Manakara
There are many manners to set out on the way. Once at this point of arrival and meeting, and of return, we are tempted to drive ourselves towards the vague that extends itself in the gaps of the tourist routes, ready-made for whites. There is a route from here to the south that has just seduced us, playing with our imagination from the looks at the map. A chimera that has given us back to the reality some days later, once verified the good choice of a polish traveller and writer, Arkady Fiedler, for calling the Red Island almost half a century ago: "Madagaskar okrutny czarodziej" ("Madagascar, a cruel wizard").
We cross the city in pousse-pousse; nonconformity of the cartwrights with the accurate fulfillment by us of the price agreement ends up with a long talk, not exactly entertaining one. But this way we have gained the attention of our accomplices of the wait. They assure us that something will leave for Farafangana and in the meantime, sat in the curb, we hope that a stroke of luck will allow us to catch some something.
Our faces get longer with the time; and when the shades too, there is a call to leave. Surprised to find an almost empty minibus and more, when reading that the destination sign announces something beyond what we expected: Vangaindrano. Girofle covers the floor, intensifies the emotion of having returned to be wazaha out of the common tourist itineraries. Elton John and his "Sacrifice", cramped by the bumps in the road. We move forward quickly towards the remote that emerges between the marshy passages and hills turned black, mistreated by burned scrubs. The fragility of the route strengthens the battle between deep sapphires of the east side sky, drums of storm roaring from the darkness, and in the west side the swell of the light of a slaughtered sun, giving way in front of the facade of a monumental rainbow. We persist in not taking part of neither of the sides until that only the series, more and more intense, of luminosity discharges make us out inside of the darkness. Emotions become tangible. The materiality gets dissolved with the smell of the gasoline, orujo liquor, girofle. The bus gets stuffed of people who emerge from the darkness of the road and melt themselves with the densenesses inside the car.
Farafangana and beyond
The Farafangana bus station square is here, it is being known by intuition, it is not being seen. The hot darkness. We need a long time to recognize the contours. We find our way thanks to the voices. After that by the limbs, stepping on the mud, illuminated by some lights that turn up in the solid blackness. A hundred of meters farther on the waves break in the Channel of Pangalanes.
The morning arrives crystal clear. Colonial buildings emerge at each step. The palm tree avenues bathed by the sun and the mist of the Indian Ocean that rushes towards the coast. Inquiries of lads to arrange guided tour for us not only make us more intransigent in our interest in what already does not represent a tourist attraction, what does"nt have to do with to the passable, where we will find the doubt and the unexpected. And we do not realize that we only projected our delirium, a groundless readjustment between the reality and our wishes. The most sensible and rigorous scrutiny of our baggage, both of backpack and mental, would make us rethink that persistence in orienting ourselves towards the impossibilities.
From Vangaindrano towards the south: tens of rivers and bacs that are not known. The contrast that causes to carry a backpack in front of whose that are hungry. The fatality to count the days and to sum up. The decision to begin the return. Damn reasoning that gives priority to the wariness. With the glance shot towards this piece of the map that reflects the long walks on foot without more footpaths than those pointed out by the villagers. Return to get rid of that annoyance that set us up, that self-complacent personality that is, at the same time, our passport to travel and the greater obstacle to cross the rubicon towards the unknown.