So it's almost been a week since I went for the best ride yet, with a group of great friends that I've been lucky enough to make while here. It's taken that week for me to digest the experience to be honest. I find the older I get the harder it is to quiesce reality with what is going on in front of me. In the last year it's been especially incredible to see all kinds of cool stuff but again even after it settles I find myself thinking "but like.. that wasn't ACTUALLY
real, was it?"... It took a while, but I've come to realize that the wonder I have for these places is the best part. Luckily, this last Sunday was no different.
The week had been interesting at work. Very stressful, lots to do, but good regardless - if you feel challenged you don't feel bored. Anyway, planning for the Sunday ride had begun the previous Sunday as is common but it wasn't suggested until late in the week that we hop on the bikes and ride to Foule Pointe, a popular beach town 80KMish North of Toamasina. I'd heard that the road up was in a pretty poor state and was excited - as what better way to test out your dirt bike?
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| My moustache and I getting ready to hit the road.. oh, and Ian :) |
The morning got started early as we knew we had a long ride ahead of us. The original plan was to leave at 8AM, try to get through as much of town as possible without hitting a police checkpoint and then continue North on the road to Foule Pointe.
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| Some last minute maintenance on Nolan's bike - the exhaust manifold was attempting to liberate itself from the head. Check out the sweet tail bag I brought back on my bike! |
Day bag packed, tail bag with tools attached precariously to my ride, we were ready to head out. Last minute paper check to ensure we're all legal, and we were off. First stop? Fuel!
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| The damn Dutch and their excellent gas are EVERYWHERE! |
No problem! Up the road to the Shell on route 2 on the SouthWest side of town for gas. Every station here is full serve... sorta. There is a guy, he works the pump for you, if there is gas. You pull up, the stations always look closed but there are usually 1 or 2 folks standing around the pump wearing what looks like a uniform. They come over, you tell them what you want for gas and they pump it and ask for money at the end. Never have I seen the store bit open, or more than two people (1 staff, 1 automatic weapon carrying soldier) at a gas station. It's different.
Anyway, fueled up and on the road we were optimistic about our chances of getting through town without much trouble. That was.. until we hit the main part of town and found the roads to be absolutely packed. And I mean full. It was like everyone in Toamasina had decided to go out for a Sunday morning walk/bike/ride/drive! Either way, traffic on a motorcycle is good fun and things were going quite well, making decent time.
We were crossing one of many intersections that are full on all four corners, making our own right of way like the rest of the folks, when I heard the whistle. Police in this corner of Madagascar rarely have cars, in fact I can't recall ever seeing one in Toamasina, nor do they have sirens or really anything other than whistles, white shirts, and rusty old pistols. When you hear the shrill blast of a whistle, you know they are looking at the Vazah in the crowd. Sure enough, in the crowd of folks on the other side of the road is two police officers looking at us with grins and dollar signs floating in their eyes.
You see, policing in Madagacar is unique. I don't claim to fully understand it, or really have anything beyond second hand knowledge of it but from what I do know there are 3 tiers. The first and most well equipped is the Army. These are the dudes carrying some sort of old Russian automatic weapon and wearing fatigues. On Sunday mornings is when they come out to do the majority of their policing. They will stop buses full of Vazahs about 5KM out of camp in hopes of catching someone without the proper paperwork. When that happens the official course of action is to take you down to the station and/or something that nobody is familiar with because what always happens is the ask for money. "Fines" range from 2000 to 10,000 AR quite typically but sometimes you get some folks that like to be creative and try to demand/intimidate/pry more out of you. It's a bit of a game really, only you don't have an AK.
The second type of police is the Gendarmarie. They are in between the military and the local police in that they are technically sort of like the RCMP I think. I've seen detachments all over Madagascar (or Tana anyway) and the are typically a little more prepared, preferring to rock brown/green fatigue type uniforms and carrying the same model of rusty pistol. I've been stopped by them the least and for the most part they have been pretty easy to deal with, though will try to find a reason to "fine" you nonetheless.
The third and final type of police officer is the local police. I'm honestly not quite sure what makes them police, who issues them authority, or if they are even police but when the man with the white shirts, blue hats, whistles, and odd looking mismatched very old pistols pull you over in downtown Toamasina traffic you stop. This particular day, these guys were most definitely looking to pad the beer fund but were left sorely disappointed when they found our paperwork in order. 20 sweaty minutes later (they want to make you sweat it out in hopes you'll pay them something) we were back on the way out of Toamasina.
Traffic began to thin out as we made our way through the center of the city and on to the North side and progress quickened. The roads in town are actually fairly good right now, as Ambatovy and the local government have worked together to repave a lot of the main strips over the years, and we were through town including the police check by about 845. Not too shabby.
