Vazaha! Vazaha!

During the recent school holidays, I went travelling in Madagascar with two American friends for a couple of weeks. Here's what we got up to in the first few days.

Tonga soa!
We flew into the capital, Antananarivo (or just "Tana"), on the 1st March. Undoubtedly as a result of living on the small island of Reunion for the past six months, the first thing which struck me as we approached Madagascar was its size. It's huge! It also appeared to be very wrinkly. Changing our money was interesting: it's roughly 3000 Ariary to 1 Euro and the biggest denomination is 10000Ar. Keeping it all in my purse wasn't really an option!

Vous allez où?
Keen to be off on our adventures, the next morning we set off to take the taxi-brousse to Morondava on the West coast. Anyone who has been to Madagascar will know all about this infamous mode of transport. Taxi-brousses are a form of long-distance public transport in the shape of minibuses in varying states of roadworthiness. Due to the size of Madagascar, and the size and state of its roads, taxi-brousse journeys can  take over twenty-four hours. Luckily, we were only going to Morondava, so our journey was to last only fifteen. Our first shock came when, arriving at the bus station our taxi was bombarded by a crowd of shouting Malagasy men, who ran alongside us, holding on to the windows, clamouring to know our destination. Our driver, thankfully, found us a taxi-brousse that was going to Morondava without us needing to get out and fight through the throng; we later realised that our assumption that each taxi-brousse co-operative ran a different route was completely incorrect, which explained the frantic vying for custom as we arrived.

Because we had had to arrive in the morning in order to reserve seats on an afternoon taxi-brousse, and because we wanted to play it safe and didn't fancy wandering far with our luggage, we spent the next five hours people-watching at the bus station. People were constantly milling around, trying to sell everything from neon-coloured hair scrunchies to portable radios, and Aly soon attracted a crowd of curious children (and a few adults) with her polaroid camera. The public toilets were an interesting surprise: a woman behind a counter asks you to, well, specify the purpose of you toilet visit, charges you either 100 or 300 Ariary accordingly (approximately 3p or 10p) and sends you to the corresponding cubicle which has neither lock nor toilet paper.

Loading up the taxi-brousse

The taxi-brousse eventually left at 5:20pm, and was not as run-down or squashed as I feared. The journey made me incredibly excited about our trip! We drove through beautiful rolling hills and valleys carpeted with rice paddies, past lakes (you don't get a lot of these in Réunion!) and even through pine forest. People were fishing in the rice paddies, and driving zebu carts, and there were houses built in the middle of rice fields as though on little private islands. It all seemed so different. Even after the sun went down the journey and the surrounding countryside continued to be exciting, as lightning lit up the sky and the valleys all night long. The two worst parts of the journey had to be the driver's ridiculously loud music and the rest stop where there was no other option but to pee at the side of the road. At least it was dark. However, just before dawn, we came to an unexpected stop at a bridge. People were getting out of the vehicle, but I couldn't make out what was going on. I stayed on, and eventually saw that a group of men were heaving metal beams off to the side to clear a path for the taxi-brousse. We then started to advance, very slowly, with one guy crouching in front of the vehicle, guiding the driver. I looked down to realise that we had just crossed a bridge with two large holes in it, over a section between the two holes that was only just as wide as our wheel. I got out to have another look as the sun was rising when we stopped on the other side to fix something on the minibus, and passed a man holding a spear who seemed to be dressed in just a piece of cloth draped across his body. It felt like rather a surreal start to the day. The landscape had changed by now, and looked a lot more African, with termite mounds, grazing zebu and shrubs dotting the flat ground. Several times we thought, with much excitement, that we could see the sea and that our journey was therefore nearly over, only to realise that the blue expanse was actually far-off hills and forest...because that's just how big Madagascar is!

C'est le système!

Changing the fuel bottle...

To continue our adventures on Madagascan transport, the next day we hired a taxi to take us to the famous Allée des Baobabs. The car was small and rickety, like seemingly every other vehicle in Madagascar, but more worryingly did not appear to have a petrol tank. I'll explain. Five minutes after leaving we pulled into a petrol station. Our driver got out with four empty plastic Coca-Cola bottles in hand and got them filled at the pump. He then placed them in the space between the driver and passenger seat, poked a rubber tube through a hole in a lid, screwed this onto one of the bottles and set off. "C'est le système", he cheerfully explained to us, and it was true that we saw a lot of people filling up old plastic bottles at the petrol stations we passed.

