Time off in Madagascar

With nearly one hundred new birds, reptiles, and mammals committed to memory, it’s time for a vacation!  The nearest airport is in the coastal city of Majunga, a two hour drive north of where we’re stationed in the park, and that’s where we’re picking up the volunteers for the fosa research.

This brings me to a very interesting aspect of Madagascar: transportation.  The city is a bustling scene full of little old VW taxis, overstuffed taxi brousses and taxi bes, and pousse-pousses.

Taxis here quite literally resemble circus clown cars, and if you’re 6’0” and 250 lbs. of muscle like myself (I might have exaggerated a bit on the latter), they can be quite the ordeal, especially if the roads you’re traveling on go up any hills or require more than two inches of clearance (Perhaps I’m being unfair here.  If there’s no added weight of the passengers, a good taxi might have another two inches to spare before dragging bottom).  In fact, in Tana, taxi fares are often more expensive if there’s a steep incline involved, though the drivers have learned to make up for this by simply shutting off their engines and coasting through the downhill stretches.

Taxi brousses are basically 14-passenger tin cans that move people, and as much of their stuff as they can tie onto the roof, in between cities.  Taxi bes are the same kind of deal, but run more of a regular bus route around the bigger cities.  These are the cheapest, though definitely a more time consuming and life threatening means of transportation on the island.

Pousse-pousses are simply rickshaws that can be found in most of the larger cities.  By this time in our travels we have grown tired of the conventional means of tourist transport (car and hired driver) and decide to try our luck with the latter of the four described modes of transportation.  Nothing beats being pulled through an African city in a rickshaw cart past giant baobab trees the size of houses with Justin Bieber blasting out from shop radios!

Tomorrow marks the beginning of our true research mission, so tonight we decide to take a stroll about town and have some fun.  The waterfront road is a lively place, with restaurants and food stands open late, offering drinks, ice cream, and brochettes (meat on a stick).  Then we see it: a ferris wheel!  How can we resist?  At 1,000 Ariary per person (fifty cents), it’s a steep price for most Malagasy, but when we note that not only is it an old, rickety antique made of rebar, but also powered by hand, we just can’t pass up such an experience.  And what an experience it is!  Though not typically one for theatrics, I can’t help but get down on my knees and kiss the ground after disembarking.