Dear armchair travellers, the expedition to Madagascar is imminent. Come see the first fun bits starting on about the 1st of April, yes Prima Aprilis, but its for real.
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Can a journey start more auspiciously. The airport hotel, the night before, just happened to be next door to the Krispy Creme, not just shop, but the actual factory, where mountains of the stuff was passing under an avalanche of the gloop that makes the original. My teeth will never be the same.
Much excitement on the arrival day. Looking out plane window, the normally desert west coast, was green, with running rivers. Insect photo hunting expeditions need to be timed either for the start of a wet, or the end. Insects then come out to play and pose for the camera. In the past I had always timed them for the start, but with weather so unpredictable now, I often missed out completely.
Madagascar is home to amazing, original, flora and fauna to dazzle the senses. But it is also home of the last of otherwise extinct species of amazing cars. All the best old french cars, from the age of real engineering, are being somehow preserved and used on the worst roads, as there is no money for new ones. They even include whole herds of the best most practical car ever made, the Citroen 2CV.
Day one proper we were still in the capital, Antananarivo, which has so many humans there is no room for flies. Be scared by what we navigated at sub first gear for hours to get out of town for the day. Even big trucks navigate these streets, and everyone stays cool and calm.
The outing was to get to the nearest piece of nature from this madness. A forest where lemurs are semi habituated to humans gawping at them, and so sometimes pose like a pro. I know you was waiting for the fluffies to appear in the blog….
First one is the Cocquerel’s Sifaka. Followed on left, the classic Ringtail Lemurs, and on the right the not amused Black Lemur. Below is the Black and White Ruffed Lemur.
Tomorrow flying to the north of the island and start expedition proper.
A luvely 0430 start to catch a plane that was 3 hours late, reminded me of an apt phrase I learned in New Guinea: “rush to wait”. I then arrived at our first super duper wild destination, the famous Amber Mountain National Park, with more endemic species of beasts than any other single area in Madagascar. And here in 2005 the world’s smallest reptile was discovered – the eeeeny weeeny chameleon !
Soooo cute. But you need to be as gobsmacked as me by its size. Note the index fingernail of my guide… it should have six legs and be a proper insect.
They live in the leaf litter of the forest around tree trunks, and the reason for their late discovery is apparent in the pic below of the little darling in its habitat.
But wait, two more species were later discovered on a mountain top nearby, and on an island – the micro species, and the now smallest nano species, that is only a bit bigger than HALF of the one pictured !
In for a penny in for a pound. This magnificent creature below was crossing the road on the way back
The leaf-tail gecko species of Madagascar are the ultimate camouflage artists. They spend their day looking like bark, sticks or dead leaves. See below the cutie pie espied yesterday,
and one of the leaf types from my previous trip to this isle, on the left as it appeared in reality, and on the right, cheating with flash illumination.
Day two in the northern rainforests – and let me tell you how sweet it is that this place has no leeches, cause it is wet and eecky and full of life. Lets get the fluffies out of the way first. Here an endemic species called the brown lemur dominates. It has the endearing habit of either holding its tail down, like most lemurs, or curling it up for fun….
and then of course there be MORE chameleons. Madagascar has about 80 species, and between my two expeditons here I am now nearly half way through the little darlings. Today one of the additions is the very silly blue nosed chameleon.
but back to the six legs. There be a group of beetles known sometimes as giraffe weevils, cause of their long necks. The most famous is one of the icons of Madagascar. See why…
Today two more species of this fun group was found, one not so long in the neck, but fully silly with butch spines. Both are only about 5mm long.
And staying with tiny things, one of my fav subjects is mimicry. Many spiders mimic ants to either get close to ants and murder them, or just for protection, as not many creatures eat ants. Below which is which – the spider is so clever it holds its give-away extra pair of legs in front, to mimic the ant antennae.
and as you are still scratching the noggin as to which is which, let me show you a rather handsome rainbow darkling beetle, minding its own business.
