01
Road to Morondava
2 days
As soon as we touch ground, we leave Tana behind to travel straight to Antsirabe. Our driver Onintsoa plays a five-hour long game of avoiding potholes. This is our first encounter with the infamous Malagassy roads. We try to catch up on some sleep and not break our necks while doing so.
Along the way we catch a glimpse of the colourful life on the island. Alternately we drive through small villages with mudbrick houses and vast plains in red sand. Children walk for miles in the sun to go home for lunch and go back to school again.
It is springtime in the southern hemisphere and flowers grow along the houses. Friendly faces welcome us in their villages. As we stop to watch a game of petanque in the red sand, villagers gather to have a look at those “vahaza”.
Most of the land we cross has fallen victim to deforestation. A pattern of red termite hills dot the dry land. The temperatures rise significantly as we leave the highlands for the low dry west of Madagascar. There is a power cut in Miandrivazo which means we have to sleep without a fan. It is unbearably hot.
While driving through the green patchworks of the Tsiribihina valley we cross a bridge over the Manombolo river that will soon double in size when the rainy season starts. Women are doing the laundry while children play in the water. Colourful mosaics of washed clothing are drying in the midday heat.
Less and less villages skirt the long road to Morondava. Only the occasional group of grass huts and bags of charcoal reveal that people live here. People on homemade carts for delivering goods skate down the sloping road. A well deserved cooling off after dragging it up the hill. Finally the dry land makes room for rice paddies with Baobabs in the background.