Category: Madagascar

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.

One the other island, about 30 ft away, there were golden sifakas, red ruffed lemur, and more bamboo lemurs.

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.

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.

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.

Last but not least Desi wanted to show us a boa constrictor and a giraffe 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.

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.

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.

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!

Happy Halloween 👻🎃

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.

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.

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. 

We were up quite early.  First thing I did was go out to see if our guide and driver were at the hotel yet.  They were and I found my phone on the floor in the third row of seats.  Yeah!

We left the hotel at 6:15 for the airport.  We are flying to Anjajavy this morning on a private charter.  At check in they weighed us and our luggage.  Our luggage was 15kg overweight and initially they told us that one of our suitcases would have to go on a later plane.  We were whisked through security and then driven to a private waiting room.  Around 7am we were told that our plane was ready for us.  They managed to get the suitcase on the plane by strapping it into a seat.  The plane was a Cessna 206 with 4 seats and a seat for the pilot and the copilot.  There was another couple on the flight with us.  We did not have a copilot so Rick sat up front and the suitcase sat in his seat.  The flight was about 1½ hours.  It was very loud so we had to wear ear muffs (eventually Rick put his on).

We arrived and here is a picture of our plane and the airport in Anjajavy.

In Malagasy, An means “place of” so Anjajavy means place of the jajavy trees. Antananarivo means place of 1,000 warriors and was named this after King Andrianampoinimerina who unified the country. 

We had about a 30 minute ride to the resort that can only be accessed by plane.  The resort is really lovely.  We got settled in our villa and had lunch.  Here are pictures.

That afternoon we went out for a walk with a guide.  We saw coquerel’s sifakas lemurs, common brown lemurs, and hairy crabs. 

We also saw tsingy rocks.  The main tsingy rock “forest” is south of us, but there are some here.  Tsingy rocks are fossilized coral from about 200 million years ago.  Trees can grow out of the rocks because there are a lot of nutrients and water resides in small internal cavities. 

We got back to the camp in time for tea which is served on the “oasis”.  There was a family of sifakas climbing in the trees above us. 

A local dancing program was performed for the resort guests prior to dinner.  The ladies have designs on their faces, tradition in this area.

Dinner was at the resort and it was an early evening.

We were up very early, 3am, and left the camp by 4am, in order to get to the airport by 7:35.  Of course it was dark when we left, but it was surprising how many people were out. There were a lot of people on the road, maybe going to the sisal plantation or to market.  The sisal plantation is so big that we drove through it for the first hour.  As we were driving we passed through from the spiny forest, through a transitional forest and into the edge of the rain forest.  Madagascar has a mountain ridge down the middle that helps define these areas.  The rain clouds come in from the east coast and get stuck on the mountains, making the east coast very wet and the west coast very dry.  Now that we know what to look for it was easier to the see the transition. 

It was a relatively fast trip and only took 3 hours to get to the airport.  We were actually too early to check in, so we need to wait for awhile before we could receive our boarding passes and proceed through security.   The flight was uneventful except that we were in business class which meant that we had a curtain between us and everyone else, otherwise it was the same.  I think we ended up in business class because they booked the ticket late.  I hope they didn’t pay too much for it.

In Tana we were picked up by our guide, Nicolas, and driver, Alexander.  They drove us to our hotel.  The streets of Tana feel less overwhelming, maybe I’m just getting use to Madagascar.  We had lunch by the pool in our hotel and then we headed out to the palace.  It was about a 45 minute drive mostly on a VERY narrow  road, elevated above the rice paddies and then up one of the 12 hills of Tana. The palace is a UNESCO world heritage site.

The palace was first built by King Andrianampoinimerina who unified the country and ruled from 1787 to 1810. It is a fortified and orginially surrounded by a moat. His palace was a one room house with a kitchen and a bed. We had to enter with our right foot first and exit backwards, facing in towards the house, with our left foot first. Also on the complex is the summer palace of Queen Ranavalona who I think was the great daughter-in-law of King Andrianampoinimerina. Queen Ranavalona ruled for 15 years until her son was old enough to assume the throne. The queen’s palace was a little bigger consisting of a salon, dining room, and a bedroom.

Interestingly, Madagascar never has a concurrent king and queen. They had either a king or a queen, but their spouses never assumed a royal title.

Several kings and queens are buried at the palace, so people still come to pray for their help and and sacrifes animals in their honor.

