Madagascar Travelogue: Forests, Wildlife, Whales, and a Whale Shark!

Madagascar’s enormous size is only the most obvious of several reasons, including its exceptional diversity of habitats and species, why some observers believe the island could justly be called the world’s eighth continent.

---Peter Tyson, Madagascar, The Eighth Continent

Crowned leumr at Ankarana National Park, Madagascar.

In late September, Rishi and I visited Madagascar, an island nation located in the Indian Ocean, separated from Africa by the Mozambique Channel. With an area of 587,713 km2, Madagscar is the world’s fourth largest island after Greenland, New Guinea, and Borneo. It split off from Africa about 160 million years ago, during the breakup of Gondwanaland. It's long-term isolation led to a high rate of endemic species, around 90% across animals and plants combined. (This entry focuses on geography and wildlife. Read my blog about Madagascar’s history, peoples and economy here.)

One could easily spend a month or more traveling around Madagascar and just skim the surface, but we had only two weeks. Working with a travel agent, we assembled an itinerary that took us to view some of the island's unique wildlife and ecosystems, mostly in the northern part of the country, followed by beach time on the island of Nosy Sakatia.  

The travel agent who arranged our trip warned us that traveling in Madagascar would be more challenging than what we were used to in the Southern African region, that the roads are poor, and the accommodations are relatively modest. Madagascar is not the kind of place where you can casually pick up a rental car at the airport and easily jump on the highway for your destination. Also, most of the national parks require that you use a guide. So during our travels, except for the beach, we would be accompanied by a driver and guide.

We began our trip in the capital, Antananarivo. About 3 million people live in greater Tana, as the city is called for short. En route from the airport to our hotel, the narrow, traffic-clogged streets were lined with stalls where people were selling everything imaginable: clothing, household goods, produce, meat, fish (unrefrigerated!), you name it. Even in this highly urbanized area, wherever there is a bit of open flat land, it's in use for rice paddies or for grazing cattle. 

View of Antananarivo, Madagascar's capital, from our hotel. With more than 3 million residents, it's a big, crowded, smoggy city.

I’m not a city fan to begin with, so Tana, with its crowds and traffic, was my least favorite part of the trip. Unfortunately, because of how flights are scheduled, compounded with Air Madagascar's notorious unreliability, our itinerary required a second overnight in Tana in the middle of the trip and a third stay on the trip's last night.

Early on our second day, our guide and driver picked us up for the trip to Saha Forest Camp, about 100 km northeast of Tana, where we would spend two days visiting a primary mid-altitude rainforest reserve at Anjozorobe. The two and a half-hour drive was our first introduction to the winding and pot-hole rich Madagascar roads.  

After arriving at the Saha camp parking lot, we walked about ten minutes to the lodge on a path beside rice paddies, where villagers were hard at work planting new rice seedlings.

Because this is primary rain forest, it was really dense and very beautiful, but spotting the wildlife through the thick forest canopy was challenging. Nonetheless, we saw two species of lemurs: the indri, which is the largest lemur, and the diademed sifaka. Both of these species make huge leaps from tree to tree, in an upright position, which is something to see. I didn’t get any good photos of the indri and how they move, but you can check it out here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyj2jxAtCH8, where you can also hear the strange calls that the indris make.

Diademed sifaka lemur at Anjozorobe Reserve.

The comet moth, with a wingspan of about 20 cm, is indigenous to the Madagascar rain forests. Its cocoon, at left, has holes to prevent the pupa from drowning in the heavy rainfalls. The adult cannot feed and lives less than a week. Ah, beauty is fleeting.  

For the next phase of our trip, we returned to Tana overnight before catching a flight the next morning to Antisranana, also known as Diego Suarez, at the far northern end of the country. Our next stop was Joffreville, where we would take in the wildlife and plants at Montagne d'Ambre National Park. 

A well camouflaged leaf tail gecko. Can you spot it?

