bobmcgee

Leaf-tail Gecko …

This is a fairly easy one to spot.

There are currently about 14 species in the genus Uroplatus, all are confined to Madagascar (and the illegal pet trade). The name is from the Greek οὐρά meaning “tail” and πλατύς meaning “flat” the terminal us is thrown in to render the combination sufficiently Latin to be used in a museum. It is quite likely that DNA studies will split them into many more species.

They are night active insectivores and rely on camouflage to keep them safe by day. Four of the currently recognised species pretend to be leaves the rest pretend to be bark. They rest with their head down and tail up. Several species, including this guy, have a frill at the edges that ensures that there are no shadows to give them away.

Convergent evolution has given us some Leaf-tailed Geckos in Australia but they are in the genera Phyllurus and Saltuarius and not closely related.

Lemur Island …

If you stay at Vakona it is inevitable that you will succumb to the allure of Lemur Island. Whether that’s a good thing or not, I’m not sure. You will get the opportunity for some good photos and if you are fond of cuddling the animals you can do that, too.

Access is by canoe ride. The reason the island works is that lemurs will not cross water. River systems in Madagascar have been the agency of prosimian evolution by providing the genetic isolation that has enabled populations to evolve into different species. The river crossing is about twice the length of the canoe.

The lemurs will be waiting …

Never bring a banana to a bun fight.

Perinet …

Andasibe-Mantadia National Park is on the eastern edge of the central highlands and is firmly ensconced on the tourist itinerary for a combination of reasons. It can be reached by a good road from Antananarivo, it offers a very good chance of seeing Indri and boasts good accommodation. Most tourists won’t actually make it into the Mantadia section of the park because the road is a monster and is reportedly getting worse for lack of maintenance. Instead they will spend their time either in the Analamazaotra Reserve or at Vakona which has a population of lemurs established on Lemur Island.

The lodge at Vakona (pronounced Vakoona, there is no short O sound in Malagasy) is surrounded by a mature eucalypt forest that could have been snatched from somewhere in the Australian Great Divide. Up the hill, out of picture to the left is a stand of what looks remarkably like Eucalyptus regnans. There are no Lyrebirds but instead Paradise Flycatchers, Crested Drongos, Vasa Parrots and Sunbird-Asitys.

The Analamazaotra Reserve is secondary forest on the hills with overgrown abandoned fish ponds and rice paddies in the valley. Local guides must be hired and they will repay you by finding Chameleons and Leaf-tailed Geckos that you would otherwise walk right past. During the morning the Indri proclaim their territories by call, which carries a huge distance, when you are close up you can understand why. I found this example on youtube …

I found it very evocative.

In the past there were much larger lemurs but the Indri is the largest of the extant prosimians. They live in small family groups consisting of a male and female in a longterm monogamous relationship and their offspring. Females reach sexual maturity between the ages of 7–9 years and then bear offspring every two to three years. They feed mainly on leaves but will also eat seeds, fruits, and flowers. They are critically endangered largely due to habitat destruction.

Andasibe-Mantadia National Park is also home to another ten lemur species including Diademed Sifaka …

Black and white Ruffed Lemur …

and for an overload of cute, the Eastern Lesser Bamboo Lemur …

Mandraka …

The largest lemur alive today is the Indri. The easiest place for the visitor to see them is at Perinet. So for us it was back to Antananarivo and then by road to the east.

We broke the journey at the Mandraka Nature Farm where we had the opportunity to get up close and personal with a variety of interesting albeit captive creatures.

This character is a Leaf-tail Gecko. It was lifted out of its cage and placed on a mossy log. It makes a good introduction because under these conditions you can see them. Finding them in the wild is much more of a challenge as you will see in future posts. You can easily distinguish geckos from chameleons by looking at their feet …

which are divided into two in chameleons.

Whereas snakes have no feet.

