Ack!

That one word pretty much sums up our taxi-brousse ride yesterday. It's an expression Sarah's fisherman friends on the west coast use, to express dismay, surprise, anger, fear, etc. Our driver yesterday was hell-bent on arriving in Tana AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, and drove accordingly. If this required passing other vans going uphill around a curve at upwards of 110 km/hr, so be it. The gorgeous Malagasy landscape flew by surprisingly fast, from flat green rice paddies, to rolling hills scarred with red erosion gashes, to the tight ridges surrounding Tana itself.

50 km from Tana, passing our twentieth truck of the day, we heard the distinct sound of air escaping from a tire. Sure enough, there was a flat. Out we piled to watch the sun set over palm trees and thatched huts while our driver and his helper changed the thing in 5 minutes flat - this includes jacking up the van, untying the spare from the roof, replacing said tire, and lashing the flat back on top. At this point the gas light had been on for at least 20 km, and the driver was giving the fuel gauge nervous glances. Yet somehow, by some quirk of Malagasy machinery, we made it not only the 50 km to Tana proper, we made it through stop-and-go traffic and several police check points.

The "ack" of the trip came as we made our way into town in full-blown rush-hour traffic. How the taxi fit through those streets, let alone the flow of traffic coming the other way, bikes darting in and out, people rushing everywhere, is beyond me. The thing about sitting in the front seat is that you get a full appreciation of all the near misses with other vehicles, bikes, and animals. For most of the ride the only thing that escaped our lips as we held our breath was "ack!"