Back to Tana

With our jaunt through Western Madagascar over, it was time for us to head back to Antananarivo.  Our flight was originally scheduled to leave Morondava around 2:30 p.m., but, Air Madagascar is notoriously unreliable.  Those working so hard to promote Malagasy tourism are frustrated to no end by this fact.

When we got back to Morondava the night before, around 7:30, we pulled into a rundown building that had a giant white-board propped up against a dilapidated column with times scrawled all over it.  That's how Air Madagascar communicates its flight times...on a white board in an abandoned parking lot.  Sitting there, we found that our flight had been delayed by two hours!  We were supposed to get into Tana before then and have an afternoon tour of the city, but in that second, our plans were completely thrown off.  Oh well, we knew this could happen and we just had to roll with it.

Kati and I spent the morning relaxing around the hotel.  We walked down to the beach to see the local fisherman, watch some sand crabs scurry around, and get up close and personal with an outrigger canoe.  It was those outriggers that the Malagasy ancestors used to migrate from Indonesia to Madagascar nearly 2000 years ago.

Marc and Faly picked us up at 2:30, insisting that we had to get to the airport two hours before our flight.  I'm not sure why this was because there was literally no security.  We were on the only flight out of Morondava.  (There was also only one flight coming in)  On the way to the airport we saw one of the best things we've seen during our trip -- something that we've been hoping to see since we got here: a Malagasy man in a Kentucky Wildcats hat!  Unfortunately, we were driving too fast and couldn't stop to get a picture with him.  The only thing that would have made it better would be if it were a UK 2015 National Championship hat.

When we got to the airport, we stood in line for 30 minutes to check our bags and get our tickets, but then we were done and left with 1.5 hours to sit and wait.  Then, 4:30 came and went.  Finally, they came on the loudspeaker to say that the flight was running late.  It finally landed around 4:50 and we boarded immediately after those arriving disembarked.  It was 7:00 before we got into Tana, and we still had an hour drive into the heart of the city to get to our hotel.  

The central highlands of Madagascar (where Tana is located) was populated by a different group of people than the west.  In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Sakalava people -- the tribes from Western Madagascar -- effectively dominated the island.  This was primarily because they were the ones who came into contact with European traders and obtained guns before anyone else.  They also came to Madagascar in a separate migration and the African influence is much more pronounced.  They have darker skin and have adapted some Bantu words into their language.  In contrast, the Merina (who settled the central highlands) are much more physically and culturally similar to their Malay-Indonesian ancestors.  They are also the people that united Madagascar under a single ruler for the first time in the early 19th century.  The cultural differences were immediately visible driving through Tana, from the style of shops to the types of things being sold (e.g., bulk spices, Asian-looking hand foods).

Now about our hotel...I didn't know what to expect, but I certainly didn't expect what we got.  We stayed in the Consulate for Monaco!  The Consulate is housed in an old colonial house built in the 19th century by Joseph Simon Galleini, the first French Governor-General of Madagascar.  The first floor has just a handful of rooms that the consulate rents out as guest rooms.  The wait staff serves both the guests and the Resident, who lives on the third floor.  Our room was uber-modern and opened up right to the Consulate's private pool!

The only problem with staying at the Consulate was that they didn't have the ability to feed us when we showed up at 8:00.  Instead, one of the guards walked us down to another hotel which had great food, but horrible service.  After dinner, we were both so exhausted and glad to be done with the day, that we laid down to enjoy our perfectly air-conditioned room and excellent bed.