Adventures in Madagascar

A mere 2 hours flight off the coast of southern Africa lies the fascinating island of Madagascar, chock full of really crazy and diverse biodiversity. It is somewhere I had always thought would be great to visit, if I ever had the opportunity, but never really imagined it would actually happen. But sometimes in life, it is worth “just doing it” as the Nike ad says. So I made a last-minute booking to join a two week tour in early December with the UK travel company Explore, booked my flights and four days later headed off. And it was the best last-minute decision I have ever made – what an amazing place! I was in eco-geek heaven, surrounded by other eco-geeks and so much cool stuff to see!

A Bit About the Country

Madagascar is a large island that has been separated from other land masses, including Africa, for enough millennia to have evolved its own flora and fauna. It was also free of any human interference for all except the last 2,000 years, so in the meantime, the landscapes and biology got on doing their own thing without our help. The first humans arrived from South-east Asia, probably Indonesia or thereabouts, then Africa, followed by Arabs and in the late 1800’s, the French. The melting pot that now makes up the Malagasy population has influences of all these cultures, from the rice-growing traditions of Asia through to the patisseries and Renaults and Citroëns of France. In fact the traffic chaos was typical of African cities overlain with crazy French driving!

French is still the official language, although most people speak Malagasy to one another. Enough people spoke enough English for us tourists to get by. Despite the 18 tribes in the country of 22 million people, the predominant dialect of Malagasy is close enough to other regional dialects that locals can make themselves understood in most places. 

Rice growing is the main economic activity and in the north and east of the country where there is sufficient rainfall, farmers grow three crops a year. I had never seen rice growing before, so was really interested in it. On my arrival in the capital, Antananarivo, the day before the tour started, I wandered down the street from my hotel and discovered large areas of rice paddies and vegie plots in suburbia, much to my amazement! It seems that much of the low lying land in the city is given over to cultivation while the hills are given over to habitation. Thankfully the name of the capital city is abbreviated to Tana, which is far easier to pronounce and write!

In the countryside in the east and central highlands areas, people live in relatively substantial homes, often two storied, made of brick and plaster, often with thatched rooves. Although the country is the 11^th poorest in the world on a basis of per capita income, to me it felt less impoverished than Malawi and people seemed to have a higher standard of living. In the southwest, living conditions were more similar to those I had seen in Malawi with people living in modest huts. Rainfall is much lower here due to the rain-shadow caused by the central highland mountains, and zebu cattle are the most important agricultural output. Wealth and status are measured in the number of zebu owned and there are numerous cultural traditions arising around cattle ownership, vying for wives and death rituals, that are all too involved to relate here.

Madagascar is also known as the home of the vanilla bean, with vanilla an important crop in the north of the country. There are a wide range of other crops grown, including various tropical fruits, vegetables (both temperate and tropical such as taro and cassava), cereal crops such as corn with wheat and barley in the cooler areas, and the ubiquitous chickens, with some goats, pigs and sheep as well. Fishing also provides an important protein source for much of the population.

Given the number of people and the rate of population growth, land degradation is a big problem. Slash and burn agriculture is still practised, with rainforest being cleared for agriculture. Sadly this land is usually exhausted of nutrients within a few years and given the steep slopes and high rainfall, erosion is a significant problems. Many rivers run red and muddy with topsoil. Over-grazing is also a serious issue in the south, which again leads to erosion.

Some of the remaining areas of rainforest and other vegetation types have been reserved in national parks and other reserves, and it was these areas in which we spent most of our time. I was impressed with the commitment of dedicated locals to preserve and conserve these areas, and by the way that systems had been set up to ensure that some of the revenue accruing from tourists visiting these areas went directly back to local communities to fund schools and medical clinics etc. I only hope that enough undisturbed landscape has been reserved to ensure that it remains healthy and self-sustaining in the long term, as restoration, particularly of rainforest areas, is a very difficult process given the complexity of these systems. In some areas, the government was supporting extensive plantations of eucalypts and pines to provide woody biomass for the locals as an alternative to harvesting the indigenous forests. Much of the cultivated landscape was punctuated by stands of eucalypts and other foreign species.

But it was the natural areas that I wanted to explore and to which the tour took us…

East of Tana and Our First Lemurs

The tour group assembled at the airport at Tana and finally got underway mid-afternoon, after those flying in from Heathrow had arrived and got their luggage and local money sorted. There were 15 of us on the tour – 8 from the UK, 2 from Canada, 4 from Australia and me, plus our amazing local tour guide Claude and two drivers. We drove east through the hills and valleys for about 4 hours, to Andasibe, where we stayed 3 nights in cabins on the edge of the rainforest.

