Stories to tell . . .: Letters from Madagascar

August 17, 2016

Time to say goodbye to Madagascar

One month is just too short a time to explore this amazing island nation. I'll post the highlights first & then if you are still interested you can scan through the details.

Highlights

Indri-Indri Lemur

I traveled long distances from the central capital to the northeast coast & then back through the capital down the central highlands to the southwest coast:

Andesibe Park

Andesibe Park in the central mountains, a few hours from the capital where I got to see Brown & Indri-Indri (the largest) Lemurs hiding out in a rain forest

Ile St. Marie - west coast

Il Saint Marie, an island off the northeast coast where I spent several hours watching humpback whales courting from a smallish motorized boat. Watching the whales breach & flash or slap their fins
& tails was exciting but the real treat was listening to their mating calls via a microphone placed in the water.

Humpback Whale watching - Ile St. Marie

Anakao, a small beach village an hour boat ride from Tulear in the southwest where I saw more humpbacks from a traditional pirogue (handmade dugout outigger with square sails) that took me to Bird Island to see nesting seabirds. The beach at Anakao was lined with the colorful pirogues of local fisherman who repaired their nets & then set their sails to go out to sea to fish & return with the morning & afternoon winds & tides. At the end of the day there was plenty of fish & some shellfish to sell to the local restaurants. I spent 3 nights in a simple shack bungalow (Peace Corps style) with buckets of water warming in the sun for my evening bucket-bath. Days were spent walking the shelled beach, chatting with adventuresome folks sailing in on catamarans from South Africa & the one Australian spending a month kite surfing, and of course watching the kids play in the waves before the sun set.

Isalao Park

Isalao Park, southwestern dry zone with unique sandstone cliffs that are desert-like on top yet hide narrow canyons below that hold waterfalls, natural pools, & unique palm, bamboo, & fern groves. I hiked up & down the canyons to find Brown & Sifaka (aka Sefika) Lemurs bouncing from one tree to the next.

Anja Park

Anja Park, southcentral lowlands, with immense solid rock formations (small versions of Yosemite's Half Dome) & a lovely little forest where we spotted Ring-tailed Lemurs sunning themselves in the morning hours & chameleons snapping at bugs. I hiked up up up up with an interesting Spanish couple from Barcelona to find amazing views of the rice paddy terraces rimming the valley below.

Ring Tailed Lemurs - sun salutation

The park is owned, managed, & staffed by the community. Proceeds from the park entry & guide fees are reinvested into the community, park, & training programs for guides & spotters.

Ambalavao

Ambalavao, a quirky little southcentral town where I got to watch dozens of small zebu herds arrive for the weekly sale. This was actually fascinating to watch as the herds were driven in from the lowlands onto the high plateau. All the herds were jammed next to one another & so the shepherds were constantly having to un-mix & sort their cattle. It was a zebu cowboy roundup without the horses but the dexterity & quick footedness of the shepherds made it exciting.

Brown - red crested Lemur

Ranomafana Park a beautiful very steep mountain rain forest in the central high plains where I hiked & spotted Sifaka, Brown Bamboo, & Red-bellied Brown Lemurs.

Brown Lemur

Since this was a large park & very challenging to hike, spotters were used to go out early to find the lemurs & then communicate locations with guides - all so organized…but we still had to maneuver the steep jungle making our own trails.

The nation's culture, commerce, & poverty is easy to see from the road:

Zebu grazing in small groups attended in many cases by youth
Little children pushing dirt into the potholes in the roads as a way to get tips from truck drivers
Low wooden carts with a crazy steering & braking system being used extensively up & down the mountains
Most everyone walking, very few personal cars
Women cooking meals in heavy cast iron pots on charcoal-heated braziers
Fruits, eggs, veggies, charcoal for sale on the roadside
Tiered rice paddies up & down the hillsides
Malagasy singing along to all the songs played in the taxi brousse
Snack breaks all day long along the road - small bites with coffee

Overview

Malagasy couple

Madagascar is the 4th largest island in the world (a little smaller than Texas) with a population of more than 22 million people. Poverty is visible everywhere in Madagascar, it ranks #22 (the US is #127 of 162 countries) on the list of poorest/richest nations in the world with approximately 50% of its people living below the poverty line (defined by the World Bank as an income of $1.90 a day or less). Unfortunately the Malagasy, even from their very early history, have relied on slash & burn farming and that, coupled with high a rate of poverty, population growth, over grazing their cattle, & reliance on charcoal for cooking; the result has been a 90% decimation of the island's natural forests.

