Madagascar

Madagascar! Much like Galápagos, this is a place that conjures up images of amazing wildlife - wildlife that is among the best in the world in terms of diversity and abundance, and in some cases is as approachable as the wildlife of Galápagos. Madagascar is the world’s fourth largest island, having broken away from Africa well over 150 million years ago. This isolation makes it a living laboratory of evolution, with plants and animals found nowhere else on earth - lemurs, chameleons, geckos, frogs, tortoises, and myriad birds. ...Ringtail Lemurs gathering in groups on the ground to warm up in the morning sun... The haunting calls of Indris high in the forest canopy... A glimpse of a Sifaka as it skips across the trail ahead... Radiated Tortoises, well, just sitting there... At the same time the forests and valleys are filled with wonderful birds - the iridescent Madagascar Kingfishers flitting along the waterways, Paradise Flycatchers, Madagascar White Eyes, Giant Coua, Madagascar Scops Owl, Madagascar Fish-Eagle... The flora too is astounding, from the surreal Baobab trees, to the spiny forests of the west and south, or rainforests of the east.

The landscapes are equally as spectacular - the bright red soil of the highlands; the emerald green forest canopy festooned with orchids and other epiphytes; shades of grey in the limestone karst of the Tsingy; green rushing rivers and cascading waterfalls; white sand beaches, and all of it surrounded by the turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean. Madagascar truly is a land of rich colors and superlatives!.

We traveled to Madagascar in early 2008, as a sort of “check-out” expedition organized by Richard Parsons of Ecuador’s Bellavista Cloud Forest lodge. We were there for something like 26 incredible days, plus the 1 day I thought I might die of food poisoning, for 27 days total! Back in the 80’s Richard had lived in Madagascar, teaching for 2 years, and traveled the country extensively. He also spoke both French and a good bit of Malagasy which made it possible for him to solve any challenges (and there are always challenges in Madagascar) on the fly during the trip.

At the time I was traveling with a 200mm zoom lens, which was smaller than ideal for capturing the wildlife in most instances. So, I’m “focusing” more on the people and places here…

I have taken the liberty of lifting the following from the PBS website (no author was noted) as it relates to my own experiences…

“An Englishman traveling by canoe down the Ikopa River in western Madagascar in 1875 had a horrific surprise in store when he stepped ashore:

...I was startled in a moment, by a sudden tingling and pricking sensation over the back of my hands and fingers...I stopped at once in sudden surprise, for the pain was severe, and I had touched nothing, save perchance the long grass and rushes between the trees. But in another moment the pain increased, the tingling burning sensation seemed extending rapidly up my wrists; and as I bent my head down to look closely for the cause of the mischief, nothing was seen. But even as I lowered my head to look, pain, scalding pain, shot into my ears and neck, and growing worse too, every instant. Dazed and bewildered, I stood a few seconds in helplessness, for I could neither see nor guess at the cause of the terrible distress.

Upon seeing him, his Malagasy companions exclaimed “Efa voa’ ny Agy hianao” (“You have been smitten by the Agy tree”). In fact, it’s a vine, and it possesses stinging hairs that reminded another visitor of a sting of a nettle though “ten times more virulent.” The man recovered after the Malagasy removed the hairs by chafing his skin with sand and water.”

And now for my experience:

The common name for the Agy tree in Madagascar today is the Buffalo Bean vine. I met the vine myself in 2008. It started with a wilderness pit-stop on a full-day drive between the Tsingy and Morondava – the longest drive of the trip. After a couple of hours on a bumpy dirt road in the middle of nowhere we called for a nature stop… men went into the forest on the left of the road, and women to the right. Soon back at the jeeps and we set off again. Everything seems fine, and the other jeeps took over the lead, with us falling back to be out of the dust they kicked up. Sitting in the back seat I begin to feel like there is something biting my bare arms and legs – hundreds of little pricks in the same places over and over again. It started slow, but built, quickly becoming intolerable. I gave up any pretence of a stoic façade in my distress and yelled to the driver that something was terribly wrong! While there is absolutely nothing visible, the driver and his assistant quickly decided that I must have walked through a dried Buffalo Bean vine, leaving the miniscule hairs on my clothes and the exposed parts of my body. This is all transpiring in pantomime as I’m in the non-English speaking jeep today. The jeep slows and they begin scanning the road for something, although what I have no idea. They spot what they are looking for and hustle me out of the jeep. The next thing I know I’m stripped to my underwear on the roadside and they are rolling me in the sand and dirt, dust flying everywhere, like a chicken dust bathing. My shorts, sandals and T-shirt are shaken out very thoroughly. Feeling better, if somewhat dazed, I’m back in my clothes (the suitcases are on the roof of a different jeep) and we’re on the way again. Within 5 minutes, as I warm up in the confines of the jeep, it starts all over again, although not quite as bad this time. We stop again but this time instead of searching the roadside the driver and assistant are ransacking the jeep for something, looking in the glove box, under the seats, at books and maps. Meanwhile I’m back down to my underwear on the roadside – I know the drill. They finally tear a few pages out of a notebook and light the paper on fire, passing the flames all along my arms and legs to burn the remaining buffalo bean hairs from my body (along with some of my own hair). This time my walking shorts are also treated to a dry scrubbing in the dirt and dust of the road. My T-shirt is put in a plastic bag so there can be no more cross-contamination from it, and the driver takes off his XXL T-shirt for me to wear. Basically, that solved the problem, with just a few nagging pin-pricks the rest of the morning. Midday we catch up with the other Jeeps in our group at the lunch stop - where I emerge in filthy walking shorts, dirt in my hair, and looking like I haven’t bathed in weeks, except for a clean T-shirt 3 sizes too big…

Also from the PBS website, relating to Madagascar, but not our specific adventures…

“A friend of mine told me about the ingenious procedure his Malagasy guide used to remove hair-like spines of the prickly pear, a non-native plant that infests the south. The spines had become stuck like miniature acupuncture needles in my friend's hands while he unsuspectingly dined on the cactus's delicious fruit. The guide snatched a fly off the belly of a zebu, the lyre-horned cattle of Madagascar, held it by its wings, and let its scrabbling legs pull out the spines.”