I was overcome with a rush of bliss as I strolled about the bustling, dusty streets of Tulear, Madagascar. I weaved through streams of people and dodged the heavy bike taxi traffic, as unintelligible, fast-paced conversations deluged my eardrums. I felt so out of place, yet so in the right place. It’s difficult to explain. For me, this rush I was feeling encapsulates what it means to chase the “travel bug”. It’s pursuing this feeling of engaging all the senses with intrigue, anticipation, and excitement. It’s being entranced by somewhere new, when everything you hear, see, smell, and feel combines to form a masterpiece symphony that you are hearing for the first time. It’s tough to put in words, but I know when I feel it.

It’s funny how this feeling ebbs and flows over the course of a long-term trip. This time, all it took was walking around a relatively unremarkable city in the desert of Madagascar’s southwest coast. It took me back to similar situations I had experienced during my travels: first stepping off that plane in Brazil, trying to find my hotel in the dark alleyways of Mumbai, admiring the stars as I ascended the slopes of a Balinese volcano. It was a good reminder of why I commenced this trip in the first place.

~~~

After hopping between the Indian Ocean isles of Reunion and Mauritius, I had a month or so to kill before I was to meet up with some friends on the African mainland in Mozambique. Madagascar was a logical and intriguing stopover on my way. From Reunion, there is a flight every Monday morning direct to the city of Tulear. I bought a one-way ticket with a loose idea of my plans and dove headfirst into Madagascar. 

Madagascar is among the poorest countries in the world. There isn’t much industry to speak of, and tourism is relatively sparse. Thus, when the small Tulear airport receives its weekly flight of cash-padded tourists from Reunion, it’s a pretty big deal. We were the only flight landing all morning, yet after I cleared customs, I was met by a crowd outside the airport door. Taxi drivers, baggage porters, tour operators, and beggars alike eagerly jostled to get a little slice of the small plane-load of tourism dollars exiting the terminal. 

I hopped in a taxi sitting outside at the curb, a small sedan that was much older than myself and seemingly falling apart at the seams. It looked like it was missing more of the original parts than it currently had. Nonetheless, it successfully got me to my hotel where I would spend the night. I was only going to spend one night in Tulear before taking a boat taxi the following morning to my true destination of Anakao. 

Once settled in, I hit the streets of Tulear with a few tasks in mind: get cash (there are no ATMs in Anakao), get a SIM card, and get some snacks. I had no idea what to expect. The first thing you undoubtedly will notice in Tulear is the never-ending flow of bike taxis. The locals call them pousse-pousse and it seems that every physically able male in the city operates a bicycle with a shade-covered seat in the back for passengers. For the equivalent of about 45 cents you can catch a ride on a pousse-pousse around town to avoid walking in the strong, desert sun. And I noticed many of the locals opted for this mode of transportation over walking. Given that I wasn’t exactly sure where I was going, I chose to walk on this occasion. There weren’t many foreigners like myself walking the streets, so I drew a bit of attention, but not in a negative way. I received a lot of curious, friendly stares and smiles, and the occasional ‘bonjour’ from passersby.

My main task was to get cash. I estimated I needed roughly US $350 to get to Anakao, spend a week there, and get back. I was a little nervous to be seen withdrawing so much cash in a country where the minimum wage is $50/month. I was going to be carrying seven months of wages in my backpack. I staked out an ATM that looked relatively safe, standing very close to it to hide how much cash emerged, and pocketed the absurdly novel-thick stack of small-denomination bills that poured out.

The more I walked around, the better I felt about the place. I’ve traveled enough to know when the vibes are off a bit, and I wasn’t getting those vibes here in Tulear. I find that almost everywhere I travel that is “dangerous” feels much less dangerous — or even not the least bit dangerous — when I actually go and experience the place. I made it back to my hotel without incident, cash safely stored in my bag.

The next day I got up bright and early to catch the boat taxi to Anakao. It costs about US $15 to hop on the Anakao Express, a speed boat that takes tourists 20 miles south to the fishing village of Anakao. The boat is really the only option, as driving there would take all day due to the roundabout nature of the poorly maintained dirt roads. By the sea it’s just an hour or so through the tranquil waters of reef lagoons. 

