Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

After Lamu we returned to Mombasa in Kenya for one night and then bussed back to Nairobi to take a flight with Ethiopian Airways to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. We had looked at travelling overland into Ethiopia through the northern route but were told by various sources that it was unsafe. There are battles between the two countries over the border areas and there is a terrible drought in the north of Kenya. Consequently, the local cattle farmers fight over pastureland and cattle rustling is a big problem. The roads are in pretty bad condition so we decided to fly this section. During the flight we flew over the top of Mount Kilimanjaro so we were pleased at last to see it!

The aeroplane was brand new and according to the inflight magazine it was on loan from Ryan Air and there were hardly any passengers. It's hard to imagine how they would make any money.

We checked into a guesthouse near the Piazza, which is the old part of Addis city. John found a reference for it online. Most of the reviews that he read for accommodation in the city were about dirty, run down places so we were happy to find the Ankober a spotless place, albeit a bit cold after Nairobi.

It was so cold that we had to get extra blankets and John got out his sleeping bag as he had a terrible fever. Addis is around 2,000 metres above sea level so the nights were pretty cool while the days were pretty hot.

There are not many sites to visit in the city and with John's fever not responding to panadol and rest we didn't venture far. During the week we had to visit the Djibouti Embassy and the Somaliland Liason office for visas.

When John was up to it we walked around the city and as his fever didn't subside we decided to get a blood test done for malaria. Fortunately it was negative so we decided to take a course of antibiotics that we had brought with us. This cleared up his throat and nose infection that had developed.

In the 1970s there was a civil war in Ethiopia and the government was supported by the Soviet Union which supplied it with weaponry. At the end of the Cold War the support disappeared but these monuments still stand to show the influence of that time. A military person told us not to photograph the monument but we had already taken the shot.

In the centre of the city is Meskal Square, which looks like others we have seen in other Soviet countries. It is used for parades and presidential addresses to the people. The building at the centre of the photo is where the president sits in a glass box.

Ethiopia is country number 111 for us.

In 1995, it became the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. We saw areas where the Italians had lived and when we walked down the streets in these parts the old men greeted us in Italian. The locals were not allowed to live in the Italian area or go to their schools and the community was segregated. There are still influences from this time, with cafes having outdoor seating and selling coffee made with big old Italian coffee machines, as well as numerous Italian dishes on every restaurant menu.

We met several travellers at the hotel across from our guesthouse and were able to get information on places to visit in the country and places to stay. There is no tourist office so it was impossible to get information from any official source. Even the local minibuses that commute between the major cities have no main office. You have to talk to the locals, who have a contact, or staff at the accommodation places who have a contact. It all felt a bit uncoordinated and you never knew if a bus was going to materialise at all.

To get about the city there were overcrowded minivans in dilapidated states and old blue Russian Lada taxis. The yellow taxis were more expensive than the blue ones as they seemed to belong to some kind of transport union but they were often in a worse state than the cheaper blue ones. The yellow taxis drivers always warned us about the unsafe blue taxis but we had no problems in the blue ones. All the taxis had doors that didn't have handles or windows that were cracked but they were always scrubbed clean by the young street kids.

The Amharic language is difficult to read as it has its own script and translations to English vary in their spelling. Only 12% of the children make it to high school so there are a lot of children begging on the streets or selling packets of tissues, chewing gum, and cigarettes to get money. Whenever there was a school holiday the number of children sellers increased as the school kids spent their time trying to make some money as well. The tourists are always fair game!

There are often rows and rows of shoe shine boys outside office buildings or bus stops. We only ever saw one woman shining shoes. The streets maybe filthy but it seems important to have clean shiny shoes.

On our first trip into the city a group of three men tried to get into John's day bag. One stepped back into John and then put his arm around his back in the pretence of apologising while a second guy tried to unzip a pocket. The third man distracted me by asking for food so I would look away and not see what the other two men were doing. They didn't get anything and we don't carry anything valuable in our day bags anyway. In the Piazza a tissue seller pushed his tray of tissues into John while his fingers went into John's pocket at the same time. This is the first time in all our travels that we have ever had any experience with pickpockets!

In 1935 there were 15 million people and now there are 80 million. Altogether there are 83 languages and 200 dialects! 90% of the population survive on subsistence farming; goats, sheep, donkeys, camels, grains and vegetables.

