Mahambo adventures or the coolest thing to do on a Sunday in Madagascar ever

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?

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.

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!

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.

Nolan and his moustache enjoying the theatrics.

Ian, the tetanus spike belt, and the police hut.

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.

Ian and his moustache enjoying the manliest drink ever from our hut.

View from the right of the hut.

View from the left.

10 feet out and to the right.. Seriously. How's the snow?

Main building, with our hut on the right.

Moustache selfie. The camera adds 20 lbs... Honest. :)

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.

Seriously, probably my favorite picture I've ever captured... and on my bloody iPhone. Ugh.

Boat in sand.

Looking back towards the hotel area.

A shot onto the waves breaking on the point in the distance.

Boat shot.

Panorama. Click me for full size.

Other side of the panorama. Same drill. Mom - this is the part you ask Dad for help. :)

Contemplating my incredible luck. 

Further NorthWest on the beach.

Shadow shot! OOO, ARTSY!

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!

My beach umbrella

I moustache you a question. 

Ian enjoying the beach.

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.

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.

Pretty river with ocean in distance.

Other side of river.

Zoomed in shot of river / ocean complete with tetanus rails.

Another river.

Nolan and I laughing gleefully and Ian's saddle soreness and sweaty ass.

Afternoon sun over the river.

Kids playing on the river on a raft.

Ian, looking very contemplativey. (It's a word)

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.

Adventure Sunday - Bike Ride #3

EDIT - I remembered to GPS log the trip, check out the route and read along by clicking here.

Last weekend brought another bike ride, and though a little shorter than the previous it was still quite the day! The morning started out bright and early with a quickly whipped up protein pancake breakfast. A pancake a piece, two pots of coffee, and a box of cinnamon toast crunch between the three of us roommates prepared us for the day ahead.

This time we thought we were being smart by getting ready to leave and being out the door by 9AM. We're heading into the peak of summer heat here in Madagascar and being close to the coast you sure do notice those +34 days with 80% humidity a lot more than you'd think.

A quick pre-ride inspection of the bike showed that despite being Chinese it took the beating of the last two weekends in stride!

Look at that amazing moustache, just look at it. Beautiful.

Gear donned, bikes warmed up, and the sun rapidly heating up our world, we were ready to rock. And so it was that five of us set out on an adventure, this time heading NorthWest of town to what used to be an old motocross track.

Riding out of camp and heading North until we crossed the railroad tracks, a quick left to head West to the Shell to gas up. So far so good, no issues, the bike is running well, I haven't fallen off or missed a shift, and I remembered to bring enough money to pay for gas. Winning!

Gassed up I engage first gear with a quick flick of the toe, slowly roll the clutch out of my fingers and twist into the throttle. Through the traffic circle with a bit of lean, and accelerate up to the speed limit. The five of us are heading North down route 2 on the West side of town. In my year in Toamasina, I've yet to actually go this way, I find myself trapped between the desire to gawk and the need to pay attention. I vote for the latter and keep my eyes firmly affixed to the road ahead. That racecar vision thing is finally paying off.

This time I was prepared, I remembered to bring my camera. The only problem is when you're riding in a group of five, concentrating on keeping up and not getting in the way of traffic you forget to stop and take any pictures... for a while. Whoops. Next rotation I'm bringing back my GoPro!

Anyway on our way to the trail we passed a number of businesses, huts, houses, and a very swanky looking place complete with it's own helicopter pad and a moat. Yeah, a moat. 100,000 AR says a politician lives there!

Up ahead to the left there's a red dirt road, we've found our exit. Signalling, avoiding the oncoming traffic, and a quick left and we're off road heading for the bush. We stop briefly and Colin (a South African friend and an experienced Malagasy biker) informs us that we're riding on what used to be a motocross track, until it fell into disuse and people turned the racetrack into streets and promptly built huts on it. Hilariously enough when I checked the route on google maps later sure enough you can see the old outline. These people don't EVER let an opportunity go to waste, very resourceful.

Anyhow, a little further down the sandy/dirt road and a few near misses in losing the front wheel we come to the first obstacle. A slough, or as the Malagasy call it, the local car wash, laundry machine, bathing area, and drinking water. Luckily for us, they have built the SKETCHIEST LOOKING multi-tiered platform bridge of death ever. Complete with various wheel snagging gaps, no railing, and about three feet of useable width. I actually muttered "You've got to be shitting me." shortly before Colin popped over the 250 feet of death like it was no big deal.

