East Africa, Victoria Falls and Madagascar

[Fruitloop50]

Next we went to some small enclosures to see some other animals. First we saw three frogs. They were normal sized frogs, bright red and orange in colour. Then we saw a couple of bright orange teeny tiny frogs that were only about one centimetre long.



Geckos



Snakes and bats



And Comet Moths



A bit later we stopped for lunch at a cafe and shared a chicken pizza. There was hardly any chicken on it, just some tiny cubes of meat, and it was really garlicky. It had a nice crust though, and we were pretty hungry, so we enjoyed it.

 

[Fruitloop50]

Pictures of the drive

 

[Fruitloop50]

The road is the main road between the port in the east, and Tana, so there are hundreds of trucks travelling on it every day.



Most of houses in the countryside don't have electricity so burn charcoal instead. There are a lot of sacks of charcoal for sale by the side of the road, and out the front of houses and shops in the villages.



We are staying at the MantadiaLodge, located on top of a hill one hundred metres above the surrounding rain forest.



We had dinner at the hotel restaurant. Tagliatelle bolognaise, and fish in lemon sauce with vegetables. For dessert we had chocolate mousse, and 'chocolate treats'. Everything was delicious.

 

[Fruitloop50]

Breakfast was another disappointing small buffet with eggs cooked to order. Afterwards we drove to the Analamazaotra National Park to go on a walk with a local guide, Abram, to see some lemurs. He told us the walk would be easy.

The first part was on a fairly flat path with big square rocks embedded in it.

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We had only walked a short distance before we came across an Eastern Grey Lemur.



A short time later we reached a fork in the path and Abram took us upthe one with really steep uneven rocky steps. Not sure how easy this is for an old man with a walking stick!



If MrF was just with me, there is no way he would even attempt steps like that, but with Abram's help and encouragement, and a few rests along the way, he made it quite easily. Hopefully this will boost his confidence to do more things like this in the future.

At the top the path was generally just hard compacted dirt, and we just had to watch out occasionally for tree roots and rocks.

Next we saw three Bamboo Lemurs in a tree, and then a group of nine or ten Golden Sifakas. The first couple were high up in the trees but then they all came right down to the lower branches right in front of us and were jumping from tree to tree.

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We could constantly heard the loud 'singing' of the Indri, the largest living lemur. Eventually we spotted a few in the tree tops.



Finally we saw three or four Eastern Wooly Lemurs huddled together sleeping in the fork of a tree.

 

[love_the_life]

Unfortunately there is only one direct flight to Livingstone, and it leaves at seven thirty in the morning so we had to get up at half past four today. The flight is with Kenya Airways on a Boeing 737 with the seats in a three by three layout. It is half empty and we have a row of three seats to ourselves. It took off at twenty to eight.

A hot breakfast was served but we had eaten at a cafe in the airport so didn't have anything. We landed in Livingstone just over three hours later at quarter to ten local time.

We are staying at the Avani Victoria Falls Resort, a twenty minute taxi ride from the airport. We had booked a standard room and when checking in we were told we were upgraded to a suite.

Our room

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The grounds

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That hotel looks very familiar - though when we were there in 2015 I don't recall it was an Avant hotel.

 

[Fruitloop50]

That hotel looks very familiar - though when we were there in 2015 I don't recall it was an Avant hotel.

I think it used to be called the Zambezi Sun

 

[Cossie]

I showed SWMO the photos and she said she stayed at the Victoria Falls Hotel in about 1982, towards the end of an Alexandria to Jo’burg overland trip.
I’ll have to go through her photos.
Speaking of photos, yours are very very good, most enjoyable looking at them.

 

[Fruitloop50]

Afterwards we drove to a nearby hotel for a nice lunch at their restaurant that has a lovely view of the rain forest.



Bolognaise and 'Tilapia Malagasy' with veges.



After lunch we drove to the nearby Vakona Forest Lodge Hotel. It has a small reserve, Lemur Island, that has several species of habituated lemurs on it.

First we had a short trip in a canoe to get to the island.



The walking here was very easy on flat sandy tracks. First we saw more Golden Sifakas and some Black and White Ruffed Lemurs.






Some Common Brown Lemurs huddled together sleeping, and Red Ruffed, Eastern Grey Bamboo, and Common Brown Lemurs.



Dinner was at the hotel restaurant again. A chicken and cheese club sandwich and a hamburger.

 

[Fruitloop50]

Thenext morning we drove back to Tana and when we arrived we went to the Photography Museum. There is a cafe next to it and we went there for a delicious lunch first. Lamb cutlets and fillet of sole.



The toilet, located at the back of the cafe, has a fantastic view looking over the city from the balcony.



The museum has three small rooms, each showing two different films ranging in length from seven to fourteen minutes. The films use archival photos to cover topics such as the history of transport, important buildings and monuments, and Madagascar's seven largest cities.

There was also some old cameras on display and a lot of photos from different eras. One interesting thing we learned was that the country's airline was initially called 'Mad Air', which literally means 'crazy air'. Needless to say that was soon changed to Air Madagascar.