The streets are crowded with disabled people, blind people, and beggars. We have even seen naked men mumbling to themselves as they wander the streets. People urinate whereever and whenever they want so the dusty streets stink. The stray cats and dogs also wander scavenging through rubble and piles of rubbish. It can be an obstacle course just to cross the street at times.

We ate the traditional dishes that were always accompanied with injera. This flat fermented spongy pancake like starchy base is served rolled up or laid flat on a dish. The stewed goat, fried beef, minced spinach, or raw meat, gets poured over the top and you eat by tearing some injera up and wrapping it around the meat. The etiquette is to use the fingers of your right hand and they never use any cutlery.

From here we plan to head north to some of the historic sites and return a few times back to Addis.

Mombasa, Kenya

Got back to Nairobi after our mountain trip and spent one night there before heading off in the morning for Mombasa. Caught a pretty comfortable bus and had a good trip. Passed alongside the Tsavo National Park and only saw a few zebra from the bus window. Saw typical Kenyan scenery, maize fields, cassava, bananas, and herders with cows, goats and a few sheep.

We drove into Mombasa through the heavily congested port area. There were huge trucks with containers coming and going and the road was a dustbowl with such heavy usage. All along the highway we passed container trucks and oil product tankers.

It was 34 years since I was in Mombasa too but when we arrived and headed up the main street there was nothing I recognised. The town is crowded with lots of taxis and Indian tuk tuks every where. The footpaths filled up in the evening with hawkers selling plastic products, shoes, clothing, and fruit and vegetables.

The hotel we checked into was on a busy corner and was pretty noisy but it was spotless and had everything we needed. We are used to sleeping with ear plugs and I use a mask to cut out the light and keep my ear plugs in. There were mostly locals in the hotel and a couple of white Kenyans. It felt a little like a boarding house as they sat around watching the "soapies" on TV all night. One of the soapies is an Italian one dubbed in Swahili and then later it is on again in English. We never saw any other travellers in the place.

We walked to a vegetarian Indian restaurant further along the street and although there were hardly any lights on in the street we felt comfortable walking after dark. When we go out after dark we leave our passports and other valuables at the reception desk and have them locked in a small bag. We then only take what we need for an evening meal and nothing else valuable.

Everywhere you look there are mosques and minarets.

Got up early and got a ticket on the bus to Lamu and will stop on the way back to Nairobi again here for one night to break the trip.

Lamu Island, Kenya

From Mombasa we took a big bus to Lamu. We passed through Malindi which was where I had a Christmas dinner on the beach in 1976. It was at a place owned by an Indian family and they cooked us lobsters, fish and vegetables, with a carrot and rice dessert. Malindi is now very busy and hectic. A lot of land has been bought by Italians for their resorts. We decided not to stop there this time.



The area is pretty dry and dusty and the road from Malindi to Lamu ferry was pretty bad and unsealed. For access to a UNESCO site, it is not a good introduction to the island. Lamu can be accessed by an airport at Manda so maybe those are the kind of tourists they want. There were only 4 backpackers on the bus and the rest of the pasengers were locals getting off at small dusty villages on the way.



The main crops seemed to be sisal, maize, bananas and coconuts. A lot of the land that had dry grasslands were used to graze animals and grow palm trees that are used for thatching the local daub huts.



At Mokowe, which is the end of the bus route and the ferry landing to Lamu Island, we couldn't get off the bus for locals touts wanting to carry our bags a few metres to the ferry boat. After fighting them off we had to contend with the touts who had accommodation on offer. We had booked through http://www.hostelworld.com/ and we were met by one of the staff members who was easily identifiable with a tee shirt advertising the guesthouse. She was sent to make sure that we were not taken away by any of the other guesthouse owners. There are not many tourists coming to Kenya, because of the riots at the last elections, so there is a lot of competition for the very few tourists who do come here.



The wind was up and the ferry bounced about a lot. One of the huge empty polystyrene boats that was tied up to the ferry we were on, ended up blowing up on the side rails and the Muslim women on board screamed and shouted hysterically. Although they were born on the island they have never learnt to swim and so are very nervous on the water. I would not like to sit beside them if the boat tipped over as they would claw you to death trying to climb up on you to save themselves.

The waterfront.



The guesthouse was owned by Arnold from Germany. It was spotless and offered free internet, a delicious breakfast and an informative welcome. There was a cool rooftop area where we could relax and meet the other guests. It was a short walk through the narrow 1 and 1/2 metre lanes with their open sewers.



