03 June -- (Tana: pics to follow)

02 June -- (Tana/Ambohimanga: pics to follow)

01 June -- (Andasibe - Tana: pics to follow)

31 May -- (Tamatave/Parc Ivoloina - Andasibe: pics to follow)

30 May -- The Road Down (Andasibe - Tamatave: pics to follow)

Andasibe/Mantadia is a forest in the highlands, and my next destination was on the east coast, Tamatave.  Getting there mean descending from the central highland plateau to sea level at the coast.

And this road descends a lot.  Packed out of the bungalow in no great hurry, stopping to admire a huge moth, called a Comet, that had landed on the frame of the bungalow beside mine.  What a beautiful thing it was  --  decorated with shiny spots, about the size of my two hands put together and having two very long trailing parts to its lower wing.  It was something like you see in book illustrations but never in real life.  And just sitting there on the bungalow. 

I had no idea we were at such a high elevation, but as we left, we stayed high (and cool) for a while before starting a fairly precipitous descent.  We went past several villages on the long way down, though the one thing I noticed that impressed me more than anything was a guy carrying two large containers of water up the steep side of a mountain.  There was some construction on a microwave tower at the top of the mountain, and his job was apparently to get water to the men working up there.  It looked like hard work.

When we got to sea level, we still went over several small mountains as we headed north toward the port of Tamatave through small towns with markets selling charcoal and fruit.  Looked like lychees were in season.  As always, there were great numbers of people walking along the road, though it seemed to me that these towns were much cleaner than the ones I’d seen in the south part of the country. 

And the road followed a railroad track along most of the way.  I’d read that the railroad had fallen into disrepair during one of Madagascar’s experiments with nationalizing industries, but I also heard another story here: that some in the government had invested in trucking and subsequently closed the railroad as a way to boost their new business.  I wouldn’t totally discount that later theory, either.  In any case, with petroleum prices on the upswing, the railroad is coming back a little, especially this segment.  Tamatave is the major port of entry in Madagascar for sea cargo, and it would make sense to send goods to Tana by train instead of having inefficient trucks lumber up this steep couple of hundred miles of narrow road.

We got to Tamatave shortly after lunch in blazing heat, and Solofo took me to a very inexpensive hotel, apparently run by some of his family, just on the edge of town.  Mine was a little stand-alone cottage in a compound of cottages, and I almost had the sense of being in the family rather than in a hotel.  Even though it was nice, I wasn’t super happy in it because it was pretty far from the center of town, and workers were building another cottage just next door.  And there was the privacy issue that you’d expect from being in such a communal situation; it annoyed my introvert, solitaire nature a little to be under the constant surveillance of the kids of the South African workers living there.  Turns out, these workers were the same ones doing the microwave tower we’d passed, and the hotel compound was also full of microwave tower parts.  In any case, I decided to stay there the night though I didn’t like that I could only get out and do anything if Solofo was around because I had to have the car.  It was, however, really cheap.

From the hotel, we headed into town to get some lunch.  Solofo suggested a restaurant on the beach, so we drove to the end of town, navigating streets packed with rickshaws, bikes, pedestrians and a few cars.  And trucks.  We got to Tamatave’s beachfront and settled under a big, thatched roof to have lunch and a cold drink and to watch the cranes at the dock unloading cargo.  We were there awhile, the service being typically slow, but it was surprising how much cooler it was under the roof than out in sun.

After we finished lunch, we drove back to the hotel, and I dug out my books to look for a hotel closer into town; I wanted more privacy, and I didn’t like the idea of having to have Solofo around every time I wanted to do anything.  I ID’d the tourist hotel part of town, laid out a plan for the afternoon, and took a nap.

After nap time, we drove into town so I could check out a couple of hotels and see what was there.  This little part of old Tamatave was cool with big trees; lots of sagging, mildewed buildings with old architectural touches; and some small shops and cafes with character.  The whole area was only two blocks, but that was something, and I liked the feeling.  Unfortunately, all the hotels were full (as I’d been told at Andasibe) because of some UN agency conference.  That was pretty disappointing, but I checked out a café, browsed a few stores and spent some time at an internet joint, all with Solofo in tow.  I was finding the constant company trying, so I decided to do a little more visiting tomorrow and to then head back to Andasibe to sleep tomorrow night.  And that way, the final leg of the trip back to Tana would only be a half day.

