The beginning of a motorcycle odyssey across Madagascar underlines the adventure’s challenges
I wake up, look out the window and see heavy rain. I turn over in bed. I should be leaving Diego Suarez (now called Antsiranana) in the north of Madagascar to motorbike to Majunga on the east coast (about 1,000km) today. All going smoothly – it seldom does – and if I don’t, through curiosity, divert along the way, I will allow myself four, five, six or even seven days to do the trip. I am not in a hurry!
I have done the return trip a couple of times before – I know the difficulty of the road – but, at the moment, there are added complications. Cyclones and diluvial rains have brought down bridges and washed away parts of roads. Many shops in Diego are almost empty because supplies are not getting through. The road is impossible for lorries, but it may be possible by motorbike.
There are said to be several ‘private toll payments’ to be made on the first part of the trip. Diversions mean that traffic goes through private land in places, and the owners ask money to let you pass. It is taking seven hours for minibus taxis to do the 130km to the first town: Ambilobe.
Tomorrow should be fine for a 6am departure. Madagascar has had the rainiest season in 40 years, and it is causing travel and transport problems for everybody. I hope that the rainy season is not starting early. I am always nervous doing a trip like this. There are risks: the risk of being robbed as I have already been; the risk of having a mechanical breakdown in the middle of nowhere; and the risk of an accident, as roads are often atrocious and drivers unpredictable. Of course, I don’t have to motorcycle, and people say that, at my age, I am silly and irresponsible. However, the pleasures are many.
There is a pleasure in a 6am ride towards a distant horizon. There are spectacular landscapes and wonderful vignettes of daily life. Each day, for many Malagasies, is a survival test. Maybe, for me also, it’s a matter of staying alive. There is always the pleasure of learning new things.
I remember these words I once read: “You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then – to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing that the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.” – T.H. White, The Once and Future King
Fuelling up
I leave at 6am as planned after a cold shower and a cup of strong, hot and very black tea. The bike starts first time. Sometimes, it’s moody. I have my travel bag strapped to the back. The town of Diego Suarez is already buzzing. Tuk-tuks are running around and kids are starting out for school.
Dawn comes quickly in Madagascar. I love this time of day. The air is fresh; the wind in your face is cool. There are the sights and sounds and the smells of the morning. Smoke is floating on the breeze, carrying smells of charcoal burning, camomile tea heating, coffee brewing and cakes being cooked in oil-filled cast-iron pots.
I usually stop to have one or two strong black Malagasy coffees at a wayside shack. Madagascar is one of the few African countries I know where I can have breakfast on the road at 6am. I might also have a sugary cake or two, or maybe a rice cake that I know the lady serving me my coffee has gotten up at 4am to cook. When I say thank you and goodbye in Malagasy, she likes it. I breakfast before going too far outside town. Madagascar is 80% rural, so there are roadside shacks selling snacks for only a short distance before the uninhabited areas begin. Madagascar is about the same size as France, with a third of the population.
I wear a lightweight jacket and long light trousers for the coolness of the morning and to protect me from the brutal heat of midday. I make sure my helmet visor is down: it restricts vision but protects the face. I made the mistake once of a distance ride without the visor; I wasn’t pretty to look at by the end.
The first section is a difficult stretch and total concentration is needed. I’m changing gears and braking constantly – there are few moments in top gear. The road is devastated. I get a scare when all movement is blocked at one point. There is a lorry stuck in mud and water. There is one very narrow raised mud ridge barely wide enough for the motorbike wheels. I need the help of two young men supporting me on each shoulder and running alongside as I ride across. A slip and I would be into the mud, bike and all. I would have stopped to give them the little money they were clamouring for, but I was afraid to topple in the mud and be trapped. I throttle on and out, feeling guilty.
Small comforts
It’s November and the mango season has started. The majestic, evergreen mango trees are giving, once again, their plentiful luscious fruit. These trees can live for hundreds of years. Mangoes lie crushed on the roadside. Kids are throwing stones and sticks at the unripe ones as I did with apples as a child in Ireland.
About midday, I see I have not made the progress I had expected, so I decide to sleep in the first town. I’ve been in the saddle for about six hours. The first town is Ambilobe. It’s a dusty place, only important because it is the crossroads for the difficult road that takes you to the east coast – the fertile region of vanilla, cloves, wild peppers and more.
Ambilobe has three small, very basic hotels. I’ve slept in all three. One of them is a little cleaner and maybe a little safer than the others; that’s the only difference. I feel my shoulders, arms, hands and wrists aching, as I haven’t motorcycled for a while. I murmur to my Kawasaki, “Well done” and look to where I can have a cold beer. A big one.
I take a room in the first hotel in town. It’s clean – not always easy to find. It’s run by a bearded Muslim man who loves his Koran to the point where he has framed citations from it on each wall of the room.
I admire the Arabic calligraphy, which, I imagine, is exhorting me to be good. There is little need to worry: I am too tired to be anything but. I sleep soundly, protected on every side by my host’s scriptures.
Text | Donal Conlon
Photography | Eric Valenne (geostory), Pierre-Yves Babelon
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