Grand Africa Cruise - Nosy Be, Madagascar Day 1

 Cruise Day 37

Tuesday, November 15, 2022

“We travel, initially, to lose ourselves.  We travel next to find ourselves.”                   -- Pico Lyer

Today is the first of of a two day visit to Madagascar.  Madagascar is a large island that lies off the east coast of Mozambique in the Indian Ocean.  This is another tender port, so we will be tendering into the town of Andoany on the island of Nosy Be that is part of a group of islands lying off the north coast of Madagascar.  Andoany is more commonly known by its historical name of Hell-Ville and is the capital of Nosy Be.  It is the largest town on Nosy Be and has a population of around 40,000.

Madagascar lies off the coast of Africa.  The blue markers at the top of the map are Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar and the red marker lower on the right is the Madagascar island of Nosy Be where we are anchored.

Nosy Be in relation to the main island of Madagascar.  The red marker near the top is Hell-Ville where we are anchored.

An even closer look at the island of Nosy Be.  The dark marker near the bottom is Hell-Ville where we are anchored.

The Flag of Madagascar

We weren't scheduled to arrive in port until 11:00 AM, so we had a leisurely morning.  We have a Cruise Critic tour today of Northwestern Nosy Be organized by Nona.  The tour does not start until noon, but it is a tender port, so Nona asked the group to meet in the Explorer’s Lounge at 11:00 as she had arranged for our group to be one of the first groups off the ship.

Our arrival at Nosy Be.

After we anchored, Val and I went out on our balcony to see what we could see on shore and watch the tenders being lowered into the water.  What we didn't expect to see were people in small boats (they looked like dhows without the sails) paddling out to the ship with things to sell.  We weren't sure what they expected as there was no way any passenger could get anywhere close to buy anything as they were many feet below us.  It was almost humorous, but also sad as to how desperate they were to sell things.  Eventually they were chased away by the local authorities as it wasn't safe for them to be there as the tenders were coming and going.

As usual, especially at a tender port, things didn’t go as planned and there were a number of issues.  The good news was that we were quickly cleared by customs, but the docking area was a problem.  First off, it's a small port with a limited space to dock meaning only one tender could dock at a time.  Also, because this is a group of small islands, several of the tours visit other islands and require boarding another boat, and there is very limited space at the dock for that.  On top of that, when the first tender arrived at the dock to set up and bring back the immigration officials to the ship, they found there was over a two-foot ledge between the dock and the ramp up to the port area.

The first tender heads into shore.

This was rightfully deemed too dangerous for passenger transfers so the ship’s carpenters were sent over to evaluate what could be done.  It took a while, but they built a whole loading platform that went from the tender dock to the beginning of the ramp up.  They did a great job in a relatively short time, but it did mean a long delay before we could get ashore.

Finally word came that tendering was safe to proceed and we were led to our tender.  We were one of the first groups off the ship, but we did have one ahead of us and had to sit in the tender bobbing around for a while until the tender in front of us could unload which, due to the dock condition, was quite slow.  We finally docked and went looking for our tour in a sea of tour operators and vendors all trying to get our attention.

We finally found the tour operator with a sign calling out our tour and were led to the vans that would take us on our tour.  We were hoping for the minibuses like we had in Tanzania, but no such luck.  They were in short supply, and it looked like the ship had reserved the few there were.  The vans were relatively nice, but a bit cramped and hard to get in and out of and worse yet, there was no operating air conditioning.  It was a very warm and humid day, so this was disappointing.

With all that said, this is a very poor country and conditions are just not the same as they would be in a more prosperous area.  In order to see these remote and interesting places, this is what you have to expect and learn to be flexible.  No one is to blame, it’s just the way it is.

As we started our drive, we went through the Hell-Ville Market that was teeming with people.  This is not a market for tourists, but a local market selling everything from food to clothing and everything else imaginable.  It is hard to describe these markets; they appear totally chaotic with people everywhere, the streets packed with vehicles and bicycles.  There are also many Tuk Tuks, the little three wheeled vehicles that appear to be the main local transportation.  We were supposed to make a stop here, but because of the late start, it was cancelled.  Unfortunately, it was nearly impossible to take pictures from the van, so you’ll just have to imagine what is was like.