The following is paraphrasing my thought process in my attempt to get over. Great... now I have to do this without falling. I sucked at this stuff even when I was on a mountain bike. Ah well, what would Niels do in this situation? ... He'd probably use his talent and experience... too bad you don't have any. OK, you've got this, focus, look ahead, don't think about falling, don't think about falling, don't think about falling, SHIT you're falling, no you're OK, a little more throttle, OH SHIT WATER, THROTTLE, THROTTLE, GO, Whew! ... Hooray for you! You're off, and in spectacular fashion even, without getting wet! Just pretend like that was totally on purpose, don't make eye contact, they'll know.

Surely there can't be anything quite that sketchy again, what's that over the crest? Oh god. Another one. Well, you've done this once already, it can't be that bad, you've got the hang of it. Alright, not too fast but not too slow either, just ease it over. Wow - that's a big gap ahead. Oh god, it swallowed the front wheel, what're you going to do to avoid getting wet? THROTTLE! It worked last time! Wee, air time, and off. Thank god I don't have to do that again! Oh wait, how am I going to get back? DAMMIT!

The bridges of death conquered for now, we start making some decent progress as the flatish land makes it's way into rolling bushy hills. Turning right around the corner brings us past a makeshift quarry where they've essentially dug out the side of a hill with a shovel. No joke. Lacking the equipment to properly quarry it's pretty common that a group of people will come together and using nothing but the sweat off their backs and some hand tools quarry out rock, manually break it into gravel, and sell it as road crush at market. This particular quarry looks fairly abandoned but there is probably a couple of square acres that have been mined, and 200 vertical feet of hill that is missing. Pretty impressive site. In true Matt fashion however, the camera stayed snug and warm in my pocket. Awesome work!

Past the quarry and into the bush we go. Up and up over some rapidly narrowing and far more technical riding. I'm about second from the back of the pack at this point, trying to stay out of the way and keep up. The rider in front of me is trying to climb a fairly narrow and fairly steep bit of trail in between two trees. I watch him go up, he's about 2/3's of the way there and making good time. I see a different line and go for it thinking I've left him enough time to get over and up. Wrong. Rule #1 - give the guy ahead time to get up the hill before you head up, dumbass.

The rider in front promptly loses momentum and stops, nearly rolling his bike over backwards. I rapidly close the gap to him and veer left to avoid a collision caused by nothing other than my own stupidity. Hidden in the brush is a stump of a long since cut down tree. I catch it with my steel toed riding boot which promptly gets kicked backwards off my foot peg. The steel toothed peg grabs the tree trunk and I come to a halt right now. Luckly for me I was already slowing down so I stayed on the bike, grabbed a handful of brakes, and put my feet down.

Then I look down and notice my once immaculate gear shift lever is now a pretzel, folded over and jammed between the tree trunk and the foot peg. Awesome. You're 30 minutes into the ride and you're going to have to push your bike home. Easing the bike off of it's tree stand I lean over to assess the damage. Hmm... I could use a pair of pliers I brought along and gently ease the gear level back into position, but it's hot out and I'm pissed off at my own stupidity and that damn tree trunk. So I decided it was way easier to use my foot, kicked the pedal straight, knocked it into gear, and hammered it on up the hill.

At the top is where the group was waiting and where we stopped and I remember to take my first picture. We made a big mistake though, and stopped where there was no shade. A couple of minutes of standing around netted a few pictures and a bodily fluid loss of at least a litre. No joke. You lose an absolutely insane amount of water in the direct sunlight, the heat is really like nothing I've ever experienced.

Despite a large bruise on the leg, a slightly crooked gear shift, and a rapidly depleting supply of sweat, I remembered I was standing somewhere beautiful and snapped a couple of shots.

This was post crazy uphill but pre realization that it was really damn warm outside, thus everyone looks quite pleased with themselves.

So, having thoroughly congratulated ourselves for being totally amazing dirt bike masters we set off again further into the bush. Our intrepid guide Ian was in the lead, taking a left at a fork, leading us down a really steep hill, and continuing deeper into the bushy green sea.