The first 15 or 20 minutes that you ride North of Toamasina proper is kind of interesting. The town starts to progressively sprawl, as you ride further out you notice the building density drop, and drop. Side streets disappear into buildings lining the streets wall to wall, this slows down and drops further to more industrial type settings with walled in yards, etc dotting the road. Before you know it you're riding through beautiful greenery on a fairly decent 2 lane road (1 lane each way) and only the occasional traditional style hut / wooden building greets you.
Unfortunately, as I have gone over before, I am a horrible person and neglected to stop to take any photos on the way North. I was too engrossed in trying to absorb it all... and pass the massive bits of traffic that we'd catch up to without incident. More the former than the latter thankfully. Between the aforementioned moments of passing excitement mostly I was left gazing at stunning scenery left and right. It's good that I brought a closed face helmet from home as the number of bugs I'd swallow with my mouth hanging open all the time would be huge.
About a half hour out of Toamasina we ran into the 2nd of 5 police checks we would run into on our way North. The questions are always the same, where are you headed, where are you from, can I have your gloves, I like your shirt, can I have money? Smiles, nods, and a bit of pretending like you don't understand along with having the proper paperwork get you through nicely enough.
50KM North of town is when the roads started to get really interesting. The road work that I consider "good" is more like your typical mixed pavement gravel road. Sometimes you're hit with the most beautiful 2-3KM stretch of fresh blacktop which promptly turns to some gravel base, or has large pothole patches, etc. That is "good" road. This stuff we rode is not what most Canadians would consider road. It's fun, on a dirt bike, but in a car, or a mini-bus with 19 other passengers (yea) it could be compared to some sort of pre-Victorian torture. I can't even begin to imagine.
I guess the best way to put it is the road is still a road, but chunks of it are just missing. By missing, I mean that the pavement/gravel you ride on all of the sudden for the entire width of the road drops about a foot or two and turns to sand. Occasionally there are piles of very loose large gravel dotting the road, presumably for future repair plans or perhaps forgotten by a previous regime like most of the infrastructure in the country, which is not so fun to ride through on knobbly tires. For the most part though, the road-bits-that-werent-really-road-bits were great fun on the dirt bike's and did an excellent job of breaking up the monotony of a long pavement ride on a 250.
Eventually, the beautiful greenery gave way and we found the coastline. And what a coastline! You cross a number of rivers on the road North, on steel or concrete bridges with mostly complete surfaces, and all the bodies of water are quite green and gorgeous. But, at one point the road suddenly turns East and you emerge from the trees to be greeted by a stunning set of river deltas, white sand beaches, and genuinely beautiful but treacherous looking bays, islands, and peninsula type things. All quite ruggedly, astonishingly, staggeringly beautiful. I don't know how many times during the ride I said "whoa" out loud to no one in particular but it numbers in the high teens I'm sure.
Unfortunately, as mentioned earlier I neglected to stop and take many pictures. But I did snap a few on the way back that you'll see further down. Further up the road you unfortunately leave the coast for the forest again but are very quickly greeted by Foule Pointe. It sort of evolves out of the bushes just as Toamasina faded into them on our way out. You notice that you're nearing a town proper as the sparse huts and buildings give way to more well constructed buildings. Or at least buildings that look to be built of reasonably straight lumber and other building materials. You know you've really struck populace when you see the occasional concrete mega palace in amongst the rest.
So it was that we found ourselves stopped on the main road through Foule Pointe. This is where Ian said, "You know, the beach here is nice but it is really busy, about 20 minutes up the road there is this beautiful place called Mahambo that is a lot quieter and a lot nic...", before he could finish I said, "I'm in, lets move." Our other riding companion Nolan, being the type of guy that is too thoughtful to disagree, nodded and we were off.
The road between Foule Pointe and Mahambo was shocking to say the least. Shockingly good. It wasn't smooth blacktop but it was new rougher asphalt aggregate for the entire 20KM. Twisty, fun, and fast, we were making great time... Until we saw the check stop ahead. This time they were quite serious even going so far as to have a rusty spike belt laid out over half the road, and stopping nearly every vehicle going North or South. They were happy to see us....
We pulled over, produced our papers, and waited while they went through it. The guy I was talking to was quite chipper and we chatted a bit in my broken Frenglish and his broken English about how beautiful I thought his country was. Ahead of me, Nolan was having the same luck with his papers quickly handed back to him with a nod. At the front of the group however there was a problem. "Oh no!" Ian was saying with a purposefully theatrical exaggerated tone and a huge grin, "Expired? I had no idea!" he said dismounting the bike and following the solder who had his paperwork.
