That was the original opening line to this blog entry, and so we will try to be as objective as we can, but as most of you know, we were robbed on our 3rd day there. This obviously soured our perspective of the country and we have very little to recommend about it. Even before we were robbed, we had not really been enjoying it. It started with a rude awakening at the airport when we had to pay $85 for our visas, by far the most expensive yet. The hotels in Tana (short for Antananarivo) the capital city were pretty expensive, even though the one we stayed at was basically full of prostitutes (we didn’t realize this until we returned on our way out). From Tana, we took an uncomfortable nine-hour taxi-brousse (minivan) ride to Fianar, where we hired a driver for 5 days to take us south to Tolear, on the coast. We were both a little sketchy that the guy wouldn’t let us pay in American dollars because we were carrying much more than normal since we worried whether our ATM cards would work (especially after our experience in Jerusalem)…mistake number one That night, we got barely any sleep because the rude French tourists staying in the rooms across the hall kept us up most of the night.
After our driver arrived, we headed to Ranomafana National Park. Upon our arrival, we gasped in disgust as we had to both pay $15 to enter the park and then an additional $20 for our compulsory guide, who spoke barely any English. The only interesting part of our $50 hike was seeing some red-fronted brown lemurs and catching a glimpse of the rare golden brown lemur. As we returned to our vehicle, we met Jose, who lives in Portland after marrying a Peace Corps volunteer several years ago. Jose was excited to meet Americans because he is still learning English and he had been back in Madagascar for several months to oversee some family property. When we got to Manja hotel, we opted for the much cheaper bungalow, despite the windows having no coverings…mistake number two. After putting our stuff away, Jose showed us the dam that had been destroyed in a recent flood. We crossed the makeshift footbridge and had some tasty homemade sweets, a sweet pasty mixture of banana and coconut served in a banana leaf. He then took us to the village and we had fun entertaining the village kids by taking their pictures.
That evening Jose, who also works as a guide, took us on a night walk where we saw several species of chameleons and marveled at how they changed colors right before our eyes. Jose informed us that most of the time, they change colors not to camouflage but to communicate. As Jason was returning from the toilet, he had to stumble through the dark because the outdoor light had been mysteriously turned off. As we hung out in our room, we looked through our pictures and even thought about transferring them to the laptop but alas we didn’t…mistake number three. As we prepared for bed, Priti mentioned whether we should keep the windows closed but it was very hot and humid and the room had no fan, so Jason insisted we keep the windows open…mistake number four. Our final mistake was that we left some of our stuff near the open window, including Priti’s backpack and the laptop. Around three AM we heard some men outside of our room making a ruckus, and he even got out of bed to check our stuff and then closed the window after verifying the laptop was still there.The next morning we awoke and with horror realized that the burglars had in fact taken Priti’s backpack, which unfortunately had more valuables in it than everything else combined, including our camera and, even more importantly, our memory card with all of our pictures from Israel and Jordan.
Also Priti’s money belt which contained all those dollars we had stocked up on…doh! We frantically looked around in hopes that it was some kind of bad dream but alas it was gone. Jose returned and inexplicably took some pictures of us freaking out. The thieves at least were considerate enough to dump her passport and credit card near the hotel; it would have been that much worse had we had to replace those too.There was no police force in Ranomafana, but the incompetent Gendarme took our statements, and also one from the security guard, who actually saw the thieves getting away but didn’t think to tell anyone about it until the next morning! We stuck around town for the longest three days of our lives as we waited in vain for any leads to materialize. They had an internet place so we were able to contact our insurance company. Incredibly, the computers had been donated by USAID yet we had to pay double the rate of the locals! Then we find out on day three that our guide had been busted before for robbing tourists in the same manner as we had been! Why did it take them three days to interview him?! Then they told us they couldn’t search his house because they didn’t have a warrant. Looking back, it made sense that he was involved, as he saw us putting our valuables in Priti’s backpack during our day hike. After this we became convinced it was an inside job. One of the guys investigating was brothers with the hotel owner and seemed just a bit too happy doing his job. The hotel graciously (wink-wink) allowed us to stay there for free until things were resolved.
We contemplated just staying there until our departure three weeks hence, but couldn’t stomach the place anymore. At the internet place, we decided to buy a cell phone because it was pretty cheap. We found out later that even this schmuck ripped us off as all of the introductory credits had been used up. During our ordeal, Jose was very nice and we were thankful for his support.We decided at that point to just return to Fianar since the room was cheap and we wanted to minimize our expenditures. When we got back we returned to the place where we had booked our ‘tour.’ Thankfully we had only paid half up front but we wanted to get the rest back (minus the cost of the first day). Of course the guy had left and so we couldn’t get any of our money back, but we got them to give us a day tour.
On the tour we saw some amazing scenery and went on a hike (guided of course) to see groups of ring-tailed lemurs, which were pretty entertaining. The pictures posted were actually from South Africa (ZA), so in retrospect we had absolutely no reason to even be in Madagascar, considering it was our most expensive flight and we could’ve just seen lemurs in ZA…oh well. The final part of our day trip was to a local winery and we were amazed at how awful the wine was…basically cough syrup. We stared in amazement as a group of French tourists bought several bottles, and we concluded they must have been drunk.We spent most of the next ten days in our hotel room, leaving once a day for a meal. At one of the places, Jason got to try roasted bat, which was just ok (the wings had the consistency of seaweed). One afternoon, Jason went out and met a local guy, who again wanted to practice his English, and told Jason about some music festival that was happening that afternoon. After an hour, they stopped at a Chinese restaurant for lunch. Incredibly, this guy ordered a meal (not even a cheap one) and had no money to pay for it!
Disgusted, Jason refused to pay for him and the owner took the guy’s ID card as collateral until he returned to settle his bill. And it turns out there was no concert that day, but the following week. We both returned to the Chinese restaurant a couple days later for some tasty fried noodles and zebu (beef), and recounted the experience with the owner. He informed us he had no intention of keeping the guy’s ID, but simply wanted him to own up to his mistake first. Not much else happened, although we went out to one of the local clubs and enjoyed some of the local music. The one thing the Malagasys do have is good music, and Jason even purchased a couple CDs by one of the local artists, ‘Firmin.’Before returning to Tana, we contacted the gendarme and learned that three more robberies had occurred at the same hotel since we had left…unbelievable. By that point, we were just counting down the days and we only had three left in Tana. Before we left, we went to the lemur park, and saw nine different types of lemurs, including the beautiful sifakas and the tiny mouse lemurs, the smallest mammals in the world. At the airport, they would not accept any local currency so we got stuck some ariary/francs.
Bizarrely, their currency is double-valued, meaning that each note is printed with two values on it. With the ariary worth five times as much as the franc (e.g., a 1000 ariary note also has 5000 francs printed on it), we speculated it was just another way to rip off tourists. We purchased a couple stamps and came to the realization that even the post office in Ranomafana had tried to rip us off. Save for Jose, pretty much everyone we met tried to screw us in one way or another. As Woody Allen once said, “comedy equals tragedy plus time.” But, writing about it two months after the fact, we still fail to see the humor in this particular instance. Up until the robbery, we had been pretty careful, but unfortunately one bout of carelessness is all it takes. Our guards were on high alert as our next destination was South Africa, one of the most notorious countries for tourists being victimized.
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