8. Trek under Tsaranoro

Now I am going to explain nickname Simko of Rasťo. Calvin asked me at the airport, who is that Simko? Our first contact with Madagascar was Rasťo’s work. He send Calvin a fax. He signed as a Simko and nickname was born.

I slept well at night. That regime suits me. Go to bed at 21:00 and wake up at 5 o’clock in the morning. We spent the morning by solving serious problems how to get all material (technic and human) to base camp. It is about 18 km from village Antanambao under Tsaranoro. The road to Tsaranoro is in very bad condition and Calvins car would not manage it. We decide to save it and leave it parked it in near Christian mission. The plan of the moving from one place to another looked like this. We will place the entire luggage onto Jacks car and they will go with Doul to BC. The rest with Calvin will do some trekking. At least we will better know Africa, we thought to ourselves. Then Jack will come back for us with empty car. We began a journey at half past eight and it was quite hot. The road was zigzagging in the dry steppe along the little river Sahanambo through villages Avodia and Vohitsoaka, where the Madagascan flag flow proudly. All houses were read, made of baked bricks. Vohitsoaka is a center of this region, maybe that is the reason for that flag. We met many natives while trekking, whom we greeted with the word akoriabe that means something like hello. The decision to go 18 km through dry African country was soon regretted.

Thanks to God that we found some mango trees sometimes and we could hide under their shadows. The water was used up quickly and we had to pass on the saving regime. In spite of great heat, we did not sweat a lot. The air was dry, it was not raining here seven months. The mountain ridge Andringitra was rising in front of us. This ridge lies in the national park called the same Andringitra, with the highest mountains Donde and Pic Bobby (2658m) in the region. The trek stopped to be funny from the Vohitsaoka village, which was maybe in the middle of our journey. In addition, Jack still was not here.

Our group was successively lengthening and every one of us had his own problems. About 12:30, we had the best stimulation we could get and we forget the fatigue and thirst quickly. We saw the Tsaranoro, our dreamed mountain with whole massif. From the left there is Vatovarindry, Mitsin Joarivo, three summits of Tsaranoro-Atsimo, Be, Kely, further Karambony and Lemur Wall. We came to a small village made of 10-15 houses about 13:00. Right aside we saw our car in little mango woods. Jack and Dulá sat on camp chairs and were drinking a beer. Perhaps they did not understand instructions. “I am going to pay a bonus…” and we drank with them. The whole village came here in a moment. We called the place where they sat, auditorium, because during our whole stay here at least half of village sat there and watched what are we doing. Especially children were very nice and cute. The time has come to give some presents. Simko became a Santa Claus. Pens, balloons and other small things found their new owners.

The village is called Antanambao Kely and its population is 55. In this area lies the mango groove of our base camp. We have to go to chief, 80-year-old man, for a visit and to pay hire for our 6-week stay. We have to pay 75000 francs that is 11 dollars. It is really a cheap price in comparison with 20 USD for a day per person in near mountaineer camp. I would like to make a little comment on our health condition. Ivo was still ill, Rado was making sounds like a grandpa, Šaňo was in deep shit, throat red like a cooked cancer, Simko was on the best way to become ill, I was out from the worst and the only one who was healthy was Dosky. Complete infirmary. Acclimatization was running according to plan.

We build the tents, we hanged climbing stuff and started to get acquainted with surroundings. A well with water was perhaps 150 meters away from our woods. In the direction to rocks, Dula dig out a toilet, perfectly thought over. You have the perfect view on the walls and of course and that is even better, everybody has a perfect view on user from all sides. Those walls look fantastic. We are looking forward to climbing there. Our guides get little bit drunk and guffawed and played domino as kids. Therefore, we changed the roles. We made a dinner and what they did not eat we ate. We were wasted and so we went sleep soon. Suavatury - good night.