Our driver was friendly and very funny, but spoke very little French. His driving skill, however, made up for it. He got us through muddy puddles as deep as the height of his wheels and some so large there were ducks swimming in them, not to mention the constant bumps and potholes, and we successfully arrived in time for the sunset.

Our trusty taxi

Cue lots of photo-taking and admiring of these huge, impressive trees. They really make for a stunning landscape! We wandered a little way down the road, and happened across a small village where women were trying to sell wooden carvings of baobabs to the vazaha (foreigners). What interested us more was the group of small boys who had a chameleon on a stick: Aly had been dying to see a chameleon, and couldn't resist picking it up and stroking it. We were then, of course, immediately bombarded with requests for money or sweets as payment, so Aly calmly pulled out a packet of honey-flavoured throat lozenges and proceeded to distribute them one by one to the children. The women selling the carvings were having none of it, and barged in to get their share, and poor Aly had to surrender the entire packet, leaving us with nothing else to bargain for photos...ah well.

The journey back was much the same as the journey there, except for the driver's frequent and rather worrying exclamation that there were "pas de freins" (no brakes). I'm putting it down to bad French, because we survived with no problems!

Allée des Baobabs and zebu from the village

Baobabs at sunset

Mauritius

Today I suddenly realised that I'd be in Madagascar before the end of the week...and that I still hadn't posted this blog on Mauritius, from the last school holidays! So here we go...

The last school holidays were both the Christmas and summer holidays, hence it was five weeks long instead of the usual two weeks as on mainland France: the perfect opportunity to do some travelling! I decided, seeing as it was cyclone season, to go to Mauritius rather than Madagascar. The island of Mauritius is Réunion's closest neighbour, but despite its proximity we (that's me and three other Language Assistants) discovered that it was definitely a very different place. I couldn't help but compare the two islands most of the time I was there. Most noticeably, the population is much more Indian than in Réunion, and the landscape a lot flatter, although the mini-mountains that they do have are very exciting shapes - one looks a lot like it's giving you the thumbs-up; another a bit like a pointy wave about to break. Mauritians, like people in Réunion, speak a creole language of French origins, but it's still a different language. They also speak French like in Réunion, but unlike the majority of the Réunion population, they speak English too! One other major difference between the two islands which cannot fail to be noticed is the huge difference in the level of tourism. Tourism is an extremely important part of the economy in Mauritius, and there are hotels, restaurants and tour operators everywhere: in Grand Baie, where we stayed, they literally lined either side of the main street. Réunion, on the other hand, is practically devoid of tourists by comparison, and the ones you do find there are generally from mainland France. You might have guessed that I prefer Réunion. But here are some of my favourite bits about our trip to Mauritius:

Food
It's cheap!! Especially coming from Réunion where one of the effects of being an overseas French department is unusually high supermarket prices (2.55€ for a 350g loaf of sliced bread in our local supermarket, and there isn't a cheaper option). The Indian influence in the Mauritian population inevitably extends to the food, resulting in market and street stands galore serving up roti, dholl puri, and various other curry-based delights. One of our classier nights out involved wandering down to the nearest food stall and dining on roti (a sort of curry tortilla - three cost just less than one Euro) with ice cream for dessert, mm mmm. We also visited a market one lunch time, and had dholl puri (pretty much the same as roti, but the tortilla is flakier) and chana puri (a dough ball that is split open and also filled with curry). This time no ice cream, but instead we tried a drink called alouda...and absolutely loved it! It seems to be made of chilled condensed milk, normal milk and a little vanilla ice cream, with tiny blobs and strands of what I think was sago floating in it - refreshing and delicious. I had two. Two large ones, of course.

Island trips
Mauritius definitely one-ups Réunion when it comes to beaches and islands: its lagoons stretch much further out from the shore, the beaches have soft, fine sand, and there are many beautiful little islands scattered around.  Many of these islands are privately owned, or nature reserves, and have strangely illogical names. In the north, for example, there is the île aux serpents (snake island) which is round and has no snakes, île ronde (round island) which isn't round at all but has snakes, and île plate (flat island) which has a hill on it. One explanation is that the names were chosen deliberately in order to mislead enemies during wartime; an alternative is that some mapmaker merely got them mixed up.

