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Day 16. Maroantsetra - Rantabe
After an early breakfast at 6 in the morning a taxi picks us up
and drives us to the Taxi Brousse station. On arrival,
the Taxi Brousse is ready to depart. It's fully crammed and all
luggage is tied to the roof. We have reserved front seats next
to the driver. It's a bit narrow with 3 on the front seat, but
doable.
After a 2 hour drive and a repair to the wheels we suddenly
hear a loud bang and come to an abrupt stop. It turns out that
the pick-up has completely broken through the chassis.
The rear wheel is in a 45º angle, the axle is broken and
sticks deeply in the sand. Everybody gets out, collects their
luggage and continue on foot. The pick-up is completely total-loss.
Luckily we already covered 18 out of 20 kilometers and we walk
the final 2, to a nearby village, on foot. It's burning hot and
we already have had a long day when we settle down on a field
in front of a school. Our cook starts preparing a meal.
After the lunch and a lengthy rest we begin walking the next 12
kilometers. The porters are having a lot of fun together, fortunately,
because i would be having anything but fun because of the weight
they're carrying: our backpacks - 15 kilos each - camping gear,
cooking gear and piles of food. One of them carries a heavy cool
box on his shoulder. We aren't carrying anything but still we
feel like we have a tough time! It's burning hot, almost unbearable,
but the road is beautiful. Deep cliffs with sheltered bounty beaches,
through rainforests and small villages where people dry cloves
on mats in the sun. We see several Panther Chameleons, an animal
that is feared by most Malagasies: with his independent moving
eyes it is believed that he can see in both the past and the future..
Although there is plenty of rainforest, lemurs don't occur here
anymore. They've all been killed and eaten, but in one of the
villages we see some young kids bully a Mouse Lemur by dragging
it around, tied to a rope. It breaks our hearts to see the
poor, rare nocturnal animal like this. We reprimand the kids and
free the dead-frightened lemur from its bullies. We carry it with
us for the rest of the day, hidden from the sun by a piece of
cloth, where it falls into a deep sleep.
Later that day we reach Rantabe where we put up our tents, but
first we need to cross a river by pirogue. On a beach nearby we
pitch our tents. By now we're pretty exhausted, even too tired
to eat so we immediately hit the tent. We put the Mouse Lemur,
still asleep in a cut coconut shell, in a palm tree. The next
morning it´s gone.
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