Bird's nest fern at Montagne d'Ambre National Park.

The locally endemic Amber Mountain Rock Thrush. 

While in Joffreville, we spent two nights at the beautiful Litchi
Tree guest house. It's owner has converted the dilapidated
remains of a French colonial officer's mountain retreat into
 a lovely six room hotel, with very good food as well.

After Joffreville, we continued to Ankarana National Park via National Highway 6, which was paved in 1992 but hasn't seen any maintenance since. The road surface is so disintegrated that driving about 100 km took 3.5 hours, translating to just under 30 km/hr (17 mph) on the region's major road. It's not even hilly or winding. Fortunately, this road is currently being rebuilt, with funding from the EU and World Bank. 

Crowned lemurs in Ankarana National Park. The grey one at left with the reddish crown is a female, while the male is brown with an orange and black crown.  

Sanford's brown lemur, in a notch in a tree.

Besides the wildlife, the main attraction in the Ankarana area is the dramatic spikey limestone karst formations called tsingy. This is one of two tsingy areas in Madagascar, the other one being the larger Tsingy de Bemaraha.

Madagascar may be underdeveloped, but cell phones are still omnipresent.
Here, our guide Clement is taking a call while walking on top of the limestone tsingy plateau. 

In the Malagasy language, tsingy means to tiptoe, because
one has to walk very carefully in the sharp, friable limestone formations. 

Erosion, which created the tsingy spires, has also formed sinkholes and caves.

View of moonrise over the tsingy massif from Iharaha Bush Camp, where we stayed for two nights.  It's worth staying there just to take in this view. 

Boa constrictors (second one is at far left at the edge of photo), ~2 meters long each, relaxing under a rock overhang. Our guide spotted these beauties while we were walking in the tsingy. 

The rooms at Iharana, built using construction similar to that used in local homes, are
mostly open to the air, which given the very hot weather, was great during the breezy
evenings. The piece of wood at the doorway doesn't completely fill the opening.
There's a sheet you can adjust to control how much air flows into the room. 

Our final destination was the Sakatia Lodge, on the very small Sakatia Island, just next to the larger Nosy Be island, off Madagascar's north western coast. We spent four heavenly days here, enjoying the beach, the scenery, and the ambiance of this wonderful lodge. It’s a family-run operation and all of the staff were just fabulous, very efficient, friendly, and helpful. The food was great, which my readers know is always a key consideration for Rishi and me. 

Sakatia Lodge: view from our room, the beach, and Rishi enjoying a coconut in the lodge. 

On one of our days at Nosy Sakatia, One day we took a ride around the island on a local pirogue ( a dugout canoe, but with a motor) followed by lunch on the beach. Yes, the water is really that blue! 

Humpback whale slapping its tail.

On our last day there, we went on a boat ride to spot humpback whales. On the way back to the island, our guide on the boat spotted a whale shark, the largest fish in the world, in the water in front of the boat. We had our snorkeling gear along for just this possibility and I was quickly off the boat and into the water with this behemoth. The average adult is about 30 ft long, through I estimate this one was smaller, maybe 25 ft. I was one of the lucky few who got to swim alongside before it sensed the entrance into the water of a boat load full of snorkelers and chose to dive into deeper water. I don’t have a waterproof camera, so didn’t get any pictures. You can see what this amazing creature looks like, though, by visiting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUMUSFLyZpU . Seeing this amazing animal, albeit briefly, was definitely a high point of the trip.

Would I recommend a trip to Madagascar? First, I emphasize that Madagascar is a very poor, underdeveloped nation that has suffered from decades of unstable and corrupt governments. It’s difficult in many ways to travel in such a poor place. For one, infrastructure, such as roads, is severely lacking. The standard of accommodation is definitely less luxurious than many other Africa travel destinations. Flights don’t leave on time, or Air Madagascar changes the schedule a few hours before the flight. You have to go with the expectation that it's adventure travel, and part of the adventure is just getting from point to point. But more significantly, it tears at the heart to see people living in poverty, without access to clean water or sanitation. However, people appeared healthy, especially in the rural areas, and malnourishment doesn’t seem to be a problem, as most people are engaged in agriculture and the land is fertile.

