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.

19 May – Calling John Ford

Nice day today, a combination of traveling through some pretty magnificent landscape and, after a nice lunch, a little out-of-car tourism.

 During the morning, we drove from Ambalavao to a little village south of Ihosy, Ranohira, through an amazing landscape.  Outside of Ambalavao were huge granite extrusions with some little villages spread at their feet among the trees that grow there.  There was also a good deal of agriculture, mostly rice with the terraces running up every crevice.  People are now cutting, thrashing and drying the.  Looks like the men cut, the women carry, the men thrash, and the women dry and winnow. 

We also stopped to check out some tombs built on clear rock surfaces.  The tombs, apparently old, are pretty much just stone squares put together without masonry, but the stonework is, while not Inca quality, still pretty tight.  The stone squares look great set out on the rounded exposed rock surfaces with the rounded massifs off in the background….almost like some sort of art installation.  It was pleasant stopping there and walking around them.  Solof is wonderfully patient.

We eventually came to a descent, wound our way into lower land and left the great massifs behind.  This land was similar to that coming out of Tana – low, rolling, densely cultivated – but clearly drier than that I’d seen previously.  As always, the road was full of people walking somewhere, most of it local traffic, I suspect, of people walking to and from fields.

We stopped for gas in Ihosy and, as we headed out, the road became a series of switchbacks winding up a steep incline to a big plateau.  On the plateau, it was Nebraska without the corn -- a flat, tan horizon stretching out far and wide.  And it went on and on and on.  There was nothing up there at all – no people, no villages, no agriculture, no birds.  Just dry tan flatness.

It only lasted 20 miles, though, before we descended a bit into what is, for all intents and purposes, the landscape of Monument Valley. Big, open areas between table plateaus and vertical cliffs.  You’d expect to find Anasazi carvings in these places.  Didn’t see any stagecoaches, though.

We arrived at Ranohira about lunch time, and I had another zebu steak and frites (I wasn’t going to risk fish here, so far from the sea over such bad roads).  I checked into a cute little hotel with lots of little bungalows and a big cactus garden.  In one of the narrow-leaved trees, Solofo spotted a bright green chameleon the size of my forearm that put the lie to my belief that chameleons move slow.  He was headed to the top of the tree, his two-toed bowed legs moving and both eyes spinning.  Fast.

A nap ensued although I’d swear it was hotter at 10:30 than at 1.  When the heat had broken some, we went to a visitor center about five miles down the road.  Spotted a Madagascar Kestrel hunting big bugs and watched it land on a rock prominence, soon to be joined by its mate.  Learned in the visitor center that these birds don’t even build nests but lay their eggs in and raise their brood in rock crevices.  They have plenty of options here.

The visitor center was laid out pretty well and explained the weird geology of this place (in English!), but it was a little hard to follow.  And I don’t think the translation was the problem.  Bottom line: there’s lots of sedimentary rock here because a lot of the area was a river bottom at some point.  I think.

Queen's Rock: Can you see her?

Nothing else exciting but still very unique.  We drove around enjoying the landscape in the light of the setting sun.  I saw the Queen’s Rock, spotted a Madagascar Partridge, and went into Ranohira to find a guide for the Ilosy National Park.  I’ve been feeling so fat and out of condition that I’ve had some reservations about a long hike in the sun, but I think I’m going to give it a go and try to do the six-hour tour so I can check out the tops of the plateaus as well as the shady canyons below.  The guide said he’d have his cell phone in case we need to crap out early and call Solofo to meet us at the bottom of a plateau at some point.

18 May – Let’s all go to the Moo…vies

Solofo

Managed to have a fun and interesting day today….and finally really hit the wall.  No regrets about not being able to make Andringitra. Wouldn’t have traded today for it.

Slept mercifully late and had a big breakfast about 9.  I thought I was being conservative, but the croissant I ordered came out the size of a loaf of bread, the pressed OJ was in giant glass, and the omelet must have been made with three eggs instead of the usual two.  And it came with bread.  Fortunately, Solofo came out as the food was coming, so I was able to share some of this bounty.

Dunno how the sun got so high so fast, but it was already too overhead for good pics when I left the hotel.  Still, we headed out to walk down an old street still filled with old houses with tile roofs and old style balconies.  Some of the houses looked like they came out of the French countryside, but there were some distinct touches, like the balcony with the zebu head silhouettes carved into it.  They’re great constructions.

