Today was a travel day. We were supposed to go see the golden monkeys which live in the same forest as the gorillas but our flight back to Nairobi got changed so we didn’t have enough time. I’m not happy about this. Here is a picture of a golden monkey so you can see what we missed.
We had a leisurely morning. It is their low season because they have a lot of rain. During the low season, the hotel allows locals to stay there. There was a general who stay at the hotel last night. He said good morning to Rick, so Rick asked him a question about the war in the Congo and Rwanda’s role. All of a sudden he didn’t know how to speak English. Hummmm!
We left the hotel at 10am and it was actually sunny! We really loved our hotel, called the Bishops House. The facility was beautiful and everyone was great. We got to know a lot of the staff.
We drove 2 ½ hrs back to Kigali. Along the way we noted how clean the roads are because the government pays people, primarily ladies, to sweep the road every day. We also noticed that in the city (Ruhengeri is the second largest city in Rwanda) they have sidewalks! Pretty much every hill we could see was used for agriculture. The Rwandan people are very hard working. Everyone is doing something. There were bicycles everywhere. We saw many men pushing bikes piled high with product for the market. We saw other bikes that were taxis, taking people from one place to another.
Ladies carry things on their heads everywhereLadies usually are very brightly dressedThey are selling sweet potatoes hereMost of the land is farmed
We saw a lot of flags. The Rwandan flag is green for agriculture, yellow for mining, and blue for water, with a star in the upper right corner representing the country’s bright future.
We agree that Rwanda has a bright future. They seem to have a stable government and limited corruption. They have done a good job marketing and managing the gorilla trekking. The education and medical systems seem to work — a lot to be said, and a distinct set of differences from most of Africa.
We would have like to have seen more of the country and could imagine going back one day, maybe to see the golden monkeys. Everyone was very nice and their English is very good. We have heard some murmurings about limited freedom of speech and their involvement in the war in Congo, but don’t have any real insight. We would highly recommend a trip to see the gorillas, making sure you spend enough time to really see the country.
We arrived at the airport and had to go through a security check which involved taking all of our luggage out of the car and having a dog check for explosives. There was a thorough check of the car. Here is a picture of Hussein, Rick and our car.
Once we had passed through immigration we went to the lounge and got some lunch. We were joined there by our friends, Valentin and Sandrine (friends from gorilla trekking) who were also flying to Nairobi and then on to home in Paris. Unfortunately our flight was delayed until about 5 so we might have been able to see the golden monkeys after all.
Gorilla Day number 2! Again we were are Volcano’s National Park early.
On the way there we saw lots of people out at 6:30am, including lots of teenagers on their way to school, another sign of the relative prosperity of Rwanda and the country’s successes.
It was foggy but it was’t raining. Here are some pictures from the park entrance. You can see why they call Rwanda Land of Thousand Hills.
We were paired with Emmanuel again which is wonderful because he’s a lot of fun. There are only 6 people in our group today, so I guess they don’t sell out on gorilla permits every day. Two of the people were also in yesterday’s group, a mother and daughter from France who we befriended.
Valentin and Sandrine from Paris
We are visiting the Muhoza family today. Muhoza means a perfect ending after a long effort. This describes the silverback, Marambo, who spend many years trying to collect a family. The family was established in 2016 so it is relatively young. Marambo is enormous.
We got back in the car and headed to the trail head. There, I was assigned Alice as my porter. She was an excellent porter, gently helping me when I needed help but otherwise just carrying my bag. The walk up the hill was quite muddy. At one point I was trying to pass over a muddy stream bed. I had one foot on a rock in the middle of the bed and the other on the edge of the stream bed. I was trying to adjust my weight to move to the other side of the stream bed and to my surprise Alice just picked me up and lifted me over.
We walked through planted fields for about 45 minutes. There are many fields of flowers used to produce permethrin, a strong plant-based insecticide that we had sprayed on our clothes prior to departing the Uo. Everybody said hello to us as we passed. The volcanus soil looks is dark and fertile.
This is a (blurry) Jackson chalemeon.Permetherin flowerrs behind the ladies
Eventually we came to areas with lots of bamboo, the edge of the gorillas’ territory. It was much different from yesterday.
