Madagascar
8-18 August
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The Land
Madagascar is the 4th largest island in the world. Over many years, the beautiful, primary forests of the country containing rich, endemic plant and animal life, has been decimated. The trees are harvested for fuel and building materials. Then, the cleared slopes of the hills and mountains are cultivated for farming to feed a growing population, which now has reached about 20 million.
There is now a semblance of realization regarding how much has been lost, and some effort is being made to preserve some of the forests that are left, through a National Park system. This may be due in part to the fact that tourist money is coming in from those interested in seeing the beauty that is left.
The People
Around the capital of Antananarivo, most of the population appears to be of Malaysian descent (confirmed by our driver). In the south, there are mainly African inhabitants. And, the north of Madagascar finds many of Chinese heritage.
The people, for the most part, are extremely poor by western standards. They get around by walking, many barefooted, others wearing only flip flops. It’s almost painful to watch people walking or running on rock strewn paths with no shoes. Most work at very hard labor, chopping down forest trees and burning them in pits to make charcoal, which is used for fuel. Smoky fires and charcoal for sale are the norm. Our driver even asked us if we used charcoal in the states as they do here. What a great divide!
We haven’t really noticed people going hungry. There would appear to be sufficient crops to feed the populace. There are rice patties everywhere; rice is a staple here. The markets contain lots of fruits and vegetables, dried beans and grains. There are lots of cows, chickens and ducks around for dairy, eggs and meat.
Antananarivo Arrival – 8 August
We departed the Cape Town airport at 6:00AM to make a connection through Johannesburg to Antananarivo. All went well, except for a fracas at Jo’burg airport security. A young Chinese diplomat carrying a diplomatic pouch refused to let the pouch go through the scanner. Suddenly, shouting ensued, then pushing and shoving between the diplomat (oxymoron, don’t you think) and the security folks. In the meantime, the people right behind us (we would have been next in line to the scanner) started yelling to let others go ahead while the fighting continued. In the end, the pouch went through the scanner, and the young diplomat earned herself a pat down.
We arrived in Tana (nickname for Antananarivo) picked up our luggage, and quickly located our driver. We had to exchange money (dollars for ariary) before leaving the airport, because out in the countryside where we were going, no credit cards are accepted, and only local currency can be used. At 2000 ariary to the dollar, we thought we might need a wheelbarrow to carry the money out. Actually, most all of our trip had been previously paid, but we needed money for park guides, incidentals and tips.
We were pleased to discover that we had a Toyota Land Cruiser in the parking lot for our adventure, and the driver turned out to be a very pleasant individual and a safe driver. We started driving, going first through the capital. All of our senses were quickly overwhelmed with the scenes before us, so much so that we were at a loss to even pick up the camera and take photos. People and more people: cramming 30 to a taxi van meant to hold 15 ( there are no public buses or trains), lining the sides of the road at little shops and kiosks, washing babies in plastic tubs in a canal that looked like a sewer, and massive amounts of laundry hanging everywhere that fabric items could be hung or draped. It turned out to be like this everywhere in the country. Do things not dry here? Or are they just airing out? I haven’t figured out the laundry yet, but I’ll let you know if I do!
For about an hour we snaked our way through the city before finally arriving in the countryside. We passed through small villages and climbed mountain roads, usually behind large trucks belching black smoke. We passed through one small town with hundreds of rickshaws taking people for rides, and there were Chinese restaurants and a large pagoda. Did time suddenly fast forward? Are we already in China? Well, no, but, we weren’t at the lodge yet, either. So, we kept on going, and after about 4 hours from the start of the journey, we turned off the main road to the lodge road. But, we still kept going and going. We saw lights a few times and thought we were there, but we weren’t. We still kept driving.
Tired and hungry, we finally arrived at the lodge about 7:30PM. The lodge’s dining room was warm and inviting with a large fire in the center of the room’s fireplace. Dinner and a hot shower never felt so good! Next morning, we actually saw the lodge in daylight. In a very pretty, serene setting, the rooms were individual bungalows with 2 bedrooms and a bath. There was even a hairdryer in the bathroom, which I found unusual for a remote lodge. We had breakfast and then set out for our first adventure.
Montadia National Park- 9 August
We went to the park office to pick up our guide, then drove to the trails, which were about 18 kilometers away (11 miles or so), or about an hour by bumpy dirt roads. When we arrived at the trail and started walking, we were struck by the primeval scene resembling a setting from Jurassic Park. We could hear the plaintive wails of the Indri Indri lemur. Giant 400 year old trees and huge tree ferns merged with vines that Tarzan could have used, and epiphytes were growing in all available spaces. We almost expected a dinosaur to appear!
