Madagascar - Titanic Tana

June 16, 19, 29

Hello everyone!

Madagascar. Home of King Julian, according to the kids. And a whole lot more…

No live ones in the centre of Antananarivo, obviously!

View of Lake Anosy from the Rova

Pain au raisin and cafe de lait, an example of the French influence

The large island off the coast of Africa has been a place I’ve really wanted to visit for a long time. After faking a visit in December in order to surprise Hannah in the Bahamas, I am spending two weeks in Madagascar this June. For real, this time.

The poinsettia leaf can be folded to look
a bit like the island of Madagascar

At its nearest point, Madagascar is about 400 km from mainland Africa

Having now spent three years living in Malawi, I was also interested to see how the two countries compared. Both rank very lowly on recent poverty indexes and seem to have large issues with climate change and a young, rapidly growing population.

Tana stretches for many, many miles

Both are ranked in the bottom 10 on a recent rich list

Though geographically quite close, it is a bit of a mission to get to Madagascar from Malawi. Those with lots of money will fly via South Africa; I flew via Ethiopia. Interesting event on the way - my flights were 13 hours apart so I was shuffled through Ethiopian immigration without a visa and put into a hotel in the city. Quite nice of them!

The yellow route would have been about
2 hours...the black route took about 24 hours.

Ethiopian give you a voucher with a hotel on it, with their
buses waiting to whisk you away from the airport

Probably the nicest place I stayed during my whole trip!

The vast majority of people will enter Madagascar through its capital, Antananarivo. Like many places in the country, its name is...long. Luckily, most people call it ‘Tana’.

Antananarivo translates as 'Land of 1000 Soliders'

Bit quicker to say...

Most people who come to Madagascar land in Tana and escape as soon as possible. As you’ll see in future blogs, there are plenty of reasons to venture away from the central capital. I gave myself a couple of days either side of my big trips to explore Madagascar’s hub.

The steep hills were deemed sacred by previous kings

Lake Anosy is an artificial lake created on a swamp -
the column is a French WW1 memorial

Though I wanted to see Tana as a blank canvas, I kept on comparing it to my current home of Lilongwe. As I walked around the windy roads (you’ll soon see why I was walking), I decided that the comparison I was looking for was...more. Tana is just more.

Looking down the hill - the umbrellas
in the far distance are stalls

Madagascar have qualified for their first ever African
Cup of Nations - football fever is very visible

This is both positive and negative. Tana has more history, an obvious statement as it has been a capital for hundreds of years whereas Lilongwe has had that honour for less than forty.

The prime minister's palace - he fled with
Queen Ranavalona III to escape the French

The build-up to Madagascar's Independence Day, on
June 26th, was well underway when I was in Tana

The history of royalty is evident at the Rova Manjakamiadana (I told you the names were long). The rova (pronounced ROO-va) is the queen’s palace. Sitting atop one of Tana’s many hills, it was used by three queens, all called Ranavalona. Much of it was destroyed in a fire in 1995.

The white stone is original and red stone is new

The hole is where zebu (cows) would be
sacrificed for feasts

Tana has more greenery. You’ll do well to find a cosy green park shaded by trees in Lilongwe. There are many in Tana. Some areas are large, such as Lake Anosy. Other small parks are dotted around on the hills of the city. Even though it is winter, it’s pretty warm in the sunshine so it’s nice to rest your legs in the park.

A green area on Avenue de L'Independance

One of the parks had an astroturf football pitch

Linked to that, there are more amenities. Playgrounds in those parks is just one example.

Trampolines and bouncy slides in a central park

This is of course because Tana is much, much bigger. It has far more people than Lilongwe - wild guesses range from between 3 million and 5 million inhabitants. The city centre, which is based around Avenue de L’Independance, is packed with people. Taxi-brousses, or mini-buses, are crammed to the point that the money collectors hang out of the back of the bus with the door open.

The population in Tana is expected to exceed 6 million
in the next decade

How mini-buses roll: with an open back door

The city sprawls for many miles and within it you see more obvious poverty. As Lilongwe’s centre is quite small, you don’t really see too much desperation unless you head to certain areas of town. In Tana, you’ll encounter beggars regularly and see some heart-breaking hardship.

I saw many people sleeping rough in areas like this in Tana

Those who live on the outskirts of Tana often don't have
the most basic of resources

What you also see more of - and a reason why Tana can be an incredibly frustrating place - is the traffic. It is insane. A three-hour trip to Andasibe took five hours...because it took two hours to get out of Tana. Standstills, in spite of police traffic controllers, are common. This leads to noise, pollution and a general annoyance with what’s going on.

Even though many roads have multiple lanes, traffic
regularly comes to a standstill

The lack of space means many roads can't be widened

What Tana does have in a positive way, due to its colonial history, is much more of a French influence. Avenue de L’Independance has a faded glamour of a wide French boulevard. Menus have a plat du jour, making the cheap food even more value for money. Baguettes seem almost as common as rice!

Menus are often handwritten in French

Baguette, fromage et jambon, s'il vous plait?

Tana is certainly an eye-opening welcome to Madagascar. I’m glad I spent some time in its loud and vibrant capital. The ‘Land of 1000 Soldiers’ has many more people now and is a sensory overload, for good and bad. A fascinating start to travelling around a fascinating country.

Sunset on the hills of Antananarivo

Love you all,

Matt