So I posted a few blog entries and went for a beer in the cooling evening.  I’m finding I don’t have a big appetite here; I don’t know if it’s the combination of fatigue and heat or just having interesting things to do other than eat, but there are meal times when I just don’t want to eat.  This was one such evening, so Solofo and I headed back to the area where we’d had lunch.  Just next door was sort of nightclub, and we went in to have a beer and sit near the ocean.

With the economy in tatters here, the sex industry is pretty conspicuous.  Everywhere.  I saw it in restaurants in Tana, in the artisan market in Tulear and here in the nicer area of Tamatave.  It’s not hard to spot: particularly well-dressed women hanging around a park or bus stop or, in this case, somewhat over-the-hill, grey-headed white guys sitting at tables with very attractive younger women.  And if you were a lonely guy, there was a good deal of attractive company hanging around outside, too.  I’m guessing these middle-aged guys were here for the conference.

We sat outside in the back by the ocean, and I had an order of fries and a beer and listened to the jazz sax player up under the roof improvise in a Kenny G-ish way.  It wasn’t a bad way to spend an hour or so, fresh fries and a big bottle of the very tasty THB (Three Horses Beer).  Then back to the commune.

29 May -- Ups and Downs of Virgin Rain Forest (Andasibe/Mantadia: pics to follow)

My philosophical question for the day is why virgin rain forest always has to be on perpendicular peaks.  Just a question.

We were out early again today with the same mixture of lotions all over me.  We met Pascal in the village and drove for an hour to get to the Mantadia Forest, the part of the park that is virgin forest.  The rough access here makes the park much less visited, and I think we were one party of only three in the forest.

We stopped along the way to look at the occasional bird, but nothing exciting happened til we got to the parking area for the route I was taking.  There, sitting in the tops of the trees, were three of the largest damn parrots I’ve ever seen.  They were easily a foot in length and black.  And they hung around so we could get a good view.  Giant, very black, some of the most unusual parrots I’ve seen.  And Pascal said this was the smaller of the two parrots in Madagascar.  The book says that one species is big and the other bigger, so I guess that meant that this one was just the big one.

Solofo stayed with the car, and Pascal and I started into the forest.  We’d gone about two steps when Pascal stopped me to point out a very orange kingfisher – orange back, beak and feet, white breast.  It was a Madagascar Pygmy Kingfisher, a forest bird that, in fact, eats insects rather than fish, albeit insects it catches over water. 

As we entered, I couldn’t help thinking that this, finally, really was the rainforest I’d been expecting.  It was far denser than most rainforests I’ve been in, and there was an incredible diversity of species in every direction.  Different types of epiphytes covered every branch of every tree, bamboo either spread across trails like vines or arched overhead to create a tunnel.  It was hard to tell the difference between plants that touched earth and those that lived on the ones that did.  It was an amazing, diverse, rich, complicated environment.

We walked around some bottom land looking for a roller we didn’t find (though we did find a group of lemurs), and Pascal soon started leading me up a 90 degree incline.  So I sweated and huffed my way up for a very long time until we got to a point with a great overlook.  There it was, miles and miles and miles of virgin rainforest.  I love seeing rainforest from such a vantage point with the occasional tree shooting up above the others with a clump of leaves on it and the occasional white trunk stretching above the hills of dark green.  And echoing through these mountains were Indri calls, too far away for us to follow but another element of the majesty of the setting. 

And we ran into a troop of Diademed Lemurs as we started down.  The guys here were not as used to people as the ones in Andasibe, and they moved away a little more quickly.  Well, except one juvenile, who I think was curious.  He too moved off, though, after some sharp cries from the parents, and the steep slope and dense vegetation made it pretty much impractical to follow them.  Would have been a cinch, though, if I’d been jumping from tree trunk to tree trunk like he was.

We went back down to the bottom land and walked around in more of the now-dry pool areas looking for the elusive roller, which my book says is findable here but not in the month of May.  Three cheers for Pascal’s persistence, though.  After a while of this, I thought we’d started upwards again; I soon became sure as our assent went from 45 degrees to 90.  And through thick brush with the occasional thorned vine placed to catch a primate arm.  Thank god I had on long pants -- they were ripped in several places by the time we got finished, and I’d rather have them ripped than me.

