TANA STREET SCENES - Jan-Eric Osterlund

The capital of Madagascar is Antananarivo or Tana as it is universally known. After our experiences in the country side Tore and I spent a couple of days there. Tana has around 1.4 million inhabitants (Madagascar in total around 32 m in total). It is a vibrant city, very colourful, lots of people everywhere. But it is not the safest place in the world for two gentlemen approaching middle age (ok, having reached middle age)! We were careful and followed the advice of our guides.

40% of the population still practice traditional religion based upon ancestor worship. There is a belief in local spirits and a very complex system of taboos that constrains the traditional Malagasy life. However, this is much more pronounced in the villages we had visited before, whereas here in Tana most people are probably Christian. Below, I post some images from our walk in the city and the indoor market that we visited to see gemstones and artwork.

*I included this image because of the shadow of the tree that created such a nice pattern on the street*

This is a late afternoon scene. Many of my images are captured with a fairly slow shutter speed creating this feeling of speed and action around the streets, which was very much of what we felt in Tana

*All the streets had outdoor shops covering the sidewalks*

*One little stall sold sunglasses stacked into an enormous ball*

*Tore contemplating the bargain of his life*

From the streets we entered a covered market where everything was for sale, including some quite attractive artwork and lots of riffraff.

*Gemstones and motorbikes. All was for sale*

We had time to visit a couple of exquisite restaurants in Tana. Of course, travelling with Tore, it will always be time for some good meals. We had lunch at a place called Citizen’s Guest House. The name doesn’t sound very appetising, but the food and the view from the balcony where we sat were indeed very appealing. We were in the upper part of the town, Haute-Ville, overlooking a lake and with the royal palace (more of that in the next post) in the background.

*Lac Anosy in Haute-Ville captured from the Citizen’s Guest House*

*The Royal Palace is seen in the background (the tallest building at the top of the mountain)*

Madagascar is producing around 80% of the world’s vanilla and it appeared (of course) in many of our dishes. But none of us had experienced such an exquisit taste as the large shrimps we were served on a bed of gel made of passion fruit, lots of vanilla, lemon and vodka. We had to come back twice more to this lovely restaurant just to appreciate the combination of the shrimps and the vanilla gel.

*Shrimps on a bed of a gel consisting of of passionfruit, lots of vanilla and vodka with lemon*

And the evening offered a dinner at La Varangue, which must be by far the best restaurant in Madagascar. It didn’t offer the grand vistas of the previous restaurant, but a very eclectic collection of art and antiques, all made or assembled in Madagascar. And the first collector’s items that met us, already before we entered the door to the restaurant, were a series of beautiful and very old cars.