Last Days in Madagascar: Isalo

The morning of our last full day of adventure in Madagascar dawned clear and sunny. We were very ready to savor what we could already tell was going to be a beautiful day.

Anja Community Reserve

We didn't see Ring-tailed lemurs until we reached Anja Reserve, in southern Madagascar.  Well, we saw them in the Singapore zoo; they are one of the few lemurs that thrives in captivity, and the most common lemur found in zoos.  Anja is located at the base of this massive rock formation.  We spent a few hours there in the afternoon, after visiting Sidexam Tea’s factory, and before we reached our last destination, Isalo.

Madagascar Tea

Throughout our travels, we were never at ease with what we called the ‘show and sell’ program.  This was nominally a visit to see a local craft or art; however, it quickly turned into a sales pitch for those same wares.  It was never something we sought out; however, there were times when a guided tour was the most effective way to see something, and often a show and sell was part of the tour itinerary.  It was easier when we were part of a group, as we didn’t feel pressure—someone else in the group always bought something.  In Madagascar, we talked our guides out of most of the very few that were on our itinerary—they were generally on travel days between places, to fill time.  However, when Dorique asked us if we wanted to see the tea factory, we said ‘yes!’

We were guided through the Sidexam Tea factory by a pleasant woman; her hand appears above and below, holding finished black tea and freshly shredded tea plant leaves, respectively.

The factory was fascinating and terrifying at the same time.  There were no safety precautions anywhere.  As we walked in, we ducked under/between the moving hooks running in an overhead track, used to deliver leaf baskets to the conveyor belts.  We were surrounded by machinery that could crush, tear, and curl us just as well as it did the tea leaves, and there was nothing between us and injury but common sense and good balance. 

Ranomafana

We drove down a long, steep road, past a large waterfall, and then along the deep Namorona river valley leading to the town of Ranomafana.  The valley opened up when we reached the town, and we met our local guide, Rodan.  We set out for a night walk at sunset.  Ranomafana has had increasing difficulty with poaching/harvesting in the park at night, so it is now closed after sunset, but Rodan was confident that we’d see plenty along that same road we’d driven in on.  He was not wrong!

Antsirabe to Ranomafana

We had another driving day, moving from Andasibe-Mantadia to Antsirabe, a large city where we’d spend the night before continuing to Ranomafana, our next wildlife destination.  As with every other drive, the scenery was ever-changing and beautiful. 

Six Kinds of Lemur in One Day

We’d come to Andasibe for one major reason—because this is the place where the Indri Indri live. They don’t thrive in any other place. Not in zoos or wildlife parks, not in research facilities. Not even in other parts of Madagascar.  The morning after we arrived, while we were enjoying fresh guava juice at breakfast outside and chatting with Henriette, our hostess, we got our first indication of how the Indri Indri sound calling to each other in the distance.  Our lodge was probably five kilometers or more from where the nearest ones were. They can be heard for miles, keeping track of each other by sound.  Once we’d hiked into Andasibe, our guide, Desi, asked us to wait while he searched off the main trail for the nearest group of Indri Indri.  While we were waiting silently, we heard them calling again.  The sound is a little faint in the video above, though it wasn’t very loud in person, either.  There’s nothing to see in the video—aside from what an average section of trail looks like—just the eerie sound of the Indri Indri in the distance.

Andasibe-Mantadia

We flew back to Tana from Morandava, where we met Dorique, who would be our driver for the rest of our trip.  We’d be driving south and east, and would not fly again until we flew out of Madagascar.  The scenery was beautiful, and reminded us a little of a Miyazaki film; vivid rice fields surrounded by rolling hills, and villages with European architecture.  Also, this little gas powered rail car seemed like it had driven right out of one of his films.

On our way to Andasibe, where we’d spend the night, we stopped at the Mandraka Reptile Farm.

Morondava, Madagascar

After our very long day coming back from the Tsingy, we (all of us, including Ludo and Jose) decided to have a shorter day of activities the next day. We were scheduled to take a pirogue (canoe) ride, visit a fishing village, and tour the market in Morandava. But despite the fact that we sat all day, we were just too tired to think about more adventures. In the last few days Lana had been violently ill, we had driven for 9 hours the next day, hiked all over the Tsingy the following day, and we had been stuck in the mud several times on our drive back. We were fine—we had enjoyed it even—but we were ready for something a bit more low key.

The Grand Tsingy and the 17 Hour Drive Back

Part One of our Grand Tsingy Adventure.

The reward, then, for our journey to the Tsingy de Bemaraha wasn't the sagging, pathetically cramped and musty room at our hotel. Nor was it the beautiful,nearly full moon rising as we watched from our dinner table.  It certainly wasn't the strange and unappetizing choices for dinner, which I was just going to skip entirely but David insisted I eat something, requesting they make me an ‘omelet simple’ (plain).

In some ways, the reward wasn’t even the Tsingy itself--but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Ankarafantsika to Bekopaka

The morning we left Ankarafantsika we breakfasted early on bread, butter, and jam. The day before we’d had large chunks of baguette and spreadable cheese, but this morning the bread was sliver thin and there was no cheese. We got the impression that the two baguettes we bought on the way into town were being stretched after the generosity of the day before.  After packing up and loading the minivan, we set off for the drive back to Tana, where we would spend the night before flying down to Morandava in the south on the Mozambique Channel.