Also on display they had crocodiles, tortoises, some butterflies, frogs, flying foxes and it was the only place where we saw Tenrecs. This little guy is a Common Tenrec.

Nahampoana …

After a few days at Berenty our long-suffering bus took us back to Fort Dauphin. Along the way we were able to see the Triangular Palms endemic to this region and we also spent a little time in another section of spiny forest.

After a night in Fort Dauphin we visited Nahampoana about 10km north. This is essentially a botanical garden in which native wildlife have found a refuge amongst exotic trees.

It’s a splendid scene and I’ve done my best to disguise the fact that the Verraux’s Sifakas are sitting in eucalypts. The gardens are well maintained and cover about 50 hectares (approximately 125 acres).

The animals are fairly approachable, above we have a male Collared Brown Lemur and on sentry duty below is a Ring-tailed Lemur.

We found a few chameleons, their eyes are capable of the independent movement … you get the most pleasing photos when they take the trouble to look back at you.

The bird list wasn’t huge but included Lesser Vasa Parrot and our first sighting of Madagascar Blue Pigeon. The gardens hold some Radiated Tortoises and some captive Nile Crocodiles.

This may help …

Dennis …

Now where was I? Ah yes, Berenty Reserve in the south of Madagascar and by the time we left Berenty we had enjoyed the company of our Malagasy guide for a few days. Dennis had made sure that we got on the right bus, the right plane, made sure we got fed, made sure our bags got to our rooms. In short he had looked after us very well but he had also been our guide in the true sense of the word.

He had introduced us to the Malagasy world, a world of different customs regarding marriage, the treatment of the dead, fady (taboos). He gave us the chance to see through Malagasy eyes and always with a smile and gentle good humour.

Madagascar life is pretty tough. Most homes have neither electricity or running water. Cooking is mostly done on charcoal, washing is done on the river bank or beside a communal tap. The only power available to most is man power … if you want it somewhere else then carry it or haul it.

The guy with the sack is carrying charcoal. Hand drawn carts are a common sight.

If someone doesn’t have anything in the bank and little in the cupboard we might say they are living day to day. The equivalent Malagasy saying reveals a deeper layer of feeling … “It is better to die tomorrow than today”.

So what was Dennis’ own story? He was in no rush to tell it but it emerged that Dennis had set out to make something of himself in one area that seemed to offer good prospects by studying English and tourism. How had he financed that? Well, Dennis had sold second-hand magazines to tourists right outside the Hotel Colbert. He had a cousin that worked at the airport who would rescue magazines abandoned on incoming flights and sell them to Dennis. He would tidy them up, do his best to get rid of the creases and head for town. Tourists coming back from the remoter parts would have had no news for a few days and some would buy a magazine.

McGee would never see the pesterers outside the Colbert through the same eyes again.

Promises, promises …

This blog is not a dedicated travel blog although I really do enjoy writing about my journeys and whenever I do the blog picks up a bunch of new followers. This is the case again with the Madagascar series that I have started and will resume. So welcome to those of you that have just come on board. Some of you are from the USA and given that freedom of speech is guaranteed by your constitution you are going to be surprised to find that Australians enjoy no such privilege. It is no where enshrined in our constitution so for us it is a case of eternal vigilance …

It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.” — John Philpot Curran, 1790.

Debate in Australia is often vigorous, sometimes abusive and I think that all to the good. But, with the best intentions I’m sure, a past government thought that with regard to some aspects of our little selves we are so weak, so insecure, such shrinking violets that we must be protected from anything that might cause us offense. We have a public broadcaster that thinks it is fine to put to air a depiction of a critic having sex with a dog and label him, on screen “dog fucker” but …

(1) It is unlawful for a person to do an act, otherwise than in private, if:

(a) the act is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people; and

(b) the act is done because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the other person or of some or all of the people in the group.

It is the easiest thing in the world to take offense, and being thus offended shut down debate on any subject that touches on race. We have a welfare system that is different for indiginous Australians than for the rest of Australians. Discussing it might cause offense. Let’s not discuss it here.