This climb went on and on and on.  The vegetation even changed, the woods becoming more open, evergreen and vined.  And also hotter.  I finally had to stop Pascal and ask why we were heading up so vertically, and he told me we might have a chance at another type of lemur.  I was so tired that my legs were sore, and I was thirsty and covered with sweat, so I said that it wasn't really necessary to spot more lemurs at that point and suggested we head down.  Unless I completely missed my guess, it was close to midday, and this life-infused forest was completely asleep.  In fact, the silence was striking: not a sound from a bird, gecko, insect or brook.  Total silence except for the sweat that occasionally dropped off my chin and splattered on my camera.  And my huffing.

When we got back to the bottom, I finished my water and asked which way the car was.  Pascal pointed toward a three-hour route, but I didn’t want to endure the humiliation of having to be carried out and asked if there was a shorter way.  Of course there was, and Pascal reluctantly led us out of the forest along that route instead of by his intended route (along which we would have seen more birds, he assured me).  Alas, it wasn’t that much shorter.  We came out on the road eventually, and my heart lept tiredly with joy…until Pascal walked across the road and into the forest again!  There was a small pond across the way, he assured me, where there were usually some Madagascar Little Grebes. 

Although I felt like I was about to drop, you don’t see Madagascar Little Grebes every day, so I perked up some and we walked another 20 minutes to a small pond with two of the grebes on it.  Cool.  And we spotted a Forest Rock Thrush there, too.  I rested in the shade a little and enjoyed the break.  My legs trembled some when I stood up again, but we got mobile and back-tracked to the road.  Just as I was coming to the road, I spotted my first vulture in Madagascar sitting in the top of a tree.  The size and the thick, hooked beak was unmistakable, but I couldn’t make out much detail in the overhead light.  It just looked dark.  Since he’s so good with birds, I asked Pascal about it, and he said it was the bigger parrot.  With my fancy, new binoculars, I was sure he was wrong, but by god he wasn’t.  It was a parrot the size of a vulture.  No wonder the early naturalists to land here thought they'd stumbled on the lost world.  How much fruit would a bird like that have to consume daily?

From here, we walked along the road another 20 minutes or so, and Pascal told me that he’d had a stroke about 5 months ago and had been paralyzed in bed for four months.  I was shocked; he’d only just begun to be able to guide again a few weeks ago.  Healthcare is so bad in this country and people have so little money that the pharmacies even have a homeopathy department that has treatments that are cheaper than Western medicine and rely on traditional remedies. For Pascal, the treatment for his stroke had been with homeopathic remedies and massage until he’d recovered the ability to speak and move his right side.  And he’d had to be taken to Tana for the massage twice a week for four months.  It certainly looked to me like he’d had a complete recovery.

Healthy me, though, was rapidly running out of steam at this point, and I think one of the happiest moments of my recent  life was when Solofo popped up with his camera as we walked around a curve in the road.  We all walked together over to the car and, ever chipper, he and Pascal set upon a passion fruit tree there with abandon to get some fruit to take back to their kids while I leaned on the car to remain upright.  And the hour drive to get back to Andasibe seemed at least twice that long.

Though I was beyond thirsty at that point, we stopped in Andasibe village to drop Pascal off, and I paid him with a substantial tip.  What a great help he’d been, and what an amazing person.  I certainly hope things go alright for him.

Back at the hotel, I walked quickly to my bungalow before I dropped, stopping only to pick up a big bottle of cold water at the restaurant.  I drank about half of it in the room and fell right into bed, still dressed.  Woke up two hours later, showered off, finished the water, and dropped back into bed for another two hours.  And woke up at sunset in time to head to the restaurant for a beer, vegetable soup, and pasta.

Then dropped back into bed.  And slept very well.

28 May – Whales of the Forest (Andasibe: pics to follow)

Started into the Andasibe Forest at the ungodly hour of 7 am with the understanding that the wildlife is more active at that time.  I was ready for anything, doused in DEET and even bringing along a rain poncho.

