Six weeks into our time in Africa, we headed off to Madagascar to see Lemurs and visit the Duke Lemur Center at the SAVA Conservation Center. I apologize ahead of time for how I have no idea what little towns we were in or how to spell them. Even if I wrote the names down, I could not spell them properly, so there you have it.!
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| Hiking towards the Park Entrance (Majojejyi) |
--> The Bartlett adventures continued last week with a trip to
Madagascar.
John and I spent a
week in Madagascar and I have looked over his shoulder to see him studiously
writing a mature assessment of our trip.
Mine clearly will be less mature, there you go.
We flew out of Moshi with an extra big bag so that I could
carry the air mattress that I knew I would need in the park camp, and a number
of other useful items that were never removed. My back pack was loaded down with camera equipment so the
big suitcase was the only option.
The trip was uneventful, even in the Nairobi airport where the new
terminal has not been completed since the fire. The biggest downside was that the toilets were packed, but
nice and clean. Our flight to
Madagascar was full and I had the wonderful good fortune to be in a middle
seat, John on one side and an enormous Malagasy woman on the other. She had 4 huge bags on the floor and in
her lap. For some reason the
flight attendant just looked at her and did not come to my rescue by making her
put things in the overhead. So for
the duration of the flight she and I fought for my
foot space and I had all manner of food items and purses falling into my
lap. (John kept saying---they will
take them away..but no it did not happen). When I got up to go to the toilet I
had to hold on to other people to get over the mountain of things on her
seat! As we arrived in Atanariva
“Tana” her husband started arguing with the flight attendant that we were
supposed to stop somewhere else and was refusing to get off the plane. The poor flight attendant kept saying,
“It is finished! The flight is over!”
Finally we were all able to get off.
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| Capitol City Atanarivo Airport |
We entered the arrival hall and there were no admittance
cards available and no one knew where they were. So we all stood around while the business class folks
collected their bags and went on their way. I could see our bags going around and around and prayed that
they would still be there when we eventually got through. I was very glad when we finally got
through and there was the lovely face of Lanto waiting for John Bartlett.
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| Freshi Flowers for sale near airport |
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| Jacaranda on the streets |
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| Clothes drying |
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| Great Street shot |
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| one aspect of view of the city |
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| Rice paddies in the middle of the city |
We drove through the chaos which is
Tana and arrived at our very cute hotel “Sakamanga” where we had lunch and
after being mobbed by gifty sales folks took a tour of the city.
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| Saka Manga Hotel |
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| Sign for Saka Manga |
I have to say that the museums were in
a sad need of repair, but they did have some interesting birds, of course
snakes and some lemurs. We had
hoped to see the Aye Aye, but it was inside the house. We did see several ring tail lemurs
from a distance and an amazing bird with a bright gold crown. We also went to the Queen’s Palace where street children are "de facto" guides and
then on to shopping. All was very interesting
though tiring.
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| Beautiful bird |
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| Just look for the ring tail and you will see this Lemur |
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| Baby Baobaob Trees |
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| Queens Palace |
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| Street Boy showing John postcards of the palace's better days |
When we were
offered the opportunity to go to another house to see the furniture of the
Queen, we deferred. Sadly small children were sitting on the sides of the road with babies in their laps. They looked to otired to even beg. The only downside of our hotel was that we had no mosquito
net. I was horrified because I
knew that there is a lot of malaria in Madagascar, much more than Moshi. Not much sleep on day 1.
The flight to Sambava on day 2 was uneventful. But what was hysterical was the number
of chickens in baskets that came accompanied folks on the plane. Fortunately
none were in the aisles or overhead compartments. I loved that the airport
staff that helped us off the plane and brought our bags were the same ones as
those putting people and bags on the plane. For that reason, it took quite some time for our bags to
arrive and John was convinced the people trying to get their bags and chickens
from this very small baggage turnstyle would squash us. But everyone was very pleasant and
helpful and soon we were out the gate and into the hands of our hosts Eric, and DGHI faculty member Charlie. Lanto
was still with us as ever, figuring things out continuously. We were taken through the small town
which is also the regional capital of the area. Our new hotel was the Orchid
Beach II, again a lovely hotel with no mosquito net!