We hiked for about 2 hours when our guide left us to scout an area. He was gone for about 15 minutes, and we were starting to think he had left us in this awesome forest. At this juncture, we heard an unearthly screeching and thought something was coming to get us. It was the call of the black and white ruffed lemur. Our guide appeared momentarily and led us to the lemurs in the treetops. They were really beautiful. We observed them and photographed them for several minutes. We actually got a triple feature as just nearby the diademed sifaka appeared. This lemur has long silky hair in shades of white, orangey beige, gray and black—gorgeous! As we watched and photographed them, the bamboo lemur appeared. This little guy is small and brown with soulful eyes. It was a banner morning!
NOTE: Lemurs are the main reason tourists come to Madagascar. They are a member of the primate family. When Madagascar broke away from the continent of Africa, these primates evolved very differently from the other members of the ape family in Africa. They are found in Madagascar and nowhere else. Some zoos have a few of them, but most of them don’t do well in captivity. They live in trees and eat leaves and fruits as monkeys and chimps do.
In the afternoon, we visited Lemur Island, a lodge attraction for its guests. The island is home to 3 lemur species, which coincidentally were the same that we saw in the morning. After dark, we took a hike above the lodge into its forest to look for night creatures. Dave caught a glimpse of a mouse lemur, but it was gone in a second. The mouse lemur is the smallest species and a nocturnal lemur. We also saw chameleons, geckos and moths. It’s amazing how the guides with just a flashlight can see so many things!
Analamazaotra National Park – 10 August
This morning’s quest was to see the Indri Indri, largest of the lemur species. It is found only in this area of Madagascar, nowhere else. As one enters this park, the wail of the Indri fills the air. It’s a haunting, eerie call that fills the air and travels for 2 or 3 kilometers (about a mile and a half). No other animal makes a sound like this. Dave likens it to the sound of the shofar (ram’s horn) on the Jewish high holidays. So, again we walked and climbed, traveling through dense thickets of vegetation, stumbling over tree roots, and sliding down slippery slopes of wet leaves and mud until we found them. They are black and white with rounded, furry ears, looking like pretty stuffed animals with glossy eyes and button noses. But, they’re real! During our hike, we encountered 4 separate family groups, as well as brown lemurs and a wooly lemur (nocturnal), sleeping in a tree.
Andasibe
After the hike, we had lunch at a local hotel and then drove through the village of Andasibe to see the local people and take some photos of their homes and lifestyle. Their houses are made of wood, and their lives are very simple. The children were on the streets, not in school. We took some photos of the children, and they had fun posing and looking at the photos on the camera.
Tomorrow, we’re off again…Two days of traveling to get to lodge #2. I’m not sure how far it is, but not as far as you’d think. It’s the roads and traffic that make it seem far.
The Road, Again… -11 August
Today’s drive is to take us to the town of Antsirabe (don’t ask why all these towns start with An or Am; I don’t know). This town is halfway to the next lodge and about 7 hours by road. Mountain roads, villages, people on foot, bicycles, Zebu (type of cattle) drawn wagons, and manpowered rickshaws (all the larger towns have them) make for a very challenging drive. Houses change from the wood style to adobe and then, finally, to brick. The house style depends on availability of building materials.
When digging out dirt to make a rice paddy, which is a sunken rectangular field, the surplus dirt (rich in clay) is mixed with water and put into molds. It is then dried. When the product comes out of the mold, it is then baked in makeshift ovens on the spot. The result is bricks, which are then sold and made into houses. Next, the plot of land so treated is ready to be flooded and planted with rice. There are endless farm lands planted with rice and vegetables, stretching all the way from the road to the mountains. The farm fields even go up onto the slopes of the mountains in terraces which are reminiscent of the ones the ancient Incas made in Peru. And all of the cultivation, all of the work from start to finish, is done by human labor. There are no tractors or other modern farm conveyances, only humans with spades. Upon harvesting the crops, they are carried on the heads of the women out of the fields in baskets. So that the crops can be irrigated, trenches are dug at regular intervals that fill with water from local rivers or runoff from the mountains. In this muddy water, the women wash the family clothes and bathe the children.
We arrived in Antsirabe in the afternoon and checked into our accommodation, Couleur Café, which means ‘coffee color’. We never did find why it had this name. There was nothing there that was coffee color, except the coffee we drank at breakfast. It’s a charming, small hotel and the rooms are actually individual bungalows set around a pretty, green courtyard. Between the bedroom and sitting room is a large, wood burning fireplace. An employee came and lit the fire for us after dinner to take the chill out of the air, which made for a very warm, cozy room.
NOTE: It’s technically winter here in Madagascar, but it’s a tropical country, so the term ‘winter’ is relative. Days have been sunny and pleasant, nights a bit cool.