We are staying at the La Varangue Hotel again.​

 

[Fruitloop50]

When we checked out in the morning the receptionist asked if we had taken anything from the mini bar. We told her no but she said there was a Twix chocolate bar missing. We told her again that we hadn't had anything but she kept insisting that we did.

Ravo came in to see what the hold up was and we told him. We have one more stay here again in a couple of days, so said we would just pay for it anyway. Ravo told us not to, and said they would investigate it while we were gone!

We were meant to leave a eight o'clock but by the time all this palaver had finished it was twenty past. Today's drive is 160km south to the city of Antsirabe, Madagascar's third largest city.

There are endless fields of crops and rice paddies, and many of the small villages have traditional houses built from red bricks with thatched roofs. We saw a lot of carts being pulled along the road by pairs of zebus, and men in the fields using zebus to plough their land. Ploughing and digging is men's work, and the women are responsible for planting and maintaining the crops.

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When we arrived we went to an Italian restaurant for lunch and shared a really nice bologanise pizza, and had a chocolate mousse.

 

[Fruitloop50]

After lunch we drove for just over half an hour to the volcanic LakeTritriva. The road was really busy with big groups of people walking along, lots of bicycles, and other vehicles. There was also several carts being pulled by zebus, and at one stage we saw over twenty carts heading towards us in a convoy.



The car parking area at the lake had magnificent views over the fields and villages below.



Local people here tell the story of the Malagasy version of Romeo and Juliet. Two young people fell in love but their parents didn't approve of the relationship. The boy was from a noble family and the girl from a poor family. The tragic story ends with them jumping in the lake together to be unified in death.

Legend has it that they came back in the shape of a tree, 'the sad tree', located on the edge of the lake. If you break a branch or leaf, red fluid leaks out, representing their blood.



When we drove back to town we stopped just on the outskirts at another volcanic lake, Lake Andraikiba. Legend has it that at this lake a pregnant girl drowned during a swimming competition with another girl. The prize for the winner was marriage to a rich nobleman. The girl’s ghost is said to be seen at dawn every day resting on a rock by the shore.

This lake is much bigger than Tritriva and there is a couple of cafes on the shore, and a long line of little huts selling things such as clothes and souvenirs.

 

[Fruitloop50]

We are staying at the Coleur Cafe Hotel in the centre of town. The rooms are like little freestanding cottages set around a nice garden. The lighting is dreadful with just two pendant lights near the centre of the ceiling, but nothing for the desk that is in a really dark corner. There is also no powerpoint near the desk, and only one free power point in the whole room.



For dinner we went to the hotel restaurant and had zebu fillet with potatoes, and roulade of chicken served with vegetables. The zebu was okay, the chicken not very good, and the service appalling.

 

[Fruitloop50]

Today's breakfast was the worst we have had. There was only one unhealthy cereal, hardly any fruit, no croissants or other pastries, and no water. The waitress just sat behind the counter the whole time playing with her phone, and never once asked us if we needed anything, and we weren't offered any eggs.

After breakfast we drove to Betafo, a town located twenty two kilometres west of Antsirabe. When we arrived we met our local guide Castellina, a lovely young woman who as well as working in tourism, sings in a band, teaches local women how to cook, and teaches the local children on weekends because their families can't afford to send them to school.

We met her out the front of her house, on the main road, and then she took us on a walk down a dirt road through her village.


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We reached a small cluster of houses, all two storeys high, with a very rudimentary kitchen and a room for animals downstairs, and bedrooms upstairs.



Opposite the houses there was about a dozen children playing in one of the fields. Castellina called them over and they lined up in front of us and sang us some beautiful songs that she had taught them. They were so beautiful.




The houses don't have electricity but some of them have a couple of small solar panels on their roof. They are just powerful enough to charge one mobile phone or a light.



Eventually we reached a place that had a magnificent view across the fields to small villages in the distance.



When we got back Castellina took us to a small building behind her house called 'Chez Namana' which translates to 'friends house'. There is a kitchen and a room adjacent to it that had a small table set up for lunch for the four of us. The food was prepared by two local women who have been taught to cook by Castellina.

For entree we had a plate containing chunks of potato cooked with a bit of beetroot, grated carrot, chopped avocado, and chopped tomato. For main the ladies bought us out a huge plate of rice each, and two pots of stew made with zebu and sweet potato leaves. The entree was nice but the stew was very runny and didn't have much flavour, and while some of the meat was nice and tender, some of it was tough and gristly.



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[Fruitloop50]

Later on in the afternoon we went for a walk and found a nice patisserie and had a hot chocolate and a chocolate eclair. On a walk around the town we saw the post office, the train station, and the Tribes Monument, commemorating the eighteen different ethnic groups in Madagascar.

There was a few small ferris wheels operating and we saw some young men hanging off the outside of the cabins. We thought they must have somehow fallen out, but when we watched a bit longer, we realised the ferris wheels are manually operated, and these men were making them rotate.

