Madagascar - Rolling Down The River

June 21-23

Getting around Madagascar can be tricky. Roads, though often paved, are littered with potholes and aggressive drivers. One way to avoid this is by choosing the road less travelled: the river.

Praying Mantis - probably praying that I shave soon...

Who needs a road?

In some places the river is actually the road. To get to some of the villages along the Tsiribihina river, which flows west towards the Mozambican Channel, the easiest and sometimes only point of access if from the water. The Malagasy will use pirogues, a dug-out canoe carefully crafted from a tree.

A local villager using a pirogue

The river is about 120 kilometres long

Other travellers - such as my group - had a more powerful, and much noisier, vehicle. In times gone by, these would have been used to transport cargo. This one was going to take us on a three-day trip to a town near the coast called Belo-Tsiribihina.

Our boat - with sun loungers and cooks on board, it was
far more luxurious than I was expecting

The dark blue is the route we took on the Tsiribihina

We had travelled across to a town called Miandrivazo from Tana. About 500km, it took the best part of 12 hours, with some stops being familiar and some fairly unique to Madagascar.

My heart skipped a beat when I saw the prices in this Shoprite - I
'd briefly forgotten that prices in Madagascar Ariary have
much higher numbers than Malawian Kwacha!

A chameleon on a bush - I still don't know
how our guide spotted it from the bus!

From there we drove to the river...to find that it was too shallow for our boat. Two trips for a 4x4 later took us to a slightly deeper area from which to start.

There were many zebu in the local village

We entertained ourselves by showing local children photos of themselves

The banks either side of the river undulated as we progressed slowly west, offering a variety of views. 

Mangrove trees, seen on the right, were a frequent sight

Wildlife was surprisingly limited near the river itself. In a way it was a nice reminder that this isn’t like the rest of Africa, where I would expect us to be meandering to avoid rafts of hippo. There were a few crocodiles, all of which looked quite small, and some beautiful birds such as egrets, kingfishers and bee-eaters.

About about 1.5 metres, this croc was quite small  

Birds sometimes accompanied us on our journey

I wasn’t expecting to see many animals on this boat trip. It was an amazing surprise when we stopped on our first afternoon and caught a glimpse of some white sifaka lemurs. They were at a great distance, not to mention a great height, but still looked great as they chomped on leaves and fruit up high.

Hanging high up in the trees

It was an even bigger surprise when our guide was able to attract a family of brown lemurs to a tree right next to us (turns out lemurs are suckers for a banana). They were very popular with our group, most of whom hadn’t seem a lemur up close before.

The brown lemur is the most common in this part of Madagascar

Their fur can be different shades - not sure why

We hadn’t even stopped to look for lemurs; instead, we were after a refreshing waterfall (and the only shower we were going to have for the best part of three days). The Cascade Anosinampela was gentle enough to stand under for a while, helping us cool off from the surprisingly intense heat from the winter Sun.

A chance for a shower!

The water nearby was a lovely turquoise colour

The only shower I had for 3 days

Going down the river on what was essentially a boat cruise, seeing lemurs and waterfalls, seems like quite a touristy thing to do. It’s not quite set up like that. There’s nowhere to stay so you camp on a shore where you hope crocodiles won’t appear.

Our second campsite

Our toilet cover - there was a seat with a hole in the ground

Moments after we had set up our tents on the first evening, a wall of dust raced its way along the riverbank towards us. I just about managed to run and take cover behind the other side of my tent before it smashed its way through our site. Many of the tents blew away, even with luggage inside them.

Our guard had to help grab tents to the point where he
gave his gun - we naturally assumed it was an AK-47 - to a
member of the group to hold whilst he chased tents

We saw lemurs the following day as well in a local village. One had taken up residence in a bar! The villages we visited are difficult to access aside from using the river.

Bit early to start on the rum, I think...

After his drinks, the lemur tottered precariously on the edge of a pole

Local children seemed to love any attention, often fighting amongst themselves to hold the hand of a fazhady (foreigner). Though the first village seemed desperately poverty-stricken, I also felt it was a bit staged - there seemed to be a lot of shops.

The kids were desperate to hold hands with
us as we were led around the village

One of many T-shirt stalls in the village

The village highlighted the sheer number of children in Madagascar. The percentage of children that make up Madagascar’s population is worryingly high. Many don’t go to school - it used to be compulsory. The second night a dance troupe came to show us - and get us involved in - some local dancing around a fire. I always hope that they want to be in the group and aren’t forced to do anything they don’t want to.

The guitar was patched up with reused materials

The second village had some beautiful examples of my favourite tree, the baobab. Apparently there are six types of baobab endemic to Madagascar. Later in the trip I will visit one of Madagascar’s most striking sights: The Avenue of the Baobabs.

There are many endemic baobabs in Madagascar

Possibly the most beautiful sunset of the whole trip

Travelling by boat is an interesting way of seeing many different aspects of Madagascar. It was a very relaxing adventure, completely free of the digital world for a few days. 

Lots of time to read Lord of the Rings

Sunset on the Tsiribihina

They took 20 beers onto the boat. We got through 48,
after some beer runs in local villages.

Love you all, 

Matt

Madagascar - The Wonderful Wildlife of Andasibe

June 17-18

Hello everyone!

Lemurs, you say?