The street was filled with people because Wednesdays are both market days and zebu sale days,  Not everyone is here to shop or sell; it’s almost a weekly festival, and there was a definite energy going.  We walked through town, heading to the zebu market.  At one storefront, there were women weaving raw silk into shawls, and I thought a lot of their work was quite good.  They are a women’s group co-op, and they raise their own silkworms, harvest the silk, spin it and weave it.  I picked up a scarf for my mother there.  Unless memory fails, the scarves are about 1/3 the price here that they are in Tana, and many of them looked far more elegant. 

At another storefront, I heard some loud music and saw a hawker pulling people in off the street.  I went over to see what was up and discovered a “movie theater.”  The impresario was yelling something, and his assistant was pulling people in from the sidewalk, mostly villagers who’d just come to town to be here during market day.  I could easily imagine early American cinema being like this.  The “theater” had a billboard out front listing the next four movies and their starting times (which were something like 2, 4, and 6 o’clock).  I poked my head in to see the setup and found a TV with a DVD player on a stand in the front of a large rectangular room with people sitting on rough benches that stretched across the room.  It was barely a 26-inch screen, but the surround system was enormous….loudspeakers, I think.  It all looked so familiar, like a different cultural expression of the same setup we have when we go to the movies with stadium seating and surround sound.  I can happily report, too, that after all the years of Chinese pirating American movies, I’ve now found a place where Chinese movies are pirated.  I guess what goes around, comes around.  I did see The Karate Kid on the bill for later, though.

We carried on out of town to a huge complex on the top of a hill just out of town, the Zebu market.  These occur on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and people bring their Zebus from all over southern Madagascar to trade here. The area was full of large cattle trucks (we’d seen many on the road coming in) and herders moving their zebu around.

Despite the gigantic size and the constant shouting, movement and dust, the sale both seems and is pretty organized.  You just take your zebus into the huge pen on the hill and keep yours separate from those of the other sellers around you.  There must have been 50-75 of these little mini-groups in the enclosure.  While you stand there and hold your stock together, buyers wander around looking to see what they’re interested in, and you see people cutting head out of their groups and then reassembling them, people swapping cash (and there are people to give change running around), and people doing paperwork so they can prove that the zebus aren’t stolen.  Depending on the buyer and the purpose of buying the zebu, the big trucks at the bottom of the hill are for transporting the livestock.  It all makes a lot of sense.

I had a couple of nice conversations there, too.  One friendly old guy told me all about the financial side of things—how much a typical zebu might cost, how much transportation would run, how much you’d have to bribe the cops who stop traffic every 30 miles.  All this adds to the cost of zebu here in Madagascar.  Then as we were heading back across town, we ran into the night guardian from the hotel.  I jokingly asked if he’d bought a zebu, and he told me that he had 40 head on the way up from Tulear.  And he gave me all those details, too….the three herders, how he handled their food, what animals he had and what his expectations for them were.  Last thing in the world I expected from a night watchman.

The sun was getting high now, but we decided to go through the market on the way back to the hotel anyway.  It was just packed with every item imaginable and many unimaginable.  On the former side, there was a huge variety of food, clothing and home items.  Everything about the day reminded me working in Mali, and this market really felt that way, except for the presence of mobile phones and chargers.  The unimaginable category included several things, but dried grasshoppers (Oxahaca notwithstanding) gets the award.  This time.

Market Food

I had a Coke when we got back to the hotel, and we decided to revisit the market around 3:30 for more photo opportunities.  I headed back to my room, stretched out on the bed, and woke up three hours later at 4.  Wow…..do I feel rested now!  I think I’ve finally made the time and activity transition.  In fact, I’m feeling quite fit and ready to go.

We walked back through town after I finally got up, but the market was definitely breaking up and there was less activity.  Stopped by to see what was on at the movies (another kung-fu movie), shot a few photos, and went the other big hotel in town for a bite to eat since I hadn’t had lunch.  I had a vegetable soup that they actually made in the kitchen while we were sitting out on the covered veranda.  And I ordered some frites, too, which they cut and fried.  It was slow, but it’s still a little surprising that making everything fresh here is more efficient than popping open cans. 

We headed on back to the hotel with the people departing the market trying to squeeze into taxi-brousse vehicles.  Those who lived closer were walking.  And on three occasions, I had people either run head on into me or grab my arm to say something.  Acting on a suspicion, I asked Solofo if there were any bars in the area, and we were sure enough in the middle of a group.  I just can’t imagine being staggering drunk and having to walk several miles to get home.  What a rough way to move into a hangover.

