The next day we started
back towards Antananarivo, the start of a journey which effectively lasted 2
days until we reached Ranomafana. On the first day, the journey was punctuated
by a stop at a centre housing a good collection of chameleons, geckos, frogs
and butterflies. We were able to get really close to them. They were in large enclosures, and chameleons are
quite slow moving in any event. I'm afraid I haven't identified them yet.
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| Chameleon - unidentified as yet |
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| Chameleon - unidentified as yet |
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| Chameleon - unidentified as yet |
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| Chameleon - unidentified as yet |
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| Chameleon - unidentified as yet |
We also saw some
amazing geckos, which also managed to camouflage themselves against their background
so as to be almost invisible.
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| Leaf-tailed Gecko - about 25cm long |
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| Leaf-tailed Gecko - about 25cm long |
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| Leaf-tailed Gecko - the eyes have it! |
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| Where's Wally?? - the gecko is there somewhere. |
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| Millepede making for a hand - not mine! |
One of the nice things about having a guide with us, was that on the long journeys Rija would, periodically, entertain and instruct us about the local tribes, customs, history and activities. There are 18 tribes in Madagascar, each with their own language. The language of the tribe around the capital was officially adopted as the Malagasy language, but there are still some places where communication between Rija and the locals was not straightforward. The majority of the population still lives and works in the countryside. More people in the city go to schools, but overall literacy is probably about 60%. Most people understand some French. This was handy, as I could get by with my basic French.
We also got off the bus occasionally and walked around the villages. In this way we could see, close up, some aspects of their daily lives.
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| Typical village street market |
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| Market in a larger village/town |
Getting around in Madagascar
With no railway and the hilly terrain, the only way to get around is by road. Walking is most common. Zebu carts are everywhere.
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| The ubiquitous zebu cart |
For long distances, there is the car, taxi or sometimes Italian-made tuk-tuks (motorised rickshaws). Then there is the taxi-bus. These overloaded buses ply the country, some long journeys taking several days. They didn't look too comfortable; hot and overcrowded. Here is a typical one:
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| Typical taxi-bus |
We ended the first
day's journey in Antsirabe, staying
overnight at a nice, red-brick hotel called Les Chambres du Voyager.
We only really had time for dinner before going to bed, but I asked one of the
staff whether there were any birds around in the garden, which had a large pond
with a small accessible island. He said
the best time was from 05:30 to 06:30. Three
of us agreed to get up to see what was about at that time.
I rose early, dressed,
and by 05:30 I was in the garden, where I met Sian and Nic. What fools! It was
still dark for goodness sake! There were
indeed many birds that started to appear at first light, including common jery,
Madagascar Fody, a Madagascar Malachite kingfisher and Madagascar white-eye. A
hamerkop flew overhead, and there were a few other birds which it was too dark
to identify.
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| Common Jery |
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| Madagascar Fody |
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| Madagascar White-eye |
After breakfast we set
off towards Ranomafana. Thoughtfully, Exodus
had again arranged to break the journey with a stop in Ambositra, the centre of Madagascar’s woodcarving industry. Most of
the wood carving is done in an area in the mountains a little way from our
route, so we went to an artisan paper making factory instead. There we also did
some shopping!
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Artisan paper making.
The wet sections are set to dry in the sun |
After lunch, we pressed
on. The countryside is full of family tombs of different sizes. Typically, the body is buried or entombed temporarily to allow the body to decay. After about ten years, the body is exhumed and the bones are reburied permanently in a ceremony known as "the turning of the bones". Some of the family tombs look like small cottages and are in lovely positions. Here is a typical one:
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| A family tomb by the roadside |
This is the beautiful valley that it overlooks:
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| Rice paddies on the terraces above the river |
Finally we made our way to Ranomafana, arriving at our hotel, Le Grenat, in the late
afternoon. As we would be staying
at this hotel for two nights, we decided to have all our dirty clothes washed. They all came back nicely laundered at a
very reasonable price.
The next day we visited
the Ranomafana National Park. Again, we
had local guides, called Diamondra and Tsilavo. This visit was a great
adventure into the rainforest, home to the Golden bamboo lemurs, a species critically
endangered outside the North. The park was formed by the government after these
lemurs were discovered there in 1986 by an American anthropologist, Dr Patricia Wright. We
had to make our way through quite dense undergrowth to where the lemurs were
feeding.
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| Golden Bamboo Lemur at Ranomafana National Park |
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| Golden Bamboo Lemur at Ranomafana National Park |
The guides could see
that I was interested in birds. I asked whether there might be a chance of
seeing a Madagascar pygmy kingfisher. Later
on in the visit, they took us to a place where there was indeed a pygmy
kingfisher. Fantastic! We had now seen
both the kingfisher species of Madagascar.
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| Madagascar Pygmy Kingfisher - a forest species that doesn't eat fish! |
As we were leaving the
National Park, I saw a Madagascar bulbul very close and in a nice position. It's a very common bird, but I decided to take
a careful photo of one. I often neglect
the most common birds in favour of the rarer ones. When I get home, I then
realise that I don't have a decent photo of some of the common birds.
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| Madagascar Bulbul |
For lunch, Rija had
booked us into a local restaurant. We were
on the terrace, in the shade and overlooking a valley. Perfect! In fact, we saw very few birds during lunch. Bird activity is low in the middle of the day.
However, walking back to the hotel we
saw a couple of kestrels. The Madagascar
kestrel comes in two morphs; dark and pale. The dark morph is similar to our common kestrel.
The pale morph is a very handsome bird indeed.
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| Madagascar Kestrel - dark morph |
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| Madagascar Kestrel - pale morph |
After lunch, some of us
decided to wander around the village and then look for the spa fed swimming
pool which was somewhere over the other side. We went to the local post office
and bought some stamps for postcards, had a wander up the main street, and then
ambled towards the swimming pool, asking directions in French.
On the way, I took some
photos of some mascarene martins.
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| Mascarene Martin |
To get to the swimming
pool we had to cross the river. The original bridge, a substantial steel structure,
had been swept away at some point by higher-than-normal monsoon floods. This bridge had been replaced by a new one,
partially suspended from the superstructure of the old one by some simple
twisted steel wire.
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| New from old. New bridge suspended from old structure. |
We found the swimming pool, but didn't go in. Lynne wanted
to paddle in the warm water of the hot springs nearby.
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| Happiness! - Lynne paddling in hot spa water |
We wandered slowly back
to the hotel, passing a magnificent traveller's palm tree.
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| Ravenala or Traveller's tree at Ranomafana |
At Le Grenat, we had a gin and tonic before
dinner. Chris reported that there was a large moth on the wall outside his room. We went to investigate. We found the largest and most impressive moth I have ever seen. I learned online that the comet moth only lives for a few days.
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| Comet moth - huge! and lives for only a few days! |
Rija gave us another briefing about our next long drive the following day, to Ranohira. We would stay for 2 nights there, our base for our visit to Isalo National Park.
Such amazing photos from a wonderful adventure!
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