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| Indian Ocean just across street from Hotel |
It was right on the ocean-front and had wonderful breezes
from the ocean as well as the loud noise of the Indian Ocean throughout the
night. Clearly Eric and Charlie
have favorite hangouts…not surprisingly “Chez Mimi’s” is about the only
restaurant in Sambava unless you want to brave the Karaoke Bar.
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| John, Charlie and Erik--at Mimi's waiting for food |
We deferred. Malagasy food seems to be characterized by particular
spices. Like traditional Tanzanian
food it is not very spicy, and mostly is in stew type mixtures, though here
fish is plentiful and the Malagasy beer “Three Horses Beer” (THB) was actually
delicious.
One of the joys of this trip was getting to know the Duke
Lemur Center Project Director, Erik Patel. He is one of those people who is continuously thinking of
100 things at the same time. While
he is in charge of the research center of the park, he also is working on
projects in health, reforestation, teaching English (through two public
libraries he has built, a fish farm, and assisting one of the lead guides in
setting up his own preserve to reforest an area by growing trees, & teach
about growing nutritious yams. He seems to know everyone and everyone him. And he and Lanto are always on the
move.
As we drove the next day to the Lemur Park in the rain
forest Marojejyi, we stopped at a health center and I was able to use a
wonderful “squatty potty” right on the side of the hill of the health
center. Yea. We learned about the local health
problems from the doctor at the health center. Not surprisingly, maternal death during labor was very high,
childhood pregnancy, malaria, TB, typhoid and increasingly hypertension and
diabetes. We were surprised to see rapid malaria tests, and to hear that there
really is a significant amount of malaria here.
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| At the Health Center with the Doctor (? town) |
On to what we thought would be the hike to the camp, but
first stops at Erik’s little village where he has established a small library,
a charcoal project made from cardboard, and yams.
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| Erik's charcoal rings made from cardboard |
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| Library at first site |
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| Inside the library...some very strange books donated but at least there |
Then to lunch in a tiny town Ambohimanarina.
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| The Lunch Bunch--JB, Charlie and Lanto...Erik chatting |
And then finally to the park. We had a 2 kiliometer hike to the park
entrance and along that route, we entered another small village where there was
a famous Mbege (home brew) maker so we watched a home brew demonstration.
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| Don't think we really want to know what is in this hole and how it works |
Then
finally the hiking began.
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| Hike to park entrance |
When we
arrived at the entrance to the park, there were pineapples all around and
chameleon’s and lizards abounding.
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| Perfect pineapple |
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| Well finally at the entrance to park |
Charlie and the guide Jackson went off to
look at Charlie’s mosquito traps (his big project) and agreed to pick the trap
up when he came back down the mountain.
Charlie kept talking about the Helmut Vanger, a blue billed bird found only
in Madagascar and only in this area.
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| Helmut Vanger |
Low and behold, we found not just one but two. Each were perched in their nests at the top of a palm
tree. One flew away and we saw the
babies briefly arching up for food.
Our guides continuously showed us interesting trees and little
creatures.
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| Amazing chameleon |
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| Masquerading insects |
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| Look closely and see the lizard on the tree. It is Nocturnal |
Only when it was nearly
dark did we finally see Bamboo Lemurs.
They were quite far away up in the trees and only slightly interested in
our activities.
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| Best pic of the Bamboo Lemur I could get |
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| Camp 1 kitchen |
Our camp was buzzing with activity. Porters had dropped our bags and there
were 3 other sets of guests. One researcher had come down from two camps above where she was studying one of
the nocturnal lemurs. She had
found several but they were very hard to reach as they take over little nests
and crevices and were really hiding.
She had also seen many Silky Safaka’s (the white lemur everyone wants to
see.) Sadly, that was not to be
for us as we didn’t have the time to climb up to the next camp. The warm stew and cold beer were
incredibly good.
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| Our tent |
The temperature
dropped quickly as darkness descended and we were quickly putting on sweaters
and jackets.
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| The Shower |
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| Toilet slanting backwards...no worries just fall back! |
The shower and toilet
were a sight. (I would take the
squatty potty any day! And, the water buckets for showers were freezing
cold.) No way to do more than wash
face and brush teeth (with our water bottles) and pray that you don’t have to
pee in the night! Once we were tucked in our silk sheet sacks and sleeping bags
we were out cold until morning.
