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Tana is one of the world’s truly crazy places. I didn’t think any city could surpass Havana, from last year’s trip, in this regard, but I believe that Tana did. Several words come to mind when describing the city, madhouse, zoo, chaotic, or my favorite choice, beehive. It felt like I was travelling through a such an enclosure as, just after dawn, I awoke, checked out of the hotel, and began the tour, heading first towards the west coast. It didn’t help matters that I had only been in the country for one day and was still disoriented from the trip. However, it has always seemed to me that the best way to overcome the confusion of travelling to a new country is to get on the bike as soon as possible. Doing something that feels normal does wonders for one’s frame of mind. Frame of mind was quite important in this case, because in addition to the generally disordered commotion of city life in Tana, with people walking, bicycling, driving taxis and trucks all about without much sense of coordinated motion, trying to get out of the city is confounded by the virtual lack of aides to navigation of any kind.
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Trying to navigate the way one would at home, by making use of the names or numbers of streets and roads, proved to be quite impossible. This was not because the streets weren’t named (they had names like Lalana Rainandriamampandy,) but rather due to the almost total lack of visible signage of any sort indicating the name or destination of a particular street. To make matters more confusing, the city is built on a rather hilly site, so it can be rather tough to see enough of the landscape to get a sense of direction. Fortunately, the city map that I purchased the previous day helped a great deal, once I realized how to use it properly. The map was almost a pictographic representation of the city, with spatially accurate descriptions of the widths of roads, the position and sizes of major buildings and various types of landmarks. So, with a little care I managed to make my way towards the edge of the city by following a mental set of instructions like; Follow the narrow, twisting road over the big hill, then turn right at the large buildings that look like warehouses, and take the next left when you get to the statue of Karl Marx.
Just when I thought I was about to break free of the city, the road that appeared to head straight out of town turned out to be occupied by one of the many open-air markets scattered throughout Tana. This would be the first of many experiences in the Malagasy markets on this tour. If the normal streets of Tana were crazy, the market streets were crazy multiplied by ten. The whole area was wall-to-wall people, vendors, and animals, prohibiting travel much faster than walking speed. Nobody paid much attention to me, except for a few car-for-hire men who tried to sell me a ride to wherever. The usual difficulty of convincing folks that I actually preferred to go by bike was even more pronounced here. Though the road was sandy and rolled up and down, I slowly made my way through the crowd, though it seemed to take forever. If it had not been early on the first day of the ride, I would probably have spent a little time here and gotten something to eat. Eventually, I reached the edge of town and broke out onto Lalana Bandoeng, which eventually became R.N. (Route National) 1 heading west. Since I will be back in Tana later on, I will save further descriptions of the city until following pages
The first few days of the tour would be affected by a routing decision that I made before leaving home. My first destination was the west coast town of Morondava, and the normal way to get there would be to first head south from Tana and then turn west. This would cover almost the entire distance to Morondava on good-quality paved roads, but since I had planned on visiting the area south of Tana later on, it would mean covering a significant stretch of roadway twice. I generally try to avoid backtracking whenever possible while on tour, and so I chose to travel along the only other possible route to Morondava. This would involve heading due west for one day, followed by a turn to the south over an off-road section that would meet up again with the highway with two day’s travel remaining to the coast. This would let me avoid a duplicate route, as well as give me an early indication of the conditions to be expected when venturing of the paved roads. But that was to come on the following day, on this day the travelling was easy, along a smooth, gently rolling road.
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As R.N.1 leaves Tana it crossed a wide plain covered with rice paddies. The openness here provided a vivid contrast to the crowded streets of Tana. The amount of motorized traffic dropped off fairly quickly, being replaced more frequently by the omnipresent herds of zebu. This was my first experience with the gentle bovine citizens, and their herders graciously prodded them to move to one side as I passed by. I continued on feeling, as I always do on the first day of a tour, a mixture of anticipation and uncertainty for what was to come during the weeks ahead. The greetings that I exchanged with locals walking along the road soon made me feel right at home, though, and I was soon back in full touring mode. After a while R.N. 1 entered the hilly section of the central plateau, though the riding remained easy and there were no significant climbs. Along the way the highway passed by and through several small highland towns and villages, like the one pictured below. The buildings here were all constructed, in the traditional method of the highlands, of earthen walls with a thatched roof. I instantly fell in love with this architecture, as I have always admired earthen construction, and here the reddish color of the soil provided a beautiful contrast to the surrounding green grasslands. I took the opportunity to stop for drinks and a snack in one of these towns, and I had my first experiences with buying food at a roadside Tiko store, as well as standing out as an obvious outsider. Both of these left me with the feeling that I still had a little work to do to feel comfortable among the local people.
