Madagascar Spiny Forest: Devils, Didiereaceae, and a Radiated Tortoise

Today, we (Junior and Senior Korol couples) and our driver Moreno loaded into a 4X4 white SUV -- leaving the beautiful southern coastal town of Fort Dauphin -- to travel 50 miles to visit Madagascar's spiny forest. We left our Fort Dauphin bungalows overlooking the ocean at 9:00 am.

We arrived at the office of Madagascar National Park's service at 12:45 pm. After almost 4 hours of rutted roads, degraded tarmac, buying various supplies (such as $7 knock-off tevas), and insisting to Moreno and others that we really did want to go to the spiny forest, we found ourselves in a one-room hut/office buying our tickets to enter the forest. We are the first visitors of 2013.

To walk through the forest of any Madagascar National Park, it is compulsory to have a guide. Our guide for the day would be Charles --a 5 foot tall, certainly good enough english speaking man who is of the Antandroy tribe of the Malagasy. The Antandroy are notorious for their numerous taboos and how their dialect of Malagasy is the most different from the official Malagasy language -- 30% or so of the words are different.

Charles led us down the path into the spiny forest as a fast clip. The spiny forest is like nowhere in the world -- 95 percent of its plant species are endemic (meaning that they are only found in Madagascar, and only in the ecoregion of southern Madagascar). Of these plant species, a family of plants, the Didiereaceae, dominate. The Didiereaceae trees are tubular shaped trees with both leaves and thorns that directly jut out from the trunk. The vibrancy of the leaves combined with the ominous thorns drew out reverential wonder as we followed our guide, Charles, through this dense forest of desert-like succulent plants.

The only thing faster than our pace, was Charles' rapid fire delivery of info about the forest. However, within 200 meters, the unusual landscape was eclipsed momentarily by Charles' bizarre behavior. As we had wandered further into the forest, Charles had become more and more animated by the plants and their various uses. We had been excited to have such an enthralled guide and we had paused to discuss the medicinal qualities of a draping brown tree and were about to continue on our way when Charles crouched to the ground. He seemed to be looking at something and we all strained to see whether a camouflaged chameleon or a candy-bar sized bug was the focus of his attention.

None of us could see anything as Charles' hand began to twirl around a plant. We start nervously questioning him -- "Charles, what are we looking at?" "What is it?" "What do you see?" No response. Mu switch from English to Malagasy. No response. He stays crouched in the sun as beads of sweat begin to pour down his face. The 4 of us step away to discuss: Is he sick? Is it neurological? Is it a seizure? He isn't shaking so I use a stronger tone and ask him to come sit in the shade. A response! He moves to the shade. We give him water and tell him to drink, in Malagasy. He seems to no longer understand English. He obeys and drinks some water. We give him some cookies and he eats a little but remains unresponsive. We wonder what to do. Should we try to herd him back to the office and 10-house village? Should we continue to try to talk to him? Should we give him a little space to recover? We decide to give him some space to recover. We tell him that he should rest in the shade and we will walk in the forest a little without him. This seems to jar him back into consciousness and he responds in English that he will come with us. I tell him in Malagasy to stay and to rest. He says no -- he will continue. He gets up -- his eyes are now bloodshot and he continues to walk further into the forest. He walks as if he is an unsure mummy, trance-like but clumsy, with no connection to the surrounding people or place. No, we say, "Let's return". Back we go.

15 minutes later, we are back in the one-room office and he tells me in English that he is normal. Mu asks him to explain what happened and he begins talking about how "they do not want him to pray" . . . that he has to worship Jesus. I ask him about the devil and he seems relieved. "Yes," he says, "the devil was inside of me." Our driver, Moreno, is listening and he nods and is non-plussed by Charles' words. As if it is perfectly normal for someone to be possessed by the devil. And apparently, the devil possession has been happening to Charles for the past 4 years.

Moreno, Charles, and Mu then discuss what we should do next. Meanwhile, Deborah, Bill (look out for a guest blog post from them) and I, the tourists, after traveling for hours, were only in the forest for 15 minutes before the devil possession and we'd like to spend a little more time in this bizarre and amazing place. Charles is keen to go back out again with us. Moreno offers that he could come and watch Charles from behind. I plead that perhaps the tourists could simply go by ourselves, even though, it is against Park rules to hike without a guide. After stating that I had worked in a forest before and that we would not get lost, Moreno and Charles eventually acquiesce. We are allowed to hike on our own.

Back in the spiny forest, we stumble upon parrots speaking to each other, an immature eagle, and the severely endangered radiated Madagascar tortoise. Some believe that this beautiful creature may be extinct in 20 years due to habitat destruction and poaching. Hopefully, the radiated tortoise beats these dismal statistics and any other lurking devils.

After our rare opportunity of watching the tortoise, we return to the Park office/hut and bid Charles, and the devil, adieu.

 

Heading out to keep exploring

Just a quick pic post today, as we are heading out for our last full day with Mom and Dad here in Madagascar.