Unluckily and unfortunately unknown to Ian, his insurance papers (good for nothing more than the paper they are written on in this country) had "expired" two days prior. They had found an angle, and they were going to work it. The exaggerated "oh no" was just Ian's experience dealing with these guys speaking. The show was only starting, but he was ahead considerably already. Regardless, Nolan and I pulled ahead and dismounted to enjoy the show.
At the time I remember being distinctly concerned with the fact that we were some 90KM and ~2.5 hours North of Tomasina with 1/3 of our party immobile. It was a little weird trying to figure out contingency plans for where/what we were going to do next. Having nothing else to do, Nolan and I put our best stupid vazah smiles on and sat around chit chatting while watching Ian exchange friendly banter back and forth with the 5 soldiers trying to explain to him he needed to pay 50,000 AR (~$25USD) for his infraction.
I had a bit of a brainfart at that point. It was time, I thought, to take some photos! What better way to pass the time? Genius.
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| Nolan and his moustache enjoying the theatrics. |
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| Ian, the tetanus spike belt, and the police hut. |
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| The other way down the road. |
A half hour later, a lot of laughing on one side, and an ask from the local officers for some beer, we had a solution worked out and were on the way. What a learning experience it had been. A line I will never forget is Nolan asking Ian who is mid theatre if he was OK and if he needed us to call anyone or anything, only for Ian to reply without missing a beat in as nonchalant a voice as possible "No worries, they are just trying to figure a way of extorting more money out of me." I can imagine how strange that might sound to you reading it, but it was a welcome relief and a big learning moment.
Another 10 minutes up the road brought us to Mahambo. Which turned out to be a road sign that if you blinked you'd miss that directed you off the road down a dirt road through the main "town". Huts, wooden buildings, and concrete houses lined the main road as we wound our way through the tree-shaded road. At a fork up ahead Ian had stopped to wait for us to explain our options. He told of us some place called the Vanilla Hotel that supposedly had decent food and drink and wasn't too expensive, but then mentioned another place called the Pirouge that was a bit pricer but had an awesome private beach.
Fifteen minutes later we were sitting around a table, under a palm umbrella shade, on the edge of a beautiful white sand beach with a beer in hand. To say the place was stunning would not be doing it enough credit, I will let the pictures below do the talking.
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| Ian and his moustache enjoying the manliest drink ever from our hut. |
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| View from the right of the hut. |
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| View from the left. |
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| 10 feet out and to the right.. Seriously. How's the snow? |
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| Main building, with our hut on the right. |
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| Moustache selfie. The camera adds 20 lbs... Honest. :) |
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| Unmoustacheobstructed beach view to the left of the hut. |
So yea.. No words indeed. Simply gorgeous. We enjoyed a buffet lunch of rice and veg, beer, poached squid (so tasty, but so regrettable later that evening), and some chicken brochette. After lunch the guys went for a swim as they were smart enough to remember their bathing suits, and I stayed with the stuff at the table and had a quick zen. I'd brought headphones and water so enjoyed some relaxing music and about 12L of much needed water.
The gents came back from their swim and delivered the bad news. We only had about another hour before we had to saddle up and head back or we'd risk having to ride the roads in the dark. Not a good idea. They graciously agreed to hang out with the stuff and I plopped in my headphones, chucked on some Explosions in the Sky (awesome band, seriously, listen to the song first Breathe After a Coma, it was what I was rocking) and went for a stroll down the beach to contemplate this non-reality.
As I walked down the beach I thought of all kinds of stuff. The immediate reality of being here, on the Indian ocean, 15,000KM from Lisa and everyone else I love and care about set in rather quickly. But rather than consider the downside, I focused on the upside of the perspective it granted me on what is actually important in life. Thinking of home, how lucky I am to be able to experience this, and continuing to wander mouth open gaping at the scenery I walked to the end of the beach and snapped a a few shots.
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| Seriously, probably my favorite picture I've ever captured... and on my bloody iPhone. Ugh. |
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| Boat in sand. |
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| Looking back towards the hotel area. |
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| A shot onto the waves breaking on the point in the distance. |
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| Boat shot. |
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| Panorama. Click me for full size. |
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| Other side of the panorama. Same drill. Mom - this is the part you ask Dad for help. :) |
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| Contemplating my incredible luck. |
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| Further NorthWest on the beach. |
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| Shadow shot! OOO, ARTSY! |
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| Feet! No shorts, no problem! Roll up totally awesome Costco jeans! |
I headed back to join the guys, with some reluctance, not because I didn't want to chat with them, but because the walk had been so very excellent. The waves crashing softly against the mellow soundtrack in my head was making for perfection while I looked out over the horizon and dreamt of home. But, back to the hut I went, only to find Ian and Nolan had agreed another half hour was best. That way we could all put in some beach seat time. No argument there!