Also, so much of the country has been deforested, beginning with the first human occupants, who arrived from Indonesia starting around 350 BC. These people began cutting down and burning forests to enable rice cultivation. Subsequent inhabitants, coming from Africa around 1000 AD and bringing with them maize and domesticated oxen called zebu, also contributed to deforestation through slash and burn agricultural methods that are still in practice today. The problem was exacerbated starting in the French colonial period, when Madagascar’s forests were cut for their beautiful hardwoods. Wood is also used as a fuel, either directly or in charcoal production. The remaining forests, rich with diverse flora and fauna, are well worth seeing and efforts are underway to preserve them in a system of national parks. But you have to travel through a lot of deforested areas, on terrible roads, before you get there.

This truck carries bags full of charcoal in rural Madagascar.

Would we visit again? Rishi says no, as the poverty level and lack of infrastructure are a deal breaker for him. For my part, I think I would go again, if I had the opportunity, though on a return trip, I’d try to visit the southern section of the island to see some different rainforest parks, the Allée des Baobabs, and the spiny desert. 

Mauritius Beach Vacation

In March, Rishi and I visited Mauritius, an island nation in the Indian Ocean, about 1,900 miles from Johannesburg, as the crow (or plane) flies. Mauritius is a beach vacation destination for many Europeans, especially French and Germans, and is a favored getaway for South Africans as well.

 

Above, a few scenes from Mauritius, and a photo of us enjoying the sunset.

Stormy weather during our visit had blown seaweed
and other flotsam onto the beach by our hotel. 

Unfortunately, while we were there, the weather was on the cool side, with ongoing rain and heavy winds. We couldn’t snorkel or go boating as planned due to rough waters and low visibility. On one day, we had to abandon our planned drive around the island because roads were flooded. But by the end of the week, the weather cleared up and we did get some nice beach time.

Our hotel and its garden. Mauritius has a well-developed tourist industry,
with large resort hotels on nearly every decent beach. 

During its human occupation, Mauritius has been a colony of the Dutch Republic, France, and Britain. Both French and English are official languages, with road signs all in English. But the French influence remains strong, and among themselves, most Mauritians either speak French or Mauritian creole, a mix of African languages and French. In addition, because during the British rule somewhere around half a million Indians were brought to Mauritius to work as indentured servants on the island’s sugar cane plantations, the island has a significant population with roots in the Indian subcontinent, and many Mauritians speak Hindi or other Indian languages. Likewise, the local cuisine is an interesting mix of French, African, Indian, and other Asian influences. Yum!

One of the island’s main points of interest is the crater lake Ganga Talao, also known as Grand Bassin. Hindu legend tells that Lord Shiva was flying through the air in a ship with his wife Parvati so that he could show her the world’s most beautiful places. Shiva was carrying a container of sacred water from the Ganges and, while trying to land on Mauritius, accidentally spilled some of the water over the island where it flowed into a crater. He prophesied that someday people from the banks of the Ganges would come to live on the island and the lake would become a sacred site. Today, the lake's shores are home to several Hindu temples, where each year on Maha Shivaratri, approximately 400,000 people come to celebrate. 

The banks of Ganga Talau/ Grand Bassin are home to several Hindu temples. The giant 33 meter (108 ft) tall Shiva statue, shown lower left, stands alongside the road leading to the lake. In the picture at lower right, Shiva is at the far right, and a similarly sized under-construction statue of Durga is at the left. Too bad the giant cell phone tower in the middle spoils the view.

