Madagascar - lost animal planet
This post was also written several weeks ago, just after we returned from a family trip to Madagascar.
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Greetings from Antananarivo!
We have spent the last ten days on our long-awaited family trip to Madagascar. This has been #1 on India’s adventure-travel list for longer than I can remember. Nearly every American that we mentioned our planned trip to made reference to the animated movie, “Madagascar”. The majority immediately started singing the “I like to move it, move it” song. I caught myself humming the song dozens of times while we were there.
Madagascar is a big island, and is not just underdeveloped, it is practically untouched. We flew at low altitude over half the country, and out the window you see nothing but low mountains and sand. No roads or electricity or agriculture. The capital, Antananarivo is dusty and sprawling, with houses and huts built on the hillsides, and the valleys filled with rice paddies (very incongruous). Legacy of French colonialism, we found a pastry shop that made amazing croissants and fancy desserts.
Madagascar had a bloodless (pretty much bloodless) coup a few years back, with a young former disc jockey taking power from the elected President, who is now in comfortable exile in Johannesburg. The DJ (as the French-backed interloper is universally identified) must not have much of an internal-security apparatus, because every Malagasy we asked told us what a lousy president he is, and how they angry they are at the French for installing him in power. Something will have to give, but in the meantime, the country bumbles along in warm poverty.
India engineered the trip to start very rustic, and become more luxurious as we went along. Our first night was camping in pup tents in a national park called Nosy Mangabe. The park is an island in a huge bay, about 500 km north and east of Antananarivo. We took a calm 90 minute boat ride from the airport in Maroensetra. It was definitely pretty rustic.
We tramped around the woods with our guide, finding lots of lemurs. All of the animals in Madagascar are slightly and weirdly different from their mainland counterparts, reflecting ancient forks in the evolutionary tree. Lemurs are more feral than monkeys, and much cuter too. The mouse lemur is a little furry guy, about twice the size of my fist, but with these huge double-silver-dollar size eyes. They appear to be about 40% eye by surface volume. If there is ever a global cute-animal competition, the mouse lemur has my vote. Tallulah caught dozens of frogs, and they all had disproportionately big triangular heads, and strange coloration. The leaf-tailed gecko adheres itself, upside down, to a tree trunk, tucks in its feet, sleeps, and can not be dislodged. It is like a parallel universe of slightly bizarre animals.
We moved from the island to a slightly more civilized tent lodge down the eastern shore of the bay. This was rustic beach living: sunset kayak trips, snorkelling, walks in the forest, dozens of lemurs around. There were only four other guests, so they organized lots of activities for us, and we sat in the open-air lodge in the evenings, drinking South African wine and playing Uno with Tallulah and Zola. Our kids are good travellers, I think.
On the morning of our last day, it poured with rain, and the calm bay was whipped up to 2-3 foot swells. Not ideal for a long crossing back to Maroensetra in an open rubber-duck boat. It was slightly nerve-wracking, but I held Tallulah in my lap, and we all clutched ropes and seats tightly. I was only worried a couple of times that we might capsize, which would have been a real problem. Only later I found out that this bay is filled with sharks, and when a ferry went down a couple of yars ago, nearly everyone was eaten in a feeding frenzy that must be shark legend to this day. Even with ponchos, we got soaked by rain and sea spray. No one was sorry when we got to town and went to the airport.
The last part of the trip was at a Relais & Chateaux lodge called Anjajavy. on the dry northwest coast. Nothing rustic about Anjajavy, which looked like it was designed to be photographed for “exotic honeymoon” stories in bridal magazines. It was quite magnificent. At Anjajavy we could drink the tap water, and walk on well groomed trails (looking for more lemurs). Our chalets were air-conditioned to the point of chilliness. They organized a private lunch on one of the beaches, and we swam in the pool, then the ocean, then the pool. We tracked hairy-legged crabs, and toured a very creepy cave, highlighted by the skeleton of a long-extinct species of lemur. We snorkelled on the reef, and visited a sacred baobab tree on a remote island. With charming reverence, our guide made us cover our bare legs with kikois before we could approach the tree.
I have no idea how they supplied this 5-star resort: everything must have been flown in. The staff all spoke French, and were very professionally trained. Bone-crushingly expensive, but very civilized.
Somehow, though, Madagascar took a serious physical toll on India and me. I broke two toes running in the forest in the twilight of dusk: I was too lazy to put my shoes back on after the 6th river crossing, and tripped over a root. Genius point! I wrecked my Achilles tendon trying to play soccer with a group of young men on a regulation-sized sand field. They were kind enough to let me play goalie when I couldn’t limp around any more. They were also kind enough to let Zola score a few goals, and high five him after. Finally, I opened a 10-inch cut on my shin trying to right the catamaran that I had capsized about 250 meters off shore. This sailing accident was a complete debacle of hubris and irresponsibility on my part, and probably destroyed the boat. I could practically hear my deceased father laughing as we bobbed around in the warm water. I am incredibly glad and relieved that Zola was not hurt. By the end of our trip, I was hobbled, and humbled, and feeling about 100 years old.
Most dramatically, India fell into a tree and massacred her face while running on our last day at Anjajavy. She was about 5 kilometers from the hotel, so she ran back for 30 minutes, with blood spurting from just below her eye and from the bridge of her nose. She is pretty tough. When she came in, it looked as though she had killed a small animal with her teeth. Fortunately, Anjajavy has a doctor on site, who came to our room at 7am, and field dressed the wounds. When we got back to Cape Town, our friend the plastic surgeon took out dozens of wood fragments and put in six stitches. India was back on the road a day later. Did I mention that she is tough?
[Post-script note: two months later, India pulled another giant splinter out of her face. She said, "I knew something didn't feel right."]
So, Madagascar was pretty cool, and we are glad that we went. The wild life is truly unique, and the rough beauty is spectacular. Unless they find a lot of oil and gas (which they might), it is hard to see great prosperity coming to Madagascar, though. I don’t know what has replaced it at the top of India’s must-see list. I have a suspicion I will know soon.