Week 3 Diego Suarez - Island - Tana - SA

An hour before sunrise the next morning we left for the island on a motor boat. Our company now included Gilles, Gilles’ two daughters, the four Spaniards, a cook, a fisherman and someone in charge of the boat. The boat driver complained when I stuck my leg overboard in the water, fearing that it will attract sharks. Supposedly there are lots of sharks and tales of near death experiences of the local fishermen.

After unloading and pitching tents, we started working our way through the climbing routes on the island. Then we ate breakfast, snorkeled and investigated caves on the island. I had this obsession to bury a treasure somewhere on the island. Dave insisted that we do not tell Gilles about this or he may realize we are nuts. Anyway, that must have become obvious when I started cooking muesli using only peanuts, sugar, flour and coconut. I accidentally burned a hole through a plastic bucket in the process, but the end result was quite nice and filling. The Spanish people even wrote down the recipe in a notebook. Apparently they do not have muesli in Spain, only Granola bars.

Following a speared-fish dinner, Dave and I played drinking games with Gilles’ two daughters and the Spanish chicks. Activities included ‘shoot the bunny’ and ‘the vegetable game’ which were quite amusing after a few glasses of punch (rum and nectarine juice).

We went by boat to another nearby island for some climbing the next day. This island has two climbing areas and we went to the southern crag. Although it is reasonably safe to swim close to the islands, we were told that there were sharks and we should not try to swim across the channels between the islands. There are supposedly also strong currents and deep abysses. Dave got quite upset, noticing that the Spanish were video taping me the whole time and Gilles was taking pictures of me for publicity for his tours. Then Dave cracked and insisted that Gilles take a picture of him ‘because his mom would like to have one’.

In the evening we ate langoustine, octopus and fish. The octopus was severely beaten with a stick to make it more tender. I ate some of its leg with its suction pads. Banana flambé was also served. The cook, Tiu, appeared to know what he was doing.

On the third day I felt inspired to open a new route on the island. I spotted an overhanging arete on nice orange coloured – tsingy free – rock. So I started climbing up with my trad gear and was pleasantly surprised that there were good jugs all the way through which makes the grade about 6a+ (20). At the top we decided to place a treasure in a hole on the arete overlooking the sea. (No, this is not like ‘find the nugget’). We abseiled off into the sea as the tide was starting to draw in. Dave went down first and pulled me inwards towards the land since I went down with all the climbing gear.

Later that day we went to the northern crag of the other nearby island we visited previously. Marcello and Peie decided not to climb. The routes looked quite bad – climbing on sharp tsingy. We did a 35m 6c which turned out to be a nightmare to get off from. Our ropes were wet from our previous excursion and were too short. Furthermore, we only had one grigri. I abseiled down first on a single rope in the typical stop-start fashion as the grigri slips over the wet rope’s sheath. Then Dave threaded the 9mm rope through the (rusted) chains and knotted it to the 11mm so that he could abseil off the 11mm while I hold onto the 9mm.

For some obscure reason Christina decided to walk around topless. Later that night we celebrated Tiu’s birthday and Dave made everyone write their contact details on his guitar which he named ‘Leanne’. Ever since, Dave tries to draw more links between his guitar and ex-girlfriend.

We returned back to the mainland by moonlight the next morning. On the way, we came across a fishing boat with fishermen that were drifting at sea. Their motor was broken or out of gas or something (I don’t speak French). We pulled them back to the fishing village and left for Diego.

Upon arrival back at the hotel, we ate egg sandwiches - of course – and discussed our plan of action. We decided to change our flight to Tana 2 days earlier so that we can do some granite climbing as well.

Everything went smoothly at the Air Madagascar office for Dave, but I did not bring my tickets along. I had to go fetch my ticket. Foreseeing the possibility of a lunch break, I had Dave ask them when they close for lunch. They replied 16h30. We did not get any further with a second attempt, so I asked if I could come back in 10 minutes and asked if they will not be closed. They said ok. Guess what? They did close for lunch before 11h45 when I arrived back there. I was quite displeased so I decided to bake ‘stokbrood’ (flour+sugar+water) using my nutpick over my msr stove in the hotel room. I also baked hard-boiled eggs and made banana flambe, for Dave this time.

Christina felt quite bad for the past week... actually, on the road trip to the island, we had to stop a couple of times and Meite was resourceful with her camera. Anyway, the Spanish were getting a bit concerned and made a local tour guide take her to a doctor.

