My friend Tore and I spent most of our time in the southwest of Madagascar. Outside the capital we found very few cars. And in the southwest it is quite dry. We drove inland from Toliara, and although my photo gives the impression of smooth roads, that is not the case. The road conditions are horrendous, and make for a bumpy and slow progress.
These are the forests in which we walked. A sandy, dry terrain and even outside the footpaths it wasn’t too difficult to move around. And very different from mainland Africa, there are no dangerous animals here in MadagascarApproaching a mining town, where I acquired a sapphire for JenniferHardly any cars, but a few goats and a little boy
Here and there we encountered villages along our travels. Although Madagascar is one of the poorest countries in the world, we didn’t notice much malnutrition in the countryside. The poverty was much more noticeable in the cities and towns. The villages fascinated us and on our return back to the coast, Tore arranged for a visit to one village, where we could sit down and talk to the chief during a long period (with the help of an interpreter).
A typical village. The houses resembles more Indonesian huts than typical African village constructions.
Villagers greeting us
The walls of the typical houses were built of horisontal logs covered with mud and the roof was made of reeds that had to be replaced after a few years
Bougainvillea at a town square in one of the national parks we visited. There were tourists here, which explains the sign in different languages.
The barren landscape was interspersed here and there by a couple of baobab trees. They are unique and quite frequent in Madagascar, so I have devoted a full post later on about the baobab tree. Most of the trees we saw had sheared their leaves, but here they proudly displayed a green crown!