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| Lovely Morning |
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| Park Signs |
Morning was magnificent.
We had a great breakfast, looked all around, saw more Bamboo
Lemurs heard the exploits of Eric, Charlie and Marie after we had gone to
bed.
We reluctantly packed up and
headed down the mountain.
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| Charlie, John me Jackson |
More
neat trees and creatures and off we went.
When we got back to the park, we decided to go to our guide Desereé’s
town which was another hour or two away.
Off we went.
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| Great old tractor...they were all over |
This town was
much bigger than the previous one and we had lunch with the man who is in
charge of the fish-farming project for the district. He appeared to be a very well known man in town though there
was only one other couple eating there.
The town was fun, it was market day, and people were all around. Erik showed us where the project house
is in Andavo, and where the Duke Engage students were staying.
We drove to Desireé’s preserve and saw
the awesome work going on there with Erik’s help. Another library stood at a corner, logs cut from eucalyptus
trees were in his yard. Proudly he
described the donation of our friend Sara to help him buy a section of land
that had been deforested and only these eucalyptus trees were left.
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| You can see deforested area and then the rain forest line |
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| Sara's Eucalyptus wood |
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| Desiree and the wood from the forest Sara bought |
But they provide very hard wood for
building and we saw the guest toilets and other buildings that Sara’s wood had
provided.
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| Watering the little seedlings |
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| John with Erik by the trees |
We moved on to the tree
farm where Erik and Desireé had over 7,000 little seedlings growing.
These would be given and planted to try
to help discourage “slash and burn” farming.
Next on to the fish farm.
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| The fish pond |
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| Sunset at the Fish Pond |
Erik was excited to show us the little fish and explain how
much effort had gone into getting the farm started.
We heard about the ducks and how they lay plenty of eggs but
they wouldn’t sit on them, so new ducks will have to be bought who will sit on
them, or the chickens will have to be encouraged to sit on them!!
And at the same time on the hillside,
they were planting yams and other root plants.
The sun was setting—we had a 4-hour drive ahead of us.
I thought we would surely die on the way home, or at the
least kill many children. Our
driver was just a madman on the road.
He flew, passed cars and trucks, honked and flew through the towns. I
could hardly believe that we arrived back in town in one piece. Erik completely undaunted headed with
Charlie to the Karaoke bar for dinner.
John and I collapsed.
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| Karaoke Restaurant |
In the morning, we visited an NGO that was training people
in Cyclone preparedness, but also did some health work on the side.
They were pulling out at the end of
December.
I was quite surprised
that there are so few NGO’s in the area, where there are so many problems and
needs, but I understand that the country has been without an elected government
in many years and has been largely shunned by the west.
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| Cyclone Preparedness |
Hopefully the new elections (which
seemed very complicated with 34 candidates) will bring a good person to power
and help can come in.
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| Government Office Building in Sambava |
We had a wonderful conversation with the health director
of Sambava.
He had been to Moshi,
even had a little movie of Kilimanjaro. What a small world.
Even on the airplane on the ride back to Tana, my seat mate was a Malagassy man who had been to Moshi and also had a little movie of Kilimanjaro. Wow!
Back to “Tana” and heading to our hotel. It is dark outside
and suddenly our car stops by the side of the road. Lanto jumps out and chats with a man and his baby. Then he hops back in, gets a big
suitcase out, hands it to the man, and hops back in. He says the man thanks Charlie for the equipments he has
brought (for this seemingly random man by the side of the road). Charlie responds, “What are you talking
about?” Lanto and he go back and
forth… “The equipment you brought”, “I didn’t bring equipment” “Yes the
equipment you brought.” Finally Lanto explained that the materials that Charlie
had taken to Erik were being sent back to Tana to give to this man who works on
a project in another park. Hysterical.
More delicious
food at the restaurant and this time a fabulous room with a mosquito net!!! We
really did sleep like logs. The Red Sox won the World Series, and all seemed
pretty well with the world.
Back
in Moshi almost before we could catch our breath.
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| Silky's we never saw |
