Lake Itasy

Having had a bit of a cold at the end of last week i couldn't really face a weekend of kayaking and wild camping with Jen and Em so decided to go away with some of the other students that we are living with: 2 English med students, 2 french med students and 2 french nursing students.

We got a taxi brousse (sort of like a minibus but smaller and no leg room!) from Tana. The journey, heading west, took 3 hours but there was beautiful scenery all the way there. on arriving in Ampefy we found some lake side bungalows called the terrace. Everyone was pretty blown away by how stunning the surroundings were and we sat for a while on the veranda and watched the sun set on the little lake and all of the locals fishing from their piroges. We had an amazing meal in the terrace restaurant that evening and sampled the delights (or not) of various local flavoured rums, ranging from vanilla, ginger, pineapple, apple or house, with varying degrees of strength!!!!!!

Saturday morning started with breakfast in the sun on the veranda before heading off to see the chute de la lily (a local waterfall). 4 of the group decided to walk while 3 of us hired bikes. The bike itself was an experience - back to the days of cantilever breaks that actually may as well not have been fitted for the use they were when trying to stop!!! We cycled 4-5 km up the road along the side of lake Itasy (3rd largest lake in Madagascar), watching the locals swim, fish from piroges or just working in their paddy fields. Then the off road track started. It was by this stage that i was beginning to appreciate why i ride a full suspension bike when i go riding in the UK. The vibrations through the handle bars was very tiring, and actually managed to give one of the French boys blisters on his hands! We had to ask the way a few times when the track bifurcated and generally people were very helpful. There was one point however when some local boys pointed us down the wrong track. It didn't take us long to realise as the track was almost impossible to ride along due to the massive gulley's - guess they were just paying us back for refusing to take up their services as local guides!!!!! After about 5 km we had to leave our bikes with some locals and carry on one foot.

The falls themselves were very impressive and about 18m high. There is zip line that we could have taken across the waterfall but that experience will have to wait for another time.

The ride back from the falls was also eventful. No sooner had we set off than the saddle on my bike broke! The metal clamps that hold the saddle on to the seat post broke through the plastic of the saddle so i had to sit on the metal clamps all the way home, and i still have the bruises to prove it! Back at the bungalows we made use of the complimentary piroges. It was very entertaining watching everyone struggle to make them go in a straight line, in fact some of them just went round in circles!!!!! I think people were quite surprised and a little frustrated that i wasn't having such problems, especially as they had all taken the boats out in pairs and i had one by myself. Knowing how to use the paddle as a rudder and having on occasions paddled a open canoe may have helped with that!

Dinner that evening was a little disappointing, maybe because we had been spoilt the previous night, but having decided to try somewhere new, my poulet roti and chips turned out to be a chicken wing and few chips while vegetable soup turned out to contain meatballs - not great when the girls ordering it was a vegetarian!!! However we made up for it by returning to the previous nights restaurants for pudding - banana flamée. Having had such a small main course, pudding then extended to a a pancake as well much to everyone else's amusement - or maybe it was just the rum they were drinking again!!!!!

On Sunday morning we all headed off on foot for the island of the virgin Mary - which contrary to the title isn't an island but is attached by bit of land protruding out. The walk was very much like the Madagascar i had expected to see having read the guide books - the tracks were bright red mud and very dusty, surrounded by very lush vegetation and the lake side had many many paddy fields. Yet again the locals (all of whom seemed to be chewing sugar cane) greeted us and some even stopped us to a chat and we ended up having a short game of football with their young children, with the ball being made out of plastic bags and elastic bands all entwined.
There were stunning views over lakeItasy from the top of the hill on which the virgin Mary monument stood. All of the surrounding hills are extinct volcano's and the lake itself being one of the former craters. The walk back turned out to be slightly shorter for 3 of us. Since one of the girls had very sore feet we were lagging behind when we saw all of the locals taking a short cut across a very narrow path raised up across the paddy field. It was certainly an interesting deviation especially when we had to nip through someones garden at the other end (strangely they were only too happy to be accomodating) and the others were quite surprised to come across us in front of them when they finally caught us up after taking at least 20 minutes off the walk back!

Not sure that the trip back to Tana is one i want to repeat in a hurry - particularly with the taxi brousse driver that we had; Slightly hairy would probably be an understatement when describing the speed, over taking and the general driving on the wrong side of the road when approaching bends in order to get the racing line!!!