A woman and her partner travel to Madagascar to reconnect, but the trip proves more of a challenge to their relationship than a balm.
From the plane, Madagascar looked boundless. Mile after mile of blue hills poked out from misty valleys, culminating in the colorful straggle of the capital, Antananarivo (Tana). It was a welcome sight after the 32-hour journey via Moscow and Yemen, enlivened by a dog peeing on passengers from an overhead locker. It was 1990, and Alex and I had three weeks to explore this beautiful island and shrug off the ennui that had settled on our relationship like a dusty pelt. We shuffled through immigration like zombies. Outside, Alex rifled through Hilary Bradt’s Guide to Madagascar.
“The guidebook said ignore the posh taxis directly outside and head for the cheap ones over the road,” said Alex.
“Can’t we just pay the money?” I sounded whiny as we skirted a line of sleek Mercedes and a man rammed our rucksacks into the boot of his decrepit 2CV.
The sun was low in the sky as our driver edged out of the airport.
“It’s fine,” said Alex. “Half the price.” He squeezed my hand. “This is going to be a great holiday.”
My hand felt sweaty in his. This wasn’t like the view from the plane. A succession of tents and tin shelters and litter-choked pavements stretched into the distance. Was this even the way to town?
About 15 minutes later, we glided to a halt. The driver turned to us.
“J’ai besoin de cinq francs.”
We froze.
“He wants money. Oh god, Alex, why did you have to be clever?”
Alex handed over some cash and the man leaped out, vanishing into the night.
Silence pressed on the car. In the gloaming, figures drifted across some low hills beside us. Daylight would reveal these as towering mounds of rubbish, and one of Africa’s largest refuse sites. Amid this steaming filth, we later read, people worked 10-hour shifts, sifting rat feces, needles, and even aborted babies for anything saleable.
Soon, we heard our driver discharge the contents of a large plastic bottle into the tank, then slide back into his seat and start the engine. We were still reeling from our misunderstanding when we reached the hotel, the only thing we had pre-booked, only to discover there was no reservation. Luckily, a bed was found, into which we sunk and slept for 12 hours straight.
Hundreds of white umbrellas crowded the entire length of Avenue de l’Independence and scrambled up the steps to the old town. It was the next afternoon, and we were threading through the city’s famous Zoma street market. Pyramids of strawberries, lychees, and pineapples balanced on wobbly tables, competing with herbal medicines and charms, wood carvings, marble chessboards, and semi-precious gems—agate, crystals, and pearly moonstones. We picked out a red and green Citroen fashioned from a tin can and tried not to imagine the fate of a cage of meowing cats.
According to Hilary Bradt, “no visitor [was] likely to omit the south from his or her itinerary.” Over dinner, we pored over her guidebook and anticipated colossal baobabs, the intriguingly named hook-billed vanga, forests of cactus-like trees, flying foxes, and the emblematic ring-tailed lemur. We just had to get there.
***
A laden cart pulled by a pair of plodding zebu rumbled past and swayed down the street, a line of cars following in its wake. Standing in the dust, the searing heat, the stink of petrol fumes, and the incessant blare of car horns was jarring.
“Why did we have to come for three weeks? Now what do you suggest?” snapped Alex. I burst into tears, hating him for making this my fault.
An hour earlier, we’d entered the travel agency with a prepared script and high hopes. It was crowded and smoky with people jostling to be seen. At last, a man waved us over with the tip of his smoldering cigarette, trailing an arc of ash. We sank gratefully onto seats that put us at eye level with the edge of the desk and a name plaque that read “Mr. Ravelotsalama Raony.”
I smiled and began my address, delivered mostly to Mr. Raony’s knees. An inability to make eye contact and my terrible French brought a premature end to our exchange. Mid-flow, Mr. Raony leaned over and silenced me with a raised finger. Lighting another cigarette, he swiveled his chair and picked up the phone. Alex and I looked at each other and shrugged helplessly. We’d lost our audience. It was a low moment—in every sense.
Later on, and emboldened by a beer, a more assertive approach with Mr. Raony yielded news both good and bad. We could fly to the holiday resort of Nosy Bé in the north, a distance by road and ferry from Tana of about 900 km, taking 18 hours, but a mere 60 minutes away by Air Madagascar. The world’s fourth largest island country at 1,000 miles long and 350 miles wide, Madagascar was big. Moving around by road was challenging, and impossible in some parts of the country. Internal flights were booked up months in advance. Did we not know this? Going south was out of the question. If we each privately despaired that we had blown our chance of experiencing one of the most iconic parts of Madagascar, that we would now never see the spiny forest nor the dancing white sifaka lemurs, or any of the other wonders unique to the region and the subject of countless documentaries, we swallowed our regret. Hefting our rucksacks and clutching our guidebook, the following day we returned to the airport.
***
The shallows were thick with darting color. Neon yellow and electric blue, jade, silver, mottled and striped, the water dazzled and flashed. From Bermuda to Barbados, I would snorkel and dive in some remarkable places, but nothing touched Nosy Bé for the abundance and beauty of marine life in that limpid sea.
Parrot fish, groupers, and angel fish weaved through branching sea fans and bobbing eelgrass, grazing on blooms of orange and yellow coral. At lunch, we ate fresh fish, sticky rice, and spicy samosas, and gulped from sweating bottles of Three Horses beer. Palm trees cast feathery shade on the white sand, which swept a perfect curve around the bay. Sunburnt and happy, we had an early night. The honeymoon didn’t last.
Explosive sounds and rancid odors escaped from the bathroom as Alex lost the contents of his stomach from both ends. I felt a mixture of exasperation and pity. But mostly exasperation.
