The African journey has begun! We spent one night in Johannesburg, South Africa. The taxi driver that took us to "Life Hotel" said something that has stuck in my mind. He said "in South Africa everything is sweet. We eat sweet, we sleep sweet, we love sweet. Everything is sweet." I'm so excited to come back to this country.
We arrive in Antananarivo (or Tana) in the early afternoon. We are exhausted and realize we have to pay $130 for our Visa's. As a US citizen your visa is free if you stay in Madagascar for 30 days or less. We are staying 33 days. Woops! Overall the two days of travel was pretty smooth. This being our only hiccup. We drive from the airport to our guest house, Karthala.
Immediately, I'm thinking that Tana is not what I was expecting. This is a very poor country. Lonely Planet says that there are people out on the streets all the time. What it didn't say is that the city is overpopulated, and poverty stricken. It was a sad place to see at the very start of our trip. At Karthala we met the owner, a woman who teaches at the universtiy and her sister who now lives in Germany; very nice women with lots to share and talk about. The best thing about Karthala: they introduced us to Jimmy. We spent two nights at Karthala in Tana and we were ready to leave when we did!
Jimmy is an independent Malagasy tour guide. He's 31, is married with one son, and has a great sense of humor. He takes a lot of care in his work and is very eager to share all of his knowledge of Madagascar with us. For instance, the scientific names of the six boabab species in Madagascar (which now I do not recall). He met us at Karthala guest house and we planned the next two weeks of our time in Madagascar.
The trip we planned with Jimmy was to be 15 days of fun! We started out and drove to a town called Anstirabe, which is south of Tana. This may be the nicest city that we have yet seen. It is in the "highlands" of Madagascar and so is nice and cool. The next day we drove to a small little town called Miandrivazo. We stayed the night here in a little hotel called "Pirogue" which is French for Lakana, which is Malagasy for canoe. This little town was to be the start of our three day river trip down the Tsiribihina River. We camped for two nights and floated and paddled for three. Turns out Jimmy is a fine chef as well as educated guide. He cooked fresh fish for us, wild duck, and fresh chickens. And when I say fresh, I mean fresh. He brought them live and killed them on the second night. Good thing we aren't vegetarians! We saw brown lemurs coming out of the mountains to drink from the river. We also saw several chameleons, and yes, a large crocodile. I was a little bit terrified of the crocodile prospect, but Jimmy said, "we find crocodiles, they don't find us." We also saw several baby crocodiles sunning themselves on rocks and branches. Apparently, if you see a baby crocodile you can be sure that the very large mother is resting somewhere nearby beneath the surface. It actually turned out that the crocodile searching was one of my favorite things. We would float along with two or three other lakanas (filled with French tourists) and the guides and river boat men (ie. the paddlers) would be singing and chatting/flirting with women we passed on the banks. But when we would come upon places that were opportunistic for croc spotting everyone would grow very quiet and then point and whisper "there! there! do you see it!?"
After the river trip we headed for Tsingy national park. I hadn't heard about this place before we started doing research for this trip, but it is truly amazing. (Google it now!) It is an incredibly interesting landscape formed by ancient coral reef that lived when Madagascar was covered by ocean. It is a spiky rooftop of black rock above and deep and shallow caves below. We spend a full eight hours climbing to the top for a view of the park, and spelunking underneath, and then another view at the top. The first ascent was straight up the side of the rock. We were cabled in with climbing harnesses, but I kind of lost it. There were steps carved into the stone and chunks of rock bolted to it as well. The steps were secure but the heights were too much for me! I kept thinking of my dad. I knew he would hate this as much as I did. Finally at the top we were rewarded with an amazing view, but I just cried. Alex was concerned, for me but also that our day in Tsingy might be done. However, I wanted to whole experience as much as he did so we kept on. We spent several hours after our descent underneath the rock crossing crevices without bottoms and climbing ropes up into tiny spaces. Overall it was an amazing day. We saw the giant jumping rat, and on our way out of the park we saw the beautiful Deckens Sifaka. A large white lemur like creature.