Would I recommend Mauritius to other travelers? The island’s tourist industry is well developed, there’s a wide range of accommodations including gorgeous high-end resorts with top-notch amenities, cuisine is decent, and the roads are fine. In fact, it’s a bit overdeveloped for my taste. So, for Americans, I wouldn’t rate it as a prime destination, because it’s so very far away, and many great beach destinations are available closer to home. But for folks living in Southern Africa, Mauritius is a lovely spot with beautiful scenery. Will I go back? Most likely not, but if I did, I’d aim to stay on the southern or western sides of the island, where the beaches are really choice.

View of a beach on the southern coast of Mauritius.
If you're planning a trip there, I'd recommend you try to stay
on the island's east coast or the southern coast. 

Madagascar and Mauritius – Two Indian Ocean Island Nations

One of the great things about living in Africa is learning about places that I knew very little about before. Rishi and I recently returned from a trip to Madagascar and in March, we visited Mauritius. These two island nations are well off the radar of most Americans, who may associate Madagascar with a DreamWorks animated film, or perhaps with rainforests and lemurs. As for Mauritius, I confess to knowing virtually nothing about it before planning our trip there. In two separate blogs on Mauritius and Madagascar, I've written about our experience as travelers, but in this entry, I'm taking a closer look at the history, culture, and economies of the two countries. 

Though these two nations may be geographically proximate Indian Ocean neighbors, requiring only a 1,069 km, 1 hour, 40 minute flight to travel between them, they are in many ways worlds apart. Madagascar, at 587,713 km², is the world’s fourth largest island (after Greenland, New Guinea, and Borneo), with diverse geographies and ecosystems. We spent two weeks there and saw only the capital, Antananarivo, and a few spots in the north of the Island. Mauritius is so tiny – 1,860 km² -- that one could easily drive around the island’s exterior in a day, hugging its beaches along the way. 

Madagascar has 287 times the land area of its Indian Ocean neighbor Mauritius, which is at the far eastern edge of this map. Oh, see that other nearby island, Réunion? That’s the overseas department of France that made headlines recently when wreckage from Malaysian Airlines flight 370 was found ashore.

During the breakup of Gondwanaland, Madagascar split off from Africa about 160 million years ago, and subsequently from the Indian subcontinent about 88 million years ago. Its long-term isolation led to a high rate of endemic species, estimated at about 90% across animals and plants combined. 

A few of Madagascar's endemic species, clockwise from upper left: diademed sifaka lemur, crested drongo, traveler's palm (not a true palm but actually a member of bird of paradise family), comet moth, amber mountain rock thrush, and Sanford's brown lemur.

Human habitation of Madagascar is traced to the arrival by boat of people from Indonesia starting around 350 BC, followed by Bantu peoples arriving from across the Mozambique Channel about 1000 AD. It was ruled by local kings until a central monarchy, called the Merina, united the country in the 19^th century. Following the collapse of the Merina monarchy in 1897, Madagascar was a French colony until 1960 when it gained its independence. Official languages are Malagasy, which has Malayo-Polynesian roots, and French. English is not commonly spoken.

Mauritius seems a newcomer by comparison, both geologically and in terms of human settlement. The island is estimated to have been formed by volcanic eruption only 10 million years ago. And Mauritius was not inhabited until it was colonized first by the Dutch (1638-1710), then France (1710-1810), and finally Britain (1810-1968). The Dutch brought slaves, mostly from Madagascar, and the French brought more slaves, from Madagascar and elsewhere in Africa as well. The British abolished slavery, but instead relied on indentured servants from the Indian subcontinent to work the island’s sugar cane fields.

Hindu temples are everywhere in Mauritius, due to the large number of Indians
who came there as indentured servants during the British colonial period.

Mauritius has no official language, though government business is conducted in English and road signs are in English as well. However, among themselves, Mauritians are more likely to speak a French-based Mauritian Creole, and various Indian languages are commonly spoken as well. Rishi and I found that when English wasn’t working, I could communicate with people in French, and sometimes he could use Hindi.