We left our trackers and kept walking. It wasn’t too long before we found the Muhoza family. Marambo, the silverback who was HUGE, was sleeping and other gorillas were grooming him. One thing I learned was that gorillas fart a lot, I guess it’s all the plants they eat. There were young gorillas playing and two moms, one with a two month old baby and one with a three month old baby. The babies were very cute. They would move around their mothers with very jerky movements. We watched for quite a while with Marambo slowly waking up the whole time. We couldn’t see him very well but it sounded like a young gorilla had done something to annoy him. He yelled at the young gorilla and then came charging out of the little clearing. We all crouched down and everyone was fine. All the gorillas followed him and, as a young one went by me. he reached towards me. I though he was going to grab my glasses. Luckily, he didn’t. We moved with them and watched them a little longer before having to say goodbye. One take away is how loving, caring, loyal and playful the gorillas are. It’s really both exciting and heart warming to spend time with them.
Here are a couple of videos
We walked back down the hill and said goodbye to Emmanuel and Alice. Then we went to the newly opened Ellen Degeneres Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund. We learned a little more about gorillas and Dian Fossey.
We came back to the hotel for a late lunch and then napped/relaxed/blogged in the afternoon. That evening they made us a special local dinner which was a chicken, potato, plantain, and peaut braised dish. It was delicious. We spent quite a bit of time talking to the hotel manager and chef. We really enjoy making these personal connections.
We were up early. I had had trouble sleeping because I was anticipting seeing the gorillas. I’ve been looking forward to this for close to 4 years. We left the hotel at 6:30 and arrived at Volcano’s National Park at 7. On the way there we saw lots of people out running for exercise, sometimes in big groups. We were commenting that a society has to be quite secure to focus on getting enough exercise. At the park, there were lots of people having coffee and waiting for the trekking to be organized. Hussein went off to get us registered and make sure that we got a nearby family. There are 22 gorilla families in total, 12 get daily visitors and 10 are studied/researched by representatives of the Dian Fosse Foundation. We were organized into 8 person groups, each with two guides, that go to the gorilla families that receive visitors. I believe the permits sell out every day. There were also people going to see the golden moneys there.
10% of the income from the gorilla tours goes back to the local communities, thus incentivizing the locals to protect the gorillas. The worldwide population of mountain gorillas is around 1,000, spread throughout a mountain range that encompasses parts of Rwanda, the Congo, and Uganda. They have been so successful in protecting and growing the population in Rwanda that they are running out of land for the gorillas and have a 5-year plan to buy farmland to expand their territory. A handful of gorillas have died because they fight each other for the limited space.
Here are some pictures of the gathering area.
Our gorilla guide, Emmanuel
We had two guides Emmanuel and Francis. Emmanuel has been working with the gorilla for 12 years. He told us a little about the family we were going to see. It has two silverbacks. The back of a male gorilla turns grey when he is about 12 years old (male gorillas live for 35 to 45 years old). The two silverbacks in this family are brothers, Guhonda, the alpha and Big Ben, his brother. Big Ben is bald. This is unheard of and they aren’t sure why he is bald. He can’t attract any females because they don’t like his baldness, so he can’t start his own family. The family had several babies.
We got back in the car and travelled to the trailhead. There we were met by a number of porters. We were encouraged to hire a porter by Burt, who had arranged our travel plans. The porters are former poachers, so finding alternative income is important. We each hired a porter. My porter’s name was Innocent. I would say he was helpful at times and unhelpful at other times. The path was very narrow and he wanted to hold my hand. I couldn’t walk squarely. Also, when the going got tough, he held my hand and my armpit which wasn’t the most comfortable. But he was trying to help and he didn’t speak any English so we managed. We walk up the mountain through farmland for about 30 minutes. The walk was pretty easy and we had no trouble. Then we got to the edge of rainforest which had no path, stinging nettles and very dense vegetation. It was not easy going. We were walking over bushes that had been a slightly trampled.
From our walk to the gorillasFrom our walk to the gorillaFrom our walk to the gorillas Innocent, my porterSome of our group and some of the trackers. The gloves are to protect against the sting nettles.
Once we got close to the gorillas we had to leave our porters behind. There would be too many people if they came too.