We also had the good chance of spotting a small nocturnal lemur, he was poking his head out of a tree keeping watch while his mate slept. We also saw a bird that meowed like a cat, and a small owl sleeping in a tree. It was an unforgettable day! Jimmy says we are lucky, because we are happy and easy going, always happy. After our long day at Tsingy we took a dip in the pool at our hotel, and then went out with Jimmy for dinner and got Mamu on local rum. (Mamu = drunk). The bad part of this trip is that the road to and from Tsingy is a painful drive, and it's worse on the way out, especially semi-hungover. Our 4x4 doesn't do AC, and the road is red dust. They can't put in a permanent road because it will just be washed away in the wet season. The road is bumpy and takes an excruciating four hours.
After Tsingy we do a quick one night in the coastal city of Morondava. Along the way we stopped to see the Avenue de Baobab at sunset. We also saw the sacred Baobab (which is 600 hundred years old), and the loving Baobab, which is the only tree like it in the whole world. As the sunsets the Baobabs make a picture perfect scene. A gaggle of tourists gather to shoot their pics and take in the sight. This was one of the moments of the trip where I felt like I was getting just what I had hoped for.
After Morondava we spent a long day driving back to Antsirabe so we could start to make our way South to visit Ranomafana and Isalo national parks. This was where we had to say goodbye to Jimmy. He has become a real friend and I missed him before we left. However, he was with us for ten days and it was time for him to go home and see his wife and son.
Ranomafana is a rain forest. It was set up as a National Park in the 80s because the Golden Bamboo Lemur was discovered there. We did a night walk where we spotted many chameleons and even the smallest of the lemurs, the mouse lemur. It resembles a gerbil but with better digits.
The next day we hiked through the forest to waterfalls and pools, and yes, of course we happened to sight the rare Golden Bamboo Lemur. Lucky again! That afternoon after the hike Alex and I went back to our very quaint bungalow and drank punch (pronounced "poonch" by Jimmy) an
d ate cookies. Overall, a very good day.
Back in the car to Isalo national park. On the way we stopped at Anja park, which is a reserve set up for ring tailed lemurs. This was the first chance we'd had to see ring tailed lemurs, and we were rewarded. They were everywhere! And, it's baby season. Every other lemur had a tiny little baby wrapped around her middle. I think I took 300 pictures just here! The lemurs were all very close and all around, which was fun to see so close. They were so amazing to watch! Definitely a highlight!
Isalo park was much different than any we'd seen so far. It actually looked somewhat like Colorado, with red mountains, and a much drier climate. However, the one thing Isalo does have that Colorado doesn't are naturally made swimming pools, fed by waterfalls. We swam twice on our 13 km hike. We also saw the ring tailed lemur and the red fronted brown lemur, which the latter turns our to be a little picnic basket thief. After the hike, more "poonch" and cookies. It doesn't sound good, but is a tantalizing combo. Oh, I forgot to mention that this punch is rum punch flavored with your favorite fruit and comes from Nosy Be, in the North. (We'll be heading that way next....)
Today we arrived in Toleira, which is on the Western coast but not really worth the stop. The beach is trashed and not safe to go out at night. But our hotel is nice and we have time to enjoy the wifi. We've been going, going, going, for the last fourteen days so it's nice to sit and enjoy a beer and a nice dinner. The staple food is Zebu steak and frites. (Zebu is the Malagasy cow). Although all of the menus are in French, so if you don't order Zebu you are ordering a surprise. Tomorrow we are off to the North to enjoy more national parks, and the beaches.
Thinking of you all,
El and Al
The end of our first month abroad has come, but with a promising chapter two in store. We've spent our last week motorbiking around the island and lounging on the beach, swimming, snorkeling, and reading. We took our motorbike to the top of Mt. Passot, which is one of the highest points on the island and shares some stellar views. You can see nearly three quarters of Nosy Be from its top.
But the best thing about the hotel was the 24 hour disney movie channel. We haven't watched TV in a month, except for the news (in French) so we soaked up Hercules, Beauty and the Beast, Madagascar, Aladdin, and even Ice Age 3 (even though that is a terrible movie)! It didn't matter that they were all dubbed in Italian.