After the palace we could have gone somewhere that had good views of Tana, however it was starting to rain, there was a lot of pollution from fires as people were getting ready for planting season and we were really tired from getting up so early. We deecided to go back to the hotel and call it a day. After a nap we had dinner. I realized I couldn’t find my phone and worried that I had lost it. I didn’t get a very good nights sleep.

We were up quite early.  Coffee was delivered at 4:30am and we left the camp at 5am.  The camp manager was in the peace core here in Madagascar and one of his fellow peace core volunteers is visiting him.  Her name is Leah and she joined us on our early morning drive.  The sun was just starting to rise when we left camp.   We drove to the spiny forest that we had visited the previous night so we knew where most of the lemurs were.  We saw sifaka lemurs waking up.  They sit in a sort of meditation pose towards the sun to warm up and dry off any condensation from the night before.  Once warm they start eating.

We also saw a numbers of birds including a local parrot and some local vangas.  We saw a lot of very interesting Sakalava weavers. In this species the male builds a nest and even decorates it with green branches.  Then he courts the females.  He starts by quivering to get her attention.  Once she expresses an interest he takes her to see the nest he has built.  If she likes the nest everything is good, but if she decides to reject him she knocks the nest out of the tree and he has to start all over again. 

At the end of our walk we saw two nocturnal sportive lemurs, resting in the crook of a tree.

We returned to camp to have breakfast and then went out to the market which is held every Thursday.  On our early morning drive we saw lots of people (many more than normal) walking, riding in a zebu pulled carts, and riding bicycles, all to get to the market.  Of course the market is an opportunity to buy things, but it seems it’s most important role is to give the locals a place to connect.  It was quite large and they had everything from clothes (some new and some used), pharmacueticals (including prescription antibiotics), to fruits and vegetables, wagon wheels and prepared foods.  There was also a section for live stock, zebu, goats and chickens. Ther was moonshine where the men went after they sold most of their livestock. 

We didn’t see a lot of people buying things, but there were a lot of people visiting with each other.  This is also marrying age adolescentes look for partners. Both the girls and boys dress up in brightly colored clothes. Also the boys put a comb in their hair and the girls were their hair in a bun or flaunt a colorful formal-looking hat. We joked with Ernest that we were going to buy him a weapon and a zebu so he could attract a wife.  It was VERY hot so after one circuit around the market we were ready to go back to camp.  Back at camp we napped and relaxed before and after lunch.

Later that day we left the camp at 5:15 and went to the avenue of baobabs.  There we met the other camp guests and had sundowners and watched the sunset.  After the sunset they demonstrated how to start a fire by rubbing the sticks of the octopus tree together.  Once they had a nice bonfire going, some locals came and performed traditional dances while singing.

We returned to camp, had dinner, and went to bed.

This morning we went to a local village of the Tandroy people. They consult with a shaman to determine where to build their village and once decided the head of the clan builds his house, the largest in the village, on the northeast side.  There is one door that he enters through and another on the opposite side of the house that everyone else, women, children, and guests enter through.  The husband, wife and their small children live in the house. If there is a second wife she may live in the same house (especially if she is the first wife’s sister), in another house in the village, or in another village.  Ernest told us about one very rich man who has 12 wives and their houses are set up like a clock with his house at the center.  When the head of the clan dies the house does not get passed on to his family, instead it’s burned.

As the children grow they are moved to smaller houses in the vicity of his/her parents.  Other houses on high stilts are used to store food and more ramshackle closed shed-like structures are used for cooking.  We think about 50-75 people live in the clan. I looked into one of the houses and it consisted of a bed and a few items stored under the bed.  None of the houses have windows. 

For the most part everyone looked pretty healthy, with the exception of one boy whose eye was swollen shut.  They said he was going to get medicine in the market.

As we exited the car we were surrounded by kids, mostly girls who wanted us to take their picture.  Then they wanted to see their picture.  They tried to interact with us, asking us our names and our ages.  We felt like the pied piper because where ever we went we had a trail of kids.  Generally the kids looked happy but I don’t think I saw one child that didn’t have holes in his or her clothes.  It is also very dry and dusty, so most of the kid’s clothes were fairly dirty.  (That may be the result of water constraints.)

The village did not have electricity, although we saw a few small (12 inch sq.) solar panels. There’s no running water, nor are there bathroom facilities in the village.  They just use the nearest river for water (often quite a distance away, deoendent upon time of year) and the edge of the village for other business.  The government is trying to convince the villagers to manage the sanitation better, but tradition is strong and resistance is significant. 

