ON MADAGASCAR
Have you ever heard of Type Two Fun?!
In the event you haven’t, allow me to explain. Type Two Fun is something that isn’t necessarily fun in the moment, but when you look back on it, you can convince yourself you had a good time.
An example might be running a marathon. Child rearing. Being a college athlete. Nobody ever raves about these things in the moment, but they continue to do them. Type Two Fun consists of those things you always hear people say “I’m glad I did it, butttttt”
I used to be the type of girl who loved to have Type Two Fun. I thought it made me admirable. Then I met Quintin Bartholomew Sally who quite literally scoffs at the mere existence of Type Two Fun. He’s a man who can appreciate Type One Fun…. you know FUN fun. Enjoying what you’re doing while you’re doing it. Sipping a piña colada on a lounge chair overlooking the ocean. Watching the sun set. City Park Jazz.
I no longer seek out activities that fall into the Type Two category. If I can help it, I want to be having Type One Fun only. Especially on this here Radical Sabbatical ™.
I say all that to say this. Madagascar was Type Two Fun. I’m genuinely glad I went, buttttt….
Can I recommend it? Was I having fun while I was there? The answer is yes, butttttt….
I’m going to break down our trip into the times we were having Type One Fun and the times we were having Type Two Fun. Enjoy!
TYPE ONE FUN
Madagascar would be nearly impossible to visit without the assistance of a full time guide. Unlike everywhere else we’ve visited, we could not have shown up and figured it out on our own. There aren’t roads on the west side of the island. We didn’t see a single vehicle, let alone a gas station, for a full week. Road signs are red slashes painted on to trees. There aren’t busses. Because of this, we opted into a pre planned, two week group trip, in which a woman much more experienced than us coordinated all of the logistics beforehand – cars, drivers, guides, domestic flights, accommodation, food, everything. A definite highlight was the group we traveled with. After 7 months of traveling with Quintin and Quintin alone, it was marvelous to be surrounded by 10 other travelers. It was fun to experience Madagascar together, but also to share stories, learn about the places they’re from/live, talk about why they love to travel and trade recommendations. Being surrounded by interesting people for 2 weeks was Type One Fun.
Seeing Baobab Avenue, specifically at sunset was Type One Fun. There’s no feeling in the world like finally seeing something in real life that you’ve spent years seeing splashed across travel publications. I’m endlessly grateful to be on this trip and to have had so many experiences standing in front of something, staring and thinking “Damn, I can’t believe I’m seeing this in real life. I can’t believe I’m actually here.” I’ll never forget pulling up to Baobab Avenue for the first time, or watching the sky change from yellow to orange to red to deep red to dark blue with the baobabs standing there, changing colors with the setting sun. It’s inexplicable.
Seeing lemurs was Type One Fun. There are several types of lemurs, all over the place in Madagascar. Creeping down trees, flying through the air, swinging from branch to branch with their freakishly long tails. It was so cool to look up and be like “oh I can see 20 lemurs from here, and also these lemurs ONLY exist in THIS national park.” There’s the whole world, but this lemur is only found right here. It was also fun to yell ZABOOMAFOOOOOO twenty four hundred times per day.
Being immersed in the natural beauty of Madagascar was Type One Fun. Jaw dropping. Sweeping vistas of verdant hillsides teeming with travelers palms. Oceans lined by miles of palm trees and bougainvillea. Green rice paddies, surrounded by red soil, dotted by small villages.
My all time favorite memory is a night we spent camping in a small fishing village where the river and the ocean meet. From one vantage point, I could look to the left and enjoy views of the Indian Ocean, boasting miles of unspoilt, palm lined, sandy beaches. The only things on the beach were wooden fishing boats and sand. If I looked to the right, I was looking over a tiny village of a few houses, a paddock for the cows, and a wide, slow flowing river that serves as the town's main road. Of course the river was lined with thick palms, pink and white lilies, vanilla, and crocodiles. We were treated to an awe inspiring sunset, and a fresh dinner cooked over the campfire with Malagasy music and dance. (did I get fleas from my blanket? I certainly did. But flea bites only last a few days, which is a small price to pay for the memory.)