Gorillas typically wake up at sunrise and then spend 3 hours grazing around for breakfast. Then they take a nap and repeat the process for lunch and dinner. They go to sleep for the night around sunset. They make a new nest, always in a different location from the prior night, to sleep in. There was a team of 4 trackers who track the gorillas all day so they know roughly where the gorillas decide to sleep. Then the trackers are up early the next morning to find the gorillas. This is how the guides know where to take their groups.
We were walking up a hill, over the bushes and through the stinging nettles and suddenly there was a juvenile male gorilla, just sitting there scratching himself. As we watched him, other gorillas wandered closer to us. Eventually Big Ben came down the hill. He beat his chest and charged us. We had been instructed to crouch down when they do that. Big Ben or one of the other juvenile males did this several more times while we were watching them. A couple of times a young male moved through our group and hip checked someone, knocking them over. No one got hurt. We also saw some young ones playing.
We were only supposed to be with them for one hour but it seemed longer. We were watching them, moving around to see them better and taking pictures. It was hard to get a good picture because they often had their backs to us. During our briefing we were told to say about 20 ft away from them, but our guides let us get as close as 3 ft. It was truly amazing. Here are some pictures.
Big BenSee the baby on the mothers back
We walked back down the hill and our car was waiting for us. Next we went to a cultural village which was very commercialized and, frankly, kind of hokey. We didn’t learn much about the culture or the history because the woman who ushered us around the village was very difficult to hear and her English wasn’t great. She couldn’t fully understand our questions. Here are a couple of pictures of the “welcoming committee.”
We came back to the hotel and had lunch. While we were in the restaurant, top generals from the Rwandan army came in. One of them talked to us and asked if we were nervous to have so many military men there. We said no, that is made us feel safe. Several people have talked to us about the importance of the military in terms of keeping Rwanda safe. Of course they have the warring DRC to their north, but it also seems to partially be the aftermath of the genocide. Having such a strong military seems danagerous to me because they could easily support a coup and install a dictator.
That afternoon we both napped, relaxed, and blogged. It poured rain. We didn’t realize it but this is considered low season since it rains on and off a lot. The walk up to see the gorillas will probably be a muddy mess tomorrow.
We had another great dinner at the hotel. We would strongly recommend our hotel, the Bishop’s House. Everyone is very friendly and helpful. At dinner we were talking to our waiter who was 29 years old. His father died a number of years ago and our waiter is supporting several siblings and his mother. So while life is better here in Rwanda than in Madagascar it’s not easy. We asked him if he was a Hutu or a Tutsi and he wouldn’t answer us. I think that is because they don’t want to view themselves as one or the other, rather they view themselves as Rwandan.
We left the hotel at 8AM for the airport terminal, just a 5 minute drive. We got checked in and through customs. We hadn’t had breakfast at the hotel because we were going to have a long wait at the airport for our flight. We planned to go to the airport lounge for breakfast. The lounge was at the very other end of the airport. It seemed like it was about 5 miles away from our gate. It was the worst lounge we have ever been in. A review we found online described the food as salmonella on a plate. Needless to say we didn’t stay long, althought the cappucino was good. We headed to our gate and just waited for the flight. The Air Kenya pilots decided to go on strike that day so our flight on Air Rwanda was full with people being rerouted.
We sat next to a Rwandan gentleman who had been in Kenya studying for a masters in IT. He described a fairly dire educational system in which they were teaching him IT theory but nothing practical. We tried to figure out how to help him, but so far we don’t have any ideas. We also met a swiss woman and her two children. Interestingly she had heard a lot about Rick’s cousin, Bruno Manser. I guess he is quite famous.
We were met at the plane by an agent of our travel company who helped us through immigration and then took us to a lounge where we had a covid PCR test. The covid test was not to enter the country, it was to ensure we weren’t sick so we could see the gorillas. Both our tests were negative.
Outside the airport we met our guide, Hussein. He took us to lunch in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, at a 5 star restaurant in a hotel. Our initial impressions of Rwanda and Kigali are very good. The roads are in great shape. The houses look much better. People are not so skinny. We are told that 90% of the country has electricity. Hussein told us that he really likes the president, who in Hussein’s opinion has done a great job of rebuilding the country after the 1994 genocide. Hussein’s son is going to university and he expects his daughter to go too. It was very different from our impressions after having spoken with the IT student on the plane.