The road continued to roll along though rolling, open countryside that was filled with farms and large sections of pastureland. By midday, I reached the town of Miarinarivo, about 95 km west of Tana, just about where I expected to be by this time. The town was fairly peaceful by Malagasy standards, and I set myself down in the first hotely I came across for my midday meal. The proprietor was a nice man who spoke a little broken English and seemed quite interested in my trip. He brought me a big bowl of vary with fish and then chased away the kids that had gathered at the door to check out the strange visitor. The fish was not my favorite, but the rice hit the spot. Later I walked around the town a bit, bought drinks at a street shop, and sat down for a rest in the open plaza at the center of town. The quiet, open plaza was a rarity for a town of this size, which usually contained only bustling markets. This time, however, I was able to sit down in the shade on a crumbling cement porch and cool off for a while, my only company being a few small kids who were playing marbles.
After resting for a couple of hours, I continued on with the afternoon section of the day’s ride. The route continued west on R.N. 1 for another 30 km before turning south at Analavory onto Route 43. The countryside in this area was still open, with rolling green hills, and easy riding. The entire area west of Tana, however, gave me my first experience observing the effects of deforestation on the island. Essentially all of Madagascar was one covered with thick forest, but today only scattered remnants remain, most having been cleared to make way for subsistence agriculture. As is often the case, the cleared land does not sustain agriculture for very long, and is disastrously lost to erosion, which is one of Madagascar’s biggest problems today. It was a little difficult for me to look at the open green countryside, which still possessed great beauty, and remember that this was but a shadow of its former glory.
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Route 43 continued south from Analavory past the pretty Lake Itasy. The road remained in good condition to this point and the whole area was filled with wildflowers. South of the lake, the pavement ended, but the conditions were relatively good, and I continued on, for a time riding alongside a couple of local bicyclists. Though were couldn’t converse we still shared the experience of travelling through this pretty area. Before long, the sun was close to setting, much earlier than I would have liked, and I was getting a little too close to the town of Soavinandriana to go much farther before finding a spot for the night. After looking around for only a few minutes, I came across a nice patch of woods where I could get a reasonable distance from the road and set up my tent under cover. The success of the first day’s ride filled me with optimism for the rest of the trip, and as I tried to go to sleep, every shadow in the canopy above looked like a lemur to me, which, of course, was only wishful thinking.
Antananarivo to near Soavinandriana
Distance: 145 km
Weather: Sunny, Maximum Temp: 32 C, light tailwind
Terrain: Rolling
Roads Traveled: Various Tana streets, R.N.1, Route 43
Day Two - Onward Into the Great Unknown
I generally don’t consider a tour to be a success if I don’t, at some point along the way, feel that I might not be able to make it to the end. However, this was the first time that I had such concerns on the second day of the ride! I knew that the off-road sections could be tough, but I had also held out hope that they would all be nicely graded hard dirt, and that I could cover a considerable daily distance. The route between the end of the paved road near Soavinandriana and where I would rejoin to the highway to the southwest, appeared to be about 120 km according to my map. If the conditions were reasonable, I should be able to cover that distance in a single day. As it turned out, the conditions were far less than ideal. Things were ok, at first. I was still a few kilometers from Soavinandriana when I started at dawn, and so when I entered this mid-sized tow, there was not much of a reason to stop for long. I did want to get my bearings and tried to confirm with the local folks which way to go to get to the next town, Mananasy Tsitakondazaa. No one could understand my pronunciation of the town’s name, however, so I thought it would help to point to it on the map. That’s when I learned that the simplest way to attract a large crowd in this part of Madagascar was to open up a map. In a few seconds I was surrounded by a curious group of 20-30 onlookers who appeared to be more interested in the map than in me. I never really figured out why this was such a treat for them, but I assume that many in these parts had rarely, if ever, seen a map. Perhaps they were curious to see if their town or village was important enough to warrant a dot on the paper. After a few minutes, I had convinced myself that I was heading in the right direction, and rode out toward the west.