Ahead, the group began to slow. Ian had stopped at the top of a very rutted and fairly steep hill covered in leaves. Once again I remember thinking, "Well, that looks impossible to ride back up, there is no way we're going any further.", and before I could voice my sanity he was in gear and down the hill.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that riding down the hill wasn't nearly as difficult as I imagined it would be. When I got to the bottom I once again gave myself a mental pat on the back, nearly hit the guy in front again, and then remembered that I had to ride up that very same hill. Shit. More foresight is required. Just as I was coming to that very late realization, I looked up to determine why we'd again stopped so suddenly at the bottom of the hill. Apparently, the trail we were riding had promptly run out and dropped us into a rice field built into the valley between two hills. Awesome.

So you know how sometimes you convince yourself you really want something and then immediately regret it? Yeah. Sitting at the bottom of two really steep hills with no way out but backwards and six inches of rice paddy mud on either side is a lot like that. With all five of us at the bottom of the hill it was a sweaty 30 minutes getting the bikes turned around without getting stuck and then right back up the hill.

I thoroughly amazed myself by making it up unscathed and stopped at the top to assist anyone else that might need a hand. 3 of the 5 made it without issues, the rest required some help and/or a couple of tires to get it done. Queue shit eating grin. :)

This is the top of the hill, it looks pretty tame in the photo, but it drops off quite quickly where the trail ends. Good times.

The group reunited once again at the top we made the horrible decision to stop to catch our breath. Once again we lost about 5L of water sitting around breathing heavy before setting out back in the direction from whence we came.

This is what you look like after you've realized stopping was a really shitty idea.

Just before heading out Ian admits (to his credit) that he is really lost at this point and he thinks he knows where we missed a turn. Cool, no problem, we'll just head back the way we came and then take the correct turn. We all set out with Ian in the lead, I'm 2nd last in the group and ahead of me Phil slows down to head up a smallish hill. I again decide to follow him up (I'm a slow learner), he bails after clipping a tree, I go around him to the right and head up to the top.

Looking back to make sure Phil's OK I look ahead... hmm... where'd everyone go? Better get a move on to catch up. We start making great time as the trail opens up again. It's really a ton of fun hopping from clean line to clean line trying to find that balance between speed and control. I realize we've been riding for quite a while now and we've not seen hide nor hair of the fellows in front.

We round a bend to the left and Phil takes off, I flag him down and he says he's seen Nolan ahead. Crack open the throttle and tearing dirt up the hill we catch up to Nolan who's noticed that he'd lost the folks behind. He stops, we stop, he says "Where's Ian?"... queue perplexed looks at each other... "We thought he was with you?" I question... "Well, he was... but then he wasn't. I don't know." Hmm... Great. We've lost someone, in the bush, in Madagascar. The day is going wonderfully!

Colin, the veteran trail rider and voice of reason pipes up "Ah, forget it, he'll find us, keep going." Already thinking of what I'm going to tell his parents at the funeral, we ride on. Five more minutes down the trail we come to an old concrete "bridge" that hops over what we affectionately refer to as a poop ditch. Essentially at one point in time it was a stream, but whoever lives nearby uses it for everything from washing water to irrigation to an outhouse... As a result the water isn't what you'd call swimmable.

Anyway, the four of us that remain come to a stop to plan Ian's funeral and figure out how we might go about finding the body. As we're chatting away in the shade, Nolan's phone rings.... Yeah. In the middle of the bush we have cell reception, I love this place. It's Ian, he wants to know where the hell we are, he went left at the fork... apparently the same fork that we all missed. I imagined he sighed at that point, and decides it's easier to come back to us.

Having found shade and feeling relieved that we don't have to deliver the bad news to Ian's parents, we decided it's time for a group shot.

Hooray for adventuring and shade! (Nolan, Phil, and Colin L-R)

As soon as I'm done taking the picture I look left to see an old Malagasy fellow walking towards us with what I can only describe is a kinfe stick. Think Machete but with a handle made out of a broom stick that is about four feet long. before I can hop on my bike and get the hell out of the vicinity of the stabby pointy thing the old fellow (who looks about 70) is standing on the concrete grinning and talking away in Malagasy.

"Salama!", I declare, using up my entire vocabulary in one quick sentence. I throw on my stupid vazah smile and he seems thoroughly amused. He begins talking more excitedly and gestures towards the water. In the broken Frenglish and Malagasy we put together I understand he's trying to be a nice guy and has noticed that we are all sweating profusely and look parched. He deftly slices a large leaf off of a nearby baby palm and folds it into a cup, leans over and scoops roughly a cup of poop ditch water out of the vile looking stream.