Other interesting facts about Rwanda: Rwanda is called the land of 1000 hills and is home to 13 million people, 1.5 million of whom live in Kagali. 90% of the people are Chrisitans, 50% Catholic, it used to be higher but some Catholic priests and nuns participated in the genocide, so many people left the Catholic church and 5% Muslim. Girls must be over 21 years old to get married. Women represent 64% of parliament and hold 50% of government jobs. They have nationalized healthcare. In Kagali there are lots of mopeds, most of which act as “taxis.” People know they are taxis because the drivers wear red vests.
After lunch we went to the genocide museum. It was overwhelming to learn that one million people were killed in 100 days. We learned that there really wasn’t any difference between the Tutsis and the Hutus. It was a convention created by the Germans and later the Belgium, colonizers of Rwanda. They designated anyone who had more than 10 cows as a Tutsi and everyone else was a Hutu. Then the colonizers created a culture of hatred between the two groups. After Rwanda gained its freedom in 1962 the politicians intensified the culture of hatred and planned the genocide using Nazi techniques. They had youth soldiers in neighboring countries learning how to massacre people. On April 6, 1994 the president’s plane was shot down and the Hutus blamed the Tutsis. They had set up roadblocks by that night to hunt down the Tutsis. No one ever learned who shot the plane down, but it is believed that it was the Hutus because they were able to initiate the roadblocks and the killings so quickly. The world and the UN stood by and did nothing to help the Tutsis. There were neighbors killing neighbors and even family killing family. Even the catholic priests and nuns joined it! After several months Rwandans, Tutsis and moderate Hutus who had fled the country, organized to invade and stop the killing. The stories from survivors were haunting. As a result of the genocide, there were about 400,000 orphans. Many women had been raped by knowingly HIV positive men.
The museum highlighted some other genocides, including the Nazi genocide and the Cambodian genocide instigated by Pol Pot, and is part of a foundation that tries to educate people about the roots of genocide and prevention of future genocides. There was a traditional saying higlighted on one of the walls that I really liked, “A tree can only be straightended when it is young.” So true!
We watched Hotel Rwanda before we left and apparently the movie does not tell the entire story. According to Hussein the hotel manager made people pay to stay at the hotel and if they couldn’t pay he made them leave to be slaughtered. The real manager is in prison today.
The real Hotel Rwanda
After the museum we drove for about 2 ½ hours to Ruhengeri, which is where our hotel is located. We drove through lots of little towns and lots of farm land. Sinilar to our experience in Madagasgar, trucks struggling up the hills really slowed us down.
It rained much of the way and was pouring when we arrived. We got checked in and had a lovely dinner. Here are pictures of our hotel.
Red is the flight from Nairobi to Kigali and the black is the drive from Kigali to Ruhengeri
Today was primarily a travel day. We left the lodge at 8:30 for Tana. But before leaving Josef found an elephant eared chameleon on a tree branch.
On the way we stopped at Lemur Island which is housed in a local resort. In the past people were able to have lemurs as pets. Now that’s been outlawed. The guides claim the resort gave the lemurs a home, since they were too domesticated to be released into the wild. I looked it up and lemur ownership was outlawed in 1962. So basically they have lemurs on these islands in their resort. Lemurs don’t like the water so they stay on the island. But it doesn’t seem to be a bad life if you’re a lemur. They are able to roam freely on the two island tht are part of the reserve, or attraction, dependent on perspective. lemurs.
We were canoed over to the island and there were the lemurs sitting on the feeding tables. There is food on the island, but not enough, so they have to supplement what exists. We saw common brown lemurs, black and white ruffed lemurs (the third largest lemurs behind the indri and golden sifakas) and grey bamboo lemurs. While we were there they brought the food which consisted of bamboo for the bamboo lemurs and bananas and tomatoes for the other lemurs. The bananas were not peeled. They chewed the banana out of the peel and then spit out the remainder. They tried to feed the common brown lemurs on the other side of the island but they came back and tried to steal the balck and white ruffed lemurs’ food. The black and white momma lemur was not happy and tried to chase them away.
