Back to Tana

I woke up early so that I could track down some coffee before we started out on our three-hour journey back to Tana. I couldn't figure out how to make the hot water work—oh well, a cold shower isn't the worst thing.

I walked down the road towards Andasibe's center just as the morning mist was burning off the green landscape, and hadn't even made it to the bridge over the small river when I stumbled across a little shack with a Nescafe seller. Teenage schoolkids were buying their coffee and tea in front of me, and they glanced shyly at me before one of them offered to help me order. Pointing at coffee doesn't need that much help but he did make the experience go smoothly.

Lemur Island

Back at Association Mitsinjo, the community-tourism NGO in Andasibe, Guy and I negotiated for a car-and-driver to go on an afternoon excursion to Vakona Forest Lodge, an upmarket hotel about nine kilometers away. We certainly weren't staying at the lodge, given that it was ten times the cost of the Mitsinjo guesthouse, but we wanted to visit the grounds.

Because Vakona Forest Lodge features a place called "Lemur Island." That's where semi-tame lemurs jump on your head.

Hiring a car wasn't cheap, but I'd never had a lemur jump on my head before and neither had Guy. We were both keen to experience this unique activity.

"We forgot to buy bananas," I worried as the white 4WD took us along the winding road towards the hotel.

Living in Lemur-Land

Our guesthouse didn't serve breakfast, so Guy and I trekked along the road from Andasibe through the misty sunrise to Hotel Mikalo to start the day. Our guide Dipsi was meeting us at the national park entrance in half an hour, and the hotel was on the way.

Dipsi was there waiting for us, chatting with a dozen other guides that were hanging around looking for work.

"Which circuit would you like to do?" He showed us a map that detailed three different circuits around the park.

"Which one is the best for seeing lemurs?"

After several confusing answers, we learned that the #2 circuit was the best. But #1 and #2 were the same up until a fork two hours in. So now Guy tried a few more suggestions.

An Evening Stroll

Darkness falls early this close to the equator, and that's a good thing when your scheduled activity is a nighttime wildlife-spotting walk.

 

Guy and I met our guide at the Mitsinjo headquarters across from our guesthouse at 5:30, when the sun was setting. His name was Dipsi, or maybe Deep-see. I could remember how to pronounce it if I imagined Samuel Jackson getting chomped by the shark in Deep Blue Sea.

Dipsi led us along the road past the railway terminal and Hotel Mikalo. The national park is two kilometers from the town, but we weren't actually going into the national park, since nighttime visits are forbidden. No, we were walking along the road and then hiking through Mitsinjo's private forest.

On to Andasibe

Drivers and touts surrounded our taxi as we pulled into the open-air gare routiere, and I thought I saw Guy stiffen as I called out our destination.

"Moramanga!"

That's the jumping off point for the local taxi brousse to Andasibe, which would be another hour away after our first three-hour Tana-Moramanga leg.

Now several men tugged at us as we left our taxi, tried to carry our bags, and directed us towards their vans, assailing us in French with (presumably) tales of their vehicle's superiority.

I gleefully waded in. This is where I'm in my element, when touts with senses of humor are sportingly competing for attention, trying to sell their product along with cheerful acceptance when the other guy wins.

Still Nervous in Tana

I talked to Guy and a German man over Tana Jacaranda's "American" breakfast of croissant, eggs, coffee, and a glob of condensed milk from a can, in the sunny common area right outside my large room. Both Guy and the German were in two of the simple-but-decent single rooms with the shared bath.

The German rattled on, advising us to to take various trains and canoes—he'd been on a small guided group trip and was about to switch to a second one. He was a walking encyclopedia of information about Madagascar—he even told us there was such a thing as a giant jumping rat on the west coast—and both Guy and I made poor showings in comparison. Guy had been studying for exams and hadn't even had time to get a guidebook or a camera storage card before leaving Cape Town, and I had an old Lonely Planet that I hadn't yet read.

Landing in Tana

4 a.m. taxi to Cape Town Airport, heading to a connecting flight in Johannesburg.

Ugh. 

As soon as I got to the airport and checked my bag, I headed straight to Mugg & Bean for a "bottomless" coffee.

I hadn't managed to get to sleep early last night, between packing and remotely working at the comic book factory. I'd slept a few hours, then dragged myself out of bed at 3. I'd thought I was doing pretty well until I left my room, crossed the street, and tried to buzz myself into the main building at Cape Town Backpackers.

I couldn't get in. What? Oh hell. The gate was bolted from the inside. I could see the security guard's chair and folded-up newspaper. But where was the guard?

Two Rainy, Touristy Days at the Bottom of Africa

"Should have gone up Table Mountain when I had the chance," I grumbled to myself as I contemplated the bleak weather forecast.

Rain, wind, rain. And chilly! I shivered at night under a thin comforter, wore my fleece to bed, wrapped my toes in a towel. There was no heater in my room at Cape Town Backpackers.

I thought about doing a shark dive, but I couldn't sort out the ethics. Are shark dives okay? Are they not okay? They're certainly cheap enough in Cape Town. But is it acceptable to chum to attract sharks, to associate them with humans? What I needed was an expert.