Our first stop on our tour was at the Sacred Tree of Mahatinjo a tree that is considered sacred by the people of the Sakalava religion.  The tree was quite old and large and quite impressive.  Madagascar is a tropical country and the area around the tree was a very lush and tropical landscape.

The Sacred Tree of Mahatinjo

 

Val and our guide

Next was a visit to a seaside village where we could have lunch if we wanted.  After the warning from the ship yesterday about eating the local food, most people opted not to have lunch, but there were bottled drinks available, and Val and I opted to have a bottle of the local cola.  Val and I had brought some food from the ship, and we ate that while having our drinks and enjoying the shade and cooling breeze.

The village was very picturesque, but as we have come to expect, there were several local vendors with their booths set up along the road.  We walked around for a bit and took some pictures and then it was time to hit the road again.

This is where we had our lunch stop.  They had lunch for sale there, but we were strongly warned not to eat the food on the island so many of us opted to bring something from the ship to eat.

I did buy a "World Cola" to drink with my meal.

Lots of kids were curious about the strange looking old people who had come into their town.

Our next stop was a brief one at an overlook where we could see the coastline and a volcanic crater that had filled with water and was now a lake.  After that we drove to the top of Mont Passot where there is a platform with views up and down the coast as well as the landscape down the mountain side.  It was a long walk uphill to get to the platform, but we made it without too much trouble.

There was also a line of booths at the top so we looked through them.  After a look around we started back down and were pleasantly surprised to see that the buses had driven up to meet us, so we didn’t have to make the long walk down.  We did have the question as to why they couldn’t have driven us up in the first place.

At this point it was getting late in the afternoon and we had one more stop to make, the town of Dzamandzar, the second largest town on Nosy Be.  The point of interest here was the unusual balloon shaped houses, but what was really of interest to us was the town itself.  It was around five so kids were getting out of school, and everyone was out on the streets at the marketplace.  As we have come to expect, it was a bit chaotic, but obviously people were out and enjoying the start of the evening.  The people were friendly, saying hello or smiling and waving at us as they passed by.

These are the balloon shaped homes and the people who lived there were charging a dollar to go inside.  We didn't bother as it wasn't much interest to us, but the activity going on in the area was.

This looked like something similar to our bingo game the participants were playing for money.

From Dzamandzar it was time to get back to the ship, so we drove back to the port and once again through the Hell-Ville Market that was even busier and more crowded than earlier in the day.  On our drive back we also saw many, many more of the Tuk Tuks on the road as they seemed to be the primary mode of transportation along with walking and motorcycles.

We saw a lot today, but once again what really stood out, was what we saw from the vans as we drove through the villages and countryside.  This is a very poor country, and it was evident from the houses.  A few were built with cinderblocks, but the majority seem to have been just thrown together with scrap wood and metal.  As it got dark on our way back to port it was evident that very few had electricity and I’m not sure they even had running water as we saw many men and women carrying large water containers.  These are just my observations from what I saw, but it is certainly a different way of life than what we could ever imagine.  I have to add that most of the people we encountered were friendly and were quick to greet us as we walked around their towns and villages.  Nosy Be is a popular beach destination and has a lot of resorts along its beaches; what we saw away from those beaches was in sharp contrast to those resorts.

We finally got back to the tenders and were looking forward to the air conditioning and a shower.  The temperature wasn’t too bad today and while the humidity was high there was usually a cooling breeze or shade to stand in.  What was difficult today was spending a lot of time in a van with four other people and no air conditioning, it felt stifling.

We were quickly on the tender and back on the ship twenty minutes later, it felt really good to step into the air conditioning.  It was around six thirty when we got back so we both took a shower and got cleaned up and headed for dinner as we were both starving.

We had a good dinner and then headed back to the room where we called it an early night.  Tomorrow is our second day in Nosy Be and we have a ship excursion scheduled.  We need to be in the ship’s theater by 7:00 AM so we have an early morning tomorrow after a tiring day.