Unfortunately our minivan only lasted 30 minutes before it ran out of water and blew a head gasket and we were left on the side of the road in the heat waiting for a replacement. That was a sign of things to come as we ended up being shuffled around four different minivans before arriving in Fianarantsoa (aka Fianar).
Fianar is a part of the haut plateau. Here there was a lot of maize and cassava as well as a lot of fallow land probably for grazing. In the valleys were the usual rice paddies.
At one point we dropped some men off at a side road and at the intersection were about five men with old fashioned rifles. Coco, our guide from Isalo Park, told us that in the Bara tribe a man is not a man until he has stolen some cattle to provide a dowry to his wife's family. The men with their guns are either protecting their cattle from theft or out to steal cattle. We were also told and read that there is a special court to deal with cattle thefts as it is a long standing tradition and the regular courts are not the place to hear such traditional cases.
Passed through Ihosa and Ambalavao towns before arriving at Fianar after eight and a half hours on the go and covering about 300 kms in total. In one bus a man behind us was vomiting out the window the whole journey. We were so lucky that he wasn't in front of us!
Fianar has about 150,000 inhabitants and is in the centre of the tea and wine growing area although we never saw any tea bushes from the minivan. At the bus station we were surrounded by touts wanting to know where we were going and they wisely informed us that there would be no taxi brousse for two days as it was the holidays. To get in more exercise we walked the uphill 2 kms to the Tsara Guesthouse where we wanted to stay and didn't have a booking.
View from hotel to Old TownThe guesthouse was gorgeous. It was a restored old French building and was well presented. There were traveller's rooms, which we got, where we shared the ablutions. They also had quite expensive suites further down the hill that had a garden view and a view of the old town. We got to look over the street and down the valley but we were happy with that.
There was a well looked after garden with traveller's palms and trimmed hedges. At night the place was lit up with fairy lights and tables and diners could eat at tables set amongst the hedges. It was a lovely setting for a New Year dinner but pretty quiet. Had crayfish soup, chicken and mustard, and honeyed duck. The cake was a peanut ice cream filled roulade like we had on Christmas Day. All in all in was a pretty sedate evening but very nice away from the hectic happenings in the street where we could hear loud thumping music but not see any people.
New Year's Day we walked around the city to see what the locals were doing on their holidays. The streets were empty of the stalls selling second hand clothing and shoes. There were no vehicles on the streets either. We saw a couple of old guys playing music on a homemade fiddle and guitar to a small group in a park.
In another street there were groups of guys playing on their drums. Near the old railway station building there was a fair with a merry-go-round and a ferris wheel. Neither rides had motors and the merry-go-round was pushed around by a couple of men. The wheel was a bit more complicated to operate. Two men raced up the side frame to the top and then clung onto a seat as two men from below pushed the bottom seats on up. The locals looked happy with their ride anyway.
We walked around the Old City and there were about 5 or 6 different churches in the very small area. It is now a protected site. Fortunately for us, the souvenir shops were closed but we were followed by children wanting to sell embroidered post cards. We encountered several groups selling the same things in various parts of the city. Some said it was fundraising for their school and they were pretty aggressive. If I ignored them, they would speak in French, English, Spanish, and Italian to get your attention!
Being a holiday we couldn't guarantee getting a taxi brousse to and from Ranomafana National Park so we hired a car and a driver from the hotel. Of course they wanted to add in a picnic lunch and side trips for double the price but we only wanted transport so negotiated a reasonable rate.
Outside most of the towns are gendarmerie or police and also what look like men in green police uniforms. Some wave the minivans on while others take a folder from the driver, walk around the back of the van and obviously take the bribe that the driver has left him. Some we have seen under a "Halt la corruption" signs!
The road was sealed and in good condition all the way to the park. The houses we passed were tall and narrow, some had thatched rooves while others had clay tiles. There are always kilns where the clay bricks have been prepared and fired. Sometimes they would still be smoking and at other times they would be being dismantled and the baked bricks stacked onto trolleys or carts to take off to a building site.
At the park a guide found us. Of the 51 guides there are only 8 who speak English and the other 7 we were told were hungover and not at work, so we had to take the only guy who turned up for work. It took a wee while to get used to his French-Malagasy accent but he was very good. He had about 4 spotters who scouted the forest for lemurs or chameleons and then they would send cellphones messages back and forth. There were only a couple of other groups in the park and they only stayed about and hour and a half and headed off. We were the only ones doing a full day trek in the park.
The chameleon is the second smallest species they have in Madagascar and was about the size of my little finger! He was also the same colour as the dead leaves on the ground so how the spotter saw it amazes us.
The guide cut a piece of bamboo and the rare brown bamboo lemur came down and ate it on the path in front of us. Some of the lemur have collars and are tracked by researchers so they are pretty used to humans. We also saw red fronted lemurs and golden bamboo lemurs. They are pretty high in the trees and difficult to photograph. Altogether there are 11 species of lemur in the park.
We saw very few birds, a couple of robins, but heard several parrots. There were a few geckos and the guide caught a long thin non-venomous snake. When we had lunch by the river he caught some crabs and a crayfish. Some of the forest was secondary and we saw a tomb left by the local tribe who used to live here before it was declared a national park. It was pretty dry and they had not had rain here for a month.
On the way back to the hotel we booked a taxi brousse to Antsiribe.
