I got into Madagascar yesterday afternoon after a couple of restful days in Johannesburg, hilighted by a powerful visit to the Apartheid Museum there.
In the eighteen hours I’ve been in Madagascar, on the street I’ve been offered – in order of usefulness – a bottle of water, cell phone airtime, a baugette and other foods, clothing, French-language newspapers, calculators, raw meat, bamboo, live animals, and a 40-pound full-scale replica model sailing ship.
Tana is a bustling town, and you need to share the streets and narrow sidewalks with cars, rickshaws, and the armies of street vendors walking around. It’s, to borrow a word from RSA, quite hectic.
Madagascar also seems a bit difficult to navigate. I speak almost no French, and – although there’s some English spoken here – have done a lot of pointing and gesturing, and getting around is also tough – there are virtually no street signs and all rental cars come with drivers – it’s impossible to drive your own vehicle, though I’m not sure why.
I have plans to spend the rest of the day exploring the capital here, then tomorrow I’ll head south to spend a few days visiting some national parks and searching for lemurs.