The recently elected government led by Tony Abbott promised to rid us of this constraint on free speech. Today it has announced that it will break that promise. I am deeply offended.

Berenty …

After breakfast, fresh croissants of course, we checked out of the Hotel Colbert and headed for the airport.

We had met Dennis, our Malagasy guide, the day before but today we started to get to know him better. His English is good, his smile is almost permanent. I will tell you more about him in due course but today we fly.

We fly south to Fort Dauphin aka Taolagnaro – the Malagasy, just like us in Oz, are busy replacing the names bestowed by recent colonists with those bestowed by previous colonists, the flight is delayed and we travel not by the direct route indicated in the itinerary but via Toliara on the west coast. We had been warned that Madagascar Airlines schedules were more provisional expressions of intention than rigid timetables. We got to Fort Dauphin a couple of hours later than was intended, climbed into a bus and travelled 80kms to Berenty. The journey took three hours, we arrived after dark. The alleged road was shared with trucks some of which had trailers (B-doubles in Australian terms) coming from Antananarivo 1100 kms or four days rugged driving away. It had once been sealed, the remaining tar stood up like table top mountains surrounded by potholes and muddy swamps. I do not wish to be reincarnated as a Malagasy bus.

Berenty Reserve is an island of residual forest in a sea of sisal plantation. Or even an ocean of sisal. I imagine it was set aside to assuage the conscience of the plantation owners as they annihilated the environment. It is now home to some readily accessible lemurs and a tourist hotspot. The accommodation is excellent and you always know the food is good when you see the locals dining there …

Over the next few days we walked in the gallery forest and in the spiny forest and made the aquaintance of Ring-tailed Lemurs, like the guy with the croissant, and Verraux’s Sifaka,

and the Red-fronted Brown Lemur.

We also got to see the White-footed Sportive Lemur and the Reddish-grey Mouse-Lemur and some nice birds.

And lament the loss of habitat. Sisal is grown for fibre which can be made into string or cloth. If you have abandoned plastic bags for the benefit of the environment and take along a sisal bag ponder on the habitat that existed before the sisal plantation was established.

On the street …

As you approach the doors of the Hotel Colbert you are given a warm and enthusiastic welcome. I’m not talking about the staff. By GDP per capita Madagascar is the ninth poorest country in the world. The people that are so pleased to see you are keen to sell you some little cadeau to take home, a musical instrument, an ammonite, a box or even a second-hand magazine. And there are some simply begging, one lady had a baby on her back and primary school age children panhandling for all they were worth.

They will be waiting for you again if you go out. In Australia we are sometimes troubled by the flies. We use the word”sticky” to describe particularly persistent flies. Some of these folk take no for an answer, some are more persistent. My first experience was of a guy who spotted the tourist about a block away from the hotel and wasn’t going to give up whilst I was on the street. Sticky sprang to mind, a good walk spoilt even more than golf.

He was trying to sell me a valiha, a zither like instrument the strings mounted around a bamboo tube. It was the finest little valiha in the universe and mine for a very reasonable price. No matter that I would never get it into Australia, could I not buy it, can you not see that I am in desperate need of a meal, perhaps if I reduce the price …

He circled me as I walked, I several times pulled him from the path of passing cars. The attention was unwelcome, embarrassing, pathetic and eventually beyond endurance. I turned and went back to the hotel. In the last few yards he pointed out the contrast between me who could afford such a nice hotel and himself who could not afford food. Very sticky little pest.

I am an early riser, the following morning I was out before the pests arrived. The streets were already becoming busy, street traders were selling breakfast cooked on charcoal burners. This time I went without a camera. I got little attention.

There are shops, even a small supermarket or two in Antananarivo but the local folk do most of their shopping right there on the street at stalls or at the open fronts of the buildings.

I got back to the hotel at six thirty, the lady with the baby and begging children was just arriving.