In fact, lunch at the hotel little later proved this. The first section on the menu was pasta, and the first pasta was carbonara... At least they had sandwiches too! I went for neither though: when in Rome and all that. I went for "zebu cooked in a Malagasy style with ginger". It had a name on the menu, but it didn't even include zebu, so there is no way I could remember it. It was very nice though, similar to clay pot beef in Vietnam (and those of you who followed that blog may recall that that was my very favorite Vietnamese dish!). Not bad price wise either: I got what I would consider a portion for 2 (I ate it all alone mind), a little bread starter, a whole breadbasket with some different breads and breadsticks, some sides (one tomato, and one... vegetable something which I justified not eating since it looked raw, so was probably washed in terrible water), and enough coffee for 2 and a half cups, all for $9 (£7.50ish). It took up all the table!
The restaurant itself was really nice too. The hotel is set right next to a cliff, and the outside tables are on a thin balcony, with some lovely smelling trees growing up next to it.
The rest of the day was spent lazing. I wasn't going to do anything thanks to the group initial meeting at 7:30, but then I looked again and 07:30 on 26th September is tomorrow. By the time I realised though, it was too late. I don't want to be roaming the streets of Tana after dark: what if someone has their eyes and mouth closed and I bump into them! (Genuinely happened to me once in a club. A black shirt and black trousers on a black guy in some sort of trance was overdoing it a bit if you ask me)
The next morning I slept through my alarm. Luckily I woke up at 7:25, and the meeting was at 7:30. I had already sorted my clothes etc. so I was on time. The meeting was a bit chaotic, and I didn't really learn too much, not even everyone's name! I had breakfast of bread and honey and coffee during the "meeting", then we set off for a morning walk through Tana. There isn't too much to see in terms of landmarks. The lake is one (though we didn't visit it), and the queen's palace is another. And that's about it.
The queen's palace is on the biggest hill in Tana. It was from a queen who ruled till the end of the 19th century, with a similar length of reign to Queen Victoria. It was then converted into a museum by the French, and then it suffered from a fire in 1996. Fire based renovations are still ongoing, and so there is nothing to see inside, and so we didn't pay to go in. Otherwise we just walked around, taking in some of the impressive views, and I had a little talk to everyone to learn their names.
I think Tana handily adds evidence to my theory that capitals of poor countries are generally not very good, with little to see. I think it is because a lot of people end up living there, and they often don't have long histories of civilisation (at least not in the capitals, as they generally seem to be colonial because that is where the infrastructure was/is best), so they end up just being tons of houses. Maybe that is slightly unfair on Hanoi (though Vietnam is the richest of the poor countries I have visited), but Lima was certainly similar, and whilst I didn't visit Jakarta, Jogjakarta is supposed similar, and was similarly uninspiring.
Here are photos of my group, so you might have a general idea of who I am talking about if I mention them:
Andrew
Meryl
Photo pending
Nick
Photo pending
John
Pauline
Fiona
Matthew
Anna
Kasia
Sue
Rosa
Mamy - Our guide
You will notice that I didn't say any of the group are my roommate. That is because they aren't, I have a room to myself! I have mixed feelings about this: nobody to talk to, but nobody to compromise with (ie. No taking turns with showers, no snoring). I believe an upgrade to having your own room normally costs £250 on these trips, so I feel sort of like I won money.
Next up was a day of driving to Ambrositra. On the way Mamy told us some things about Madagascar. Surprisingly, the country was Comminist for a while in the 70s, but now is a democracy, with a new president elected every 5 years. Madagascar has 22 million people, sharply up from 10 million in the 90s, with 2 million living in Tana, and 3 million in the environs (but I knew this anyway thanks to the taxi driver yesterday!). The population is 92% Christian, with a fairly even split between Protestants and Catholics, with the remaining 8% being Animist (the native religion), and Muslim. The biggest animals are the zebu (which I ate), and the nile crocodile (which I hope won't eat me).
On the bus I mainly looked out of the window. I'll never be on this road again after all! At first, the scenery was very similar to the Peak District; not really what I had expected. This is the high plateau region apparently, and in terms of culture it is the most influenced by foreigners. We drove through a small town famous for its foie gras. I saw a woman walking along, carrying her handbag on her head. Maybe it was her headbag.
We stopped for lunch somewhere. I never saw the name written down, and it was impossible to remember, but I do know that it's specialty is aluminium decorations and utensils. I ate an omelette; the specialty of the place was still foie gras so I wasn't interested in that.
After Aluminium Town, the scenery changed once more. Now it was a lot like Indonesia, though the greens were quite as vibrant, as if everything were covered in dust (and that is entirely possible I guess). Apparently this was now a volcanic area, so it makes sense that it'd be similar. We stopped for a 5 minute walk to stretch our lets in a really random spot in the amooy bahbi (phonetically spelt. I daren't try to get the actual spelling from Mamy) or Rice Hills where there were people selling carrots and potatoes. I was expecting more exotic things from Madagascar, but apparently people grow whatever they want in their fields outside of rice season, and what these people wanted was carrots and potatoes!
We saw an overturned bus, which added a bit of excitement to proceedings, then shortly after we were back in Derbyshire again. The road, motorway 7 (which is one of the best maintained in the country, though don't let "motorway" fool you, it can barely fit 2 cars abreast), had started to get a little dicey in places. And I when I say "a little dicey", I mean 4 inch deep huge potholes, but it is all part of the fun in going to these places! They probably did for that other bus.
There was a close call in that my first room at our hotel did not have wifi, but luckily I had a twin, and some of the women on the tour got put in a double, so I was swapped to a room with wifi. Huzzah!
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