Smile you idiot, smile and pretend like you're not thirsty. How are you going to communicate that you don't want to drink the disgusting water without offending this thoughtful old fellow kitted out in clothes that look as weathered as the fellow. I will never forget the sage advice of my good old parents, "Just smile and nod." In this case I substituted nodding with vigorously shaking my head and while putting on my biggest, dumbest grin, pointed to Phil (the only guy who speaks French) and said, "He'd love some."... Redirection! Yes!

Phil smiled his way out of the water and Colin quickly defused the situation by handing the wonderful little old guy a cigarette. This caused a great deal more unintelligible happy rambling from the man but in the end saved us all from certain dysentry.

Motorcycles, bridge, poopditch. In that order. At least it's beautiful country!

By this point the awesome old fella had realized that nobody spoke a lick of what the other understood so we just stood there and grinned stupidly at each other. Off in the distance we caught a faint rumble of a small engine and moments later Ian popped over the hill. A quick chat later he let us know that we very nearly had to continue those plans for a memorial as he'd nearly lost himself under his bike down a hill while attempting to turn around to rejoin our group. No matter, he was alive and it was time for more riding.

Back up the trail the way we'd come we made good time, heading for the road and greener, easier to ride pastures. Across the sketchy bridges, through the sand, and back out onto the road we made the call to go for a quick ride down RN2 towards Tana to get some air through our sweaty selves before heading back to camp. An uneventful but scenic ride down the RN2 ensued and with the sun continuing to peek, it was time to head back to camp.

Exhausted but happy we all rolled back into camp around 1230PM. Some quick work on fixing Nolan's bike ensued and the remaining riders and I hit the beach for some pizza and much needed relaxing.

All in all a pretty great way to spend a Sunday.

If you made it this far you deserve a medal. I'm tired, hopped up on cold meds, and rambled for an hour and a half to put the above together. Sorry. :)

The first "real" dirtbike adventure

So I wanted to capture this while the details were relatively fresh in my mind, but unfortunately I've slept a number of times since then, now I'm trying to scoop out a less fuzzy picture of what happened. With that caveat in mind, please enjoy my mostly first hand account of what was the neatest thing I've done in Madagascar since coming here.

Sunday started early. Way too early. Up and at 'em and a pot of fresh coffee on the brewer I hopped in the shower quick. Record time was made showering, it's amazing I came out clean. By this point the growing excitement meant that I likely could've done without the coffee. Down goes the first two cups, into the friends truck to the grocery store for some much needed supplies. "Damn this silly grocery trip, I should be RIDING", "WHY am I making delicious protein pancakes when I could be riding?", "Why are we sitting around talking when we could be riding?", "OH GOD WE'RE GOING RIDING! IM SO EXCITED", pretty much covers off the remainder of the morning.

Sort out the new gear, take care of the most important part of the ride first. Stickering up the bike appropriately.

Gotta represent the club.

It might be a bike - but you still have to be proud.

Stickers taken care of, it was time to actually gear up. Queue the butterflies. I'd never ridden offroad for any great length of time before. Luckily my nervousness was quickly gobbled up by the eager excitement to finally get to see some of the country side. Led by an intrepid long time riding roommate, we're briefed on the route. "Skip the main road by skirting the plant site railroad, ride cross country briefly, hop back onto the mainroad outside town, grab gas, and then head down the road to Tana for 20K before we hit the "real" trails.", awesome. Shit eating grins in place, the bikes are fired up before I know it and the three of us are on the road.

200 feet out of camp the first problem hits me. Why is the bike so slow? I'm hard on the throttle in first gear and it seems to not be pulling. I can't have gotten that fat on my rotation, could I? ... I mean the deep fried turkey and baking was good, but I ate that much? No... no way, well, I suppose there was the skittles, and the halloween candy, and... look down, realize you're dragging the rear brake with your riding boot... mentally slap oneself in the face and hammer down, there, that's better.

A hop, skip, and a jump North of site and we're skirting around the rail road tracks to avoid the first of many police check stops you'd run into if you take the road. Not that we're doing anything illegal, just that it very much simplifies ones day if you don't have to explain to a bunch of guys with guns why you don't want to pay them any money. :)

While coming around the corner of the tracks I notice our guide, Ian, is stopped waiting for us. "So this was a bit of a main route after the tracks went in, so to stop cars from using it they cut in a bunch of deep ditches.", he smiles. Nice. 10 minutes into dirt biking and I'm clearing some very deep ditches, at the time I remember them being quite intimidating, in reality I'm just a sissy. Feeling pretty awesome about myself and starting to get more comfortable in the saddle I'm having a good time sliding the rear of the bike around in the sandy trail. There's just something about rolling into the throttle and gently hooning a bike around in the dirt that is entirely too much fun.

