Antananarivo

We flew from Antisiranana to Antananarivo, the city of a thousand warriors (Tanana = city, arrivo = thousand).

We were picked up by Caryl's good friend Tosoa.  Caryl and Tosoa met 8 years ago in Vietnam when Caryl was traveling the world alone.  He's been promising to visit Tosoa ever since, and we finally got the chance!  We also got the chance to meet his girlfriend, Rondro, who is a real sweetheart. 

Tana, as the locals call the capital, is an interesting city.  We have mixed feelings - while some parts of the city are quite charming, it is also a difficult city.  For one thing, the traffic is absolutely awful.  There were several occasions where Tosoa turned the car off because we had to wait for so long.  To make matters worse, the cars do not appear to need to pass any safety inspections, so each car belches blue and black smoke, which makes it hard to breathe comfortably. 

Pictures:
1. Tana at night.
2 & 3. Many of Madagascar's rice patties are being turned into bricks. Madagascar once produced enough rice to feed the whole country and exported the surplus.  However, currently they import rice, and their internal supply continues to shrink.
4. Sunset in Tana.  The smoke you see is not fog, it is smoke rising from the continuously burning garbage dump.
5. Tosoa, Rondro, Caryl, and I bonding and enjoying the sunset.
6. Center of Tana and part of what used to be one of the latest open air markets in the world (it's smaller today than in the past).
7. Tana's train station, no longer used to transport passengers.  There's a lovely cafe inside which makes for an excellent meeting spot (and refuge from city craziness).
8. Chinese casino most likely used to launder money.
9. Laundry day at Tosoa's house!