MANAKARA OR BUST

We left the capital at 6:00 AM.  Everyone assured me that we would be able to make it to Manakara before sundown. Normally, the trip takes 12 hours to navigate the 650km  (420 miles).  It's the most intense road-trip I've ever undertaken: winding roads, tropical forests, washed out sections of the highway, occasional bandits,  massive potholes, etc...

The windy roads cutting zigzags through the rain forest leave the average passenger nauseated by the end of hour number one.  The views are spectacular though: bamboo forests interspersed with traveler's palms, forested ravines that drop several hundred meters into the riverbeds below, waterfalls, and of course, the ever present rice patties cut out of the lush overgrowth.

As the first vestiges of dusk started to settle over beautiful landscape we still had  one hundred kilometers remaining in our journey.  Rounding an isolated corner, we came upon a  traveler's worst nightmare in Africa: parked trucks along the side of the road.  This line was several kilometers long.

We quickly asked what was going on-- the road had washed out ahead and had been that way for several weeks.  Sigh! So much for 12 hours. There was a diversion cut through the rainforest, but the heavy rains that week had made it almost impassable.  To further complicate the situation, there was no electricity for kilometers, no place to stay, no food, and no cell phone coverage.  This was Africa at it's finest.

We decided to turn around and head back to the nearest town to find lodging and cell phone coverage.  By now, 14 hours had lapsed.  In a little restaurant, we found someone with a cell phone that worked. No electricity though.  We ate some kind of a rice dinner in the dark, found a hotel room for $4 a night above the local bar, and decided to get some sleep. Unfortunately, my two traveling companions decided this was the perfect time to relive the days events.  Somewhere around midnight I finally found my IPHONE and put on some music to drown out their voices.

At 6:00 AM sharp we headed back to the diversion. We were the first ones to try to navigate it that day.  Several vehicles had been stuck in the deep mud the day before.  Only a couple hundred meters down the track we were stuck! A group of men emerged, offered their services, and ran behind our vehicle.  For the next 5 kilometers the process would repeat itself: we get stuck, they push, we drive, they run behind us, we get stuck, they push, we drive, etc..  Mud covered we finally pulled into Manakara  a full 26 hours later exhausted, but with quite a story to tell!

The days that followed proved to be some of the most fruitful ministry I've had since coming to Madagascar.  God worked in tremendous fashion encouraging, strengthening, and empowering His people there!