominated by one giant massif, an orange colored dolomite.
Barbara prefers not to use guides, but there was no choice: they are obligatory for foreigners in the park, and for good reason. Although most of the trails are marked, even with meter markings every 100 meters, Fleuris, our guide, led us on a combination of trails that made perfect use of our time, while showing us a number of very diverse environments. He had us pay our park fee of 25,000 ar. that night, to avoid the line in the morning.
After dark in the town where we stayed en route. Commerce goes on until 9 or 10 pm.
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