Madagascar - retail therapy
The Trek 2000 trip to Madagascar with the Rainforest Foundation.
Somewhere between Tana and Fiana we made a stop by some roadside stalls selling baskets and hats. Lesley, Rob, Moira and Simon talking - Peter, Claire, Elaine and Kate at the stall.
Excerpt from "Mad in Madagascar" ...
We came to a town called Antsirabe, where we stopped for half an hour so that Gora and Marilyn could buy food at the market. We took the opportunity to find toilets - which we did, although we had mixed feelings having found them. The toilet was a smelly squat-hole in a tiny, unlit closet up some steep steps in the courtyard behind a little general shop. Once inside, you pulled the barely fitting door shut with a rope, using that to lower yourself down into a precarious absail position - trying not to think of what might happen should the rope snap, sending you hurtling deep down into the bowels of ... on second thoughts, that was not the moment to think about bowels. The shop owner must have been most bemused by the spectacle of eight desperate vazaha travellers, jumping up and down clutching their crotches in their urgency, and even more so by the look of horror and amazement as we emerged from the black hole - more comfortable but slightly green around the gills. Still, she was happy enough - we all stocked up on vast quantities of crisps and chocolate. I made the mistake of buying what I thought were the Malagasy version of Cheesy Wotsits only to find they were cuttlefish flavoured. I managed to palm one (but only one!) off on Chris (who normally tends to eat anything) but nobody else was so gullible - they had quite sensibly decided to stick to Pringles.
Outside there were people begging us to buy their wares - everything from Pachypodium bulbs surreptitiously produced from under dirty raincoats (a highly illegal and ecologically immoral trade), to brightly coloured toy cars simply but effectively modelled from used tin cans, and a variety of semi-precious stones and amber of dubious quality. In a nearby market there were wonderful wood carvings of crocodiles and chameleons, which some of the ladies couldn't resist, being ladies.
At one point we stopped by a roadside stand where they were selling various baskets. Elaine bought a pair of round, lidded baskets which she hung from the window - they soon became famous - or infamous - for inducing motion sickness in all who found themselves mesmerized by their hypnotic powers. Madagascar's answer to the nodding dog on the dashboard. Mary bought a pink and yellow straw hat which became equally famous - particularly to every porter who ended up having to carry it, or rescue it from halfway down some windswept mountainside. I donated a piece of my mother's yellow string to the cause.
Madagascar - retail therapy
The Trek 2000 trip to Madagascar with the Rainforest Foundation.
Somewhere between Tana and Fiana we made a stop by some roadside stalls selling baskets and hats. Lesley, Rob, Moira and Simon talking - Peter, Claire, Elaine and Kate at the stall.
Excerpt from "Mad in Madagascar" ...
We came to a town called Antsirabe, where we stopped for half an hour so that Gora and Marilyn could buy food at the market. We took the opportunity to find toilets - which we did, although we had mixed feelings having found them. The toilet was a smelly squat-hole in a tiny, unlit closet up some steep steps in the courtyard behind a little general shop. Once inside, you pulled the barely fitting door shut with a rope, using that to lower yourself down into a precarious absail position - trying not to think of what might happen should the rope snap, sending you hurtling deep down into the bowels of ... on second thoughts, that was not the moment to think about bowels. The shop owner must have been most bemused by the spectacle of eight desperate vazaha travellers, jumping up and down clutching their crotches in their urgency, and even more so by the look of horror and amazement as we emerged from the black hole - more comfortable but slightly green around the gills. Still, she was happy enough - we all stocked up on vast quantities of crisps and chocolate. I made the mistake of buying what I thought were the Malagasy version of Cheesy Wotsits only to find they were cuttlefish flavoured. I managed to palm one (but only one!) off on Chris (who normally tends to eat anything) but nobody else was so gullible - they had quite sensibly decided to stick to Pringles.
Outside there were people begging us to buy their wares - everything from Pachypodium bulbs surreptitiously produced from under dirty raincoats (a highly illegal and ecologically immoral trade), to brightly coloured toy cars simply but effectively modelled from used tin cans, and a variety of semi-precious stones and amber of dubious quality. In a nearby market there were wonderful wood carvings of crocodiles and chameleons, which some of the ladies couldn't resist, being ladies.
At one point we stopped by a roadside stand where they were selling various baskets. Elaine bought a pair of round, lidded baskets which she hung from the window - they soon became famous - or infamous - for inducing motion sickness in all who found themselves mesmerized by their hypnotic powers. Madagascar's answer to the nodding dog on the dashboard. Mary bought a pink and yellow straw hat which became equally famous - particularly to every porter who ended up having to carry it, or rescue it from halfway down some windswept mountainside. I donated a piece of my mother's yellow string to the cause.