OK, by the way, the ‘ant’ on the right was the real ant….. good imposter on the left eh but
And to end the day here in the Amber Mountain, yet another cuti pie chameleon. This time not a tiny one, but a small baby of a normal sized one, about 8cm long and doe-eyed.
and did i already tell you that the leaf tailed gecko is invisible…?
and then there was a very long, very hot day of driving that deposited me at a famous tourist spot, of the Red Tsingy. Weird and wonderful erosion canyons, made of very soft mud stone on top, and very soft sand stone below, eroded by rain rather than rivers. Cute structures of geological and fun significance.
so the ‘Tsingy’ above are not real karst, geologically speakng, as they are not made of limestone. To see such wirdness I had to endure walking kilmetres in the hotness, to get a glimpse of a 30km long ancient raised coral reef, then beautifully sculpted by the acid rain produced by ancient volcanoes.
then after much hair raising walking ON these structures in the hot sun, eventually I arried at the bridge of death – and did the manly thing and turned back.
… and now onto a pastoral story. The Malagasy folk are utter rice addicts, whereupon life does not exist without large portions of the stuff 3 times a day. Therefore any land suitable to growing it is thus used. And if a flat wet place is not available, then terracing and very clever water works does the trick.
Village life is still very communal, helping each other do the big jobs in big numbers. So the scene below shows the village herd of the local cow species known as a zebu, being used to trample weeds and prepare the soil for a rice planting.
and below, the villagers helping each other by getting together to plant the rice. One tiny grass shoot at a time. See to the left of the human line, the planted field state.
oh, and speaking of the zebu mumus, they are also imporant as transport. Anyone with two zebus not needed on the farm, hitches them to a wagon and has a transport business. These buggies are known as Medagascan Ferraris.
and last but not least subject for the day, is the house gecko. Anyone who has been to the tropics in Oz, or anywhere else, has seen the “every house one” grey gecko, that can even run along the ceiling chasing night insects. Cute but drab…. when you see what does the job in EXOTIC Madagascar, on the right below.
Days later – no internet dooverlaki for a while. What I have to report is that the six legs have been very poor at jumping in frot of the camera, while the 4 legs have been positively dancing in tutus all over the place, asking for fame. Therefore dear reader, prepare to feast on more chameleons than you can eat. And remember they change their colours at will, so all this is for show.
and even though they can colour blend witht the habitat when not in a flamboyant mood, some go further and have groobly markings and odd shapes to appear like what they are not, like a budding branch
now, chameleons are very happy happy joy joy animals. They never freak out at humans ogling them, indeed even picking them up sometimes (cant resist their cuutness). But there is always one in a crowd what does not approve of nothin. Here be mr grumpy
oh and did I tell you leaf tailed geckos are invisible….
with all that avalanche of reptiles, we must not forget about the fluffies. Yesterday was time in two rainforest Nat Parks, one of which, the Mantadia, is famous for two of the biggest and bestest lemurs. One is the ‘dancing lemur’, a Sifaka type lemur, which not only dance in spectacular aerial displays between trees, but when on the ground do a fabulous sideways jig. All lemurs in these parks are totally unafraid of humans. They happily feed just above head height as we ogle them. Here be the lovely Sifaka in a guava tree laden with food particles.
…and the most downy fine fluffed fluffy of them all, the bamboo lemur
It is time for a bit of road trip story, as it is all that happened for two LOOONG days. Day one took us 12 hours to travel 300km, on the worst roads in the solar system by far – and I have been to many backwood places on this planet. Much time spent in 1st and 2nd low diesel gear, crawling in and out of sharp edged holes deep enough to hide a hippopotamus. And then there is the TRAFFIC. You cannot escape it anywhere in the country. Roads are lined by hordes of humans with so-so road sense, some carrying huge loads on their heads, an amazing assortment of human pulled/pushed billy carts of all sizes, the bigger zebu pulled carts, rickshaws, tut tuts, bicycles with huge loads, motor cycles, 3-wheeled tractors, the small buses with giant loads on the roof, and then there are hugely huge, severially overloaded trucks taking most of the narrow so called road.
