Porpoise Torture

 I hesitate to get this party started on a sour note but…

Both the town of Ivato and my hotel room were hellholes - not an auspicious debut. Plus, taking full advantage of my masochistic tendencies, I spent the entire afternoon walking in the blazing heat looking for a bank machine and a barber, neither of which I really needed. Sometimes even I’m amazed by my idiocy. The good news? The dinner at my place was surprisingly extraordinary and I was leaving early in the morning. 

So at 8:00 am I got together with Peter, my Dutch car guy. He’s absolutely your classic Africa long term expat. For one thing, he already looks like he’s lived two lifetimes and I half expected him to tell me he’d spent some time in the French Foreign Legion. Plus, in the half hour we chatted, he smoked at least five roll-your-owns and drank four double espressos. Then he showed me around my new wheels, gave me detailed drawn instructions on how to get money, groceries and the RN7 south and then split.

Behold The Beast. 

Can you believe this fucking thing? 

It looks like to came straight out of Mad Max.

Off I went, confident in my superior navigation skills. That lasted until right after the grocery store, when I became hopelessly lost trying to reach the RN7. Within minutes, I had learned two things: Tana (the capital city of Antananarivo) has plenty of slums just like the townships of South Africa and pretty much every roundabout has the world’s most polite policemen, who always salute you as they approach while greeting you with a cheery, “Bonjour”.

Here’s part of the reason it took me so long to get out of Tana. Fucking traffic & my stupidity.

Finally, I was on my way South on the fabled RN7, the country’s major highway. What could go wrong?

Yes, I did say “major highway”. 

Welcome to Africa.

So, probably time to get the whole “driving” thing out of the way. The good news: NO SPEED BUMPS. The bad news: pretty much everything else. Where to begin? Well, the first rule is - trucks rule. Unfortunately (for me at least), because there are no railroads, trucks are the only way to move goods. So pretty much the only traffic outside cities and towns are huge tractor trailers. The catch is they’re hurtling down roads about as wide as your lane way. Now, add to the mix the condition of these roads.

Note the width of the road & size of the truck

Potholes? Don’t make me laugh.

And for the coup de grâce, while some sections of the road are fine, all too often they are littered with crater-sized openings that will swallow your car given half a chance. AND, you can’t see them until you’re right on top of them - or in them. You know that sickening “Oh fuck!” feeling when you realize you’ve made a major mistake and now it’s too late to do anything about it? Uh-huh. And I haven’t even mentioned the tuk-tuks and myriad cyclists (everyone either walks - usually barefoot - or cycles to get anywhere) who, for some reason, stick to the middle of the lane and NEVER look back - ever. How any of them survive is beyond me. 

And then there’s the towns. I can’t possibly even try to convey to you the absolute insanity of navigating these streets. It’s beyond belief.

This is a pathetic attempt to explain but it’s as close as I can get since in a real town I’m far too busy swerving to even think of taking a photo. So…take this street. Now add at least 20 more rickshaws, a hundred bicycles, about the same number of pedestrians and a few more trucks. Armageddon. I’ve lost track of how many times my mirrors have been whacked and I’ve heard a few “thumps” around & under my car. But you NEVER stop or slow down. The only way to survive is to commit totally and without reservation to your line. It’s a jungle out there my friends and only the crazy make it out alive. 

But enough. I did make it to Antsirabe and I did spend the night in Madalief, a lovely enclave outside town run by a Dutch lady who uses the money to support orphans. Win, win.

Madalief and surroundings. 

Did I mention I was the only guest?

Next up: Baptism By Fire & Abject Failure

FYI: there’s a definite possibility that I’ll be “off the grid” sometime soon. My cell reception is already sketchy & supposedly further south, where the cyclone hit (and where it’s possibly returning!), there’s no infrastructure at all. So I won’t be lazy or dead, just in Deepest Darkest Africa. Tally ho!