Got up before noon today(!) and had a couple of croissants with coffee. Love the croissants here – the pastry is so light and flakey that it’d float away if it weren’t for all the butter weighing it down. Yum.
Got my travel plan mostly finished last night and talked about it with an agency. Then I decided to talk to the older guy who picked me up at the airport since he’s in his mid-50s and has been doing the tourist driver thing forever. His car is in somewhat decrepit condition, and I’m a little worried about being in the desert with no AC, but he had some really good suggestions, his price is competitive, and he’s super easygoing, so I chose him for the first half of my trip. I’ll be heading south from Antananarivo through Fianarantsoa and to the west coast towns of Toliara and Ifaty. I’m not sure what I’ll do after that trip – I’ll either fly north to Antsiranana and look around there, or I’ll rent another car and go east toward Andasibe and Mahambo. Decisions, decisions….. Fortunately, that one can wait for a week or two.
By the time I got done with all that, it was getting late, and I still had to go down to the Air Mad(agascar) office on the central boulevard to get a ticket. I dreaded having to do this because there’s always a huge wait at airline offices, but I was in and out in 10 minutes with a flight from Toliara back to Antananarivo. And I had some time for a small city ramble.
Tana is spread over several steep hills with my hotel half way up one and the central Av. de l’Independance at the bottom of that hill with all its galleries and a garden in the middle. After I got my ticket on the Av. de l’independance, I headed around to the far side of the hill and walked up a great staircase to the Place de l’independence on top, planning to walk down to go back to my hotel. It was a nice walk with vendors on both sides and stores along the way. One interesting stop along the way was an art deco shopping plaza off to the side with some little shops in it.
I continued up the hill to the Place, and found a nice park there with people sitting around in the shade and a view across the valley and to the adjoining hill. There’s a nice outdoor café there and several high-end hotels are nearby. It was very relaxed; I wasn’t hassled much at all by sellers, and when I was approached, I just told them I wasn’t interested, and they left me alone. I still don’t understand why some people find this annoying; they just haven’t been to India or Morocco, where they threw rocks at me when I wouldn’t buy from them. And I stayed vigilant, too, about my bag and point-and-shoot but had no problems with attempted theft at all.
I walked around the top of the hill, learning where the bigger hotels were, especially the Varangue, whose restaurant I read about in the US. I want to try to get dinner there tomorrow night. After joining the crowd in the shade for a while and watching some Chinese thrusting at the air, I headed down one of the tiny, cobblestone streets toward my hotel. I found a nice little bohemian area along the way with all kinds of art galleries, trendy shops, and cool restaurants, all close to my hotel (well, almost a vertical assent).
What a nice day. And I don’t have to do any travel planning details at all tomorrow, so it’s all going to be sightseeing.
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