We knew we had a long day of driving ahead of us, and so we urged our driver and Ndemy to play their own music in the car to pass the time. They hooked up Ndemy’s phone to the stereo, and we enjoyed listening to some Malagasy music, which seemed to us to be akin to folk music, with harmonies and a guitar-like instrument.

Madagascar: Ankarafantsika

Our ferry trip back to the mainland from Nosy Be was pleasantly un-chaotic, by comparison to the other direction.  As we approached the port (ok, the shoreline) at Ankify, we spotted two men wearing green Cactus Tours shirts, and they definitely spotted us.  It was the two men who had sold us our original ferry tickets, and later carried us bodily onto the boat.  We had second thoughts about having given them the shirts—we hope they wouldn’t abuse the logos to pose as Cactus Tour representatives.  They pulled our luggage off the boat for us, and we met our new guide, Ndemy—pronounced Dem-bee—and our driver (we didn’t catch his name, and it became awkward to ask again later).  We got into a minivan, and settled back for a day of driving south.

Madagascar: Nosy Be

After spending much of our days hiking in Montagne d’Ambre and Ankarana, we had some lower intensity days of travel and relaxed day trips scheduled. We headed northwest to the coast, where we would take a ferry over to our next destination, an island in the Mozambique channel called Nosy Be (pronounced Nosy Bay). That is where we would finally be reunited with our luggage. We had been in contact with Rina, from our tour company, and she promised that it had already been delivered to our hotel. It’s funny how much attachment and affection we had for that small amount of stuff that comprised our worldly goods. When you’re excited to be reunited with your bras, you realize how much your life has been changed by 8 months of travel (David was more interested in his hat, razor, and the battery charger for his camera).

Northern Madagascar: Montagne de Ambre, and Ankarana

After spending the night in Diego Suarez, Shielo and our driver Bertrand drove us south to Montagne de Ambre, to hike into the national park there.  Shielo spotted this blue nosed chameleon in a tree, as we were driving.  The mountain is the remains of an old volcano, now covered in rain forest.  We were hiking towards the larger crater lake in the area.  As we walked, we saw our first lemurs—Sanford’s brown—and were delighted.  They were on the move, and we didn’t get any pictures, but we also didn’t miss seeing them by scrambling for our cameras, which we took as a hard-learned victory.

Madagascar: Tana to Diego Suarez

At the end of our Bangkok to Antananarivo post, we had discovered our luggage was delayed—but not lost.  We didn’t know how our bags were going to catch up with us while we were moving to a new location each day, but fortunately, we had booked all of our travel here through a local company, Cactus Tours.  We knew one of their employees was waiting for us on the other side of security, and we hoped he would know.  We found Parany holding a sign with our names on it, and after we explained why we didn’t have any luggage, he exchanged contact info with the baggage claim office.  He drove us through the outskirts of ‘Tana, past several hand-propelled carts, each carrying an amazing number of empty barrels.  We also passed ox carts, lots of cyclists, and many pedestrians on our way into central ‘Tana.  Before he dropped us at our hotel, he advised us not to walk after dark, or on vacant streets even in daylight. 

Madagascar: An Introduction

Before we dive into our travels in Madagascar, we thought it would be helpful to briefly talk about the island, since it’s unique in many ways.  It is the 4th largest island in the world, and it split off from what is now India about 88 million years ago.  That long period of isolation led to some very interesting plant and animal life.  Roughly 90% of the organisms in Madagascar are endemic, and are found nowhere else in the world.  Lemurs are probably the most well-known of these, but chameleons are an exceptional example as well.

Postcard: Isalo

Verreaux’s Sifaka, in Isalo, Madagascar.

Postcard: Ambalavao

The hat rock, in Ambalavao, Madagascar.

Bangkok to Antananarivo

We had heard there was a direct flight from Bangkok to Antananarivo in Madagascar, but we couldn't get there that way.  We could fly there via Paris, Johannesburg, or Nairobi.  Nairobi seemed the closest connection, so we chose a nine hour Kenya Airways flight to Nairobi, with a layover and then another two and a half hour flight to Antanananrivo.  Our flight left Bangkok at 12:30 am, on the timetable of international flight that doesn't deal on local time.

We had to check out of our hotel at noon, and so we killed time in the plentiful shopping malls, trying to avoid being outside. It's hot and muggy outside, and that's a reason, but our main goal is to avoid getting caught up in the Thai New Year, called Songkran.  On Songkran a few drops of water and talcum powder are pressed to the forehead of the elders as a sign of respect. But really, after that is done in the early morning hours of the day, it becomes a water gun and talcum powder fight in the streets.  We don't want to lead into 11 hours of flight soaking wet and powdered in talc. We have read about where the water fights are prohibited, and so we stick to our hotel lobby, the elevated railway, and the shopping malls. There are guards with large garbage cans by each entrance to the train, and teenagers empty their supersoaker water guns in them. They are soaked to the skin. As the day progresses they are covered in smears of talcum powder as well.  The trains are crowded and it's increasingly hard not to get damp and talc-smeared as more bodies press into the train cars.

Postcard: Anjy

Ringtail lemur, interrupted mid-scratch, in Anjy, Madagascar.

Postcard: Ilaka

Market day, in the village of Ilaka, Madagascar.