The driver was quite young and he drove too fast for the conditions and after speeding around a tight corner at 120 kms per hour with squealing tyres, like he was driving in a Hollywood movie, we got a bit nervous. A few kilometres later he sped up again and a bullock cart crossed in front of us and he had to brake hard. We missed the farmer and his bulls by a few centimetres and John then ordered him to slow down. From the voices and gestures of the other passengers we could see they were blaming the bullock cart driver for the near miss. Fortunately the Spanish speaking woman sided with us and also rebuked the driver. After this we continued at a reasonable pace safely to Tana, but also passed a minivan upside down near the top of a hill and this made us feel justified for hassling the driver.
The vehicle stopped in a shanty town outside the city centre. People were living in huts made from anything they could scavenge. Small stores of planks of salvaged timber lined the dusty streets. We were approached by a 'Rasta' man who took us off to find a taxi. It was a pretty desperate place. The taxi driver gave the Rasta man a tip for finding him a fare and we headed off to Tana Jacaranda Guesthouse.
The guesthouse was full of French researchers and they referred us to a hotel at the top of the street. The hotel was on the corner of a very busy street and the room was very cramped. After one night here the staff from Tana Jacaranda phoned to say they had a place for us so we returned there. We had not been able to write any blogs so we were looking forward to using the free internet they offered to catch up with all the Madagascar blogs, so we were thankful to be back with the comforts of our old guesthouse.
We had to organise the airport shuttle bus for our flight out so we headed to Independence Plaza and the railway station where we knew the buses were kept. At the entrance to the train station were many teenage street kids. They hassled John for money and surrounded him tugging at his pockets trying to get money off him. They were unsuccessful. We both wear little pouches that button up inside the waistbands of our trousers where we keep our supply of cash and these can't be reached without taking our trousers off. Our passports hang around our necks under our clothes. John usually carries just enough cash for the small things we need in a zipped or buttoned pocket. After organising the airport shuttle bus to pick us up at 3.30am we left the railway station. The teenagers followed us out and John made a lot of noise shouting at them to go away and fortunately they then dispersed as people on the streets began to look at the commotion.
The plaza was full of all kinds of hawkers. Everyone seems to have more than one cellphone and they buy scratch cards from vendors with umbrellas. As we stumbled our way through the hawkers we heard a guy whistling and then a wave of panic rippled through the street as hawkers folded up their umbrellas, wheeled away their carts loaded with goods, wrapped their trinkets up in sheets, or bundled their wares into cardboard boxes and shoved them under parked vehicles. The police must have been nearby. As soon as the panic was over the peddlers reset their items for sale and carried on until the next warning whistle
In the evening we found a place to have a pizza and met an American guy who has lived in Tana for 5 years. He told us that the teens at the station had tried to rob him 5 times and had managed to get his wallet once. When we saw him pull out an overstuffed wallet from his back pocket we were not surprised that they had targeted him. He recommended a local restaurant to us with a great 'ambiance' so we went there one night.
The restaurant was not far from our guesthouse in an old renovated house with a courtyard. On the way there we passed many people on the streets with their children begging. Others were keeping warm with their charcoal burners or getting ready to bed down on the footpath for the night. There were only four diners in the restaurant and while it had nice food it also added extra taxes to the bill that we hadn't had to pay in other places. The hidden price of 'ambiance'.We spent the rest of our time in Tana, burning photo CDs, buying a new belt for John as his old one had disintegrated, doing laundry, and writing our annual newsletter and getting it mailed off to friends and family. We repacked our bags and got rid of things we no longer needed or couldn't take on the flight; aerosol insect repellent and cooking fuel.
The flight to Nairobi with Madagascar Air was delayed as it waited for a connecting flight from Paris. While boarding I spotted a guy who looked like someone I had worked with at our local Polytechnic. A little while later he looked at me with a puzzled look and then I knew it was Keith Gregor who tutored marine studies. We had a good chat on the flight about he and his partner's 6 month round the world trip. Africa really is a small place!!!
We had a short stop at Moroni in the Comoros Islands, where the majority of the passengers alighted, before continuing to Nairobi. . 
Mount Kilimanjaro from the aeroplane.
