Aluminum Factory and Chameleons

The work that went into making rice fields amazes me.

The aluminum workshop.

Can you imagine what Canadian health and safety would say about this?

Bringing in the crops.

This is a tenrec, which is related to hyraxes and elephants.

A couple of the chameleons we saw in the reserve.

And a frog...

and a small python.

Rain and check out that motorized vehicle.

Tuesday, November 14^th.

An early start for a long drive. We drove for five hours this morning, from 7 to 12, past more valleys, hills and rice fields before arriving in the outskirts of Tana for lunch. We broke up the drive with a visit to a town to see an aluminum factory. This was another example of stepping back into the medieval era. Everything was done by hand, there were no safety rules in place and the working conditions were abysmal. We watched as a team of three men went about the task of making aluminum cooking pots. They worked very quickly and efficiently. They worked in bare feet, shirtless and inhaling fine dust and aluminum fumes while handling molten aluminum. It was fascinating to watch what they were doing, but also kind of scary and very sad. Patrick told us that there are inspectors who are supposed to come and check working conditions, but the owners of the shop simply pay them off. And he once asked them why they don't wear masks to prevent inhaling the dust and they said it would slow down their work because they would have to lift the mask repeatedly to blow off the excess dust off the pots as they come out of the moulds. After we watched we visited the in-house shop where they sell little things they have made for tourists: lemurs, baobab trees, salt and pepper pots, etc.

After that we drove to the outskirts of Tana and we ate at a restaurant inside a large supermarket, where we had stopped on the way when we left eleven days ago, and then did a bit of personal shopping.

Once we left Tana we drove on NR2 which was a very busy road because it goes down to the port and there were lots of trunks going in both directions. The road descends for a long way down off the high plateau and is narrow without shoulders and is very winding and full of big potholes. Therefore we had to go slow and be very careful to give the trucks coming up the hill the room to make the turns. There were numerous trucks that broke down and were being repaired on the road, which causes traffic problems. We saw an overturned truck with a wooden back that had broken open when the cargo shifted littering the road with bananas.

We drove for another couple of hours to the Reserve Peyreiras, which is a sort of zoo created by a Frenchman twenty years ago. It has since fallen into disrepair but it still houses a variety of chameleons, frogs, lizards, and snakes. We had a guide who took us around and showed us a number of them as we took photos. Seeing them in this atmosphere is sort of cheating but a bit faster and easier than wandering all over Madagascar looking for them. As we were looking around there was lightning and thunder coming over the mountains and right after we got back in the van it started to rain. It rained hard as we drove for the next hour and it got dark. We arrived in another town where we stopped to use the ATM before continuing the drive in the dark to the Grace Hotel where we are staying for the next two nights. We are housed in small cottages right on the edge of the Andasibe NP. Shortly after we arrived we gathered in the restaurant for a fixed menu meal of veggie soup, chicken skewers and fruit salad. We talked for a while and then headed off to bed by 9:30.