In spite of these hardships Madagascar is a beautiful country with friendly & kind people & a fascinating and diverse geography. 90% of Madagascar's wildlife & 80% of its plants are found nowhere else in the world. Though the high central plains show the greatest evidence of deforestation, the vast coastal areas are rich with jumbo size palms, ferns, bamboo, & a wide range of fruit trees. The country is mountainous as well, and even traveling cross country there seems to be little distance between mountain ranges, rolling hills, high plains, deserts, & tropical coasts. The look & feel of villages & homes changes as quickly as the terrain. Simple raised wooden houses in the tropical areas, thatched huts in the dry lowlands, & 2 story, balconied, brick homes in the central areas.

I spent quite a bit of time on the road traveling from northeast to southwest & back again. The biggest obstacle was that I don't speak French which is the Malagasy's second language. Fortunately I met many very friendly European tourists who were more than willing to help me out; several times we teamed up to travel together and/or share a guide in one of the national parks. I was always impressed by the Europeans, mostly French, Spanish, & Belgium who could speak 3 or even 4 languages. It seemed only the Italians were as limited in French as I was, though I picked up enough French words to get by.

The effects of the colonization by the French can be felt in small ways - especially with the food. Baguettes & small pastries

were for sale everywhere, but also lots of little fried foods & samosas. Mini street stands always seem busy selling small bites with coffee. My favorite was delicious fresh yoghurt offered up in small glasses. The meals are simple: for breakfast a rice soup with green veggies and for lunch or dinner zebu (a humpbacked species of cattle originating from South Asia), duck, or chicken stew or soup with rice (the staple) & vegetables.

Traveling through Madagascar is a real adventure. Public taxi vans, taxi brousse (bush taxis) can be dilapidated & prone to breakdowns yet are packed tightly (4 persons to a 3-person bench) even for long distances. Fortunately the service is fairly organized with reserved seat tickets & baggage carried on a roof rack. Since distances between cities & villages is fairly great, the taxi fills & unloads in specific towns rather than making numerous stops along the way. During long distance trips; for example when I travelled overnight between the east coast & the central mountains) the driver will make periodic stops for meals & breaks. I found another option early on when the taxi brousse I was on broke down & everyone had to hitch for a ride. Fortunately most everyone got a ride quickly, usually for a small fee. I was picked up by chauffeur/guide who was driving "empty" from the capital to the west coast to pick up tourists who were flying to the coast one way and returning to the capital on a multi-day tour with the guide. Though I had planned to go only a short distance, I quickly changed my plans & opted to ride with him all the way to the coast, a two-day drive, for a fee. "Driving back empty" & picking up tourists who just want a ride turned out to be a great way to get through difficult routes and it made a nice break from the cramped taxi brousse. Tuk tuks, bicycle or foot powered, known as pousse-pousse, are very common in the smaller towns. They can be the only way to get around some towns as cars are not that common. Outside of the capital most people walk or use carts human or cattle powered.

The great thing about traveling long distances through the various regions was that I got to see people working in a variety of ways: weaving sisal or palm baskets, planting, harvesting & preparing rice, making charcoal & bricks, even operating stills of illegal sugar cane liquor (illegal but ignored). It was odd to see brick making taking place in the rice paddies; apparently it is more lucrative for farmers to make bricks and so the country has to import rice from Asia. I did not notice as many schools as I was used to seeing in Lesotho - in principle public education is free but many families can't pay for school uniforms & books and/or have difficulty keeping their kids in school (issues include tropical storms, transportation, inaccessibility, insufficient teachers).

I departed Madagascar on August 18 for Seychelles, another island and a completely different world.