This area is home to the indri, the largest of the remaining lemur species. There are about 100 or so species of lemur in the world, all only found in Madagascar. They are divided into different groups, based on size, habitat, diet and habits. Indri are a type of sifaka lemur, which tend to be quite large. Indri can weigh up to 10 kg and are the only species to not have a tail. Their other outstanding feature is their calls – they have a series of different calls for different situations, one of which they use to communicate their whereabouts to other family groups. These calls are haunting, not dissimilar to whale song, and resonate through the forest from before dawn, so I would lie in bed and listen to them calling in the distance.

We did several walks in the forests in the area and had the privilege of seeing a number of indri, as well as diademe sifakas, red-bellied lemurs and common brown lemurs. In some cases we could get relatively close to them, only a few metres or so away from us up in the trees and we could watch them for a while, but at other times we just caught a glimpse of a tail or body as they jumped from tree to tree and disappeared out of sight. There was a group of brown lemurs feasting on passion-fruit at one spot who were quite oblivious to our presence and we spent about 20 minutes watching them cruising around the trees, eating and playing and grooming etc without a care in the world!

After having enjoyed the thrill of spending time with these creatures in the wild, who seemed comfortable with having humans in their midst, we went to a rehabilitation park populated with lemurs rescued from the pet trade. Here the lemurs were not only relaxed about tourists, they were intent on getting up close and personal with us, especially if bananas were involved! Some of the photos show just how happy they were to interact – at one stage I had 4 brown lemurs sitting on my shoulders and head!!! Their fur was so soft and they were very gentle, so it was seriously cool being able to stroke them. I know it was a very contrived situation, but I enjoyed it and the lemurs seemed to be pretty happy about it all too!

In addition to the lemur interactions in the rainforest, I really enjoyed exploring the vegetation and other fauna. It was supposedly the beginning of the wet season, but over the whole tour we only encountered rain for a couple of hours on one day and a couple of times at night. So the rainforest was quite dry and I only saw one leech. But there was so much interesting fauna – lots of frogs and lizards and brightly coloured geckos, snakes, huge snails and centipedes and spiders, and beautiful butterflies including large blue swallow-tails. One of our party was a keen bird-watcher and we saw good range of different birds, both in the forests and in more open areas. Another guy was mad-keen on dragonflies and he saw plenty to keep him amused as well. So me being a plant-nerd wasn’t too much different from other tour members, and Claude had an amazing knowledge of the plants so was able to tell me their latin names and which families they were in, which impressed me! He was also highly knowledgeable about the fauna, birds and the culture and politics etc, so he kept us well informed about all sorts of interesting stuff.

The Central Highlands

From Andasibe we traveled back to Tana and then south into the central highlands region. We spent a couple of nights in different towns, including Antsirabe which is the ‘pousse-pousse’ capital of the country. These are rickshaws, imported by the English from SE Asia in the late 1800’s. In most cases they are powered by foot, with the driver carrying the rickshaw and running or walking with it, while a few are bicycle-powered. I did actually try them out one evening, but I reckon it would have been just as quick to walk myself! Oh well, it is a way to contribute foreign-sourced cash to the local economy, as was most of my souvenir-buying. We stopped at a variety of craft stalls and markets along the trip and I bought some lovely raffia products as well as wooden and stone items and the inevitable fridge magnets, more to support local enterprises than because I really needed or wanted them!

My favourite market experience was the weekly local market in the incongruously named town of Camp Robin. Here the locals trade everything from fruit and vegies, chickens, pigs and dried fish to electronic goods and clothes and everything in between. We were the only white people in evidence and I loved the colour and vibrancy of the market, which was huge. It was great to be able to wander around and absorb it all without being hassled or expected to buy anything.

We did have the chance to wander around towns at different times and get some idea of the life that people live, which I appreciated. And everyone we met was very friendly and welcoming, with the children keen to try out their limited English on us! We also enjoyed a traditional musical performance one evening from a professional dance troupe, who got us all up dancing with them which was heaps of fun! Given that I was taller than most Malagasy people I met and the Aussie blokes on tour towered over me, I think the little dancers were very brave dragging the Aussies onto the dance floor who then obliged by dancing with them with a great deal of energy and enthusiasm!

One of the other lovely cultural experiences was a visit to a paper-making factory where the whole process is done by hand. They incorporate live flowers into the paper to make beautiful cards and other products.

Having spent some time absorbing the Malagasy culture, we returned to rainforest and the primary activity of lemur-spotting, this time in Ranomafana. And during a walk on our first afternoon there we had the privilege of not so much seeing a Milne- Edwards’ sifaka as meeting him! He was a 2 year old youngster who was as interested in us as we were in him, who entertained us with his antics of climbing up and down the nearby saplings, occasionally falling off, walking up the bank to peer over at us and then scampering back up a tree to relative safety. He was only a few metres from us, at our level, and we were all enthralled! He bounced around there for 20 minutes or more, checking in with his nearby parents every so often to make sure he was still in touch with his group. It was magic! It took hours to wipe the grin off my face!