Sometimes we had to jump out of the way of the locals on their donkeys. There were about 6,000 donkeys at one time and when construction booms the donkey population booms too. The only person with a car is the District Commissioner, however, we did see a couple of rusty ambulances that didn't look like they could move, as well as a couple of new tractors that were donated to the island to carry the rubbish.






I came to Lamu in 1976 as well as and I would have to say that things have gone backwards since that time. The open sewers in the street are as black as they were in the 1700s, according to some of the old stories we read about the place. But, of course, nowadays they are not only blocked with grey water and organic matter but also plastic bags. The rubbish piles up outside shops and peoples' doorways and it gets eaten by goats and donkeys and blown about by the wind, and scavenged through by the hordes of cats and crows or chooks . When the tide was out the seafront was full of trash and most of that was broken household items and plastic bags. The council banned plastic bags but everyone still uses them. There are a few wooden slatted rubbish cages on the waterfront but what the wind doesn't blow into the ocean the donkeys spread through the streets. When the rubbish piles get smelly the locals burn them and then start to pile up more waste on top.







The town is a living example of the Swahili culture that once dominated the entire Indian Ocean coast. These carved doors are on many of the houses in the old town. Outside the front of the houses are also plastered seats, like a chaise lounge, where the men sit or lie and discuss matters with other menfolk. There are many Muslim sects on the island so some women wear a full veil while others pin a black scarf over their head. A sect similar to one we saw in Yeman wear pastel coloured capes with a bonnet, similar to Little Red Riding Hood, and a matching skirt.

The men sit about the town square in front of the old fort near the market. The sea used to come up to the bottom of the tree but now it is several metres off the seafront.

Generally the local people are friendly and greet you with a 'Jambo'"(Hello) or 'Karibu' (Welcome). We ate fish most nights in the seafront restaurants as it was lovely and fresh.

One evening we went on a sunset cruise on a local dhow. The 3 men on the boat cooked up a huge black snapper, on their charcoal grill on the deck at the back of the boat, and some stir fried local vegetables. They followed this up with baked chocolate bananas and fresh mangoes. The sun sets really quickly. It was wonderful to see the old dhows still being used but there are also a lot of fibreglass speedboats buzzing up and down.

The one day we decided to walk along the beach front to Shela Village it was really windy and we got sandblasted. The beach was as I remembered it but now there are lots of weathly Kenyans and foreigners who have built houses in the village. Some of the tourists shops were brand new, empty, and expensive.

From Lamu we went back to Mombasa for one night and then back to Nairobi for another night. From here we caught a flight to Addis Abba in Ethiopia. We are not sure what the internet connections will be like in Ethiopia and may only be able to write without photos. We have heard that only locals can get SIM cards here.

Mount Kenya National Park, Kenya

We were met at the airport by Kennedy, our guide to trek Mount Kenya, and his driver Joe. We drove to the small town of Naro Moru, about two and a half hours from Nairobi. We checked into a hotel on the outskirts of the town, surrounded by fields of crops. The hotel had a campsite and a poultry farm in the complex and chicken, eggs, and chips were the only items on the menu.

In the evening Kennedy came to see us because he had to return to the Masai Mara where he manages a tour company. Some people from Uganda had stolen things from the tourists in his camp and his second in charge was not able to handle the situation. However, he introduced us to Gerard who would be our guide for the five day trip

We sorted the gear we would need and the next morning we met Charles, our cook, and Boniface and John, our two porters. All the boys went to school together and belonged to the Kikuyu tribe. We only needed to carry small day bags with gear and snacks we would need while the porters carried our packs with our extra clothes and sleeping bags and then filled the packs with their own gear. Two primus cookers were attached to the outside of the packs and we set off from the Naro Moru gate of the Mount Kenya National Park.

We had stayed a night in Naro Moru to help acclimatise to the altitude as I had suffered from the altitude when we had climbed Mount Kinabalu, in Malaysia. The walk to Met Hut was 9 kms along a dirt road, and we rose from 2400 metres asl to 3049m asl and it took us 3 and 3/4 hours, which Gerard assured us was good going. Saw lots of elephant dung, antelope and buffalo spoor but didn't encounter any of the animals. There were four huts and we had one with about ten beds to ourselves. Next door was a German climber named Frank who had a hut to himself. The last hut had two English girls. The porters had separate rooms away from us and a small room for cooking beside each hut.