Sifaka lemur

Indri lemur

Madagascar is famous for them. It was even before the film. What I didn’t know before researching this trip was that there are many, many different species of lemur on the island. King Julian doesn’t have it all his own way.

Brown lemur

Brown lemur

I’m actually unlikely to see his particular species, the ring-tailed lemur, as they are prevalent in the south of Madagascar. My first trip outside of Tana, the capital, was going east to Andasibe-Mantadia National Park.

Lemurs are often split into 12 'groups' - there are about 100 species

Andasibe is a popular trip from Tana

Common consensus is that it should take a little over 3 hours to get from Tana to Andasibe. It does take that long...from the edge of town. Escaping the clutches of the capital’s car-choked, narrow roads took another two hours.

One of many traffic jams in Tana

Walking: a way of beating the traffic!

The road itself is quite entertaining. It is the main road from Tana to the country’s main port of Toamasina, meaning that a large number of very large, cumbersome trucks crawl along it. Like Malawi, this ‘motorway’ is one lane in each direction. Overtaking is made trickier by the road being littered with staggeringly wide and deep potholes, as well as minibuses called taxi-brousse (bush taxis) ignoring the complaints of their vehicle’s suspension as they bounce along the undulating surface.

Our car was often slowing almost to a stop to deal with the holes

The hills slow down heavy vehicles, making progress painful at times

We had stopped on the way at a reptile park. Many of Madagascar’s popular species are difficult to spot in the wild, so coming here was an opportunity to see them in their country of origin, albeit in a facility that was more like a zoo. I particularly enjoyed seeing the chameleons. The amazing colours (which don’t always change, apparently it depends on emotion) are a riot and definitely don’t hit the stereotype of blending in with their surroundings. How they move is also pretty special, with chameleons seeming to be either the most hesitant creatures on the planet or the epitome of cool as they ‘dance’ their way along a branch.

44% of known chameleon species are endemic to Madgascar 

One of the guides wanted to show us how they eat, so put relatively large crickets about a chameleon’s body length away from their mouth. Soon, a strange orb appears in this mouth and grows slightly. Quick as a flash, an extraordinarily long tongue flies out of the mouth, grabs the cricket and whips itself back to base. The cricket is too big to fit so sticks out of the sides. Fascinating.

The chameleon's tongue is often longer than its body

Madagascar has many fascinating creatures which are endemic to the island, owing to its split during the breakup of the Gondwana supercontinent. It first detached from an African side before splitting off from India at around the time of the dinosaur extinction. This, in addition to the relatively late arrival of Europeans, has left these species untouched and only present here. From gruesome geckos to tiny mantella frogs, Madagascar houses an innumerable number of things which you won’t see in the wild anywhere else in the world.

A scary-looking gecko

This mantella frog was the size of my fingernail

They are very difficult to see in the wild as they generally camouflage themselves during daylight. It makes it much more rewarding when you see some of the reptiles in their natural habitat. On a drizzly, nocturnal walk in the forest next to Andasibe-Mantadia National Park, we were lucky enough to see a tree frog, a stick insect and a Parson’s chameleon, the largest species.

Tree frog

Parson's chameleon is the largest of the species

We also saw a flash of a nocturnal lemur, the mouse lemur. So small it can apparently fit into an egg cup, it is apparently quite a common sight as their eyes initially flash red against a light. Can you spot it in the pictures below?

Up high in the trees

The light stuns the lemurs so they don't move

The reptiles were amazing but it is lemurs that people travel to Andasibe to see. The largest species, the Indri, are common in the park and famous for their ‘singing’. It sounds like a siren’s call and goes from high to low. They are also territorial which makes it a bit easier to find them.

Its body can reach up to 70 cm in length

They’re also known for their incredible jumping ability, both vertical and horizontal. They can jump up to 10 metres across, then immediately bounce to another tree. It’s as if they’re bouncing off trampolines!

Unlike most other leurs, it has a very short tail

I was almost as impressed with their ability to hang high above the ground, using their long ‘fingers’ to cling to thin branches and contort themselves to get more food. At times it was like watching Gladiators on the rings.

An indri can live up to 20 years in the wild

Other lemurs are in the park as well. We saw the woolly lemur, which looks like it would be wonderful to cuddle…

A woolly lemur will be between 30 and 50 cm in length

...the brown lemur, the first one we spotted in the park…

The common brown lemur has a long, furry tail

...and the golden sifaka, which had a gorgeous golden colour on its limbs. This group also made a noise but it was more like a guttural duck - some Malagasy students on a field trip had started making noises which were annoying it.

Sifakas have strong hind legs which allow them to jump vertcally

I had already seen a sifaka, of a different colour, in the reptile park. These lemurs seem free to roam but are clever enough to know that they will get fed if they loiter in a certain area where humans wander. Though not entirely a wild encounter, it was a chance to get up close - very close - and personal with some lemurs. 

Sifakas - and all lemurs - are vegetarian

The lesser-spotted Welsh lemur, previously unseen in Madagascar (at least to my knowledge) also made an appearance.

This lemur wanted the banana very badly!

My guide Malala and the local support

A major factor in coming to Madagascar was to experience seeing some of its endemic wildlife. What an incredible experience it was. Though King Julian probably won’t be found, I’ve seen enough lovely lemurs to make me a very happy traveller.

My travelling companion George being
clambered over by a chameleon

Karma-karma-karma-karma-karma-chameleon...

Love you all,

Matt