Passing Coin de Mire island, on the way to îlot gabriel

In any case, a boat trip to one of the islands is a tourist must, and our first one - to île aux cerfs - was quite possibly the most touristy thing I have ever done. I have never enjoyed feeling like a stereotypical Brit abroad or package holiday tourist. Let's just say I feel a bit silly. That said, the most enjoyable day we had was a catamaran trip to îlot gabriel. Like our first trip, we were taken to the island, served lunch, and brought back, but this time there were fewer tourists in the group, and many of them were regular Mauritians having a day out. The island itself was a little wilder (no hotel, golf course, pricey touristy water activities, souvenir stands...or toilets, for that matter), snorkelling equipment was available, and there were no sea urchins, unlike at île aux cerfs. We had the most beautiful weather, and lunch was delicious, but the highlight for me were the paille-en-queues, or white-tailed tropicbirds. I may have already mentioned that they are my favourite bird out here (you can see an image of one at the top of my blog) and the sky above îlot gabriel was teeming with them. One nearly flew into me as I was walking down to the water! I later had a much nicer encounter with them: the friendly Mauritian guy manning the makeshift bar on the island took us to see three nests (complete with chicks!) in the moor-like interior of the island. The birds didn't seem scared at all - I guess all the tourists tend to stay on the beach or in the water.

A paille-en-queue chick

Setting off for île aux cerfs from Trou d'Eau Douce in the East

Discovering Réunion creole culture
Strangely, I learned more about Réunion culture than Mauritian while in Mauritius! This is because the hostel we stayed in was also hosting a large group consisting of two related families plus friends from Réunion. Réunion families often go on holiday in Mauritius, the main attractions for them being beautiful beaches and cheap shopping. We inevitably bumped into the family group frequently in the kitchen and dining area, usually while they were cooking up some creole feast for the evening. I had my first taste of carri poulet (creole chicken and rice) thanks to them, as well as wasp larvae.
That's right. Wasps.
Apparently it's an expensive delicacy in Réunion, but in Mauritius these guys had fashioned a nest-hooking device from a pole and some wire, attached some burning wood to smoke away the wasps, and were pulling nests out of trees all over the place. They then quickly toasted the nests over the gas hob, tapped out all the larvae, and fried them up in something pretty tasty. We nibbled on a few before they started cooking (you can eat them raw), and I got quite a shock when I bit into a larva...the taste was fine, but I felt as if an enormous spot had burst in my mouth. Clearly, my face betrayed my thoughts because the family found it hilarious.

Picking out tasty larvae from the toasted wasp nests

Lagoon Tuesdays

Thanks to the twelve-hours-a-week nature of the Language Assistant job, and some very considerate timetabling by my two schools, I have every Tuesday and Friday free. Fridays off, of course, lend themselves to the occasional weekend-long exploration of some other part of the island, and, failing that, I at least share this day off with one of my flatmates. Tuesdays, unfortunately, are not quite so easily made the most of, as none of the other assistants have this day off. However several do have the morning off. Cue Lagoon Tuesdays!

Saint Pierre has a great lagoon with all the facilities (showers, toilets, lifeguards, nearby snack bars) and I try and do it justice by heading down for a swim and a look at the fish most Tuesday mornings with one or two friends. Mornings are my favourite time to go - even if the beach isn't as empty as you'd think it would be, it's less busy than in the afternoons, and the water tends to be much calmer and the sky clear and bright, all of which makes it perfect for watching the fish. In fact, when it's sunny and the water is calm you don't even need a snorkel mask to see fish: there are so many and they are so unafraid of people that you can just walk into certain parts of the lagoon and look down into the water around you! Of course, if you haven't brought snorkelling equipment or even just a plain old pair of goggles, there are also other spectacles to behold: locals often walk out to the farthest edges of the lagoon on the coral to go fishing; and every Tuesday morning a group of middle-aged and older men and women enter the water, brightly-coloured noodle-shaped float in hand, and embark upon a strange series of exercises which I think is known as "Aquagym".

