Morondava

After I took care of all the necessary paperwork and courtesy visits to close out my Peace Corps service, I left the chilly capital of Antananarivo and headed to Morondava on the west coast of Madagascar via bush taxi. It was a very long 15 hour ride, during which I was sandwiched in between four ladies who all had young toddlers on their laps, one of which kept kicking me constantly throughout the 15 hours. Needless to say I was exhausted and very relieved to get out of the bus when we finally arrived in Morondava. I was also thrilled to discover it was much warmer and sunnier here as compared to the wintery highlands where I had been shivering for the past week.

I quickly made my way to a cheap hotel on the beach and changed into my swimsuit so I could go out and enjoy the cool, Indian Ocean water and lay on the warm, soft sand. The beach in Morondava is one of the nicest I’ve seen in Madagascar: clean, wide, soft, not crowded, and sprinkled with trendy beach bars. It was nice seeing some Malagasy families and a few tourists strolling along, enjoying the sunny weather too. In the afternoon I was able to organize a trip to the Tsingy rock formations and Baobab Avenue for the next three days. Even though it’s not quite tourist season yet, I managed to find another tourist to split the cost of the trip with, as it’s very expensive to reserve a vehicle for three days to drive all the way out to the national park and back.

Early the next morning we left Morondava and drove all day through the dust and ferried over two rivers until we finally arrived at the park at dusk. We ended up staying at this really cool lodge that had a lot of different room options. There were the pricier rooms with hot showers and indoor toilets, cheaper bungalows with shared bathrooms and the cheapest option--tents all set up with mattresses, sheets and blankets. The campsite was really nice with electricity and clean bathrooms, so I opted for the cheapest option, because it was actually a really nice set-up and a good deal.

The next morning we woke up early so we’d have the whole day to spend in the park. In the morning we did the first circuit around one part of the Grand Tsingy rock formations, which was pretty incredible. The guide gave us harnesses to wear so we could clip into cable lines set up along the path over the sketchy, steep parts. The views from the top of the spiky rock formations were breathtaking. After the first circuit, we explored some of the caves in between and under the Tsingy rock formations. Unfortunately I had given one of my headlamps away to a fellow volunteer along time ago, then had lost another one, and the third one was out of batteries, which were an obscure type that made them difficult to replace. So I ended up using the flashlight on my phone, which was a little inconvenient but sufficed for the short adventure we took through the caves. The path was a little scary in some sections, because there were some steep drop-offs, and the dusty ground was slippery under my sneakers. The rock formations were really neat though, and I even tought the guide the word “spelunking.”

After we came out of the caves, we took a short break for lunch. Then we ventured into the forest and spotted a western bamboo lemur and a white-fronted brown lemur. After another short scramble over the sharp rocks to gaze over a different view of the expansive Tsingy, we came back down to the forest and spotted the white, fluffy Sifaka lemur. It was really cool that we managed to see all three of the diurnal lemurs in the western, dry, deciduous forest surrounding the Tsingy.

I was really exhausted after the day of hiking and scrambling over rocks, so I turned in for an early night in my tent in the evening. The next morning we headed back on the road, so we would make it to the Baobab Avenue in time for sunset. Though the second ferry was quite delayed because of a truck that got stuck on the steep river-bank when it was disembarking, we made it to the Baobabs just in time for the sunset. The rows and rows of Baobabs along the road were quite beautiful against the glowing, red-orange sky, and I got some great pictures. Then we continued on our way back to Morondava where I enjoyed some tropical cocktails and some good seafood before heading back to the capital the next day.

The ride back to Tana was much less cramped but much more frustrating because of the timing. There were no options for departure times, as all of the bus companies were scheduled to leave at 8am, so I mad a reservation with one of the companies and arrived at their bus at 8am. Of course, we didn’t actually end up leaving until 10am. Because it takes 15 hours and to get to Tana and the driver decided to stop at 11pm to take a 30 minute nap, we ended up arriving in the capital at 2 in the morning. As we pulled into the bus station, I started scouting out taxis so I could head back to the Peace Corps volunteer house.

The bus stopped and the lights turned off, but none of the passengers got out. We just sat there in the parking lot. I quietly asked the girl next to me why no one was getting out. She explained that as it was the middle of the night and it was dark, the taxis were really expensive, so everyone was waiting until 5am when the sun rises to take cabs home. I thought it was ridiculous to spend another needless 3 hours in the cold, uncomfortable bus and was willing to fork over the extra five bucks to go back to a warm house instead. Unfortunately, my luggage was strapped to the top of the bus, and the driver was unwilling to climb up there in the dark and undo all the ties so I could get my bag down. Furthermore, he was angry at me for not telling them at the station in Morondava that I planned to go directly home upon arriving in Tana. I couldn’t believe he expected me to have anticipated that whole complicated scheme.

The mentality of leaving mid-morning and arriving in the middle of the night made absolutely no sense to me. If we had left at dawn, we would have arrived in Tana at a reasonable time in the evening. Alternatively, if we had left Morondava in the evening, we would have arrived in Tana in the morning. But no, we had to spend two extra hours waiting around at the station in Morondava and another three extra hours waiting around in the middle of the night in Tana, making the total travel time twenty hours instead of the already long fifteen hours of actual driving time. Either way, I finally made it back and am ready to leave Madagascar tomorrow!