And that was the end of my catch-up day.  It was great to take a down day.  In fact, one of the points of renting a car is to avoid the tedious public transportation and take advantage of the time saved.  I tend to run myself into the ground in the saved time, but it was a good move to just sleep this one away….and finally get my photos off my camera.

17 May – Down from the Mountain(s)

I never have the right lens.... (see below)

Since we were leaving today, I got up especially early to catch birds in the hotel gardens before we headed out.   There were a lot of the same ones I’d seen over the last couple of days, but it was nice seeing them again in the especially good light.  However, there was a great new one, the Madagascar Blue Vanga.  It reminded me so Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with its little body, light blue uppers, white body and yellow eye.  Whistle while you work!  Not only is this bird endemic to Madagascar, but the whole family of some 16 birds is only found here.

Walked up the side of the mountain using steps and a path the hotel had cut to a little pavilion surrounded by fruiting bananas and saw birds all along the way.  When I headed down, Solofo was ready, so we went in for a last breakfast on the SECAM Hotel terrace.  I was surprised to see Bertine at the hotel as the park is a half mile away, and Solofo said that he’d walked to the hotel to meet a couple but that the woman had gotten sick and they weren’t going to be able to do the tour.  Knowing how much they need the money here, I felt sorry for Bertine that he wouldn’t have a client that morning….and that he’d walked all the way down here for nothing.  Such must be the life of a guide.

Breakfast was very fine.  The hotel comped mine out of sheer niceness, and it was a good, hearty, omelet-based one.  I like the staff here a lot – though I spoke mostly French with them, they were very eager to try to speak English with me.  There’s not a lot of English in Madagascar, and my jaw hurts nightly from the all-day effort at French.

As we were driving out of the preserve, Solofo spotted a large, clumsy bird in a tree top, so we pulled over to check it out.  It was a big, beautiful Blue Coua, a long bird about the size of a pheasant.  They don’t fly well but tend to glide down from tree tops and climb back up the new tree, looking for fruit.  Dunno what kind of berries this one had been eating, but after it glided across the road and reassembled its dignity settling into the new tree, it fell off the branch before catching itself several branches below.  Still, it was pretty.

The drive from Ranomafana to Fianarantsoa was again through highland agriculture, with rice paddies much in evidence and the roads packed with pedestrians, some pushing carts filled with charcoal and others walking off to work in the fields or go to school.  The road is always full.

We stopped in Fianarantsoa to drop off a package with Solofo’s cousin, who is the head of Star Brewery in the region.  Star makes and distributes an excellent light ale, Three Horses, and is also the Coca-Cola bottler and distributer here in Madagascar.  We had a good visit in his cool home (temperature is definitely rising as we descend the mountains and head south) talking about the local politics and international markets.  I guess I sorta knew that the country is under a trade embargo because the current president was put in by a coup.  Apparently, no Western country recognizes the current government, and that is one of the reasons the country is hurting.  The cousin said that there were riots and disturbances before this guy came into power, so I guess I know where his sympathies lie in this political question.

We left Fianarantsoa in a couple of hours and headed to Ambalavao, which will be our base for a couple of nights.  The going was slow because we came across herd after herd of cattle.  Ambalavao is the center of a big region, and there’s a big cattle market here tomorrow.  It would be fun to get to go to that.  There was a big change in landscape, too, as the mountains turned into massive granite outcroppings like Stone Mountain on steroids.

The town is somewhat small but as crowded – mostly with young people – as have been all the rest.  We went to the Bougainville Hotel, about the only play in town, had lunch, and rested a little.

Afterwards, we made an appointment to meet a guy about a trip to Andringitra tomorrow and then headed to the Anja Reserve. This is an interesting area of steep granite mountains with a small village at the foot.  There are also Ring-Tail Lemurs, and the villagers have created a co-op here to preserve the area and their culture by leading visitors on tours.  It’s only about 15 miles from Ambalavao, so it seemed like a good way to spend the afternoon.

We drove out in the beautiful, open landscape and got a guide for an hour walk.  The guide took us through fields and caves, explaining that the lemurs shelter in the caves at night.  There are apparently four distinct troops of them.  We then went though some green, bushy undergrowth before coming on some French grad students following a troop of Ring-Tails, and we settled in with them.  The lemurs are cute, animated, curious and alert creatures who didn’t mind us being there, though they didn’t really interact with us.  They eventually wandered off with the researchers, and we continued up onto some of the rock faces, at one point having to hold on to a rope to pull ourselves up a rock face.  I had lenses, cameras, books, and binocs dangling off me like a Christmas tree, and I vowed to travel lighter tomorrow when I was planning to be a similar habitat.