They had a little stall where they were selling coffee and cake to people walking along the road.  A woman was grinding the coffee.  Perhaps pulverizing is a better word than grinding as a stick and a partially hollowed out log were the tools of choice. Another woman who worked with an NGO that was teaching the village how to increase the yield of their crops was having a cup of coffee while we looked on. 

We walked down the road to the school which consisted of three classrooms, built by Madagascar Classic, the tour company that owns our camp and organized the Madagascar portion of our trip.  We went into one classroom that housed the first grade.  There were about 60 kids in this small room.  They had addition and subtraction problems written on the board.  They counted for us in French and sang a song.  Also on the school grounds was a covered shelter where the kids were getting lunch.  The food was paid for by the World Heath Organization.  As in many places, the school incentivizes parents to send their kids to school by giving the children food. 

While we were at the school, our tracker had organized a visit to the local shaman.  We entered a building that served as his “office” (it was not his home).  As we entered he was speaking to the spirits.  He showed us some of the tools he used to help people.  We asked about shamanism versus the church.  He does not go to church, but people who go to church still seek out his help.  We asked to take his picture and he donned his shaman outfit for us to take these: 

After visiting with the shaman we returned to camp.  We typically don’t have activities in the middle of the day due to the heat, so we relaxed and wrote the blog in our tent.  Ernest gave Rick a digital copy of a book called Lord and Lemurs which is about Madagascar so Rick spent the afternoon devouring that. As I mentioned our tent overlooks the river and we continuously hear the kids playing in it. It sounds like they’re having a great time.

We left the camp at 4:45 to go to another spiny forest. On the way we stopped at a baobab tree that had been carved out.  The landowners dug a canal to channel the water in a large puddle at the base of the baobab.  Then they transfer it into the baobab by hauling buckets up to the trap door in the trunk of the baobab.  The water resides there until they need it.  It does not hurt the baobab to be a water cistern and eventually the tree will heal itself and the cavity will be filled by the tree.  Then the land owners will dig another cavity.  We saw a number of trees with the trap door. 

At this forest we saw a few ring-tailed lemurs and a lot of sifaka finding places high in the trees to spend the night.  The sifaka were jumping from tree to tree and jumping or dancing along the ground.  

As the sun set we put on our head lamps and started looking for the nocturnal sportive and mouse lemurs.  Ernest and our tracker waved their flashlight through the trees trying to find the reflection of their eyes.  They found a number of sportive lemurs but the mouse lemur, which only weights about 70 grams, was elusive.  Just as we were about to returne to the car Ernest found a mouse lemur.  It was too dark to take a picture so you will have to trust us on this one.

We got back to the camp, had a predinner drink and then were whisked off to a private bush dinner.  A table was set for two in an isolated outdoor area. 

We had a waiter named Numa attending to us.  His English is very good and he was telling us about himself over dinner.  He is 31 years old, married, and has three sons, 12 years old, 6 years old, and 2 months old.  His parents tried to arrange a marriage for him to his cousin but he said no.  He met his current wife in the marketplace and told his parents he wanted to marry her.  His parents then met with her parents and told them their son want to marry their daughter.  Her parents told his parents to come back in a week during which time they discussed it with the girl.  His parents came back and were told that yes, she wanted to marry him and they agreed on a bride price.  A shaman was consulted to determine an auspicious day for the wedding and the rest is history.  The camp must think very highly of him because he is being trained to be a guide.  We really enjoyed talking to him. 

Another early evening because we are leaving camp at 5am to see the lemurs waking up. 

Some random things:

One of Madagascar’s big problems is population growth.  The population is expected to double in the next 30 years.  One of the blessings people say when people get married is may you have seven sons and seven  daughters (seven is a lucky number).  Ernest, our guide, is one of six kids, but his father is one of thirteen.  Child mortality is down, which is good, but it’s further driving the population explosion.  If this trend continues it will further exascerbate the impact on resources that are already strained — water, food, materials. The government is trying to convince people to use birth control with limited success. Another fatality in the struggle between tradition and facts. 

The habitat for the lemurs and other indigenous animals is dwindling as more and more forested land is being lost to crops and building materials. 98% of lemurs are on the endangered species list. 30% of those are on the critically endangered list. A significant percentage of Madagascar’s revenue comes as a result of tourism. Not surprisingly, lemurs are a huge part of the draw. Tourism will suffer as the lemur population goes down.

The women of the village gather water, do the cooking and manage the gardening.  If a man were to do any of these jobs, he would look weak and be ridiculed by his peers and the other villagers. 

We often see women walking along the road carrying things on their head.  They seem to be able to do this effortlessly. 

Some women also use cosmetic face masks for a better complexion and protection from the sun.