Since becoming an independent country in 1968, Mauritius has benefitted from a stable democratic government. The 2015 Ibrahim Index of African Governance ranks Mauritius first overall among 54 African nations.[i] In Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, 2014, Mauritius garners a score of 54, well above the worldwide average score of 43. [ii] This ranks Mauritius as the 47^th least corrupt county, tied with Costa Rica and Hungary. Mauritius is relatively prosperous as well, having transitioned from an agricultural low-income country to a more diversified economy, though sugar is still an important component. Tourism is huge, with lots of visitors from South Africa; Europe, especially France and Germany; and China. It seems like nearly every attractive beach has been given over to large resort hotels. Other major industries include textiles and financial services. Per the World Bank, gross national income (GNI) per capita in 2014 was $9,710, putting Mauritius solidly into the upper middle income category. [iii], [iv] 

Madagascar, alas, is another story. The country is really poor. Per the World Bank, gross national income per capita in 2014 was $440, making it one of the ten poorest countries in the world. No doubt, an unstable government and corruption aren’t helping. Since gaining independence, it has experienced four republics (basically over turnings of the government, including one assassination), each with a new constitution. More recently, a coup in 2009 resulted in an interim government that was not considered legitimate. As a result, Madagascar lost foreign investment and donor funding, and the nascent tourism industry was set way back as well. The country has since returned to a democratically elected government, with a new president and National Assembly elected in 2013. But major infrastructure, such as roads and water systems are severely lacking, another factor hindering tourism as well as agricultural exports industry. Only 51% of the population has access to improved water systems and only 12% to improved sanitation facilities. Nearly everyone with spoke with lamented that corruption is rampant. Indeed, Transparency International’s ranking puts Madagascar at 133 of 174 nations, right beside Nicaragua. It scores 49.1 (29^th out of 54) in the Ibrahim Index.

Compounding Madagascar’s problems is its rapid population growth. While traveling through the country, one can’t help but notice how so many young women, girls really, have a child at the hip or on the back. This is a country where the babies are having babies. The fertility rate (births/woman) is 4.5, so population growth is huge.

Bringing this all back around to the subject of travel, having returned from these two countries, I’ve been mulling over the question of whether I’d like to return to either of them for further travels. When it comes to Mauritius, I feel that the cliché “been there, done that” applies. It's actually a bit overdeveloped for my taste. Madagascar, on the other hand, was very diverse and interesting, despite the challenges of traveling there. Though it’s very poor, tourism is no doubt one of the keys to developing the Madagascar economy and supporting the preservation of its unique ecosystems. So perhaps I will go there again.

[i] http://www.moibrahimfoundation.org/iiag

[ii] http://www.transparency.org/home

[iii] http://data.worldbank.org/topic/economy-and-growth#tp_wdi. Also used for other data on income, fertility, access to infrastructure, and other data for both countries.

[iv] http://data.worldbank.org/about/country-and-lending-groups: For the current 2016 fiscal year, low-income economies are defined as those with a GNI per capita, calculated using the World Bank Atlas method, of $1,045 or less in 2014; middle-income economies are those with a GNI per capita of more than $1,045 but less than $12,736; high-income economies are those with a GNI per capita of $12,736 or more. Lower-middle-income and upper-middle-income economies are separated at a GNI per capita of $4,125.

Our second Gaborone apartment

Rishi and I moved to our second Gaborone home, a town house centrally located near the University of Botswana, at the beginning of November 2014. I haven’t yet posted any pictures of the not-so new home where we’ve already spent four months, so I thought I’d show family and friends who are following the blog what the place looks like.

Our home is one of six town homes in the development, which also includes a well-kept garden and a small pool. 

The garden at our development. 

We’ve got quite the international group living here, with neighbors from India, Italy, Slovakia, South Africa, and Sri Lanka. Two of the families have young children, while two others have older teens living at home or university-aged children. It’s nice and quiet, which I greatly appreciate because the previous place backed up to a busy road with traffic noise most of the day. 

