Day 7. On the Way to Morondave
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| Traditional tomb |
After a breakfast of rice pancakes with honey and coffee a la riviere (skipped that) a 4WD is waiting to take us to Morondave. It's a ride of nearly 6 hours. Although the road that leads there is listed on the map as an official route, it's not much more than a small sandy path, which explains why it'll take that long.
At the first village we stop Rija and Dyna have a meal of dried
fish, but we lay our eyes on a bowl with something that looks
like oliebollen (typical dutch snack). We try one out
and it turns out they taste exactly similar. The only thing
missing is the berries. We take some to go and pay 10 euro cents.
As we continue our way we pass a smoking truck full of people with a huge pile of luggage attached to the roof. 'Taxibrousse' says Rija, which means Bush Taxi. That's going to be our way of transport for tomorrow. We check the Lonely Planet and read that a trip with the taxibrousse from Morondave to Antsirabe (our destination) takes approximately fifteen hours. Leaving in the afternoon and arriving the next morning. It doesn't take long before we decide we'll charter the comfortable 4WD one more day.
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| Avenue
de Baobab |
We pass Avenue de Baobab, Madagascar's most photographed spot. The red sandy path with the huge, majestic baobabs on both sides offers a fantastic view and is indeed very photogenic.
Today it's sunday, church going day, so most people are appropriately
dressed. Even Rija is wearing a neat shirt. In a village where
we stop we are welcomed by a priest and we peep inside a church
from which harmonious songs are sounding. It is noticeable we
are getting closer to a larger town; the people here owe things
like bicycles and cars. Rija can even use his mobile phone,
much to the hilarity of the children, who imitate him by saying "alo" in
an imaginary phone hook.
Finally we arrive in Morondave. Everything is closed and it looks abandoned. The city is situated along the Mozambique Channel, so we look for a hotel by the sea. We arrive at some spacey but decayed bungalows. As we swing the backdoors open we see a terrace with a white beach in front of the sea, so we check in, for 10 euros. Later on we discover why there's not much maintenance here; de bungalows next to us are half collapsed, swallowed by the sea that seems to snatch more land every year. Add to that the last month's cyclone.
After we see a beautiful sunset we have dinner at the restaurant around the corner where we eat grilled gambas, 10 pieces for 2 euros. I haven't tasted such good shrimps before!
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