It was overcast this morning and humidity was dropping off the leaves….along with leeches.  God I hate those things, skinny little inch-worms that land on your collar and then go for your neck.  Leeches may be as close as I get to having a phobia.  If I translate the French name they use for them here, it’s “blood suckers.”  The only thing that moderated my dislike was that we were walking through what was virtually a glade of some species camellia.

We walked for a while through several groups of birds, stopping to ID some I’d already seen.  My guide here, Pascal, will soon get a bead on what I’m interested in, but for the time being, I went along in pausing for birds I wasn’t overly interested in.  We followed a path along a small river and eventually came to a little bundle of lemurs tucked in fork in a tree.  Turns out they’re a nocturnal species, Wooly Lemurs, and all I saw were three little heads pop up and blink a few times.  I left them alone.  Pascal told me that lemurs are highly territorial, but the diurnal and nocturnal species’ territories overlap.  The day shift will forage quite happily, then when they go to sleep, the night shift moves in.  There’s no real contest between them.

This second-growth forest is quite thick, and I especially like the tree ferns and the huge, agave-looking plants peppered throughout.  Those plants lend the forest a very unique feeling, especially when coupled with the epiphytes and orchids throughout.  It’s only here that I found out that the bird’s nest fern is an epiphyte; they’re huge here.  And I find this forest noteworthy for the large about of fruit in it and for the lack of thorny things. 

After we went on for some time, we came on a group of Diadem Sifakas in the top of some especially tall trees.  I couldn’t make out much about them except the fact that they’re a light golden color and, like all lemurians (it’s a real French term), they are as cute as buttons.  These sifakas were grazing away, their golden butts glowing against a now-blue sky, occasionally jumping from one tree trunk to another.  Nothing small about these guys.  I stayed with them awhile.

We ran into yet another family shortly, and we stayed with them a bit, too.  The light was better on them, but I still couldn’t get a photo to do their beautiful color and cute faces justice.  They’re quite happy hanging around munching on fruit in the tree tops while humans pad around below.

We soon came upon the stars of Andasibe, the Indri.  There are many fascinating things about this animal, the first being its looks.  Indri are about 3’ tall, the biggest lemurian, and they’re light-colored, like their cousins, the Diademed Sifaka.  They hang out in family groups of 4-5, with the older ones striking out on their own after a few years, and they only give birth every couple of years.  Also, they eat the leaves, fruit and flowers of a variety of trees, but they only browse indigenous ones.  They’re an endangered animal with the 60 or so troops here in Andasibe being the only population in the world.  Indri can’t be kept in captivity; they quit eating and die when taken out of the forest or confined.

As if that weren’t enough, the call of the Indri is one of the eeriest sounds in any rainforest anywhere.  They have a call that resembles the human voice in tone, but it’s high and seems to have some harmonic element to it.  It’s terribly loud and can carry for over a mile.  When they call, it sounds almost like a whale song.  And the group I was watching decided to call.  The sound was deafening as these guys clung to their trees and opened their little red mouths to emit their piercing wail.  What an experience to be right in the middle of that.

We walked a few more hours in the agave-accented rainforest, checking out a Madagascar Jumping Rat hiding in a hole in a tree and spotting a group of Brown Lemurs.  Several flocks of parrots flew by, but we didn’t get a good look at them.  We saw, however, several Madagascar Mannikins snipping the seeds off some tall, sunny weeds, looking for all the world like what must be their close relative, the sparrow.  And as we turned onto the path that led to the ranger station, we saw a tight little France’s Sparrowhawk sitting on a wire over the path, waiting for a chance to pounce on a grasshopper or mouse.  Another endemic.

We made our plans for tomorrow with Pascal, and Solofo and I headed to the fancy Andasibe hotel for lunch.  I’d hoped for some Malagash cuisine, but they didn’t have it!  Alas, it was zebu and frites again….and the zebu was so undercooked that I sent it back to the kitchen.  Driving past a field on the way back, we stopped to watch a Common Stonechat doing a flycatcher move by snatching bugs out of the air and returning to its perch.

The rest of the day was playing around the hotel, sitting on the porch of my bungalow and looking into the forest on the other side.  Looking forward to a long walk tomorrow in the primary forest.  I will have to get Pascal to pick up the pace some, though.