On a high rock face, a big troop of lemurs came out to sit around a while and watch the sunset.  They then headed to their cave for the might, walking right by us.  These guys live on rock faces rather than in trees, so they tend to jump among the rocks like other lemurs do among the trees.  It was just great fun spending time with them, and all the while, I got the Anja story from our guide.  Apparently, the village uses the reserve money to run their local school, and they pay their municipal taxes with it.  They’ve always had a local taboo against killing the lemurs (the area is sacred and has the tombs in it), so the lemurs are cool about humans. It was a fine and memorable experience.

The day concluded with my meeting the guy about the Andringitra outing and coming to the conclusion I won’t be able to do it tomorrow.  The road is in such bad shape that you need a 4x4 to get out there, and that rental is expensive for a day.  With all the other fees added in, it’s probably better to give it a pass on this trip. 

Always ready with a backup plan, I’m thinking of checking out the cattle sale tomorrow morning and then going back to Anja for the longer tour, which would include some tomb visits.

for Carlos....

16 May – Ranomafana Redoux

Bertine -- In Guide Garb

I’m ending today on the hotel veranda overlooking mountains of rainforest with a brilliant full moon lighting scattered clouds….in a sky that is completely unfamiliar to me.  When I was doing my binoc research before coming here, one person suggested that the litmus of good binocs is what they can do with the moon, so I pulled mine out, focused on the moon, and hit the stabilizer button.  WOW!  You can see craters with the lines radiating away from them as clearly as with a telescope.  For the 20^th time today, I’m glad I bit the bullet and got these binocs before coming.  (Thanks for the advice, C&L!)  Sitting here on the edge of Ranomafana rainforest looking at the moon, I’m glad I came.

After yesterday’s sauna hike, I got up earlier today and met Solofo for breakfast.  On the veranda, of course.  Since the park didn’t open til 7:30 or 8, we did a tour of the hotel grounds with our binocs.  All the birds were loud at 6:15 am, but by the time I got out and finished my big, American breakfast, things were quieter.  We were just killing time.

Really glad we did.  We had killed a few minutes looking at little, twittering grey things when a spectacular bird popped out of the forest and landed on a tree at the edge of the hotel property, facing us with the sun at our back.  It was a big bird with a white body and dark wings, and after it sat there like a king for a spell, it turned so the sun caught it full on the side, illuminating an iridescent pink patch that ran the length of wing.  I’d never seen iridescence on a bird much bigger than a starling, but the patch on this Madagascar Cuckoo-Roller looked like it was about a foot long and six inches wide.  The queen soon came up (as though there were any doubt about the identification), and the two went back into the forest.  One of the best birds of the day.  The Crested Drogo, with a long split tail and crest swinging forward over the bill, would have normally been a highlight for me, but I still had afterimages of that shining pink patch when the Drogo flew into view.

We realized we were running late, so we cut the hotel garden short and headed to the rainforest.  There, we met Bertine, who again impressed me with his professionalism when he ran off to change into his “guide” clothes from his “sales” clothes.  I was so leery of guides after the Alphonso experience that I told him I’d pay him after we finished, and he seemed quite comfortable with that.  Confidence, I thought.  A good sign.  And we were hardly 15 minutes into our walk before I knew this was going to be a great day – by that time, he’d already shown me a chameleon, a spider half as big as my hand, an orchid and a walking stick.

Baby Golden Bamboo Lemur
Doing What They do

There were many highlights to our walk.  It’s Madagascar, so even though lemurs weren’t the focus of the hike, we saw three different kinds.  We found ourselves in a group of Golden Bamboo Lemurs again, and I would have been happy to spend the day there watching them and walking with them.  They’d chew on a hunk of bamboo awhile (the little ones chewed on twigs), then they’d jump off across a couple of trees and tear into another bamboo.  They weren’t very interested in us; we were all there in the middle of the forest with chomping going on all around.  Bertine talked with them by imitating their calls, and they called back.

We also spent some time with a troop of Red-Bellied Lemurs and Brown Lemurs.  The Red-Bellied looked like they were getting into a huddle to go to sleep, but they started grooming each other and calling.  We soon realized that a young one and its mother were close by, and those two came over to join the group, pooping on the guides below.  These animals have such a great sense of humor. 

