We’re in a hilly part middle part of Madagascar. We knew we didn’t have the speed to do the full ~150km + 7000ft climb between Fianarantsoa and Ambositra in one go or even with our Ranomanafa detour so looked for places to stop along the way. Ambohimahasoa was one such place (and if it didn’t work out it was nice to have a vehicle).

So we started today with a ride back to the RN7. This skipped ~2000ft of climb and some rough road.

An amusing aside we sometimes see shirts here with western lettering (no Emirates so far though). Today we saw a small kid with a Colo State shirt. Our driver has a Texas A&M Tri-Delt shirt (for those Aggies fans). The lettering does seem to be English more than others.

It was overcast and cool starting out but we quickly warmed up with climbing.

One of our first villages had this nice little shop.

Near the top was this tourist board where we talked with some Scottish tourists. Most of the tourists we meet are European. So far we’ve met German, Dutch, French, Scottish, Italian (?). French is the most common foreign language spoken as shown by this sign.

Rice paddies

Today there were several shrines like this. I hadn’t noticed any before Fianarantsoa.

This is one of the largest truck we see. The road today had many gravel patches and even two sections of construction. Some of the roughest we’ve had since our first day riding.

This brought us to our end village. When yesterday was a very touristy destination – today was the opposite. Tourist bungalows (no wifi), restaurants with inexpensive but sometimes iffy looking food items (noodle soup or chicken with rice or bread are things I look for, beef or things that look like they’ve been out in the air/flies I avoid).

Market street in town.

As best I can convert, gas a little less that $5/gallon. Otherwise a relaxing afternoon in a small town on the RN7 in Madagascar…