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The Wilds of Africa (sort of)

It was finally time to leave Lovasoa. It was a wonderful place full of education and learning. So many fond memories to be had in a place that I will never go again. When I travel in the states I never think about being somewhere for the last time, although I know it will inevitably happen. The only reason for this is that I often have found myself places that I thought I would not visit twice, such as the top of Pike’s Peak or the Grand Canyon. But here, it is different. The chances are so much lower of ever returning to these places, and I know that in the rest of my time, Lovasoa is not on the list.

Kristian and I remained the only two left. Most the others went before on a Wednesday, and Bethany the day right before us. We loaded on a brusse about 8 in the morning. It was a 10 passenger van, a high-end trip for our first (partly) solo ride through Madagascar. Our stuff was thrown on top and we began the four hour trip to Antananarivo. Sleep wasn’t going to happen, but there was so much of the landscape to see that I had missed on the way down. Every feature is new and interesting, every rock a new work of art. The scenery had already greened slightly from our first trip through.

We were collected by one of Hasina’s drivers. Hasina is the organizer of a company of drivers. He is the man that every man wishes to be. Fixer of all things, Pastor Kirsten says. He drives us through the crowded streets and bustling alleys of the city of Tana and drops us on the doorstep of Pastor Kirsten. Honorina lets us in. She is the helper and housekeeper of Pastor Kirsten. She laughs everytime she sees Kristian because she thinks he is the funniest person she’s ever met. Granted, he is the funniest person I’ve ever met.

We settle and it does not take long for us to fall asleep. A few hours later, I wake up and begin doing some work on a well-behind-schedule newsletter. Another few hours later, Kristian wakes up and begins work on a well-behind-schedule newsletter. Pastor Kirsten arrives. We have dinner out in the town to wrap up the night.

Kristian left early in the morning. I mean, we go to drop him off, but that left me with Pastor Kirsten and about a hundred errands to run before we could start on our way to Port Berge. It was slow going, but almost everything is in Madagascar. I get told almost daily to walk slower. Mitsangatsangana = a leisurely stroll; Mandeha = a lot of things but in this case, “to walk”; and I’m sure there must be a Malagasy word for ‘run’, but I don’t know it and probably won’t ever need to.

The errands took us until about 2 and shook me to my very core in a way I haven’t yet. We visited a few places that looked like the US but not quite. It was as if viewing them through a very black mirror, only it was exactly like the US looked. I just saw it with different eyes. Eyes that had a new filter and way of looking at things already. It really was not pleasant and something I do not look forward to when I return.

We began the long drive to Port Berge. It was similar to the drive from Antsirabe to Tana only this time we could go faster, and I took a few pictures that you can look at instead of me having to describe it in extremely creative language. Long story short, it was incredible. It was similar to driving across the US only in that my eyes were plastered to the window of the car. I wanted to write some and planned on reading a bit to pass the time, but for 6 hours I looked out the window.

When it became dark, it was still interesting. It became easier to see the fires that dot the landscape. They glowed a soft orange, mostly off in the distance, but once right next to the car. We drove through the smoke and the flames whipped up a foot from the ground. Madagascar appears to be mainly covered in grassland similar to what you’d imagine in a savanna. A lion or two would not look out of place. It is unclear if the fires are man-made or not, but even in the day it was as if parts of the land hand been razed by some unhappy god who left nothing but blackened death behind.

We stayed the night in a small town. There was no room at the first inn, or the second, or the third, but the fourth one had three rooms, so we slept there instead of in the car. We got up in the morning to continue the trip.

Once, we stopped at the Land of a Thousand Lakes. At least, that’s what I call it since I can’t remember the Malagasy name. I know, very Imperialistic of me. I apologize.

We rolled to a stop right before a set of bridges. One led to a small rotunda waiting area for when there are too many cars trying to cross the bridge: 2. It was a single lane so one car could wait for the other to pass and keep going. Pastor Kirsten told me to get out and I thought I had finally crossed the line somehow. Really, she just wanted to look at what was going under the bridges. And existed on the sides of it. It wasn’t a valley or a canyon, but something in the middle. It looked like a giant river bed with a few creeks going through. It was about a hundred feet down, so not too far, but it was all rock. Lots and lots of rock. Sure, there were interesting patterns and separations, it wasn’t just one flat rock bed. Some rocks were higher than others, it was dynamic below the bridge. There was dimension and elevation change and a small island of dirt that had the first baobab tree I’ve seen in Madagascar wrapped in a red shawl in the middle of a prayer site.

We walked across the bridge. Every step was a new picture. There were ravines dug by the water through the rock and what looked like two or three streams from beside the bridge were really about a hundred. The river forked dozens of times as it flowed through some frankly massive cracks in the stone. It was all obscured by the rock around it and every step revealed a new channel through which water poured. It was the dry season. In the rainy season it is easy to imagine one of the biggest rivers ever completely covering the thousand-foot expanse across the bridge. It would probably be a bit terrifying to see that much water at the flow rate it would be.

We crossed slowly after our driver drove the car across. It was worth every extra minute to see the whole of the site and experience semis shaking the whole thing as they drove an inch from our noses. Pastor Kirsten didn’t like that part too much, but I affirmed that a shaking bridge isn’t necessarily a bad thing and that it is possibly still structurally sound.

We loaded again and drove the rest of the way. We made it to Port Berge and met my host family. That story continues another time.