Given the large tide swings along the flat, marshy coast of Tulear, the boat can’t actually make it to the shoreline if the tide is not ultra-high. The solution they have devised is hiring teams of ox-pulled carts to wade through the shallow waters and deliver the passengers and luggage to the vessel. I was delivered by the ox teams and boarded the boat with about fifteen other tourists — mostly French, a Spaniard, and a few locals. While the beaches and water in Tulear are disgustingly polluted with trash and human waste, as we headed south and crossed the invisible line of the Tropic of Capricorn, the dirty city gave way to remote, pristine beaches, islands, and cliffs. Soon enough the village of Anakao approached in the distance.

As you near Anakao, the cliffs south of Tulear taper off to an endlessly flat expanse of low, wind-blown sand dunes. Stunted desert shrubs and trees suited for the arid climate fill the sandy plain as far as the eye can see. A village of about 5,000 people commences at the ocean’s edge with buildings constructed of whatever is available — plywood, tin, sticks, mud — that extend inland and out of sight. The most prominent feature of the village is the pirogues — dug-out canoes — that line the entire beach above the tide line. The pirogues, armed with jimmy-rigged sails of rice bags sewn together, are the lifeline of Anakao. They are the means to go fishing to feed the villagers and make a living. When the sun crests the land in the morning, the men of the village launch their pirogues and take to the sea, lining the horizon from east to west with hundreds of bobbing sails.

There isn’t a ton of accommodation in Anakao, but many of the options are relatively pricy for what you get. I suppose living in a village with a non-existent electric grid and shoddy sewage system, anywhere that can provide 24/7 power and hot water is luxury. I chose to stay at a place called Mada Surf Ranch because first, it was a budget option, and second, it is the go-to spot for surf guiding. The hotel is owned by a quirky New Zealand man, Blair, who has called Madagascar home for over a decade. He’s a blunt guy with a witty sense of humor, but he also has a certain friendliness and compassion that didn’t take long to come through. It’s an odd combination of qualities in a human, and maybe necessary for any ex-pat who wants to live off the grid in a remote Madagascar village. Blair has become the leading expert on surfing in southwest Madagascar. After running surf guiding trips for many years, he bought up this beachfront property and created a surf retreat of sorts. He has fully committed to Madagascar life, now with a four-year-old half-Malagasy/half-Kiwi child of his own to go along with a host of other children that he had during a previous life in Reunion. 

The hotel lodging itself was simple, but comfortable. You have to get used to taking showers with room-temperature buckets of water and flushing the toilets with buckets of ocean water. The beds were comfy and spacious, mosquito nets made sure you can sleep without pesky insects, and the hotel restaurant did a surprisingly good job of making the most of the limited supplies available in this remote village.

During my ten days at the camp, the guests consisted of surfers from Spain, Reunion, Belgium, Germany, South Africa, and the US. Interestingly enough, the brother of Australian pro surfer Mick Fanning was also living at the camp, which I thought was laughably random. We got in a groove that, for me, felt like a vacation within my year-plus vacation. We would wake up early, get the surf plan from Blair, and go surf all day (some days with amazing waves). We would return to the camp in the late afternoon with a tremendous appetite and shoulders aching from kilometers of paddling. Knowing the tiring effects of surfing, the same local women would always be waiting outside the hotel upon our return, insistingly trying to sell massages (and sexual favors) for a couple dollars.

I’ve been to many developing countries around the world, but Anakao was the most drastic place I had been as far as the standard of living. It hit me when I naively asked one of the locals for his WhatsApp number. He responded by saying he didn’t have a cell phone and later went on to explain how most children don’t even go to school because they can’t afford it. Cash is hard to come by in these parts, and I was admittedly impressed by the lengths people were willing to go to secure a few bucks. This guy followed me around the village for at least an hour, giving me a “tour”, all in hopes that I could commit to coming to their restaurant the following day to eat a fish that would probably amount to $3.

The ten days I spent in Anakao will fondly live in my memories within this current trip that I am undertaking around the world. Along with the aforementioned rush of excitement of being somewhere so interestingly new, it was a good reminder to be thankful for the situation that I was born into. You can never have too many of those humbling experiences. I was particularly impressed by how surfing is starting to take hold in this little village. Dozens of the little boys play in the waves on old, beat-up surfboards, or just wooden planks that they have shaped to resemble surfboards. Blair has been training seven of the local kids — four girls and three boys — in surfing, and they are all catching on fast. Locally they are known as the ‘Green Team’ because they all wear green rash guards and one of them already undoubtedly surfs better than me. Madagascar, which was once just an imagination of some impossibly faraway exotic land, is now taking a real form in my mind. Anakao and Tulear were the start of the story. Next, I’ll be heading inland to a national park and the nation’s capital.