Sep 24 – Drive to Ranomafana National Park

Another very long drive today.  We were off right after breakfast.  But we did get a short tour of the downtown where we saw the train station (from the colonial days)…

and took a drive down busy Independence Avenue...

to Hotel de Therme.  It was so named for the thermal spas nearby.  It is a lovely, colonial hotel that apparently has seen better days. 

A busy street on the way to our next stop.

Then we stopped at a workshop that makes transportation models…trucks, cars, bicycle, rickshaws, etc.  They had some interesting stringed musical instruments on display out front (a different vendor).

 We had seen roadside stands along the way that had many of these larger items.  The nephew of the owner demonstrated how they make a tire for a bicycle. 

We wished that they had a handout that explained all of the materials used, as most of the materials were all recycled.  The wheel rim was cut from a soda can, then shaped by using tool and pressing the strip in the indentation that is just below the top of another soda can and holes punched for threading the spokes.  The spokes are fishing line threaded through the holes and around a very small spring that serves as the hub of the tire.  The rubber tire is expired medical tubing.  And all the other parts of the bicycle are recycled from electric and communication cables, rubber tires (burned to retrieve the cables in the tires), and other ingeniously sourced items. 

Some of the work on display. 

After the demonstration we also visited the room where women were embroidering items for sale.  So, of course we hit the showroom and bought a few items (supporting the local economy). 

Then it was on the road again.  The road today was at least as bad as yesterday, and in many places even worse.  A very rough ride.  And today we are going “only” 155 miles.

Again, the countryside was beautiful.  It became more mountainous but we still had lots of rice fields…

and villages.

We stopped for lunch in the town of Ambositra.  It was a nice hotel/restaurant that obviously catered to the tourist trade.  And as a treat, there was a group of locals performing traditional songs and dances.  A nice atmosphere for lunch.

And Paul's lunch was an upside rice bowl topped with a fried egg. 

While in Ambositra we also stopped at a woodworking shop.  The area used to have many woodlands, and the locals developed woodworking skills.  We saw a demonstration of some marquetry.  A remarkable and highly skilled trade.

Pattern for a marquetery piece

We spent some time in the sales shop and bought a few items. 

Then it was back on the road for another six hours or so.  A hat stand along the route.

The scenery was much like we saw in the morning.  The only real difference was late in the afternoon when we started seeing large numbers of people walking on the road.  They were all coming back from their trip to the local market.  It looked like everyone dressed up for going to market...with a lot of bare feet. 

We also saw a lot of the local buses traveling the route. 

This one had just come from a local market.  Note the live pigs trussed on top of the bus.

 One farmer was out by the side of the road with a variety of farm birds for sale.

It was late (~7:00) and dark when we pulled into the national park.  As we were driving to our hotel we passed many groups out on the evening safaris, looking for lemurs from the side of the road.  It was raining.  Didn’t look like a lot of fun.

Another anniversary welcome for us.