11.11.08
Madagascar: 5- Return to Tana
Tuesday the 11 November
Day of return to Tana. Early in the morning we took a taxi, which was not a taxi but a family going to Diego in their old 4×4. Almost arrived in Diego the car broke down, the cooling liquid ran out on the ground under the car. We felt sorry for the guy and his family. Luckily for us there came a yellow taxi just after us and we could go with it to the airport.
Everything went fine. We managed (hm, no, Anthony managed) to negotiate the price of the taxi from the airport to Tana from 40 000 to 25 000, and on top we got the most modern car of all our stay on Mada.
The hotel had nice personel and the room, on the third and top floor was charming. They also had kittens which lay in my knee when eating breakfast = happy Tess.
In the evening we ate in a nice, quite cheap restaurant. It took about 10-15 minutes to walk there from our hotel. I was scared all the way. Compared to the place we stayed in at the arrival to Mada this area of Tana was really calm, on the way to the restaurant we didn’t see a single person, which is scary in another way than when surrounded by strange people.
Wednesday the 12 November
The big market day. And also last day on Madagascar, at least that’s what we thought… in fact, late in the evening Anthony ade the reflection that if our flight left at midday, there would be no change to get the flight Paris-Nice at ten in the evening which we had planned. So, we double checked the AF tickets and – indeed they were on Friday, not Thursday. What a miss! The hotel had internet so we verified the Corsair flights and saw that the one we had initially planned to take was Friday (there are no dates on the GP tickets). Suddenly we had one more day of vacation!
We spent all morning in the biggest market in Tana, just looking around, then ate lunch and planned to do all the shopping of souvenirs in the afternoon. The weather didn’t want to play our game but decided to rain so our shopping was quite hectic. When we bought vanilla we got surrounded by ten people, all trying to sell us their vanilla, showing us why this or that one would be better. We had the hands full and got a bit stressed. How to know what is good quality and not? We had read they should be long, dark, a little bit towards red but not brown. And not too dry. It took Anthony half an hour to negotiate the good vanilla and price.
The last evening, which was not the last evening, we had decided to eat in a more expensive restaurant. It had a décor in warm red colors and servers everywhere. The first menu we got was only for aperitifs We ordered a drink each. After finishing the drink we both wanted more, and since it was the last evening… hm, anyways, we bought another one. When I had trunk one third of my new cocktail I was starting to get drunk. The food arrived but I couldn’t eat. Anthony told me after I had gone all white in the face. I had probably not drunk enough water during the day. Then I was happy we had one more evening so that our vacation didn’t end with a failed restaurant visit.
Thursday the 13 November
What would we do with this extra day? In fact I didn’t managed to buy all the day before, being so stressed by the rain and the sellers. We decided to visit another market. The sun was with us and we found lots of funny things. The market itself was an attraction, there were everything to be found, from furniture, to hats and jewelry, to animals, dead or alive.
In the afternoon we made a walk in Tana that the guide book had recommended. It went up on the highest hill, to the palace of the queen. From there we had a great view in all directions. We took a guide who explained us a bit of the history of the kings and queens. The palace itself what not a lot to see, it burnt down ten years ago and now they tried to rebuild it. The history were starting 700 years earlier, we saw drawings of kings with palaces more like huts, very different from our own history.
In the afternoon there was a thunder storm, it was the beginning of the rain season. And in the evening we returned to our very first restaurant. The musicians were there again. We were the only guests this night and the owner took well care of us. We ordered gabons and got four mega shrimps each. It was a memorable evening, and a good ending of our vacation.