THE VANILLA ISLE (Part 4)

THE VANILLA ISLE (Part 4)

I woke the next day feeling a *lot* better.  A great relief for me as I had been a bit worried I had something nasty.  I think in the end it was just traveller's diarrhoea and a day with no food.  Jean came to see us and we decided to cancel our trip west.  He was a bit reticent about it since he had seen me unwell, and since Ro wasn't feeling too great either that morning he thought it best we did something a little tamer.  So we decided on a trip to the vanilla coast, via Andasibe national park for some lemur watching, and ending up on the island of Sainte Marie, before flying back to Tana for our flight back to South Africa.  The trip was going to cost a fair amount by Malagasy standards, as at a basic level we were hiring Jean as our tour guide.  This is less of a problem for me than for Ro, but he agreed readily to Jean's quote and we spent an entertaining time trying to withdraw enough Malagasy Ariary notes to try and pay him.  The cash machines only let you draw 40 notes at a time so we had to make 6 visits in succession.  We were multi-millionaires and had only a few hundred quid in our pockets.  This country really needs to sort its currency out (amongst quite a few other basics that need sorting too).  

After lots of faffing (nothing in Madagascar happens without at least 4 or 5 unnecessary steps to achieve it) we eventually set off on our tour, with our own driver in a car that actually had seat belts and an engine that didn't sound like a Stomp performance, at about 4pm.  We wended our way down one of the good roads in Madagascar (the RN2), although even this is regularly potholed.  As the evening set in and we entered into the Malagasy countryside we could smell burning wood, and entered in to a thick fog of wood smoke.  People were illegally burning the forest, making way for crop production.  This, along with logging, is principally responsible for most of the disappearance of Madagascar's forests and rain forests.  The political instability over the years has not helped, and this resource-rich land has and is being slowly stripped of its assets for almost no return to the indigenous people, who get by on almost nothing.  So it's no surprise, in this context, to smell the forest burning.  How are people to feed themselves?  Make a living?  

Of course the answer to this question is that if the rich mineral deposits and remaining rain forests were properly managed by the government there would be plenty to base the construction of a viable economy on.  But the government don't, and since the coup in 2009 all international aid has been suspended.  The roads are crumbling, the people live in poverty, forest continues to burn and foreign mining companies have moved in to claim the mineral resources with no government requirement that profits be invested back into the local communities.  What doesn't leave Madagascar seems to end up in the military junta's pockets.  Quite depressing.  So it was good to pull in to the Feon'ny Ala (voice of the forest) lodge in Andasibe national park after a few hours of perilous pot-hole avoidance.  This represents one of the few initiatives in Madagascar where the benefits from the project are clearly being ploughed back into the local area.  We were shown to our cabin and slept to the noise of unfamiliar bird and animal calls echoing through the forest.

LEMUR WATCHING

We woke to the view of the rainforest from our cabin.

It was cloudy but quickly the sun burnt through.  We had breakfast overlooking the forest.  

We were whisked off just down the road to the entrance to Andasibe national park.  The great god Ciprofloxacin had entirely cleared up my gut problems and I felt great.  Western medicine.  You really can't beat it sometimes.  Just sometimes, mind.

We were introduced to our very friendly guide (called Rojer) and shortly we were off into the rainforest, looking for lemurs!

And find them we did!  We were very lucky I think as within 10 minutes we saw one sauntering along the path towards us.  It stopped, calmly looked us up and down, then turned its behind towards us and sauntered away.

We followed!  

These are photos of common brown lemurs, but we were lucky enough to find the rare Indri lemur, and find a whole family group- Mum, Dad, baby and two teenagers, all in a group in a tree!

We stood there for about half an hour!  Entrancing!  The little baby was about a month and a half old according to our guide, and spends most of its time attached to its mother’s front.  The young will stay with the mother for about 6 years.  Indri lemurs live from 25-45 years, only have one baby and the mother’s will only have one baby every threeish years.  It is not hard to see why these species are threatened.

We trekked on through the forest, seeing other lemurs too.  They keep to the middle of the canopy, leaping adeptly from branch to branch.  They were completely unphased by our presence, looking down at us with quizzical expressions, probably seeing us as a nuisance, which of course we were.

I think we both came away from that trip feeling exhilarated!  I certainly did.  It was beautiful to see such rare and noble animals, especially a family, existing in their natural habitat.  I felt humbled, sad that so much of their habitat has been destroyed, and happy that this place exists, where the lemurs can live in relative peace, and the local community is benefitted in a way that means they don’t have to destroy their surrounding environment.  If Madagascar is to thrive, this is one of the ways it will do it.

Later that day, Jean took us for a walk around the local village in the Andasibe national park.  By Malagasy standards this is a pretty advanced place, with electricity, a school, a football pitch, basic healthcare, even a tiny internet cafe.  All this is funded from the proceeds coming from the National Park.  Nothing from the government.

The life here is so palpable, so vibrant.  In their poverty the people seem to shine through.  They help each other, help themselves and smile as they do it.  They make life seem so simple, which of course it is.  The kids love it if you take pictures of them with your camera and then show them.  They crowd around and point and whoop and laugh and squeal with delight.  It is a truly lovely be able to give them so much pleasure with so little effort!

After wandering through the village for an hour it was dusk, and it was time for the second part of our tour through the national park, this time looking for nocturnal lemurs.  I didn’t actually expect to see any night lemurs, and nor did we.  Our guide had absolutely amazing vision and spotted a few with his flashlight, but by the time I had focussed where he was they had gone.  We did see some cool chamaeleons and tiny frogs though!