We saw several interesting plants, too, the most interesting being an orchid with no roots or leaves.  It looked for all the world like a string of Spanish moss with a big orange bloom on it, and Bertine picked it up to show us it was independent.  We also found a big, shiny-black snake, which was mostly interested in leaving.  I was all for pulling it out of the bush it was going under so I could take a picture, but the guys weren’t so big on that idea, despite the fact they assured me it couldn’t be poisonous.  We also found a few toads and a largish flat gecko that was so well-disguised I could hardly see it, even when Bertine pointed it out.  And a horned chameleon.

The Flat Gecko

The Chameleon

Bertine was good with birds, too, and took us way down into a thicket to spot some.  There were lots.  He had a lot of bird calls on his cell phone, so when we were near a group, he’d say it was a blah-blah-blah and play the song, bringing the birds in to us.  Great idea!  I’ll have to try that, too, but I will try to avoid having to beep through 20 menu selections to get to the call I want.  Of the birds we saw there, I most liked the Madagascar Paradise Flycatcher, with its showy black-and-white plumage, its crest, and it’s two-foot tail.  There was also a cheeky little Madagascar Magpie Robin that hopped up to us while we were looking at lemurs.  I think all the birds with “Madagascar” in their name are endemic.

Unknown Interesting Plant

After all this, we wrapped things up, and I indeed paid Bertine, who’d certainly earned his money.  He mentioned again that he was surprised I hadn’t had a good experience with Alphonse since the latter had been a guide for nearly 28 years and had, in fact, trained Bertine.  However, Solofo said he heard some of the other guides saying that Alphonse had started drinking (honestly, a thought that had crossed my mind).  Sad.

So we had lunch, and I had a nap.  Bertine was booked for the afternoon, so I decided to have Solofo drop me off on the part of the road that runs through a section of Ranomafana so I could walk along and look at birds.  There were a ton, but my favorite was the Madagascar Coua.  This is another big bird with a mean-assed face and bright white streaks running from its beak back along its brownish body.  If I were a bug, I’d hate for that to be the last thing I saw.

It got dark as I was watching a group of Madagascar White-Eyes, and Solofo showed up with the car to head back to the hotel and the terrace.

Toad (Photoshop-ed for better viewing)

15 May – 257

Gecko that Slurped up Banana Bloom Sap for
Two Days at Ranomafana

Yea!  My first day in the rainforest.

After being waked up by hundreds of bird calls about 6 am, I managed to go back to sleep and get out a little on the late side.  I keep having to deal with the politeness factor here, as when I ask when the best time is for animals and Solofo says it’s when I’m ready.  It doesn’t work that way.

In any case, I finally got out the door and had a big breakfast on the veranda looking over the huge, green mountains covered with the most amazing variety of trees.  I was excited to be heading out into that, but not so excited I didn’t finish breakfast.  While I was sitting there with Solofo, several big blue birds landed in the tree just across the yard and proceeded to tuck into the fruit in the tree.  I didn’t need a book to identify the Madagascar Blue Pigeon, but I confirmed it there.  If our pigeons looked like these, I’d stop trying to kick them in the street.  This is a big pigeon that is a strong blue with red around the eyes, and they are, honestly, beautiful to look at.  These sat in the tree until we left, happily gobbling the fruit there and trying to get warm in the spatters of sunlight.

Yep, it was overcast, threatening rain and cold.

Headed to the car and spotted a Madagascar Bulbul in a tree beside the garden.  Another endemic species.  Somewhat larger than I remember bulbuls as being, this friendly guy had a dark crest and bright orange beak.  He and his buds were chowing down on some fruit in a tree, too.

Got to the gate of Ranomafana park finally, and I must say it was disappointing.  Little signage and lots of hungry guides.  I didn’t much care for the smug, evasive guy at the ticket office either, where there were no routes posted and no guide prices.  I’ll go on record as saying the good service here in Madagascar is fantastic and rare; this was the more common type.    We eventually settled on far-too-high a fee for a scruffy guy, Alphonse, who (honestly) needed a bath and was missing more than a few teeth.  However, I’ve long since learned not to judge a guide by his cover, and several of my best park experiences have been with guides who looked like this, so I went along.

Poor Alphonse, though, was not really up to snuff, and I’d have to put him as probably the second worst guide I’ve ever tried to keep up with.  He was full of information like, “That’s a mushroom,” and “That’s a fungus.  People don’t eat that but lemurs do.”  At least he had a kid with him who he sent ahead to find out where everyone else was looking at wildlife.