After we checked into the room, we toured around this city of 2 million inhabitants. It was an important city when the country was a French colony. It boasts some fine French colonial architecture and a large colonial style hotel that Charles De Gaulle once visited. The architecture is all still here but has seen better days. In the center of town were the usual hordes of people, shops, rickshaws and markets. We visited the food market, which not only was a visual experience, but an olfactory one as well. There was one basket of something like tiny crayfish, or maybe even krill (teeny shrimp like creatures), that were covered with flies. I thought immediately of the old Chinese restaurant item, ‘flied lice’. I now know what flied lice really is!
The next morning, 12 August, we were on the road again. It was another long day in the car driving through much of the same terrain. We arrived in Ranomofana at the lodge late in the afternoon. As we were going to our room, 2 gardeners pruning a shrub found an amazing chameleon about 8 inches long, not including his tail, in the bush. They took it out for us to take photos. It was the type we’ve seen on nature documentaries and hoped to see here with bright green coloring and eyes that rotate 360 degrees in their sockets. About that time, a British couple came along and mentioned that they’d also seen them in the forest, too, so it sounds like a promising start. I had to ask them if they’d encountered any leeches, which are also supposed to live here and jump on your clothing and suck your blood while you’re hiking. They had and had a bite to prove it. The next eerie, haunting call in the forest will not be a lemur, but Renee finding a leech on her leg!!
Lost in Translation
It would be very helpful if we were fluent in French, which we aren’t. French is the second language here, spoken by most. Until meeting the British couple here, no other tourists have spoken English. All the others are French, Italian, German, Dutch and Spanish. Our driver speaks English, sort of… We try hard to understand him, and he tries to understand us. Our National Park guide tried to speak English, but Malagasy kept creeping into the conversation. We had a guide at our last lodge who attempted English, but every time we asked a question, he answered with a number. “What kind of tree is that?” Answer: “10”. “When do the young crocodiles join the adult ones?” Answer: “27”. OK! Last night we were asked if we wanted a cocktail before dinner. I replied, “Do you have rum?” Answer, “no alcohol.” OK, I give up!
Food
It’s just not a great idea to gripe about the food here when portions are large, we’re given the best of what’s available, and most of the population subsists on the minimum sustainable. BUT…Spoiled as we are, it is difficult to eat much of the food. Since Madagascar was a French colony, you’d think the French would have given these folks some cooking lessons. Didn’t happen! Attempts at French cuisine miss the mark in a big way, and Malagasy dishes are just plain scary. Dave ordered a Malagasy dish for lunch a few days ago. It turned out to be beef (or zebu, the ox-like/buffalo-like animal that’s plentiful here). The meat had been boiled for hours, shredded into thin strands the width of a hair, then deep fried and served with rice. On the side was a bowl of something like soup?
The worst of the worst is the meat. Chicken is scrawny, tough, stringy and bony. And it’s cut into unrecognizable shapes. Likewise, duck, which we had for dinner last night--I got a scrawny drumstick portion with something else looking like the beak, maybe. The man next to me got the same kind of drumstick with the addition of a neck. I guess nothing is wasted. I ordered beef one night and got something almost black in color, tough, stringy and totally unappealing. I believe the cows are only slaughtered when their years as beast of burden are finished. I normally order fish in most restaurants but can only guess which sewer they might be coming out of here. So, Renee has become a vegetarian of convenience way earlier in the trip than originally planned.
Actually, we’d been hoping to see some of the really fresh looking vegetables being sold along the side of the road show up on some of the menus. That actually happened today at lunch when I ordered a vegetarian pasta dish. Really nice stir fried fresh veggies showed up in a light curry sauce on top of ramen noodles. Best dish yet.
Ranomafana National Park, 13-14 August
Our first morning foray into the national park was a 4 hour intensive cardio workout. There are no level trails here. We walked up steps and steep slopes for most of the morning. Fortunately, it was worth it. We spent time with greater bamboo lemurs, watching them as they stripped the tough outer shell from the bamboo and ate the soft, fibrous center. As we watched them, they watched us. We were told that the 2 lemurs we were watching were the only ones of this rare species in the part of the forest where there are trails. Quite lucky for us! In order to breed these lemurs, they will have to bring in some others from more remote areas of the park. We were also fortunate to observe a family of Milne Edwards Sifakas. The parents and a baby sat on a limb playing and grooming while we watched and photographed them. We also saw some red fronted lemurs and caught a quick glance of a golden bamboo lemur.