Black and white ruffed lemurBlack and white ruffed lemur lounging in the treeGrey bamboo lemurCommon brown lemur
One the other island, about 30 ft away, there were golden sifakas, red ruffed lemur, and more bamboo lemurs.
Red ruffed lemurGolden sifaka jumping Golden sifaka
We started the long journey back to Tana. En route we stopped to take pictures of the local village were Desi lives.
In addition to a lot of lorries slowing us down there are huge potholes. The kids stand around the potholes with shovels, acting like they’re fixing the potholes. Then they hold out their hand to passing cars and trucking looking for money for their efforts. We didn’t seeanyone stop to give them money. The rewards match their efforts.
Another thing we saw along the road were butcheries. These are shacks with meat hanging and laid out. Of course there is no refrigeration and it is quite hot. People don’t have refrigerators in their houses so they go food shopping every day. According to our guide the animals are slain in the morning, butchered and sold in the afternoon. Anything left over is sold to restaurants.
We stopped along a stream for a picnic lunch that the lodge packed for us and then continued.
We didn’t get back to Tana until 4pm. We checked into our hotel and relaxed/blogged until dinner. We were just going into dinner when we saw Karen and Dave, our friends from Mandrare River Camp and Anjajavy. They were back in Tana because they were leaving for Paris (on their way home) at 2am. We had a lovely dinner with them. Here’s a picture of them.
It was a quiet morning and nice not to have to get up to get anywhere today. We had lunch at the hotel and then Josef picked us up to take us to the airport. Clearing customs and security was a piece of cake.
Overall, Madagascar was a little disturbing. It is the poorest country we have ever been in and probably the poorest one we will ever see. Between the limited water, short food supplies and governmental corruption, it is hard to see how the folks living here retain a positive outlook. That said, the Malagasy people generally seem happy. Nevertheless, we got the sense that they were frustrated about their inability to drive change.
It is hard to get around because the roads are really terrible. But the hassle is worth it because the lemurs are magnificent and the culture is rich. Mandrare River Camp was by far our favorite. It had a great blend ofcomraderie, culture and wildlife. At both Mandrare and Eulophiella we felt like we got to know the people, which makes the difference between a good experience and an excellent experience.
Overall we are happy that we came to Madagascar and recommend it to others. We are hopeful that the lives of the Malagasy people get easier as the country modernizes, they get more access to education and healthcare and are able to initiate steps to western ideals that fit their environment, especially when it comes to governmental corruption.
The 3 1/2 hour flight from Tana to Nairobi was uneventful and we were met at the gate by a representative from our travel company who helped us thru immigration and guided us out to our Kenyan guide and driver. This was made easy as all spoke very good English. They told us that English and Swahili are official languages of Kenya. There are 43 tribes in Kenya, each with their own language, so the country has a total of 45 official languages. The population of the country is 55 million and there are about 5 million people living in Nairobi.
It was a very short ride to our hotel. The security in Nairobi is intense. Our car was inspected before we could pull into the hotel and then our luggage and carry ons were scanned at the door and we needed to walk through a metal detector — shades of Egypt a few years ago. We got checked in and had a late dinner at the outdoor restaurant.
We had a stellar day. The national park in Andasibe is home to four types of lemurs and we saw all four. The lemurs can coexist in the same area because they do not compete for food. As a side note there are appromimately 110 species of lemurs.
Breakfast was on the porch at the hotel. Vanilla is Madagascar’s largest export. Unfortunately the insects that normally pollenate the vanilla can not tolerate Madagascar’s climate, so all the vanilla is pollinated by hand, yikes. Here is a picture of the vanilla vine that was on the breakfast porch.
We left the hotel at 7:30AM and drove for 45 minutes to the Analamazaotra National Park. There we were meet our local guide, Desi, and headed into the park. This is a rain forest, so the vegitation is much denser than we had seen previously at other Madagascar locations. Here is a picture of the path.
Almost immediately we came a upon a grey bamboo lemur. These lemur are quite small, about 1 1/2 to 2 pounds and, as the name suggests, they like to eat bamboo shoots. Normally they are quite shy, but this family lives by the path and are accustomed to seeing humans.