We also saw some other species of lemur during our walks in the Ranomafana, as well as chameleons. Madagascar is home to a good proportion of the world’s chameleon species, from the very smallest at a few centimetres in size, to the very largest. We saw different species on several different occasions, sometimes in rainforest and sometimes in drier areas, some very colourful and some quite drab looking. Many were so well camouflaged that I would never have spotted them, but some of the local guides who accompanied us on the various walks had such keen eyesight that they could spot a stick insect from 20 paces!

Heading South

Annual rainfall totals drop off as you travel east to west across the island, and temperatures increase as you decrease in altitude as well – Tana is about 1300 m above sea level so relatively mild, but humid. We spent a couple of days in savannah country amongst the amazing rock formations near the Isalo National Park, where the annual rainfall is about 900 ml but summers are hot and dry so the vegetation is more sparse.

During this time we had two encounters with ring-tailed lemurs which were both quite special. During the first encounter, there were a large troupe in the trees at a small reserve who again were quite unfazed by having another group of tourists come and gawk at them. One of the guides quietly led myself and one other of the group up a bit of hill where a mother with two young babies on her back was heading. She came up some trees to the top of the bank, very close to where we were standing. One of the youngsters, only about 3 months old apparently, climbed off her back and into the trees just in front of us. He was watching us and quietly playing in the branches, checking in with his mum every now and then to make sure he was safe. At times, he was only 1 - 2 m away from us, at about eye level, and then he would scamper away a bit, returning to check us out some more. It was wonderful to be able to engage with him and we spent about 10 minutes completely entranced. I really didn’t want to leave that reserve as the lemurs were so accessible and I could have watched them all day.

We stayed two nights in a very flash hotel artfully secluded amongst the sandstone rock formations, which served some of the best food I have had in my whole time in Africa. Sadly, like so many of the places where we stayed, there was no air-con or even fans in the rooms, and it was so hot that I had trouble sleeping. Completely out of character, I know, but most mornings on tour I was up by about 6 am and one morning I even made it out of bed for a 5.30 am birding walk! However, at the other end of the day, everyone was heading for bed most evenings by about 9.30 pm.

We spent a memorable day exploring the sandstone country of Isalo National Park, in an area dubbed the Grand Canyon of Madagascar. Although not nearly as extensive as the real Grand Canyon, it was still very impressive. Weathering processes had created a myriad of fascinating shapes in the rocks, with different layers weathering at different rates. I loved the lurid green lichen growing on the rocks, and there were so many different species of lichens, some so extensive that they must have been there for centuries.

I also met my first wild Pachypodiums – the elephant foot plants. I fell in love with these, of all the interesting desert species we saw. Some Pachypodium species were small, only half a metre or so in height with a squat, bulbous trunk with tentacle-like branches rising up out of the trunk base, each bearing a cluster or two of leaves. These plants were some hundreds of years old. Other species grew to 4 or 5 m tall, with fat stems topped by a completely unexpected crown of broad green leaves and frangipani-type flowers (these plants are in the frangipani family, apparently). They were all so interesting.

The whole group did the walk in the morning which took us up the hills and onto a plateau. As usual, I was at the back of the bunch stopping to look at things and take photos and generally absorb the fascinating landscape. There were a few of us who gravitated to the back of the group on each walk we did as we kept getting distracted by various things around us – plants, birds, insects, views. We were always the last to get back on the bus after any stop, much to the amusement of the rest of the party! However, we were also the ones who tended to do the optional afternoon walks as well as any morning activities and I think we all enjoyed the opportunity to maximise our time with the amazing biodiversity and landscapes. 

Once we were up on the plateau we had the opportunity to cool off with a swim in a pool formed at the base of the gorge of one of the rivers. What a magic spot – a pool of clear water surrounded by high rocks on one side with pandanus trees and ferns and lush greenery growing around the other sides, with the river tumbling down a waterfall at one end! It was like an oasis in the desert, well semi-desert anyway. It was so nice to swim and relax after the exertions of the morning’s hike. Lunch was then served to us at a tables set up under a structure with a thatched roof and no sides. We were grateful for at least the roof as a thunderstorm rolled in and pelted rained for maybe half an hour. It was very cool being in such an impressive landscape surrounded by thunder and lightning and rain! Once it had started to clear, most of the party headed back the way we had come, but the keen amongst us (Team Geeks!) headed off down the valley for a fairly leisurely 2 hour stroll amongst the rock formations, and then down 400 steps into a forested canyon area.

