Home | Prologue | Travel Logs | FAQ | ContactMadagascar THE 8TH CONTINENT
 n the spring of 1997, I hit a rut and didn't know what I wanted out of life. Grasping at anything, I wrote: "I'm going to sell my car, use the money to buy me a colorful hat, some tap shoes, and a harmonica, and try to make a living as a street performer in Madagascar." Six years later, and recently laid off, I ran across this quote. Although I still had my car and hadn't yet taken tap lessons, I decided that shouldn't stop me. And so I set of to the big red island of Madagascar to satisfy my calling.
Getting there was an adventure of its own, involving several airlines and a full day stopover in Paris. It might have been faster for me just to have taken a shovel and dig a hole in my backyard, for Madagascar is almost exactly on the other side of the planet from the bay area. It shouldn't have surprised me, then, that some areas look suspiciously like home. I still remember my disappointment and dismay as I hiked up 7 hours just to see the same view I've seen from overlooks in Yosemite National Park. "Why did I travel across the globe just to see something that exists three hours from my house?" I asked myself in a state of exhaustion. In fact, when I first arrived in Tana the capital, jet-lagged and disoriented, I watched a young guy walk around the taxi stand, until suddenly it truck me that he was wearing a San Jose Shark's cap. "That's my town" I exclaimed. He smiled back at me, oblivious to the irony.
"It might have been faster for me just to have taken a shovel and dig a hole in my backyard."
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