Bamboo Forest: Why these Lemurs are Here

Alphonse aside, it’s really hard to beat the Ranomafana Rain Forest for wildlife; I kept having flashbacks to the hike to find gorillas in Uganda. We’d only gone about 20 minutes into the forest here when we found a group of walkers who were watching a troop of Golden Bamboo lemurs.  These are really rare and were only discovered in 1986; in fact, the Ranomafana Park was initially established to protect these lemurs.  They are the size of monkeys and act a bit like them, but this little troop of 5-6 were sitting there placidly chewing on bamboo while 8-10 tourists walked around under them with cameras.  More than a few descended to eye level, too, which isn’t hard for a lemur to do; the mountains are so steep that the animal would still be high in the tree but at eye level if it’s 10 yards away down the slope. 

I stayed awhile watching them until we went off in search of other animals.  The sun had begun to peak out a bit, which I thought was a good thing given how dense the forest it.  And it is really dense, denser than any other rainforest I recall having seen.  And did I mention how steep it was…

Greater Bamboo Lemur Eating Bamboo

After the sun came out, I was drenched in sweat in about five minutes and panting so much that even Alphonse thought we should take a break.  Soon, his scout whistled, and we went up ahead to find an even more rare animal, the Greater Bamboo Lemur.  This was a very small group, we were off the beaten trail, and there were only two other tourists there.  I think the mother lemur must have been grazing when the first couple of tourists stopped, because she called to her offspring as we approached.  I was amused to watch the little one try to pee on the French tourist who was trying to take its photo, and the photographer laughed as much as everyone else.  The baby headed out away from us, but mama pulled off a piece of bamboo as big around as my arm and took it to a perch to tear apart and eat.  She sounded like she was eating through the whole forest as she peeled off big bites full and then chewed them.  The French couple left, and we were there alone for 30 minutes or so with the Greater Bamboo Lemurs.

We then went up and down 1,000 incredibly steep hills (it might have only been 500) before we heard another whistle and soon found a troop of huge, black and white lemurs….but they weren’t lemurs.  They were Sifakas (don’t ask me the difference).  These big guys were a little shyer than the other two troops, but after they got used to us hanging around under them, then settled into their berry crunching.  These Milne-Edwards Sifakas were so big that they they lept from tree trunk to tree truck rather than branch to branch.  And at that, some of the trees swayed like they were going to bend double.

Epiphyte that looked like a Succulent

It was getting quite hot by this time, and Alphonse decided to walk over two more mountains to get to the river and a reasonably flat trail…..at least, I think that’s what he was doing.  One of the peaks had an overlook, and we paused there.  I noticed a sign that said that 257 Americans had visited the park in 2009, which made me feel special.  We headed out again, and at the bottom of one of the mountains, we saw a group of Red-Fronted Brown Lemurs settling in for their afternoon siesta.  At first, they just looked like a very large clump in a tree with a very cute head sticking out of it.  Then three tails dropped out of the clump, leading us to think there were at least three lemurs there.  We watched awhile, but there was no other activity.

So we headed to the river and the gate, spotting another endemic bird on the way – the Common Newtonia.  These little guys are usually high in the trees, but this one had apparently spotted a tasty moth and come down for it.  He was working his way back up the canopy when we saw him, his bright, white eye gleaming.

When we finally struggled out of the forest, I could tell by the expression on the faces of a French couple in the clearing that I didn’t look too healthy.  However they paid me an immense compliment when they asked me where I was from.  With my accent, that pretty much never happens, but I think that there are so few Americans in Madagascar –- and even fewer that speak French -- that they just weren’t expecting it.  Turns out they live only a few blocks from where I used to live in the 18^th arrondissemen of Paris; they use the same Metro as I did, Jules Joffrin.  We had a great little talk.

The rest of the day was super-relax.  Had a hearty lunch and slept a little for my midday siesta.  We decided to drive along the road that runs partly through the park to see what we could find in the way of birds, and I did, in fact, identify a couple.  It soon got dark, though, and we headed back to the hotel, passing by the park entrance.  I talked with a guy there who does a night walk, but I wasn’t terribly engaged by the idea of seeing some chameleons at night and opted out of it.  The guide, Bertrine, seemed pretty on the ball though, so we made a plan to visit the park with him tomorrow.

I relaxed for a while and went down to a dining room full of French retirees having the time of their lives.  I can’t imagine how they spend their days here, but I know it’s not running up and down the mountains.  They didn’t care anyway, dressed in their vacation clothes and being emphatic about everything.