Thats the bad part, though memorable to the bone. The fun part is that as you travel between the different tribal areas, villages specialise in artisan skills, and you see wonderful and surprising results, always only in one small area. See the following music instrument-land, the amazing toy truck-land, aluminium-land, wood carve -land, and my favourite, the disturbing mother Mary-land.
here it comes, the piece de resistance…
Another short history lesson. Madagascar has been populated for about 1500 years, amazingly, with the earliest settlers arriving by outriggers all the way from Indonesia. They and other arrivals from Mozambique set about practicing the idiotic slash-and-burn method of cultivation and managed to destroy over 90% of all vegetation, leaving bare severly eroded landscapes useless to humans and mother nature. The Nat Parks I am seeing are eeeny weeny remnants that have lost much of their biodiversity.
So to have timber, and control erosion, they imported – you guessed it – eucalypts from Oz. Now any land that looks wooded is only this ‘plastic’ weed that supports zero life. They chose species that grew back from root stock and so they never kill the trees, just give them haircuts. It is used structurally, but its main use is in creating charcoal. Almost all humans, even in the capital city, still use charcoal for all cooking. So it is a major resource and transported all over. See typical roadside village sale point
Each bag is topped by veg to keep it dry, and weighs about 30kg. Humans carry it off on their heads, on any cart, on overloaded trucks, and on bicycles. Below only 2 bags but I have seen 4 bags – 120kg…
But my fav is always the fun loving zebu ferraris
But enough about the ways of the Malagasy two leg mob. What of the 4 and six legs. Well I am at the last eastern part of the trip, where the little rainforest bits are, and now in a montane area called Ranomafana. Home of the girsffe weevils I showed you before, though this time I added another species, a pure black boy about 6mm long
Let me tell you a secret of the insect world. Yes they have 6 legs, part of the definition, but caterpillars are allowed to cheat. They have 3 pairs of short pointy legs at the front of the body, but what supports the rest of this huge feeding machine body ? They have extra little stubby gripping sort-of legs called pseudopods. Spot them in the big pic of this handsome emperor moth baby, and then see closeup.
and last insect here, a jewel beetle, just being pretty as it is meant to be
lets go back to those fun loving chameleons. You all know they have a long tongue that shoots out with a sticky end (well for the poor prey insects anyway). It happens at such a lightning speed you never see just how long. See first a single frame from a video I took 10 years ago. It is hardly stretching at all to grab this grasshopper.
and now see and be amazed by moving pictures on this humble blog. This is a slow-mo film taken here, and note that the tongue is longer than the whole chameleon, tail and all. Too weird for words. Beast is in upper right and prey lower left edge.
Just wanted to share two pics with you. I drove past a place I stayed at 10 years ago, and was reminded of the grandness of it. This granite boulder massiff is over 1000m tall and covered in yellow lichen. Just below it were little huts to stay in.
… and on the roof of the little thatched huts, sat a very laid back ringtail lemurs
oh and silly me, I forgot to show you a sound file I have been saving. Way back in the forest with the dacing lemurs, there are also the largest lemurs in the world called Indri (the real largest was exticted by fun humans). They have one of the loudest calls, loudest primate call ever, carrying through 2km of forest. So plug you device to a BIG speaker and turn up the volume to hear this:
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well now I is in the wild west, like in Oz, west is dry, east is wet. So here now at an area called Isalo, is a huge flat grass plain, with a slightly Bungle-Bungle-esque blob of low mountains.
This plateau is also home to a palm that everyone has cultivated around the world, but is only endemic in this small bit of Madagascar – where, with a backdrop of a storm looks pretty spiffy and belonging
The Isalo mountains have canyons with lush veg and clear streams and many critters, including yet another of the dancing lemurs, the Verraux Sifaka, all white and cute.
and there be more chameleons of course, including the biggest one, the 70cm giant who is very laid back and doesnt bother with all that childish colour changing stuff.
and of course there be fun insects here too
being dry country, we are entering the territory of Madagascar’s most iconic plants, the fabled baobabs. Here be a line of young ones, followed by a girl tree with a twin trunk and about 800 years of age.
On the way to this baobab world, we passed the point on the map where we leave the central highlands and enter the southern land. It is marked by a rock formation called the queen, what looks like queen Victoria . It is on their money note (1000 ariary is almost 40 cents), and the real thing.