This Syke monkey stole a tub of chocolate powder from Frank and climbed up the trees to get into it. The porters all came to throw stones at him to get him to give it back. We had to be sure to lock our door whenever we left the hut to keep the monkeys out. Although the signs says the animals should not be fed, lots of people feed them so they can get close up photos.

In the evening these francolin birds came around to visit. We were told there were leopards, genets, and buffalo near the hut too, but only saw duiker.

Charles cooked soup, battered fish and vegetables, followed by fresh fruit for dessert and we could hardly eat it all there was so much. I couldn't sleep because of the altitude so I heard the tree hyrax calling each other in the trees outside our hut, and I heard the buffalo pulling on the grass under our window and chewing its cud. I wanted to go to the toilet but had to wait until the pulling and chewing stopped. Before going outside at night we had to check for eyes glowing in the dark. The closer the eyes together the smaller the animal we were warned.

The next morning we had a huge breakfast of eggs, pancakes and fruit and headed off about 7 am. Walked through the bamboo zone and then onto timberline forest with lots of African rosewood and giant St John's wort plants.

We had been taking diamox pills to prevent altitude sickness so we both felt fine but I had a lot of trouble getting enough air into my lungs and my diaphragm muscle hurt, similar to the stitch from overuse. Gerard kept reassuring us we were doing fine and the pace was good but I was not so sure. I felt he was trying to humour me. However, he did later tell us of clients who took 15 hours to do the climb so I felt pretty good that we had done the 10 kms in 7 and 1/2 hours, to 4300 metres asl.

Saw several colonies of rock hyrax and spotted a lot of hyena droppings on the trail but saw none. The giant forest lobelia at about 3 metres tall were like something out of a Dr Suess childrens' book. Some fluffy plants were called 'ostrich' plants and they were interesting as they started as a rosette of leaves and ended as a tall spiky fluff of leaves. There were a few clumps of gladioli and red hot pokers as well to add some bright colour to the view. Covering the ground were thousands of everlasting daisies with their paper-like flowers.

We saw a porter carrying Frank's ice climbing gear in a long narrow pack and another carrying his rock climbing gear in a similar pack and they looked so uncomfortable as the packs were taller than the porters and had no support for their backs. Other porters passed us with duffel bags which had even less support, or soft carryall where they had to loop one handle around the top of their head in order to carry the bags to the top. Our health and safety laws would never allow workers to labour under such conditions. We only hope they were generously compensated for such hard work.

At a place called Picnic Rock, Charles and the boys cooked up some noodle soup for lunch. We chatted to a couple of English girls who were taking a break at the same spot too.

Gerard carried a small solar panel to power a small light and for all the boys to recharge their cellphones.

Mackinder's Hut was made of stone blocks and it was absolutely freezing. We shared the bunk room with the two English girls who were suffering from bad headaches and felt unwell so we were grateful to have taken longer than they to get to the hut and not suffer such ill effects. Frank was in a bunk room by himself and he told us about all his climbing experiences in Europe, Sth America ( Aconcagua ) and last year when he was on Mount Kenya as well.

After an enormous dinner, we had an early night as John and Gerard decided to get up at 2.30 am to climb to Point Lenana, at 4985 metres. Once again I didn't sleep a wink but had decided not to go with them. They had to use their headlights to light the trail until the sun came up. John was thankful he couldn't see how steepthe scree slope was as he may well have turned back but was glad he didn't.

I spent the day walking around the trails near the hut and chatting about NZ to the porters and cooks left at the hut and listening to the hut warden talk about the climbers who had problems on the mountain.

John and Gerard had to detour to the north side of Point Lenana because there was an ice field on the direct route and they didn't have ice axes or crampons. They crossed the equator on their climb. The mountain was clear so they had a great view. It took them 8 and 1/2 hours and trekked about 11 kms altogether. I saw them descending through the binoculars and went to meet them in the valley.

We were joined in the evening by seven elderly Norwegians who took about 11 hours to get to the hut. One of the ladies was quite unwell. They must have paid a lot of money for their trip as they had waiters serve them food from their insulated pots and even had table cloths. They are so used to the cold weather and were well prepared with their puffy down jackets and even puffier down sleeping bags.

I had to buy a pair of track pants in Nairobi, but we were already carrying woollen hats, gloves, and thermal underwear, which had been used in Cape Town in June. Our sleeping bags managed to keep us warm even though we woke to sleet on the roof and frost on the ground in the morning.