Finally, going somewhere that’s completely different than anywhere you’ve previously been is Type One Fun. I had a great time learning about both the past and present of Madagascar. As we met different people or passed different things on the road, tons of questions bubbled up. Why do so many Malagasy people look Indonesian? Why is the east side of the island totally desolate despite having 2 of the island's biggest tourist attractions? Why is there a huge South Korean mission in the middle of NOWHERE, and how is it the ONLY concrete building on this side of the island? Why isn't there a lick of tourism infrastructure in Madagascar, but Mauritius, which is so close, has tons? How is Madagascar the 3rd poorest country on earth when they have natural gas reserves, stunning beaches and highly unique flora and fauna!? Did the Malagasy have to pay the French reparations a la Haiti?! Madagascar was disorienting, in part due to my own ignorance, but also because it is different from anywhere else on the planet, both due to its geography and its history. It’s a place I continue to reflect back on and continue to read more into.
TYPE TWO FUN
We spent 57% of our waking hours in a car. So basically, we were asleep or in a car and frankly, that isn’t fun. Like have you ever blown the budget to sit in a car? On a bus? No ma’am. We would get up at 6AM everyday, get on the road by 6:30AM and not arrive at our final destination until 8:30PM. We would then have a rushed dinner, go to bed, wake up and do it all over again. We stayed at some seriously beautiful places and we didn’t get to enjoy them at all. To be clear, we didn’t get up early and get back late but spent all day outside, exploring and doing shit. No. We spent all day in the car and then got 2 hours outside doing something. Baobab Avenue was tight but we spent a grand total of 45 minutes there. Because we had to rush to the next destination. We went to Tsingy National Park, but spent 4 hrs there. We spent 20 hours getting there. And then we turned around and spent 20 hrs getting back. Was it worth it?! If you have to ask, you’re having Type Two Fun.
It’s really a bummer because the distance between these places isn’t that much, but because there is no infrastructure it takes forever. For example, it took us 75 minutes to go 12KM (!) into Tsingy National Park. That is how bumpy the roads were. Tsingy, which was on a National Geographic documentary, narrated by Barack Obama, and is thus one of the most sought after tourist attractions in the country is, by my account, inaccessible.
While I’m on the topic, the whole of Tsingy National Park was Type Two Fun. We transported, and again, I am not being hyperbolic, 40 hours to get there. By the time we arrived at the park entrance, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I had food poisoning. A word to the wise...a zebu steak slow cooked in a rich sauce, paired with dusty, bumpy, hot roads?! A cataclysmic error. But there isn’t a stomach bug in the world that was going to stop me from seeing those damned spires after spending two days getting there. I had made it that far.
Vomiting while strapped into a climbing harness, in between enormous, sharp, spires is not something I will soon forget. Curling up in the single scrap of shade, while dry heaving, knowing I needed water, but not being able to risk ingesting anything, before crossing a rickety ass bridge with a 70 meter drop? It wasn’t my safest decision. Having to get out of both a harness and a tennis dress (which for the non tennis girlies out there is like a romper….you have to take the WHOLE thing off to get to the bathroom but unlike most rompers it’s SPANDEX and I am SWEATING) to have diarrhea? Top 3 scariest moments of my life. I laugh looking back, but it was miserable. TYPE TWO FUN.
One thing travel exposes is the fact that if there’s one thing people are going to do, it’s find a way to make it work. This attitude was omnipresent in Madagascar. Anywhere you looked, there were people making something of nothing. This was never more obvious than the ferry we took when crossing two rivers to get to Tsingy (my nemesis).
The ferry was quite literally hundreds of scraps of wood strapped together to form a platform. This platform was then strapped to a line of wooden canoes, which kept everything afloat. It was built so sturdily, several cars could drive onto the wooden platform. Each canoe had a motor in the hull to power the ferry across the river. Each time was passed through (4 times total) not a single motor was working. That is when I realized they had built a pulley system into the river so they could manually ferry cars and people across the not small river. I am not exaggerating when I say the only things in this area are sand, dust, small trees and this river. Using literally only these materials the people in this area found a way to get people and their cars across the river.
In every country we’ve visited we notice big and small feats like this. My first thought is always “how the hell did you think to do this?!” My second thought is always “and how the hell did you have the skills to get it done?!”
And then the obvious answer is there was a need, and nobody was going to come and provide you with a solution, so you did what needed to be done. It’s one of my favorite qualities about people and it’s universal.
In the end, I’m glad we went to Madagascar. Not many people get to say they’ve been to this country, and I’m lucky to be one of them.