And on another day of long washing machine driving, came across a Saturday market and mingled with the fun Malagasy humans
I liked the blobs of piggi meat in the heat, and the thousand colours of the platic stuff area, and above right, yet another proof that the word ‘overload’ does not exist in Malagasy tongue. That little billy cart is carrying over 1/2 tonne, and it has no breaks…
And two more ditties. In keeping with overload subject, the thing on the left is a intercity “taxibruse” with oodles of humans inside and sometimes over a tonne of load on the roof. Watching them manouver through the giant road holes is scary, as their wheels lift off the ground one way then the next…..apparently some, oddly, do just tip over sideways. The pic on the right is my little help to humans who are considering going veggo – yes this dude really is carrying a fresh zebu head on his head.
After the gory bits, apologies, lets get back on the road. A few days ago I was almost on the west coast, and then have had to drive for 4 long very bumpy days to go east just to go then go west again – there are only a few roads in this country, making connections weird. Below is my first glimpse of the western plains where the big river can be used to boat to the west coast at Morandava, my next destination, alas on the bad road and not the smoooth river. The river is full of Nile crocodiles and lots of fish. They are so well fed they never attack the humans who do lots of stuff on the banks.
and another crocodile river point, where we cross it, with, of course, rice fields in foreground
Speaking of rice, here they have very sophisticated irrigation so that 3 or even 4 crops can be grown every year, with fields at different staggered stages. Below just picked crop. It lies on the field for a day to dry a bit, and is then taken to the village for thrashing and shelling.
Out here in the wild west, the local transports have a new device. Half a poor motorcycle frankenstined to a carriage what transports 12 or more humans and luggage.
As opposd to the cute purpose built Italian machines, the Piaggio tuktuk, commmon all over the country, with a tiny 200cc engine designed for extreme economy, driving up to 40km on a litre of fuel – that is 2.5 litres per 100km in modern speak
And then it was time to get up at 0400 and gird the loins for the wobbley drive to Madagascar’s most iconic scene – the BAOBAB ALLEY. Here the original ‘upside down’ trees, the monster size and age trees, Adansonia grandidieri, look magnificent (600 years plus). Especially by pre sunrise light.
Several hours more wobbly road, and we arrived near the Kirindi lodge, on the edge of the Kirindy Dry Forest Reserve. Here lives the famous Boab-in-love tree. A different specie to the monsters , but also at least 500 years of romantic age.
The Kirindi forest is a messy tangle of monsoon forest, with now and then monster baobabs soaring above the canopy and startling with their very fat girth at ground level. It goes completely dry in the winter, and already some critters, many insects and plants are going to sleep. But those playful dancing lemurs, the Verroux Sifaka, are as laid back as ever. Cool dudes
And having called them ‘dancing’ all this time, you need to see what it means. On the ground their sideways jig is real cute. See this link for a bit a look see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RiZElNNpAY
In the same forest, found a very handsome snake what I cant ID yet, and one the bestest geckos around
On a tangent, I just remembered I forgot to tell you about the Madagascar Uluru-competitor, the very huge Fandana Rock, on the way to Isalo. It is a touch smalle than Uluru, but beats it by miles in mass, as it is not a puffy sandstone blob, but a granite one.
Second last day in the wilds, with a bumpy ride and a flight back to the capital left. The Kirindy forest has proved too dry already for nice insecs, despite the road still being flooded two weeks ago. It means that the insect wonders of this area are unknown to all, as no one can get in here during the wet season. The only six legs around today were butterfies, including this group lapping chemicals on the edge of a puddle, and the blue male below that, a bit damaged in fights with other males.
So it must all come to an end. On the way back to the west coast town of Morandava, to fly out tomorrow, I passed again by the very spiffy Baobab Alley. This is the area in normal mode first…
Took a zebu ferrari carriage over the shallow lake to the best viewpoint for the spectacle of sunset here.
And its goodbye on a high note. Thanks for travelling in your armchairs with me.
PS
it is all over, but iI could not resist a last word from the breakfast bar of last hotel in Madagascar…..
SIX-LEGS-GOOD 