The previous evening, we had cycled to a local Chinese restaurant where the food was apparently good. Alex found a table while I went in search of the bathroom at the back of a hot and dirty kitchen. Opening the door in the choking blackness, I groped for the light switch – at the same time, a small boy produced a candle stub and some matches. The guttering flame revealed glimpses of a shit-smeared hole in the floor. Did he really expect me to squat over that fetid pit while he kept vigil with his candle? I hurried back to find Alex happily swigging a beer.
“I’ve ordered,” he said. “Rice, chicken, spicy prawns, and sesame toast. I’m starving.”
“I think we should leave.”
“What? Why?”
“The kitchen’s filthy,” I said. “But that’s nothing compared to the bathroom. Honestly, we should go.”
“Don’t be daft. It’s fine.”
For the next 48 hours, Alex hugged the toilet. I lay on the powdery sand with the guidebook and seethed. We could have seen sacred black lemurs on a neighboring island, but that was now out of the question. I couldn’t simply abandon Alex, who was still wan-faced two days later when we landed back in Tana and threw ourselves again on the mercy of Mr. Raony.
Majunga, a small town on the west coast, was not on our must-see list and received scant mention in the guidebook. The area was also lemur lite. On the bright side, we could eat some of the best food in Madagascar. And two places were available on the next bus.
***
“Bloody hell. Can this get any worse?”
The taxi-brousse bucked, jolted, and lurched its way around potholes it could swerve to miss, and plunged into those it couldn’t. Alex, still fragile, was irritable, wincing on the cramped, hard seats.
It could, and did, get worse. Three hours into the 16-hour journey, we stopped. Peering under the bus and after much head-shaking, the driver announced there was a problem with the axle and that we needed to return to the depot.
It was dark by the time we got back, but another bus appeared, and the punishment continued. Passengers far outnumbered seats, yet more people crammed in en route, goats and chickens in tow. It became clear that smoking in Madagascar was a national pastime.
During the night, the bus stopped on a hill so goats and passengers could stretch their legs. The vast inky sky was lit by a mesh of stars, and a sweet smell of woodsmoke in the cool air made a nice change from tobacco. Alex pulled me tight.
“We’ll remember this forever,” he said, rubbing his backside. We both laughed.
Writing to Hilary Bradt weeks later, my description of the journey as “hell on earth” found its way into a subsequent edition of her book. If my remark smacked of hyperbole, when this trip was nothing out of the ordinary for thousands of Malagasy, she didn’t say. But as the bus descended the craggy hills in the morning mist, past terraced rice paddies and villages of skinny thatched houses, our spirits finally lifted.
Though the town was unremarkable, it was wonderful to see a baobab, a lone giant on Majunga’s deserted promenade. We headed to Katsepy, a fishing village across the bay, where a room and good food hopefully awaited. On the quay, a crowd waited to board a ferry so tiny, so rammed with vehicles, and so low in the water it looked dangerously unseaworthy. But we happily splashed through the waves, wedging ourselves between the bumpers of two enormous trucks.
Madame Chabaud, a small, elderly woman, was a welcoming host and a marvelous cook. She showed us to a bungalow on the beach and told us dinner was at 5pm. We ate teal in red wine, crayfish Creole-style, fresh oysters, and aromatic goat curry. There was no menu. Each meal was a delicious surprise. By day, we wandered the empty beach, watched fishermen land their catch, and spotted mudskippers in the mangroves. There was no running water or electricity; night swallowed the spectacular sunsets promptly at 6pm. But there was something intensely romantic about drifting to sleep in the enveloping darkness to the rhythmic swish of the sea.
There are some unlovely places in Madagascar. And as transport to industrial port towns was in plentiful supply, we saw our fair share of them. It didn’t matter. Perhaps it was the marathon bus journey. Or maybe our expectations had changed. Either way, we began to appreciate both Madagascar and each other. It would be nice if a lemur showed its face at the Périnet Reserve, our final destination, but if not, that was fine, too.
Our dog-eared guidebook described our route to Périnet as one of the world’s great railway journeys. At dawn, the train circled Tana before meandering through a changing panorama. Hills and forests gave way to rice fields that carved the landscape into bright green ribbons, while wooden houses teetered on stilts above fields of ripening maize. At every stop, vendors thrust bananas and lychees through the open windows in exchange for a few francs.
After plunging into the steaming rainforest, the train halted at the Hotel Buffet de la Gare. In the faded grandeur of the hotel’s Art Deco restaurant, passengers bolted lunch in the 30 minutes before the train continued to Tamatave. We dumped the rucksacks and went to find our guide.
Rain drizzled from a chilly sky, but nothing could dampen our excitement. We scrambled up slopes and slithered down gullies, pressing deep into the forest. At intervals, our guide gestured to little glittering frogs that plopped into forest pools as we passed, a chameleon gripping a thin branch, and a python slipping into a pile of leaves.
And then, it started. Just a few at first, and then a swelling chorus of howling, keening calls that pierced the dusk.
Our guide stopped, scanning the lush canopy. We held our breath.
“There.”
Rain dripped through the trees.
“They can always be heard, but they don’t always want to be seen. You’re in luck.”
Peering again, we saw a pair of fluffy black ears, a glossy snub nose, and the penetrating green-eyed gaze of a lemur.
In the introduction to her guidebook, Hilary Bradt says: “Whether Madagascar will work for you depends on your expectations and interests. Most of all, though, it depends on your sense of wonder. If this is intact, no hardship should prevent you falling in love.”
Five years after our Madagascar adventure, Alex and I were married.
