Day 8. Back to Antsirabe
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| Chameleon |
After a night rest under the noise of the sea we leave as early
as possible, back to Antsirabe. When we pass a baobab Rija tells
us that once an identical baobab was on the opposite side of
the road, and this view is printed on the 50 franc coin. I check
the coin and
indeed i see the trees on it.
We cross a barren area with some sparse palm trees. The locals
burn down everything here right before the raining season starts.
Only the fire-proof palm trees survive. They believe the smoke
from the fire creates the clouds from which the rain falls down.
I figure it shouldn't be too difficult proving the rain will
fall anyway, with or without burning the vegetation.
As we stop to photograph a chameleon, some people and children
walk by. The oldest one in the group shakes my hand and Rija
translates that they'd like to drive with us to to the next
village, about 5 kms further down the road. Of course we agree
and so they jump in the trunk. We make place on the backseat
for the smallest kid, but the girl doesn't dare to go without
her father, so he too joins on the backseat. The girl looks
frightened to death and the pen and cookie we give her doesn't
comfort her. She's never sat in a car before.
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| Sunset near Antsirabe |
We lunch in Miandrivazo, where there's hardly anything to get.
We continue our road, properly constructed out of concrete,
a real ease after hours of potholes. Along the road in the verges
men are working in bright orange outfits. They are cutting the
grass. After hundreds of kilometers of sand and holes, they
apparently consider it necessary to keep the grass in the right
proportions here.
The landscape we pass gets a magical look with tatters of fog and a setting sun. Around 8 we finally arrive, broken, in Antsirabe where we immediately go back to Le Retrait. What looked shabby at first now looks like absolute luxury. The temperature here is 25 degrees lower than where we came from (so not warmer than 15 degrees) so we put on long pants and fleeces.
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