20 May – The Long March

Zoco,the Guide

Today was one of the best days of the trip so far.  Got up reasonably early and ate the usual hearty breakfast….being the only person in the hotel.  Supposed to do a day-long hike today, so I had the hotel prepare me a sandwich to have at the midpoint. 

It was very foggy this morning, and we got a call from the guide saying we couldn’t start as early as we planned, so I took advantage of the situation to have more coffee.  We finally headed into town and met Zoco, a friendly, knowledgeable, helpful guy who took one look at me and offered to help with my backpack.  I figured there’d be time for that later.  The guy from the visitor center was handling the park entrance tickets and recognized me, so we talked a little before we bought some water and headed to the park.

Spotted a new raptor, the Yellow-billed Kite, at the beginning of the trail and then headed on into the massifs of Isalo.  The area is actually a huge plateau that has canyons eroded into it. Isalo is quite high and very dry, and the people who live in the area, whose name I forget, live at the foot of the Isalo plateau.  The road runs right to the base of the plateau, which is where Solof left us.  Our plan was to walk into the canyon, climb onto the plateau, hike over part of the dry plateau and to exit via another canyon.  Solof was to meet us some four or five miles up the road when we exited the plateau from that second canyon.

Tomb in Cliff

This is one of the best hikes I think I’ve ever done with its amazing variety of ecosystems, wildlife and cultural elements.  The first part was somewhat open, brushy, small-tree terrain as we headed into the valley and began to ascend to the plateau in a landscape of open rock faces that reminded me of the West.  Zoco pointed out tombs in openings in the cliffs as we went up.  This Bara hold the Isalo Massif sacred and do their burials here.  The burial is two-part.  First, they put the deceased in a sort of rough tomb in the cliff, and you can see that those pre-tombs are quite rough.  After several years, they take out the deceased’s bones and hold a proper funeral -- traditionally a huge, expensive party – and they move the bones to the final tomb, which is much more finished.  We could see both as we hiked up the canyon.  The tombs are apparently in cliffs to prevent grave robbers from disturbing the graves.

Along the way, I noticed cairns, which apparently mark various trails, again a traditional element.  And Zoco pointed out things about the natural history of the area, like some walking sticks making little walking sticks (matches?) and some geological features.  I understand the geology a little better now if still not perfectly.  One thing I noticed were the many rounded, polished pebbles lying on the surface of the ground, and Zoco explained that the area was once the bottom of a river and that the stones had been polished by the action of the water.  Sure enough, there are many layers visible with the rounded pebbles imbedded.  Not a product of wind for sure.  In addition to the sedimentary layers, there are also sharp intrusions into the rock where cracks formed during quakes and then filled with dust, which compacted more tightly that the sand in most of the area.  Somehow, this is related to the 3D veiny look of much of the area, but I just didn’t understand that part.  A lot of the landscape, the part you see and the part I was walking on, had a vaguely organic quality like you might see in HR Giger’s work.  Totally unique.

We climbed quite a ways, and I was happy that the fog had kept things somewhat cool.  It burned off quickly though, and we came to a prominence from which we could see a lot of the rest of the hike.  From there, it was clear that we weren’t out West anymore – it was Cappadocia, Turkey.  Lots of deep erosion through the sandstone leaving prominences with little hard caps(!) on the top.  Zoco assured me that there weren’t caves for people to live in, though.  Breathtaking view.  And I could see much of our route, first to left to a natural pool in another valley and then straight across the hot, flat plateau top.

It was a fairly short hike down to the first canyon, and we passed a metal coffin setting by a cave on the way.  This had been a temporary burial; the deceased’s bones had been removed and placed in the permanent burial, and the family had left this temporary site since it was no longer needed.  We also passed some silkworm cocoons, which Zoco explained only yielded 40% of the silk of Chinese silkworms.  And we passed a sunbird nest with some noisy sunbirds nearby.

Out of the dry, rocky heights, we descended into a totally other world—a lush, wet, fertile fern glade.  In ten minutes of walking.  A stream of fresh, clear water poured over and around rocks, descending into a natural pool and then running on off the plateau to the land below.  Big ferns mixed with different types of palms and even a desertic-looking plant.  It was hard to believe that this verdant place existed in the harsh dryness of the plateau.

