Leaving Madagascar

Rain sprinkled the windshield of the ancient Peugeot as I drew further from the hills of Antananarivo, that great city of beauty and poverty, through the rice paddies alongside the road and out to the airport. The motor roared and steel rattled as we rounded the bends of the two lane road that led me further from my little room in that city of dreams.

I made my way for the coast cruising ten thousand metres above brown scorched land, the dirt roads indistinguishable from serpentine rivers flowing seaward. As we soared westward, the land gave way to a great blue where the sea disappears into the sky without any horizon. I looked north hundreds of kilometres over the estuaries that perforate the rugged coastline, leaving behind me the adventure of adventures.

Much as I loved the country, it is not a safe place. I had that reinforced time and time again with attempts at petty theft or robbery. Political instability has combined with abject poverty, and fermented a rapid deterioration into lawlessness. It affects everybody who treads the earth of that outpost of humanity adrift in the vastness of the indian ocean. The instability has led to the emergence of mafias, some no more than gangs of teenage thugs, who ply the streets by night. Police are nowhere to be found, with the exception of those who patrol the highways, extorting bribes for minor infractions. Most cities are unsafe and there is never a cop in sight.

There are ways to deal with that of course and I spent more of my time worrying about lemurs and interminable rides in taxi-brousses, the horrible logistical solution to the lack of transportation in this inaccessible place. Fatigue sets in after long hours of movement and days were spent with my balls crushed on a hard bench through the night as my travel companions vomited into cheap plastic bags that they periodically discarded out the window.

Fed up with the grinding ordeal of marathon jouneys testing every notion of discomfort that I had ever conceived, I had the good fortune to meet Jinja again, a great friend that carried me through the last days of my journey on her unimaginable island. We made our way through city streets, climbed valley walls, froze in the highlands and watched the lemurs squeak and jump through the lush alien landscape.
As I move back to Africa and forward with this journey, once again I turn my mind to what it means to have friends at the end of the world.

As the plane drifts along the curving Mozamican coastline, I can feel the land again. Back to Africa, a true continent with all of its beauty and flaws.