Next Desi found a chameleon and he told us the name of, but I can’t remember.
We moved on from the grey bamboo lemur and found a common brown lemur. These lemurs are bigger than the grey bamboo lemurs. We also saw these lemurs in the south. Here is a picture.
Next stop, the indri lemurs. These lemurs vocalize as a way to define their territory to other indri lemurs. We had heard their calls, which are quite loud shrieks, all morning. Below is a youtube video of their call. The indri is the largest of the lemur family weighting up to 25 pounds. The indri mate for life and they live in small family units. The indri life span is 40 to 60 years! They typically have off spring every 3 years. The babies are born in May and are dependent on the mother for 6 to 8 months, but they continue to live with the family until they are sexually mature at about 9 years old. The mother takes care of the baby and the father defends them and their territory. They don’t need their tails for balance so evolution has reduced their tail to a mer stub, only 2 inches or so. We found a family of three and watched them for awhile. When they move from tree to tree they bounce off one tree to the next. They would grab at the tree to stabilize themselves and then immediately bounce to the next tree. They were high up so I don’t have a great picture of them.
If you look closely you can see the baby on her back
Desi would take us well off the main trail so we were trekking through the rain forest in search of lemurs. He knew a spot that had nuts that the golden sifaka like so we shlepped through the woods for about 10 minutes to find them. Sure enough they were there and they didn’t seem to mind that we were about 2 feet from them. We could heard them chewing the nuts. It was an amazing experience.
Notice the baby on mom’s babyThe baby is wanting to get off mom’s back so he’s hanging on herHere’s the baby practicing his jumping skills
Last but not least Desi wanted to show us a boa constrictor and a giraffe necked weevil
Don’t look Ann AugerGiraffe necked weevil
At this point we said good bye to Desi for now (we will see him again for a night walk) and went back to the lodge for lunch. After lunch we were talking to the owner’s son who recently received a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Quebec. He wanted to show us his still where he distills cinnamomum camphora. Some say it reduces the symptoms and duration of covid. He is looking for a distrubtion partner. Any suggestions? Here are pictures of the still and the final product
One thing we have see,n but I haven’t written about, is charcoal. In Tana the people cook with charcoal because it’s less smokey. In the villages they make charcoal by cutting down eucalpysus trees (which are invasive in Madagascar), chopping them up, burying them and then burning them for 2 days. You see lots of bags of charcoal for sale along the road. The truckers buy the charcoal and take it to Tana to resell. Here are the bags of charcoal that they use for the still.
They put grass on the top to keep the charcoal dry.
That evening we were back at the park. Desi showed us some noctural animals including the ever evasive mouse lemur which weighs about 1/2 pound.
Green bright eyed tree frogA chameleon (I can’t remember the name)leaf tailed geckoCommon man mouse lemur
After our night walk we went back to the lodge for dinner. We were the only people staying at the lodge so it was a quiet dinner.
Today was a travel day. We left the Anjajavy Resort at 9am and headed to the “airport” for a 10am flight. We were on the same plane and with the same pilot as the one we arrived in. Rick was happy because he got the copilot seat again.
The soil in all of Madagascar is very red because it has a lot of iron in it. I took a picture from the plane to show you but the picture isn’t as red as real life.
So far we have seen the south which is very dry and the west coast which is a little wetter than the south. Now we are going to the east coast which is very wet and has rainforests. Rain and cyclones come from the Indian Ocean and dump tons of water in the rain forests there. The mountains in the middle of the island prevent the clouds and therefore the rain from moving from the east to the west. Of course the flora and fauna vary by region.
We arrived back in Tana at 11:30 and were met by our new guide, Josef, and our driver. They took us to a restaurant for lunch. Here is the view from the restaurant.
After lunch we started our 90 mile or 4 1/2 hour drive to Andasibe which is home to a national park. Unlike down south where the roads are terrible, the road wasn’t too bad. The road links Tana with the main port of Madagascar, Toamasina, so there were lots of trucks and the road went through every little village between Tana and the port. Drainage ditches, like the ones in Seychelles, line this road and two large trucks seem to have lost their brakes and careened into them. It was ugly, and only served to slow things down further.