It was even harder to believe three minutes later when we emerged from the glen and started our march straight across the flat frying pan of the plateau.  This was very hot walk of a little over two hours across an area of bare rock, dried grass and some dry-environment plants I wasn’t familiar with.  The most interesting of these was the pachypodium, a succulent that grows on bare rock outcrops or cliffs, sending its roots into any little opening or crevice it can find.  It’s a weird little plant that looks sorta like a bonsai baobab.  The bulb-like trunk of the plant has a spongy material that, Zoco told me, holds water through the dry season.  I read later that there are 25 species of this plant and that 20 of them exist in Madagascar.  Visually interesting plants. We also passed a lot of plants with white leaves, a marker of toxicity according to Zoco.  He cautioned me not to even break a leaf off since the “latex” juice could burn.

Long after I decided we weren’t ever going to make it off the plateau (or have lunch), we finally took a left and began an enormous, steep descent down the side of a cliff with the sun shining directly on us from the side.  I keep getting confused here because I still expect the sun to be in the south, but here it’s in the north.  I was sure we were lost and walking south, but no. 

As we started down the precipitous decline, we passed a couple of intrepid Dutch women (with no packs!) who were red-faced and sweating as much as I was if not more.  We commiserated briefly about the lack of helicopters, and I carried on leaving them to their water.  It was an absolutely beautiful descent, looking down on trees in the distance while perched on a little path barely a foot wide.  Of course, I had to stop when I wanted to look up from my feet or take pics because I didn’t want to fall off the edge, and the Dutch women and I kept doubling each other as they carried on down.  Looking up, it was Canyon de Chelly, and I expected Anasazi ruins rather than Bara tombs; looking down, it was the treetops of Piedmont Park. 

We descended into the trees, and to my surprise, emerged into a group of picnic tables beside a large stream.  This point was only 20 minutes from the nearest road access, and many visitors just walk up this canyon to the picnic area before they continue on up into the canyon to another natural pool and several waterfalls.  Even more surprising, everyone but me had arranged a catered lunch there with fresh fruit, salad, cheeses, brochettes (grilled sur place), veggies and even dessert.  And cold sparkling water.  I was totally on the low end of this crowd as I pulled out my two mushed-up sandwiches (the hotel thought one wouldn’t do me) and some (surprise!) bananas.  Several people offered me part of their bounty, but in all honesty, I was so tired and hot that didn’t even want both my sandwiches.

Lemurs, too, had apparently caught on to the lunch gig, and there were troops of two different kinds hanging around for scraps.  Well, I should say that the Ring-Tailed Lemurs were waiting for scraps.  The more adventurous Brown Lemurs were making the scraps happen, and one of the Dutch women had to stand guard with a stick while the other ate.  The Browns have perfected the snatch-and-run technique and scored at least one little loaf of bread that I saw.  I guarded my camera and glasses.

The break wasn’t ample – I’d still be there if it were – but we pulled ourselves together, and Zoco and I headed further into the canyon to a waterfalls and a natural pool.  It was an astonishingly beautiful walk with the large stream flowing under and around big boulders lying the canyon bottom and with large trees tilted downstream, apparently shoved that way by large, intermittent water flows.  It seemed like every streamlet, fern, plant and rock had been put in place by a landscape designer for maximum aesthetic effect, and I dallied along the whole hour walk.

We finally got to pretty, natural pool with a cave, and I rested there to take it in and talk with some of my fellow lunchers who arrived behind me.  It was cool, moist and verdant.  The contrast with the climate just above was striking.

We stopped at two different pools like this one, but I decided to forgo the 35-minute climb to another waterfall (with its attendant 35-minute descent out).  It was already 4 pm, it gets dark at 5:30, and I was very tired.  Zoco called Solof to tell him were heading out, and we started back toward the picnic area and, after, to the car park at the end of the valley and at the edge of the park. 

Gave a lift back to the village to the park comptroller, dropped Zoco off, and got to the hotel.  Ate a huge Zebu dinner with a huge beer and slept like a rock.