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The condition of the road deteriorated quickly beyond this point, and before long it was more of a cart path than a road. There were thick bushy sections to deal with, and some soft spots, but compared to what I would encounter in the future this area was not too bad. Nevertheless, the going was slow, and along the way I took the opportunity to get a snack at a tiny roadside hut, where I bought some fried rice cakes. As I sat on the cut-log chair outside eating my food, I could feel the smiles and stares from the weatherworn woman who had sold me the cakes, and a few of her friends who stopped by to chat. I was probably the only vhazaha to come by this way in a long time, and it was then that it truly hit me just how far removed I was from home. On the move again, I eventually rolled into Mananasy Tsitakondazaa, at about 11:00, taking all morning to travel a mere 20 km.
Mananasy Tsitakondazaa is a rural commune which has a few modern-style buildings, and serves, perhaps, several hundred people. Beyond that, it was a typical Malagasy country town, with crowds of people packing the main street, trading goods like dried corn and beans, which were spread out on large straw mats on the dirt roadway. I was ready for a meal break and though there wasn’t much appealing food to be found on the street, I did stumble across a nice hotely, where I had two large bowls of vary with accompanying meat, and a very tasty bowl of soup. Normally, after a meal break I would spend a few hours resting in town, but I decided to move ahead, since there was not much chance of me being able to relax among the curious crowd here in M.T. At the edge of town I gazed at the scene shown below, and stopped to consider whether I’d be able to continue.
Heading west from M.T., toward the next town, Mahavelona, my map showed a “seasonal road” covering a distance of another 20 kilometers. Looking ahead at the view before me I had to consider whether I should continue on, or turn back towards Tana. The condition of the road did not look good far as far as I could see (if you look closely you can see where it detours around a section submerged under a foot of water,) and I knew going forward would mean painstakingly slow progress. However, I find turning back to be generally distasteful, and I was not yet ready to completely abandon my original plan to see all the parts of the country. What eventually convinced me to go ahead was the crowd of Malagasy people who were travelling along this road without much thought. These included many bicyclists, and it was here that I formulated my policy that if I saw evidence that local bicyclists were using a certain road, I assumed that it was reasonable for me to do so as well.
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So, with a bit of trepidation, I pressed on toward Mahavelona, being sure to exchange a friendly “Salama!” with all of my fellow travelers as I passed by. Hearing a vhazaha say hello in their native tongue always brought the warmest response from the Malagasy, and I made a point to do so to everyone I met along the way, literally thousands of “salamas” during my stay in the country. The road continued to be in poor condition for the rest of the day, including many steep sections where the rutted dirt surface was covered with large, jagged-edged shards of crystalline minerals that required me to walk with the bike. This was where I began to damage my legs by occasionally gouging my pedals into their soft flesh. Not that these hardships would dissuade me from pushing on, however. Of course, I gladly shared the road with my indigenous compatriots, the occasional herd of Zebu.
There were also many small rivers to cross in this area. Most were knee-deep, or less, at the midpoint and the cool water was fairly refreshing, as the heat was beginning to increase as the day wore on. However, they did tend to slow me down quite a bit, as, at this point in the tour, I had not yet realized the futility of trying to keep my feet dry. So, at each crossing, it was off with my shoes and socks and then onto my shoulder with the bike and gear for the walk across. Much later in the trip, I wised up and would just leave my shoes on in such situations. These frequent delays did give me an opportunity to look around and appreciate the natural beauty around me. I distinctly remember a flock of bright green birds zooming back and forth overhead as I crossed one pretty stream. In the crossing shown in the picture below, you can see the tracks left by other bicycles along the riverbank, a sight that certainly helped my confidence.
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Copyright © 2009 Michael Ayers
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