Tana

These are pictures from Tana (short for Antananarivo), the capital of Madagascar. A lot of Tana is sprawling, polluted, and crawling with pickpockets, but certain areas have a nice old-world charm. The big boxy building in the first and last pictures is the Rova (Queen's Palace), most famous for housing the crazy Queen Ranavalona, who was an old school badass who enjoyed poisoning people and throwing the occasional missionary off a cliff. The shack roofs are from housing just behind the Rova; the statue is from the Rova compound and might be King Radama; and the panoramic picture is taken from one of Tana's many hillsides looking down on downtown Lake Anosy. If you look closely as the hillside in the last picture you can see Tana's Hollywood-style hill sign.