We looked up the GDP/person of Madagascar. When adjusted for purchasing power Madagascar ranks 177 out of 185 countries. The poverty was really evident as we drove through the country. But as in other places we have been the people seem quite happy and honestly I don’t think that most know that they are in the bottom 5% of the world’s gdp. Here are some pictures.
These are rice paddies
Eventually we arrived at the Eulophiella Lodge (eulophiella is a type of orchid). This lodge is very enironmentally focused so it only has a generator and therefore only run the electricity between 5pm to 10pm daily in the rooms. Luckily they have a couple of solar panels so we can charge our electronics during the day at the main lodge. We had dinner there and it was lights out at 10!
The main lodgeMain LodgeDining area in main logdeFront of our villaBack of our villaLower level of our villaOur upper balconyReveiw from our upstairs deck
Not much to report today. We were up early because we had planned to go on a birding walk, leaving at 6am. There was a thunder and lightning storm just off the coast. We decided that it wasn’t a good idea to be in the forest in a lightning storm so we went back to bed. Others did go and said they saw a lot of birds. We spent the day getting caught up on the blog and relaxing.
There were sifakas right outside our villa and one who wanted to come inside was running up the railing.
That evening we went out for a night walk in an effort to see some of the nocturnal lemurs. We saw a frog, a Danfoss mouse lemur and an owl quite well. We saw the eyes of several sportive lemurs. While night walks sound good, mostly you just see eyes. It’s hard to get any pictures.
We have enjoyed this resort, although not as much as the Mandrare River Camp. One particularly nice thing about this camp is we can continually hear the sounds of the waves crashing on the shore and in the afternoon we always have a wonderful sea breeze.
Life at this camp is a little more relaxed than at Mandrare River Camp. After breakfast, we walked down to the “marina” which is on a mouth of the river where the resort keeps their boats. Here are some pictures.
There are tsingy rocks along the harborNotice the lack of boats at the marina
Then we came back to the villa and relaxed and blogged. While at lunch, we noticed friends, Karen and Dave, from Mandrare River Camp had just arrived. We didn’t know they were coming. I went over to say hello. They were scheduled to go to another camp with tree houses, but the camp canceled on them. I believe someone wanted to book the whole camp so they said yes to them and canceled all the existing bookings. Anyway we are happy they are with us. We arranged to have dinner with them.
At lunch there were sifakas in the trees right on the dining area deck. There seem to be a couple of troupes that live right in the resort. I actually got a picture of one of them jumping. The coquerel sifakas jump foward, while the sifakas we saw down south jump sideways and the ring tailed lemurs just walk on all 4 legs, how boring. I watched the coquerel sifakas eat. They hold on with their feet and then grab a branch and bring it to their mouths.
Notice the baby on mom’s back
After lunch we had scheduled at trip to the local village where they build boats. We have seen several small sailing boats off the beach fishing. Yesterday when we were out for a walk several villagers passed us carrying a large yellow fin tuna which they were bring it to the resort to sell. We took a short ride to the marina and then a boat across the mouth of the river to the village. There was a small boat just coming in and they showed us the fish they had caught.
The village looked deserted. I asked our guide and he said people were at their gardens or out fishing. It had a very different feel from the villages in the south where the houses were really just for sleeping and they lived outside. In the south we were swarmed when we entered a village, particularily by the kids. In this village we saw one lady with her 4 month old baby inside the fence of her yard. The houses are much bigger. There is no cooking house and no grainary for storing food. They store food and cook in their house. They decorate the outside of the house with plants.
Our guide showed us the partially built boats. They are all hand made, including hewing and planing the boards they use with hand tools. It typically takes them about 4 months to complete the project.
We also saw the school and one room medical center, but it was Sunday, so both were closed. There is no church and the people practice animism. They had built a fence around a tree which was supposed to be a protected area for the spirits to reside.
On the way back to the camp, I asked our guide what he did during Covid. Turned out he worked for an Amazon contracted call center. He said it was quite challenging but he enjoyed it. However, now that tourism is returning, he is quite happy to be back working as a guide. He is married and his wife and newborn baby, that he hasn’t met, are living in Tana. That must be challenging.
We returned to the resort and that evening has a very enjoyable dinner with Karen and Dave.