Aquagym in Saint Pierre lagoon

Surgeonfish

But back to the fish. So many fish, and every time I go I see ones I've never seen before! I wish I knew what more of them are called. Well, one of them is called "Jojo"...at least, by the elderly man who comes down to the lagoon every morning to feed the fish with shrimp! He is inevitably constantly surrounded by clouds of fish, and he kindly gave me and Aly some shrimp to feed them with today, which we did, although rather tentatively. "Jojo" seems to be his favourite fish - one of two beautiful surgeonfish which appear without fail for a free meal. They're the biggest fish I've seen in the lagoon, but by no means the most unusual. Two of my personal favourites in that category are the trumpetfish and a little box-shaped black fish with bright electric-blue spots, and the prettiest I think are the moorish idol and the butterflyfish. My least favourite fish at the moment has got to be the Picasso fish, or lagoon triggerfish, purely because one bit my toe this morning (they are apparently quite territorial and protective of their nests; I must've put my feet down a little too close to some baby Picassos) but at least they aren't venomous. For a long time I thought there was nothing venomous in the whole of Réunion, but then a neighbour uploaded onto Facebook some pictures of a lionfish he had encountered in the lagoon of Saint Pierre. This made me nervous of the lagoon for several days, but thanks to a pair of goggles I got over it.

Trumpetfish

Moorish Idol

Picasso fish

One other fish that I'm not so keen on meeting in the lagoon would be the moray eel. I used to think that these big, ugly eels live further out in reefs in deep ocean, but apparently there are quite a few in Saint Pierre. I have been reliably informed that there is a man who comes down to the lagoon regularly to feed the fish but, unlike the gentleman with the shrimp, he only feeds one particular moray eel and nothing else. What a strange choice of pet..!

Christmas in Réunion

2012 saw my first experience of not just Christmas without the family, but Christmas abroad in - as I tend to think of it - the wrong hemisphere. It all seemed rather bizarre. Although the crazy period of constant cheesy "Christmas" music and frantic shopping started considerably later than in the UK, there were still snow-inspired decorations, fluffy Santa costumes and fir trees (or a very close equivalent) despite the tropical climate! Just weird. I did manage to find a few Réunion-esque touches, however: lychees being at their lowest price around Christmas, one local artist has a series of Christmas cards with designs showing Father Christmas bringing a bulging sack full of lychees to a creole house; for some people, Father Christmas comes to the island in a motor boat; and finally, the flamboyant trees are in full bloom at this time of year, and they have amazingly bright red flowers - perfect for a Christmassy red and green tree!

A small flamboyant by the sea; in Saint Pierre they line both sides of the motorway

Quite a lot of the language assistant crowd stayed in Réunion for Christmas, so we celebrated together in style...
On Christmas Eve some of us got together for dinner (after a raucous rendition of our favourite Christmas carols while wearing Santa hats on the end of the pier during the sunset) then let off fireworks with the rest of the island population at midnight and went for a paddle in the sea. For Christmas Day itself, we all headed to our favourite beach (étang-salé, of course!!) to swim in the waves and play volleyball. This was followed by yet more amazing food, the highlight of which was a certain American's chocolate pie - although my British mince pies got a general thumbs-up - and the exchange of Secret Santa presents. Gifts ranged from an orchid to a toilet plunger. Go figure (as my flatmates would say).

At the beach on Christmas Day

Into December

It might not seem like it, but now that I've been here for about two months I've more or less settled into a weekly routine, based on my working hours, kayaking and jazz lessons, and every now and again I need to give myself a little push to shake things up a bit and get out somewhere I don't usually go. So here are two examples of my favourite recent outings for your enjoyment:

1. Rivière des Marsouins

I was incredibly excited when I checked my e-mail to find a message from the kayak club about plans to kayak down the Rivière des Marsouins (porpoise river) in the East of the island. You've got to realise that the main reason I wanted to learn to kayak was so I could one day paddle down rivers and through rapids. Of course, being a beginner (along with most of the rest of the group who eventually went) I was given an inflatable kayak, and as it was the very beginning of the summer/wet season, the river and its rapids were pretty low and relatively tame, although extremely cold. That said, we had a fantastic time! Arriving there made me realise how much I miss grass and greenery in Saint Pierre: everywhere you looked there was green green vegetation, and the hillsides on either side of the river were covered in lychee trees. The lychee season is quite short, and at the beginning vendors charge anything up to 10€ a kilo, but I've been told that by the end of the season, when prices reach 1€ a kilo, people stop selling them because there are so many lychees and they become so cheap that it's no longer profitable to pick them to sell!* After an afternoon paddling downriver and playing on a tarzan swing, and since it was my first time in the East and I don't have a car, the instructor drove us all for a quick touristy stop to see the beautiful Bassin la Paix (see below). To top it off, there were two paille en queues (white-tailed tropicbirds, see the top of my blog), my favourite bird here, soaring and playing around on the air currents caused by the waterfalls - amazing!

The pool just above Bassin la Paix

Chilling by the waterfall which pours into Bassin la Paix

2. Grand Bassin

The biggest drawback to having two days off a week is the lack of people to share them with, but I have found an ingenious solution:

Recruit a freelance photographer!

Said photographer is a lovely American who is staying for a few months with another English assistant here in order to expand her travel photography portfolio (she has the most incredible photos! Take a look at them on her blog: portraitsoftheplanet.blogspot.com). On this particular day she bravely agreed to go on an adventure with me to the village of Grand Bassin, which is at the bottom of a steep valley and accessible only by foot (or cable if you are, for example, a crate of bananas). We took the bus from Saint Pierre, and I kept a watchful eye on the bus stop name at the side of the road and the list of stops on the timetable, ready for ours. I get a little nervous travelling to any stop which is not a main bus station. I'd like to think with good reason. Allow me to digress a little...

The bus system on Réunion is made up of different local bus companies within and around the main towns, and the car jaunes (yellow coaches) network which links up the whole island. The car jaunes are fantastic - great value for money, fairly reliable, often air-conditioned, and they even run on Sundays, although not as frequently as we'd like! They stop at pretty convenient places for touristy types, but stops are not compulsory. Obviously, like with any normal bus, you have to stick out your hand if you want picking up from a stop that is not an actual bus station. But there are no buttons to press for when you want to get off. No, the Réunion way is different: you clap your hands! Two claps is enough, unless of course they weren't loud or clear enough for the driver to hear over the séga music coming from the radio, in which case a hurried extra clap or two should suffice. I've even heard people do five claps, but honestly, that's getting a bit much. Perhaps I'm more cowardly than I thought, or perhaps I'm too British...but clapping for my stop of the bus is something I have been avoiding as much as possible. One of our first adventures via bus went a little awry when I wrongly assumed that, because the bus stop had a time next to it on the timetable it was an important stop and the driver would stop there whether he heard a clap or not. Consequently, we missed a town and ended up staying on the bus till the end of the line (it was raining and we didn't feel like getting out somewhere random). Lucky for us, the end of the line was right at the edge of the main lava field in the South-East of the island known as le Grand Brulé. The driver gave us fifteen minutes to go take a look before he turned around and headed back to Saint Pierre, and so we got our first vaguely volcano-related experience on the island and the trip was not a complete failure!

The lava field, steaming away after the rain.

Back to Grand Bassin, several weeks later, and I finally clapped for a stop (just twice!!) and managed to get off the bus in the right place. After a bit of a walk down a road to a car park, we got a magnificent view of the valley, complete with steep ravines, the tops of creole houses and a small, blue pool with a waterfall along one side which was the end-point of our hike. Once we got down to the village, we were surprised to see that the houses were bordered by drystone walls like you'd find in the English countryside, although the agricultural side was a little different...we took an accidental shortcut through a smallholding consisting of banana trees and skinny chickens. From there it was an easy twenty-minute walk to the pool and waterfall, though for a while we couldn't figure out how to get down to it, and once we did we had to walk through the river holding our bags over our heads so they wouldn't get wet! Coming back up was seriously tough; I'll have legs of steel by the time I get back to England!

The ravine by Grand Bassin

Got to swim at the end of a hike!
The pool we were heading for, complete with rainbow in the waterfall.

*I've since discovered that, sadly, this is false. After the joyous, golden period of 1€-per-kilo lychees at Christmas time, prices shoot back up and are now around 6€. Boo. Good job it's now mango time!