I look up, huge grin, Ian is stopped again. This time in front of a water crossing, well, I think, I guess there is no time like the present to get comfortable with this riding thing. Nobody told me that you should lift your feet up when going through a foot of water, and why would I come to that logical conclusion on my own? That'd be entirely too intelligent. Across the 50 feet of water I go, odd, my feet are soaked, oh god! My pants are soaked! My fellow riders seem to be laughing uncontrollably. Hmmm... I've obviously done something wrong here, but I made it across without falling.

A couple more water obstacles (feet up this time), and some more sand hooliganry - yes that's a word, not really - and we're popping out onto the main road at a Shell station of all things. Yes, you can buy watered down Vpower in Madagascar. Pretty hilarious how universal Shell seems to be. The bikes topped off after our brief gas stop and we're ready to hop on the road. Ian briefs us, "It's up the road a ways towards Tana and then we turn left. This road can be a bit scary, so be careful, stay to the right, and watch your mirrors for guys that are going to come flying by."

Look down, check that your clodhoppers aren't dragging the brake, slowly release the clutch and feel the clutch start to grab, roll into the throttle ever so slightly and finish releasing the clutch and we're off. Second gear, more throttle, third gear, 250CC's of fury howling and a new grin forming, grab the clutch for the shift to fourth and, OH DEAR LORD THAT POTHOLE IS THE SIZE OF PLUTO. A quick lean and we've avoided the Hino sized obstacle. My attention is focused now, and I spend the next twenty minutes marveling at the fairly nicely paved, beautifully twisty road surface.

Cruising on the black top through a mix of semi-tropical, slightly arid forests mixed with the sights and sounds of a developing country is something that will always stick with me. It finally felt like I was actually doing some exploring, like even though I'd been here a year I was finally getting to see the "real" Madagascar. Passing through various highway side villages, coming over the tops of rolling hills to see beautiful landscapes, gorgeous rivers, smiling people, it was just.. excellent. Part of me is upset that I didn't have the foresight to bring my GoPro or take any pictures, but another part is happy that I didn't have a camera to worry about, all I had to do was soak it all in and keep the bike on the road. What an experience.

Take a quick left coming up hill and we're slowing down and turning off the road into a dirt path. I guess this must be the place. A few hundred meters off the road and we come to a power line corridor, or what passes for one in Madagascar, "watch out for the cables sticking out of the ground and follow me!", Ian warns, and off we go.

Riding some hilly, harder pack trail stuff is also quite fun. It feels good to be "in control" of something and communicating with a machine again in a way similar to racing. While I'm not going particularly fast, and I'm not out to win anything, I'm still digging into my concentration and paying close attention to what the bike is communicating back to me. It's that seat of the pants feel you get, something that all racers are familiar with, awesome.

Clearing some obstacles, hopping some hills, and generally having a grand old time we come across some denser bush and Ian steers us in that direction. In the mountain bike world we're now riding what most people refer to as single track. Just enough room for people to ride single file through a snake-like forested trail that winds it's way in and around the foothills. We've had some rain lately so everything is more green than normal, and I mean GREEN.

The semi-flourescent foliage is sort of unbelievable at first. It's like living in a photo that someone has cranked the contrast in, at times the greeness of it all is just unbelievable. The foliage is an assortment of all sorts of interesting plants that aren't quite like anything you see at home. There's evergreen varieties but with alien like leaves, regular bushy leafy things but with the added bonus of having microscopic velcro like grabber-onner things (technical term), and occasionally beautiful bushes full of various colours of flower. Occasionally I have to check my awe at the door and remember not to fall off my bike.

20 minutes into the trail, things start to open up a bit and all of the sudden we pass a few people who have been walking the trail carrying loads. And I'm talking big loads. Think a 5'6" Malagasy fellow carrying a 3ft diameter, 8 foot long bundle of sticks, and the guy couldn't have weighed more than 100lbs. Wow. A few hundred feet up from those dedicated folk we pop out onto a larger dirt road across from what looks like a hilltop settlement, complete with a bunch of young kids running around having a grand old time.