However, once again I still didn't sleep and Charles, the cook, told me that he didn't on his first few trips to the mountain either and it was probably due to the altitude.

It took us just over four hours to get back down the mountain to Met Hut again. John caught up on some sleep at Met hut and in the evening we tried to spot the tree hyrax and catch the moles digging up the earth but didn't manage either. I thought I'd be low enough and tired enough to sleep but couldn't.

Gerard is an avid bird watcher so we spent a bit of time looking for birds and spotted this crimson chested bee catcher on the way out the next day.

We did manage to see a family of black and white Colobos monkey swinging through the trees on the way down to the park gates.

We drove back to Nairobi with Kennedy and Joe and found a room at the same hotel we stayed in last time and got ready to head to Lamu Island.

Antananarivo, Madagascar

Hired a three wheeler Kanga or moto to the Antsirabe bus station. The touts herded us to a private people mover where a lady spoke Spanish. She needed two more people to fill the private vehicle and it looked like a much more comfortable ride than the minivans or taxi brousse. We had to promise that if the police stopped us that we were to say we were from USA and friends with the lady. We think this was because it was a private vehicle being used as a public one that we had to do this. However, the police, gendarmerie, or soldiers never stopped us.

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.

Antsirabe, Madagascar

The sun is up so early in the morning that it is easy for us to get up at 5.30am and get on with the day. In keeping with our plan for more exercise we walked the steep 2 kms to the taxi brousse station to get our reserved seats. Like all the stations here it is chaos. People who want to get a bus have the taxis drive in amongst the porters and the minivan taxi brousse. Porters carry huge loads on their heads or lug them around on these home made trolleys. At the back of the trolley is a steering wheel to steer them. Beside is a lever that has a bar covered with old tyres that is used as a brake. John reckons they would carry up to half a ton of gear on them. The wheels are usually made of wood and covered with old tyres and wobble all over the place. Some take the time to decorate their trolleys while others are bare wood. We often pass them on the highways where they get pushed up the hills by 2 or 3 men and then they sit on the load as it races down the hills. Often they are loaded with bricks from the kilns or huge sacks of charcoal.



Amongst all of this are the peddlers trying to get you to buy fruit, tea, packets of biscuits, baguettes, newspapers or souvenirs.

Passed through Ambositra city, which is the arts and crafts centre. Most of the stuff made here is from timber and the hills are pretty bare of trees which are felled for the crafts or charcoal. In fact the whole southern half of Madagascar we have seen is completely cleared of large trees. There were numerous stalls set up on the side of the highway, selling wooden trucks painted with Coca Cola or petrol company logos and painted in bright colours.

We ran out of petrol about 10kms from the city and the bus driver had to flag another van down. They found some plastic water bottles floating about the van and undid the fuel line of another van and filled the bottles with petrol. One and a half litres later we were on our way again.

At Antsirabe bus station we were besieged by rickshaw Kangas imported from India. The rickshaw pullers tried to talk us out of using them saying they were unsafe. We had heard that they are unstable if driven too fast. Luckily we have learnt that 'mora mora' means slowly slowly!

Checked into the place recommended in our guide book and luckily they had rooms. It was an unusual place with small round brick bungalows set out around some lawns and ponds.



We wandered into the city which was known in the 19th century as a spa town. It has wide boulevards and once had a railway, but now the huge station is empty.



Near the hotel was an enormous cathedral and we could see people on the lawns of the huge Thermes hotel which would have been magnificent in its day.

People seemed to have a lot of time to sit around in the shade in the streets. Peddlers tried to sell us beads and packets of small gemstones. They all complained there were no tourists to buy their wares. We couldn't step out of the hotel without a flood of rickshaw pullers calling out their names and wanting to take us places.



We found an internet shop to catch up on internet banking and get an e-ticket from our daughter for Kenya to Ethiopia.

Found a bakery to buy some nice bread and a cafe to eat with all the other French tourists and their families who were in town. It also had a Shoprite supermarket so we could stock up with nibbles for our trip back to Tana. Antrirabe would have been a lovely place in its heyday, but one night was enough for us.

On the roadside on the way back to Tana, locals were holding up live rabbits for sale.

Fianarantsoa, Parc National Ranomafana, Madagascar

A tout from Ranohira signed us up for a taxi brousse while at Chez Momo so at 7.15am we met him and he put us in our minivan. Of course he gets 10% from the driver for doing this and we get a seat!
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 Town

The 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.