A Lady in London

When my boyfriend and I moved to London, one of our first goals was to travel to places that were hard to get to from San Francisco. When we sat down this year to plan our holiday adventure, we threw around ideas as diverse as The Seychelles, Brazil, and Vietnam. Eventually we decided on Madagascar. I’m glad we did, too, because when I opened my guidebook to the section on “Getting There”, I discovered that the author specifically called out San Francisco as the single most difficult place from which to get to Madagascar. It even cited a city on the southern part of the island as being San Francisco’s antipode. Success!

We arrived in Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar, on Christmas day. From the airport we took an official taxi to our hotel, which we figured would be a pretty straightforward experience. It wasn’t. Shortly after we left the airport, the taxi started to splutter and stutter as it slowed down and the driver pulled onto the shoulder. We were out of gas.

Not to worry, our driver assured us. All he needed was 10,000 ariary and the two empty water bottles from the back of the car. We nervously parted with our money and fished the bottles out of the trunk, handing all of it to the driver. He assured us that there was a petrol station nearby.

The driver got out of the car with the bottles and brought a third bottle along as well—this one a huge bottle of beer (for the road, of course)—and we watched in mild shock as he took a big swig of THB and hitch-hiked a ride to what was presumably a gas station. Never mind that the car he got into was going in the opposite direction of the station he had assured us was right down the road.

Five nerve-racking minutes later, our driver appeared and filled the tank with the water bottles full of gasoline. We were on our way again. After asking us seventeen times for the name of our hotel and assuring us each time that he had heard of it and knew where it was, we found ourselves in the middle of a giant street market. Like a tank rolling indiscriminately through post-bedlam wreckage, our taxi plowed through the market, honking all the way for people to move aside.

As we crept slowly through the market, my boyfriend and I looked around to see a bustling explosion of color and goods. Everywhere we looked there were people buying shoes, T-shirts, cabbage, fruit, used goods, new goods, and everything in between. It was a pleasant spectacle to stumble upon, and helped pass the time.

We finally got through the market, then we drove up the hill to our hotel, Le Pavillon de l’Emyrne. We alighted outside the gate and turned to pay the taxi driver, who suddenly insisted that we give him 10,000 more ariary than he had originally quoted us. We refused, of course. He threatened to get the police. We told him to do just that. He left.

We checked into our hotel, which was housed in a beautiful historic mansion on the top of a hill. There were lush gardens all around, and our room was a high-ceilinged beauty with a newly renovated bathroom. It took our minds off the crazy taxi driver, who returned five minutes later acting as if nothing had happened and gladly accepted the remainder of his quoted fare. Bizarre.

After we settled into our room we decided to spend what was left of the afternoon at the Tsimbazaza Zoo in Antananarivo, which by then we had learned to call Tana. We were a bit hesitant to take another taxi, but were relieved to find that our next driver was trustworthy and sane.

We got a miniature tour of Tana as we drove to the zoo, and found it to be a picturesque city complete with its own Hollywood-style sign. It definitely beat that of South San Francisco, The Industrial City, which also sports the iconic white letters but for some reason doesn’t seem to deserve them.

Once at the zoo we made a beeline for the lemur islands. True to their names, the islands were set in two ponds and showcased Madagascar’s most famous animal. We watched the hyperactive lemurs run around for awhile, then made our way to the other lemur enclosures, which housed an impressive variety of furry creatures that have evaded the heartless grasp of evolution for millions of years.

Tearing ourselves away from the lemurs, we moved on to the fossa, the rare birds, and the other animals at the Tana zoo. As we made our way to the exit, we had a surprise sighting of a creature that was not in an enclosure: the biggest spider in the world. With a body at least as long as my middle finger and twice as thick, the spider nearly gave me a heart attack even though it was over 20 feet away. Needless to say, I was on spider watch for the rest of the trip.

Leaving the zoo, we headed back to our hotel in Tana and spent the early evening reading in the comfy chairs in the common area. Later on we found the only restaurant in Antananarivo that was open on Christmas day, a zebu restaurant that served…yep, zebu (think beef). I had the traditional Malagasy zebu with rice, while my boyfriend tried a variation of the same. We shared a bottle of wine, and wished one another a merry Christmas. After dinner we headed back to the hotel to get some sleep before our 6am flight to Nosy Be, an island in northern Madagascar from which we would embark on the next leg of our journey: Tsarabanjina.

To be continued…