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.
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