These kids are immediately amused by the three Vazah riding motorcycles and starting hooting and hollaring in our direction, smiling and running around. We wave, honk the horns, and head West down the dirt road. Up ahead Ian has stopped on the side of the road next to the river.

Now this next bit is the first time on the ride I remember that I had a phone and I could take some shots, I even grabbed a video! The video is a bit interesting but more than the footage what I like is the awe in my voice. I was totally blown away by the beauty of the ride thus far, the diversity of the people and their living situations, just.. everything. So, sorry for sounding a wee bit excited.

The riverbank just off the dirt path. Check out the green, and the cultivation.

Looking West down the dirt road. We initially came from the East. About 300 meters East of here is the little village I was talking about. Out of respect, I didn't snap any photos of their village.

Horrible Selfie looking West onto the river with the railroad bridge in the background. The village is just left of my giant head.

A nicer shot without my face in it. :)

Looking East up the road. Village is in the bushes just up the road.

Obligatory bike shot, the Kinlon gang. You can see the sort of stuff we rode through, look at the green. It's more dense than that in most places on the trail.

Click the play button the below to see the video.

This is a horrible zoomed in iPhone shot of the gentlemen pushing their barges up stream in a couple of feet of water. This weekend I will bring my real camera, promise. :)

After standing around chatting for a bit we realized one very important thing, it is much, much, MUCH sweatier when you stop riding. Now dripping, it was time to hop back onto the bikes and head back into the bush for some more exciting trail riding. This time heading deeper into some more bushier stuff we were getting into much more rutted, technical riding. This meant not as much time to concentrate on the beauty and much more time spent not falling off your bike. Also good fun!

Now, I'm sure the stuff we were riding would be nothing to the experienced rider but it was sure challenging and exciting to me and the other non-offroad fellow that was with us. Ian was gobbling it up like it was no big deal but Phil and I were grinning ear to ear from the challenge. Between water filled 12-18" deep ruts, washed out trail, mud, and the occasional hard pack fast bit it was great fun!

Once again, our fearless guide Ian was stopped up ahead on the trail, this time at the foot of a very steep hill. I distinctly remember feeling a tinge of dread thinking he was going to be crazy enough to suggest we ride up the hill, but luckily he suggested we hike it. After climbing what was a very steep hill, steep enough that if you reached out horizontally while standing straight up you could touch the hill with your elbows, we were rewarded with an incredible view of the surroundings. Hills, palm trees, and the plant site. Check out a few of the shots I remembered to take.

That's the plant site in the background, and an old palm tree farm we're heading towards on the bikes.

Another horrible zoomed in shot of site. This is max zoom on the iPhone, sorry for the pixelation. :)

The cool part about an iPhone, the easy to shoot panoramas. Taken from the top of the hill. The left is where we came from, the right was where we were headed.

A flower at the base of a small tree at the top of the hill.

Getting ready to head back out, you can see the hill we climbed to the right. (Obligatory NASCC shot)

Oh no! It's dirty!!!

A view back up from whence we came.

 MORE VIDEO - a quick view of the top of the hill.

This was to be the last real stop of the days ride. At this point we were about two hours in and all getting pretty exhausted from the totally awesome trail riding thus far. Next up was heading out into the palm tree forest onto some more hardpacked stuff for some quick hooning around.

A quick shot of the entrance to the "batcave". A neat corridor of trees.

Some ripping through the tress brought us to a bit of a dead end where I promptly got stuck in the mud for the first time. Nothing that copious amounts of throttle, grunting, and pushing couldn't fix! Zipping in between the trees, enjoying the trails, being amazed by the rows and rows of palm trees, and mostly importantly loving the shade they create, I look up to see Ian and Phil stopped on the side of the trail presumably waiting for me. Low and behold, they've stumbled onto some free range piggies. I'm sure there was an owner somewhere around but these fellas were out all on their own, we couldn't locate a human.

Baby bacon. Cute, but tasty.

That marked the last shot I got on the days ride, after the piggies we all agreed it was time to head back to camp and grab a beer. Riding our way back out the bush we found our way to the power line corridor and hopped back onto the highway back to Toamasina. The way back was just as incredible as the way there, the road is remarkably well paved despite various massive potholes, so some careful fun was definitely had.

Over the river and through the woods to the beer house we went. Safe and sound back at the Tiki Bar in camp, a beer was had, a Formula 1 race was watched, and a hell of a day was ended. This weekend promises to hold another exciting ride, what a lucky fellow I am!