A Hot Time in Madagascar

Our next port of call was Taolanaro on the island of Madagascar. It is located on  the southeast tip of the island essentially in the middle of nowhere. Which sort of describes Madagascar itself. Madgascar is the fourth largest island in the world and is over 1,000 miles long and 350 miles wide at its largest width. For a little perspective, it is about the same size in area as the State of Texas, and is twice the size of the entire UK! This is not a well developed country due in large part to a nine year civil war that only ended two years ago. According to Ken Rees, the Destination Lecturer, the average income of the 25 million inhabitants is about $1.00/day!

You know you are going someplace a little "rough" when the Shore Excursion Department sends you a notice that says tourism "is not well developed", which is code for "the buses are probably not going to be air conditioned and we are going to have to fill every seat on the ones that are available." In fact, one of the tour groups went out on an old, and we do mean old, Blue Bird yellow school bus!!

The "main attraction" in Madagascar, and frankly the only reason to stop here, is to see the various species of Lemurs, a small marsupial known for their very long tail and "bugged out" eyes.   Our tour was City Sights and Nahampoana Reserve by 4x4, and after the notice from Shorex, we were not sure what to expect in the way of transportation. Expecting a small group, we were rather surprised when about 100 people got off the ship for this excursion. A number of people were joking that they didn't think there were enough 4x4's on the island, but what we got was a "fleet" of 14 enclosed vehicles of almost every type that one would see at home. We were assigned to a smaller-sized Toyota Landcruiser with two other guests, both of whom spoke French with very little English, a local guide (who fortunately knew some French) and a driver. Yes, it was a bit snug, and did we mention it was also hot? It was 30 C at 8:00 AM and then it got HOT!! And the AC did not work that terribly well!

As we started off, our guide Alphonse, informed us we would start at the reserve, there were two actually, and then do the city sights on the way back. He also advised us it was a 16 KM ride to the reserve, so while it was a little uncomfortable, at least the road was paved....

The local scenery. Rio Tinto has a large mining presence in
the southeastern part of the country.

...For the first 3 KM, at which point we turned onto what might charitably be described as a "goat track" except that would be an insult to goats all over the world!

Our guide called this little settlement a town. Most of the
people here walked their goods to the market in Fort Dauphin every
morning, easily five kilometres along this bumpy road.

We thought the roads last year in Rabaul, where one vehicle actually lost a WHEEL in a water-filled pothole the size of a small pond, were the worst we had ever experienced. Well, now those roads are the second worst. After being bounced, jostled from side-to-side, and off of each other, while also dodging assorted people on foot, on bikes and on carts, plus passing three small herds of brahma bulls being led down the "road", we arrived at Nahampoana Reserve. Along with the other 15 4 x 4's and at least three other buses from the ship. Essentially 500 people descended on this small parcel of land to see Lemurs. And we did see Lemurs. Four of them to be exact and two of them, Ring Tailed Lemurs, were perched in the branches of a tree about 20 feet off the ground, barely visible, while a crowd of about 100 people milled around below trying to get a picture. Kind of made one wonder who was viewing whom??

This mango tree is over 100 years old. Each
fruit it produces weighs in at 1 kg!

What is everybody looking at?

What? You lookin' at me???

After wandering what seemed like aimlessly around the reserve, and a refreshment (when was the last time you had Fanta Orange??), Alphonse suggested we move to the second reserve, not far away back along the goat track road. Fortunately we were among the first to arrive and there were far fewer people wandering about. Here we finally saw Lemurs. There are three species in this part of Madagascar that are out during the day: the more well known Ring Tailed, the Brown, and the Sifaka which is pure white with a black face, and we saw all three. We actually passed a small Brown in a bamboo tree having its lunch. It was close enough to touch, assuming one did not mind losing a finger!! We also saw Nile Crocodiles, another species of animal common to this part of Madagascar, even though it is one heck of a long way from the Nile!!!!

The crazy guy at the left had just thrown some fish over the
fence for these crocodiles. The big one at the front jumped
full-body up the fence to get at it. Good thing he knew
the fence would hold, or he wouldn't be here now....

One little lemur in a big enclosure wanted to
get a better look at Larry.

A Sifaka taking a good look back at us

The tortoises

The islands in the lake have living areas for groups of lemurs.
Some can cohabit the same area as their food sources are not
the same.

Ring-tailed lemur

Brown lemurs

But they're not confined to the islands. We passed
this one looking for his lunch in a low-growing bush
beside the path.

By the time we returned to the vehicle we were pretty much reduced to puddles of sweat, and it was so hot (How hot was it??) that the water left in Larry's water bottle was just about the right temperature to make tea!!! Getting back into the vehicle was akin to climbing into an oven, and it took a long time for the AC to even make a small dent in the temperature as we bounced back down the road. To give you an idea of how bad this road was, both of our FitBits registered 10,000 steps as we were getting bounced around in the back seat, and at that point we might have actually walked 5,000 steps. Maybe. And we all gave out an audible sigh of relief and applauded when we hit the paved road, until our driver crossed the paved road and continued on down another road just as bad on our way into the town!

We passed some pretty beaches along the way, but for the rest, as we said earlier on, Madagascar is only a couple of years removed from what was a pretty nasty civil war, is still recovering, and things are not good. If there were such a thing as a Fourth World country............ There is some hope though. They have 1.5 billion barrels of proven oil reserves that just need the price of oil to go a bit higher to be economically viable. There are also gold mines, and Rio Tinto has developed an Ilemite mine (the stuff that makes toothpaste white) that is beginning to produce well. In fact the ship was docked at the Rio Tinto pier.

Home, sweet, AIR CONDITIONED home!

Thankfully this was only a four hour tour and we were most happy to return to the air conditioned comfort of the ship. How hot was it? Everything we were wearing went directly from us into a washing machine!!!

We are now into the second of two sea days on our way to Maputo, Mozambique on Wednesday. This is mostly a "jumping off" point for guests doing overland safaris and returning to the ship at later ports. The tours offered did not interest us, and people we have talked to told us there is nothing within a reasonable distance of the port worth seeing, so we are turning Wednesday into an "In Port Sea Day". Our next port will be Richard's Bay, South Africa on Thursday.