We learned of the vacancy here back in September, when a friend connected me with another expat who was leaving the country. The departing woman was looking for someone to take over her lease and also needed to sell her furniture, all of which was nearly brand new. Rishi and I took a look at the place, a 2- bedroom, 1 and a half-bath that’s slightly larger than where we were before, and decided it would meet our needs. We also purchased nearly all of the apartment’s furniture: two sofas, two queen beds, a TV, and a coffee table (which is now re-purposed as a table for the TV). In other words, we had enough to get started and could gradually pick up the other things we needed. 

The view of the townhome's interior from the front door  -- the ground floor
is basically one large room, with the kitchen area at the back. 

Here's the opposite view, from the kitchen looking toward the front door. The sofas, TV, and the TV table were the previous tenant's. We acquired everything else after moving in. We're especially enjoying the dining table for six, which allows us to host dinner for friends. 

We needed to outfit the kitchen, though we had shipped a few kitchen things from the U.S. I also shopped for linens, curtains, rugs, and other odds and ends to spruce up the place. I’ve been volunteering one afternoon a week at the Botswana SPCA resale shop, where I’ve been able to pick up a few choice items at bargain prices. I’ve also found some departing expats who had good kitchen wares to sell. All of that kept me busy through the end of November, but then we were all set.  

The kitchen is slightly larger than the other apartment. I’m also happy to report that the stove is better, with glass top burners that are fairly responsive for an electric range. 

Because most landlords in Botswana don't provide appliances, we also bought the previous owner's refrigerator and clothes washer. If we have company coming over, we can close the red curtains to hide the washer and brooms. 

Upstairs are two bedrooms and a full bath.
The master bedroom is on the east side of the house...... 

.... so we wake up to beautiful views of the sunrise.

Both bedrooms have large built in storage spaces,
plus we have extra storage in the hall. 

The second bedroom contains a desk and a spot for yoga. 

Just outside the back door is a space for hanging laundry,
where we are also establishing a little herb garden. 

Trumpet flowers in the garden. 

Entabeni -- Baby Animals and Beautiful Landscapes

In early January, Rishi and I took a road trip to South Africa to visit two safari lodges: Lakeside Lodge in the Entabeni Safari Conservancy, and Inyati in the Sabi Sand Game Reserve. During our travels thus far in Southern Africa, these were the third and fourth lodges we’ve visited, and each trip has been wonderful in its own way. This blog entry focuses on Entabeni. Read about our visit to Sabi Sand here. 

First off, the landscapes were notably green due to recent summer rainfall, which though lower than usual, still makes a huge difference. Along with the new grass comes an added bonus: baby animals, which were everywhere at Entabeni. 

The summer rains arrive in December, more or less, and as the grasslands green up, the animals that graze on those grasses begin to give birth to their young. Rishi was lucky enough to see a wildebeest calf as it dropped from its mother, all wobbly and wet, with its umbilical cord still attached. However, they don’t stay that way for long. Within a couple of hours, according to our guide, a baby wildebeest can run at about the same speed as the rest of the herd, an adaptation necessary for its survival. We also saw lots of very young zebras and impalas. 

Entabeni is a 22,000 hectare private reserve in the Waterberg region (http://legend-lodges.co.za/properties/entabeni-safari-conservancy/). The name Entabeni means “the place of the mountain” and as that suggests, a highlight of the reserve was the beautiful mountain scenery. Each game drive included a descent from the reserve’s upper escarpment to the lower escarpment and then a climb back again at the drive’s end. The road that the reserve built over a ridge and alongside a creek was one of the steepest I've ever been on, so that alone was a fun part of each game drive.

Descending to the lower escarpment at Entabeni. Hold on to your seat!

Beautiful mountain scenery, and oh yes, hippos too.

Rhinos on a lovely Entabeni morning.