It was fascinating to watch. About half a dozen young men would climb up a ladder, and then climb onto the framework of the wheel. They would use their body weight to make the wheel turn, and when they got to the bottom they would let go. They were extremely agile and they could make the wheel rotate really fast.

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This morning Ravo had pointed out a burger restaurant that he said served good food so we went there for dinner. The burgers weren't bad and the chips were excellent.



Afterwards we caught a pousse-pousse (a rickshaw pulled by a man) for the trip back to the hotel.

 

[Fruitloop50]

The next morning we drove to a nearby zebu horn factory, a small family run business. We watched a demonstration of how the horns are made into various items. After the horns are obtained from the abattoir, they are cut using an angle grinder. Next they are boiled in water for ten minutes to soften them, and then dipped in a mixture of water and oil to make them flexible.

They are then put in a fire to make them soft, and then placed in a vice to shape them. When the desired shape is achieved it is dipped in cold water to fix the shape. The final step is to polish the items and this is done in three stages.

First sandpaper on a grinding stone is used, then fine glass paper, and finally, fabric cut from old trousers. The showroom had all sorts of things for sale including jewellery, model cars, and domino and chess sets.


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Next door we went to another small family business that makes miniatures of cars, bicycles, rickshaws and other things, using only recycled materials. The man doing the demonstration showed us how he makes tyres for the little bicycles. It was really interesting and amazing to see the different materials he used, and the detail involved.

 

[Fruitloop50]

Afterwards we went to the Our Lady of La Salette Cathedral, a catholic church built in 1908, and then to the central food market. It's not the biggest market in the city but it is centrally located and has a good range of butchers, fruit and veg, and spices etc.

 

[Fruitloop50]

After lunch we started our drive back to Tana. About half way we stopped in Ambatolampy and visited a small family business that makes aluminium pots. Almost all the aluminium kitchenware available in Madagascar comes from this town.

There is an open yard surrounded by small open sided sheds with men in them doing different stages of the pot making. In the yard there are several brick fires, just over a metre tall, that are powered by burning charcoal.

There are piles of scrap aluminium items on the ground and these are put into the top of the fires that are maintained at eight hundred degrees. When the aluminium is melted, it is scooped out of the bottom of the fire and tipped onto the ground where is cools into round disc shapes.



These discs are then placed in a rectangular brick fire where they are melted down in big ladles.​

In one of the sheds there are two men making the moulds. The moulds are wooden frames filled with sand and charcoal powder, and have a small tube sticking out of the top. The ladles of melted aluminium are then poured down to tube and into the mould.

The two men doing this are just wearing shorts and t-shirts, and have bare feet. There is obviously no OH & S here. Each of these men can make thirty pots a day.​

When the pots are un-moulded they are taken to another shed where they are trimmed with a hacksaw. The final step is in another shed where a couple of men polish them with an angle grinder.



The main street of the town has many shops selling the products.

 

[Fruitloop50]

During the drive today, and on other days we have driven through the countryside, there is always a lot of people doing their laundry in the rivers.



There are also a lot of people making bricks in the fields. They use mud from the rice fields, and after the bricks are made they are cooked for ten days in brick ovens. The ovens are supervised twenty four hours a day to make sure the fire is maintained at the correct temperature. After cooking they are stacked in the fields and left to dry in the sun for a further three days.



When we got back to Tana we had our final stay at the La Varangue Hotel and had dinner at their restaurant again. The amuse-bouche was fish mousse and vegetable scroll, and for mains we had the grouper again, and stir fried chicken with mushrooms. For dessert we had crème brulee and lemon meringue tart. Once again the food and service was excellent.

 

[Fruitloop50]

The next morning we had intended to visit Lemur's Park, just outside the city centre. Unfortunately MrF had gastro during the night so we thought it was best not to travel too far. The hotel was unable to give us a late check out so we decided to head to the airport early.

Our flight to Mauritius isn't until 5pm but fortunately when we arrived check in was already open. The Air Mauritius flight took off five minutes late, and landed one hour and twenty minutes later. The plane is an Airbus A330 with seats in a two by four by two layout.

A meal was served that didn't have any choice. It was a cold meal of cous cous with veges mixed through it, and topped with small pieces of chicken. There was also a bread roll, butter, and a piece of vanilla sponge cake. It wasn't too bad.

We had pre-booked a taxi for the drive to Flic en Flac, almost 50km away, located on the west coast. It was so nice to be driving on a decent road.

Our accommodation is an Airbnb two bedroom apartment with a balcony looking across to the beach.


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[Fruitloop50]

We had planned to visit some other areas of Mauritius over the next couple of days but MrF still wasn't feeling completely better, so we decided to just relax, and go for walks in the local area.



On the day of our flight back to Perth we caught a taxi to Mahebourg, a small town on the south east coast, nine kilometres fromthe airport. Hotels in Mahebourg aren't very expensive, and our flight home tonight isn't until 10.40pm, so we booked one to use this afternoon.

It is the Auberge le Saladier located in the centre of town. The room is old and basic but it is clean and good enough for what we need. One good thing which we hardly ever find is that the lighting is excellent.



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