We spent a few nights in Antsirabe, staying in the house where Tosoa grew up. The house is adjacent to Acameca, his uncle's machine shop. His aunt and uncle, Raymond and Farah, also live nearby, so we had dinner with them most nights. We even cooked a polish meal for them once - cabbage, potatoes, and goulash. I wanted to make pork kotlety, but we were unable to find the right cut of pork. Apparently Madagascar is one of the few places in the world where beef is cheaper and more available than pork - everyone has a zebu or two, but pork is a luxury.
We spent one day circumambulating (this is the word our lonely planet guide used) the Tritriva crater lake. It was a lovely place, though there were many hawkers trying to sell us polished rocks, which got to be a little frustrating, as we clearly do not have room in our backpacks for rocks, and they were pretty pushy.
We also were able to get a tour of the THB (Three Horses Beer) brewery, though we were not permitted to take photos. The brewery tour was pretty cool - I had never before seen how beer was made. Antsirabe has the largest beer brewery in all of Madagascar; Star brewing has one more in Diego, though that one is much smaller and only services the northernmost edge of the island. We learned that Star (owned by Coca Cola) actually makes 6 different types of beer, THB 8, THB, Castel, Queens, THB amber and THB blonde. However, the first four are all exactly the same until the last step, where they water down everything but the THB 8. So basically you have the illusion of choice, but all the beers are more or less the same. Nevertheless, I like the Queens (lowest alcohol content) the best. The town of Antsirabe is very proud of THB. Many buildings in the town are painted with the THB logo and even the town park benches were donated by the brewery.
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