And it was in this forest that we had our second special encounter with ring-tailed lemurs. Again, there was a large troupe of them relaxing in the trees when we arrived. After a while, they started to get more active and came into trees much closer to us, and bounced around a couple of metres up the trees. They were very active, leaping from one tree to another and then sitting still for a moment or two before leaping off again. But then the fun really began as they came down onto the ground and wandered around amongst us! A couple of them sat on a nearby picnic table, hands on knees and surveyed the scene before them – wow! Again, we were so close to them and they were completely unfazed by our presence. They were doing their own thing regardless of us being there and following their every move with our cameras. It was awesome to be able to be amongst them and watch them moving with ease across the ground, with their beautiful ringed tails curved in an S-shape. After a while they moved off into the forest and we had to leave them behind. But for the third day in a row, I had a grin on my face that didn’t budge for hours!

That night a group of us sat up on a rock in the hotel gardens and watched the sun set over the sandstone formations. I had expected to see lemurs and rainforest in Madagascar, but not these fascinating rock formations and landscapes, so I was very impressed.

To The Beach

From the grandeur of the sandstone country we continued west to the coast, based for one night in the town of Toliara. We spent all afternoon exploring the spiny desert, well to be honest the walk amongst the plants took about an hour and a half, but getting there and back took twice that long! The road was fairly rustic and rutted, with deep sand in some places. And yes, we did get stuck a couple of times and had to get out and push the bus, but that’s all part of the adventure!

The forest reserve we wandered around contains some of the last remaining areas of intact spiny desert. For me it was a really interesting area, but for the non-botanists it really didn’t capture their imaginations! There were several baobab trees, including some very young ones which didn’t look anything like a baobab at all. Then there were two completely unrelated species that did look like baobabs - one is a legume and the other a euphorbia, so go figure! I also got excited about more Pachypodiums and intrigued by the oyster plants, which were cactus-like with spiky fronds forming long branches. Everything was prickly or spiky or thorny or otherwise well-armed, as protection against herbivores in a very dry climate.

The bonus of the late drive back to our hotel was watching the sunset over the Indian Ocean – very lovely.

The next day we set off early to catch our boat to the beach resort of Anakoa. The trip from the hotel was firstly by bus to the jetty, then by zebu-cart through the shallows to the boat! The boat ride across the very flat sea was about an hour and soon we were disembarking in heaven – white sand beaches, cloudless sky, warm turquoise waters, hot sun, traditional fishing boats catching the wind, colourful sarongs blowing in the breeze – could this be paradise? Once we sorted out our rooms, the first activity on the agenda was immersing ourselves in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean – ah, bliss! And then, the rest of the day was free. Thankfully, as it was hot, too hot to do anything. We spent two days there and it was so nice to relax and kick back after the busyness of the previous 10 days, swimming at all hours when we needed to cool off a bit, reading or sleeping or drinking rum and talking (ok, so I didn’t drink the rum!). Some of us did enjoy the added relaxation of a massage from the local masseuse and on the second morning a group of us went across to the nearby island of Nosy Ve to do some snorkeling. I hadn’t been snorkeling in ages and it was so much fun, I really must do it more often. The corals weren’t in great shape due to previous harvesting and other human impacts, but I saw lots of very colourful and interesting fish and spent about 5 minutes following a jellyfish with a pulsating electrical current which lit up its innards – very cool!

And if all the relaxation got too much, then there some interesting birds to see and more fascinating plants in the gardens around our cabins.

Back to Tana

Sadly, the beach sojourn had to end and we took the boat back to Toliara where we had a bit of time before our evening flight to Tana. A small group of us hired a taxi to take us to a nearby Arboretum. Our taxi driver, Frederic, was a classic and his car even more so – a 51 year old Peugeot! The doors couldn’t be opened from the inside and it rattled and clunked its way along, but it us got and there and back in very good shape, and added to the charm of the outing.

The garden itself was full of fascinating plants and some interesting birds, including nightjars resting on the ground. And I loved the sign at the entrance, warning of baobabs ahead!

Our flight to Tana had us arriving very late, but we were off early the next morning negotiating the crazy traffic to visit a historic palace and then another lemur park. I reckon it took us 2 hours to travel about 30 km through the city, but it was interesting seeing the daily life of people, and seeing it at their pace! The palace was very small and not very grand, but all the more interesting for that. And we saw some very cute lemurs in the park, but it was a very unnatural setting and so somewhat contrived again.

Then it was time for our last dinner together, which although tinged with sadness, was a lovely celebration of the two weeks we had spent together and the adventures shared and friendships forged.

If you ever have the chance to visit Madagascar, I cannot recommend it highly enough. For anyone with even the slightest interest in fascinating biodiversity, it is a marvellous country, full of diverse landscapes and ecosystems and biology and culture and people. I was enchanted.

(There are three posts of photos below, with all the lemurs in the last one!)