Dave and I went for a day trip to Montagne des Ambre with this same tour guide who claims to speak 5 languages which he learned as a sailor on a cargo vessel. Law does not allow tourists to enter this nature reserve without a tour guide. So we had to let him guide us. We visited various waterfalls and walked through the forest on well-defined and marked paths, but did not manage to see any wildlife besides spiders and small birds. The guide was talking crap all the time. He said stuff like ‘here is a bridge to cross the stream’ and ‘there is a tree, but I don’t know what it is called’. We walked past some strawberry bush and he said that we could eat them but he did not want to eat it himself. Then when we walked past a vine, he said that they are very strong, so I started to climb up it.

We met up with the Spanish for a drink at an Italian restaurant that evening to celebrate our departure.

On our last day at Diego, we returned to Montagne des Francais. Dave was extremely reluctant and ‘ill’ as usual. We decided to walk and hitch a ride, rather than hiring a taxi. Fortunately we found the other climbing venue without too much effort this time, although we did end up walking all the way to the top of the mountain first. Actually it was very cool. There is a French fort and the only (non-rockclimbing) ascent possible are through dug-out worm hole tunnels which could be used to ambush enemy troops.

We discovered some very pleasant limestone crags, and after we did our bit of climbing, we explored the Canyon area and some caves. When we got down we were quite sweaty, so we bathed in the sea in front of King’s lodge, ate cookies, then hitched a ride back to Diego in a 4x4.

This hitch-hiking seems to work quite well, so we could not resist hitching to the airport as well. Before we got the lift, carrying all our luggage, a few taxi’s offered to take us to the airport for R50 – to which we laughed of course.

In Ivato, we settled in at Manor Rouge hotel for the night. Don’t order pizza there if you like unburned crusts.

The next morning we went to Tana to catch a taxi-brousse to Ratamanga village. This is a sacred village and is built on a hill. There is a large flat, round stone that can be rolled to cover a port – the only entrance. The gardens around the hill are well laid with cobblestone paths and there is a monastery and lookout points near the top of the hill. We drank a coke at a quite famous / romantic / expensive restaurant. The band started playing as we were seated. Then we asked the manager if he knew where the climbing was. Fortunately he knew Gilles and all about the climbing.

We headed off by detour (the direct path did not work in Montagne des Francais) and eventually reached the granite domes. Although the routes were quite easy, I found them extremely pleasant and of high quality. The granite is superb and much more compact than at Lion’s Head, for example.

That night we camped at a suspicious location. Basically it appeared to be a lookout point and the path leading up to it was cairned with crosses. There also was an altar with bloodstains and strange symbols of graffiti on an open cave which provided wind shelter for our tent. Dave stayed in the tent the whole time while I cooked beef flavoured noodles which we ate with bread. At some time that night I dreamed I was murdered – very appropriate!

The next morning was quite rainy, although it did not actually rain. We decided to walk back to Ivato (about 10km away) and buy food and eat from every stall we come across on the way back. It was a completing experience for me, having seen only towns thus far, walking through the rural areas and rice patties. After our first purchase of cookies and coke, local kids started following us as if Dave or I were the pied piper.

Although we had no useful map, we could see airplanes land so we knew more or less where to go. Dave nearly collapsed due to ‘back pain’ and insisted that we rest a while when we were about a kilometer away from our hotel. After a !!!hot!!! shower - the first one since South Africa – we went to Tana to eat and Dave needed to go to the bank.

I felt quite hungry, so we went to a couple of pastries, a restaurant and an excellent coffee shop, which sells large slices of Black Forest Cake for only R5. At the restaurant I ate two large dishes of rice/vegetables/zebu/egg/noodles. When we returned back to our hotel, I consumed a can of condensed milk.

The next day we revisited Tana to buy presents to take home. I tried to swap a R5 worth watch (which I bought for R80 at Duty-Free in Joburg) for 4 lamas, but was not too successful (they wanted to swap it for my polartec). Dave, on the other hand, had to contemplate if he wanted to spend all of the remainder of his money on a drum for himself or on gifts for his family. After some deliberation he concluded that souvenirs would have more value to someone who has actually been to Madagascar.

At the airport, we raided a basket of complementary sweets at the counter and stashed it in our pockets. We got bored in the waiting area, so we started bouldering, doing handstands, flags and traverses to the amusement of the others. I also placed some trad gear in cracks and lifted a manhole-cover (in the waiting area) using a nut. Dave and I were just planning a Tyrolean traverse when they finally let us board the plane. On the plane we could not resist asking for seconds, and thirds of airplane meals. Swinging from side to side does not destabilize a Boeing 747 – we tried.