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| My beach umbrella |
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| I moustache you a question. |
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| Ian enjoying the beach. |
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| Feet! |
While enjoying the beautiful canvas beach chair was something I felt could go on for the remainder of the daylight unfortunately, reality was catching up and it was time to head out. We briefly discussed a strategy of all simultaneously calling in sick the next day but decided when the three of us who went on a ride all neglected to show up for breakfast with our bosses they'd probably figure it out.... Damn.
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| Quick group shot. Nolan, Ian, Me, Nolan's Moustache, Ian's Moustache, My Moustache |
So a quick group shot on the beach and back on the road. What an afternoon!
The drive back was pretty uneventful thankfully. The police were quite happy to wave us through having already attempted to fleece us and seeing no further opportunity. We made it to Foule Pointe quite quickly where we decided to stop for gas. That turned out to be another totally interesting adventure, unluck anything I've ever personally experienced before.
As we're riding through Foule Pointe, Ian stops ahead at a road side stand to ask the lady if she sells gasoline. Perplexed I asked him how she could possibly have gas. He explained that the majority of small towns sell gas in 1L water bottles for just that reason as there aren't really many gas stations outside the main cities like Toamasina. That said, the woman told us in French that there was a Jovenna up the road, so off we went.
I remember thinking as we headed South out of Foule Pointe that it was odd that I hadn't seen the gas station on the way into town, but I chalked it up to my excited touristy eyes on the way in and started looking out for fuel. Ahead on the right was an old concrete two storyish building. I say storyish because it looks like the original building was only one story but someone at some point pasted a second story on, laying the concrete with the bristles of a large push broom I can only assume. Anyway, on the side of said building was a hand painted interpretation of the Jovenna logo. At least it was spelled right I guess?
Sure enough, under the logo that looked more like a child's painting, or something I would come up with if someone told me to paint a copy of the Shell logo, there was a family owned "gas station". I use quotes not just because I enjoy abusing punctuation but because what I'm calling a gas station is the nightmare of every OHSA everywhere. It was a concrete shack probably 20 ft by 20ft with a single doorway and a 4x4 window barred shut with wood / steel poles. Inside, was a family complete with small children playing on the gas and oil soaked floor, and two open barrels of gasoline sitting on stands. At the bottom of each barrel was a spout, a bucket with a plastic screen on top, and empty one 1L water bottles.
Ian told the very happy to see us totally not stoned on gas fumes lady tending the pump? tank? whatever, that we each wanted 1L. The magical process that followed was quite efficient but also terrifying. From the spout she drew what she thought was 3L, poured into the 1L containers through a funnel until they were full, and then brought a funnel/filter contraption over to our tanks to ensure what we got was reasonably clean gas. I was fascinated and fully engrossed in the process, so much so that I only noticed at the end the efficiency of the bottle recycling going on. You see, plastic water bottles, gasoline, and sun don't really work well long term for the plastic bottle. The bottles tend to shrink a bit, shrivel, and turn yellow brown. At that point you would think that they would throw them away, burn them, use them for old oil, etc... But no! No sir! Why would you do something as foolish as that when you have two toddlers playing in the sand out front that need TOYS? Yeah. Toys. Thoroughly horrified, and wondering how it was one could communicate just how ... wrong ... it was for them to be letting that happen I remembered it was time to leave.
I think we paid $2 for that L of gasoline, but to escape the absolute terror of not being able to effectively communicate the dangers to the point that I would've likely only offended the hard working folk I'd of paid $200.
Back out on the road the miles melted by as traffic was light and the three of us had settled into a good rhythm. As we neared the first of the bridges I stopped to snap a few shots when traffic allowed.
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| Pretty river with ocean in distance. |
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| Other side of river. |
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| Zoomed in shot of river / ocean complete with tetanus rails. |
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| Another river. |
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| Nolan and I laughing gleefully and Ian's saddle soreness and sweaty ass. |
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| Afternoon sun over the river. |
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| Kids playing on the river on a raft. |
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| Ian, looking very contemplativey. (It's a word) |
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| Last shot back up the road to Mahambo. |
Passing over the last bridge before Tomasina proper we started to see signs of the big city again. A quick and uneventful ride through town and we found ourselves back at camp in nearly half the time it had taken us to get to Mahambo. Incredible how much time you can save when you don't have to stop 5 times for police "checks".
All in all - a hell of a way to spend a Sunday.
For those interested, you can check out the GPS log of the trip by
clicking here.
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