Madagascar - Antananarivo

Why did we come to Madagascar? A question we were asked many times by the locals we met. Well, Madagascar is a unique place. It is the fourth largest island in the world and has 200,000 species of Fauna and Flora, of which a staggering 90% are endemic - that is they are found nowhere else in the world. And there was a really cool cartoon based on the lemurs of which King Julian was very funny....

After a 12 hour delay from Jo'burg we landed in the capital, Tana for short, and quickly decided to take it easy for a couple of days in this likable city to recover from the flight. The French were the colonial power and they left their mark on the capital, most noticibly in the battered but quaint Citroen and Renault taxis and the cafe up the road from the hotel serving fresh Pain au Chocolat et Pain au Fromage everyday. Tana is built on a set of hills in the central highlands which offers excellent views from the top of the hills and squalid living conditions for those who live at the bottom. Madagascar used to be quite prosperous but now it is one of the poorest countries in the world and nowhere is this more evident than Tana where beggars swarm round the Vazahs (tourists) at every opportunity.

This didn't bother us too much though and we had a lovely couple of days wondering the streets and trying to remember our GCSE French. Jo immediately went to the top of the class. My French is so bad I wasn't even allowed to take the exam so I focused on learning a little bit of the local lingo Malagasy. We then booked a ticket for the dreaded Taxi-Brousse to head south.