At sunset, we drove to a roadside area for a night walk. Soon, van after van and small tourist buses arrived and dropped off more and more tourists, all in a very small area. There must have been about 200 people congregating in the same spot. At exactly 5:50PM, a mouse lemur (tiniest of all lemurs and nocturnal), made an appearance on a tree branch for all to see and photograph. We found out later that someone comes around and puts banana on the tree, so the lemur comes every night to this spot to eat as hundreds of flash cameras are going off. Every night, he comes at the same time, just as it starts to get dark. After this spectacle, we walked along the road, finding tiny tree frogs, chameleons and geckos.
The next morning we hiked a different area to see birds, frogs and whatever else presented itself. We did see and hear several different bird species, but the dense vegetation made it difficult to get any good photos. Some red bellied lemurs did make a surprise appearance close to us; they appeared to be curious about what we were doing, since this part of the park doesn’t get as many visitors. As we were preparing to leave, we mentioned to the guide that we really wanted to see the very large Parson’s Chameleon. He told us they didn’t live in this forest, because the altitude is too high for them. However, he did know where some were—on a plantation about 12 miles from there. So, off we went to the plantation to gaze upon these unique, fantastic creatures. They’re so colorful and huge. We had seen several chameleon species, but nothing like this. The male was about 2 feet long; the female about 15 inches or so. We encountered no blood sucking leeches on our walks, and no rain in the rainforest. The weather has been great! Tomorrow, we’re off for another 7 hour drive and our last lodge.
Isalo National Park 15-17 August
The drive from Ranomafana to Isalo was more of the same scenery until we reached a high plateau. Except for zebu grazing on dried grass, the area was arid and desolate. We could see the Isalo Massif in the distance—a line of sandstone mountains that stretched for hundreds of kilometers. As we neared the lodge, we came closer to these eroded, rocky outcroppings, and as the sun set, its rays warmed the rocks with a golden glow. The lodge itself is built with local stone, in harmony with its surroundings. Careful planning and execution went into the placement and construction of this hotel. It’s truly beautiful.
Boot Camp, Again
We set off early the next morning to explore the area. We drove to a parking lot to start the trail hike to a natural swimming pool. After 2 hours of climbing, descending, and some level ground, we reached this pool. Instead of the desert-like environment surrounding it, the pool was enveloped by lush, tropical palms. A large group of British women in their 20’s appeared, and announced, “strip and go.” They all stripped to their tiny bikinis and plunged into the cool, refreshing spring water. They posed for photos, and there, behind them, was an elderly white haired gentleman, with hands outstretched, as if embracing the group. He was living his wildest fantasy!
After leaving the pool grotto, we headed for the campground where we would rest and have a snack. After an hour of walking gradually uphill on hot rocks in the hot sun, we discovered that it would take another full hour to reach the campground. So, up and down we went, and then we started our real descent to the campground. Very steep rock steps covered with slippery sand greeted us as we went down. There must have been 1,000 steps. It was probably the most exhausting hike we’ve ever done. We had to be thankful that neither of us has any knee issues. The terrain here is extreme in its ruggedness. When we reached the campground, we rested and had a snack. A curious red fronted lemur decided to join us and sat on the picnic table bench, waiting for a handout. We don’t feed wild animals, because it makes them dependent on humans and because they can become aggressive. So, we resisted the temptation to give him some of our bananas.
After our rest, we were supposed to go on for about another 3 hours, but we called it quits for the day. We both had enough! So back to the hotel for a shower and rest. When we arrived, we noticed all around the entrance to our room were large boxes of photo equipment, even more than we’re carrying around with us! Dave went out on the patio and sat down, when there was a huge commotion in the room next to us. Girls were running out of the room with only towels on; men dressed as gendarmerie were running around holding their crotches; a film was in progress. The director motioned to Dave to be quiet. Us, be quiet? We weren’t the ones making the noise! Well, I guess it’s not every day that a porn film is being made in the hotel room next to yours while you sit on the patio! Luckily, after the scene was shot, they all left.
As we prepare to leave Madagascar, there are some closing thoughts. The problems here are common to most areas where there are treasures of nature. Overpopulation*, resulting in habitat loss, is pushing the lemurs and other endemic species to the brink of extinction. They live on small islands of protected forest surrounded by farms, villages and people. There will soon be, if not already, a tipping point where the decline of these beautiful animals and unique plants will be irreversible.
*We did see some family planning clinics in the larger towns. In the cities, most couples are limiting their families to 3 children, but in the country, sometimes there are still 10 or more children in families.
Malagasy Family (left & top) and Natural Swimming Pool at Isalo
Black and White Ruffed Lemur and Greater Bamboo Lemur
Ring-Tailed Lemur and Giraffe Necked Weevil
Belted Chameleon and Parson's Chameleon