 

Welcome: The Korol's arrive in Madagascar

As i write this, my parents are in the air on a Kenya Airways flight from Nairobi to Antananarivo, the final leg of their circuitous journey that began a few days ago in Las Vegas and will be completed when they touch down here in a few hours. 10,580 miles separate these two spots on the globe, but they have stopped in London for a lovely night with dear friends and then another night in Nairobi, so their distance traveled is quite a bit greater. These have been the nascent steps on a roughly 3 week trip that will have us in Mada for a week, followed by 10 or so days in Kenya, visiting the country my dad worked in as a peace corp volunteer about forty years ago. Add on some travel days and brief bookend stops in the world's capital of London and you have an ambitious and grand trip.

Deb and Bill @ Zion, 2012

The senior Korol's trip has been months in the making and is unlike anything they have done in their 35 years of marriage. We are so thrilled that they are taking this trip and honored that they wanted to explore Madagascar, Kenya and London together. Before we left the country, 5 months ago, we asked them if they wanted to travel together, hoping that the answer would be yes but never expecting that such a trip would be feasible for a whole host of reasons. Instead, they surprised us. After sleeping on the idea while we were visiting, they told us that they loved the idea and wanted to make it happen. We were shocked and thrilled. Not because such a trip is beyond their abilities, but rather due to the fact that it is such a departure from the kind of travel they have done in the recent and not so recent past.

It has be heartwarming to see how excited they have been about the trip, laying the foundation for us to have a great time here. Exchanging recommendations about packing, making plans about where to go and how to get there, going through the necessary medical checks and vaccinations, watching docs about these countries, reading books. They have really embraced the process and come here well prepared.

Beyond the excitement of seeing my dear, dear parents after all this time away, i am also personally enthusiastic about the context of our time in Madagascar and Kenya. My wife and father spent long periods of their life in these countries, working hard to make life better in communities very far from their own. Honorable work, no doubt. The experiences were incredibly important to the wonderful people they are and it has always been a dream of mine to see these places with them. Now it is happening and has already happened with our visit to Marofondalia a couple of weeks ago.

I do not think it is an embellishment to trace some of my wanderlust and love of different cultures to the stories my dad has told about his time in Kenya. The time he climbed Kilamajorio and the tedium of the talused slope at 5,000 meters, the Thanksgiving with the rancid turkey, the joy of heading into cosmopolitan Nairobi for a weekend of revelry on his motorcycle, exploring the Rift Valley as it comes to be known as the cradle of humanity. These are just a few of the stories that painted an exotic picture of these places far from home. Hearing about them made me want to venture out and see places where life is different, the landscape is distinct and have my own adventures. And i/we have done that, to a degree that is well beyond the experiences one could reasonably hope for in a lifetime.

We have to run now. Heading to the airport, and pick out the Korol's from the rush of humanity that is an international flights arrival at the Antananarivo airport. Yes!!!!

A warm anticipatory welcome to two amazing people on the beguiling island of Madagascar, we are going to have so much fun.

 

Cultural Melting Pot on a Very Big Island: Madagascar

We have been in Madagascar for about two and a half weeks, a period of time dangerous enough for me to start to think I am getting a little bit of a sense of place. We have traveled all over, in the central highlands, to the western coast, hiked in the northeast and ate ourselves silly on the northwest coast. All as been sublime, exceeding my already high expectations.

Diego Bay, North

It has taken me awhile to get a sense of why this island is so interesting, and I keep returning to an idea I briefly touched on in our introduction to the island, the melding of African, Asian and French influences. These cultures are mixed here to degree that I have not really seen in any other place that i have visited. The isolation of the island must be the primary driver of this deep mixing, the autonomy of a place that is outside of the dominant cultural trends of this modern era.

By my count, there are three major pillars by which you most strongly see the cultures mixing here.

Food

It all starts with the food, which has been superb from the streets to the classiest restaurants. Street food is a prime example, with beignets (France), exotic fruit (Africa), spring rolls (Asia), baguettes (France), fried bananas (Africa) and clear noodle soup (Asia) all on offer. To these outside influences, the Malagasy people have brought the abundant and delicious seafood that is off its shores, which is an enhancement on the originals as far as i am concerned.

The cross currents of multiple cultures is evident in rural villages, as well, with rice being so critical to nearly everyones diet on the island. This is more asian than african, as most parts of east and southern Africa tend towards a maize based staple over rice, ugali in Swahili. However, the preparations of the proteins borrows more from Africa, with simple treatment over heat as opposed to the more elaborate and spiced dishes you would see in most Asian and French cooking.

Rice and bean as staples @ market in Marofandilia, Central West

With all of these delicious cultures coming together, on an island where agriculture does not appear to be prohibitive and the local veg and fruits have been abundant throughout, eating here is certainly a treat. I am actually surprised that there is not a network of Malagasy restaurants back home, as the flavors and natural fusion would appear ready made for the modern urban Western landscape.

Place

We have spent a fair bit of time traversing various parts of Mada, on bikes, in taxi brousses, in cars; and the visual impression of the country has taken a fair bit of time to come into focus. On the first day we were here, on the drive into the capital, Antananarivo, from its airport, I was astounded by the myriad rice fields fanning out from the elevated road. Were we in Thailand, or Vietnam? Not quite, but it sure felt like it. With rice being so dominant in the palate of the country, there are uncountable fields throughout the country and I am always transported just a little to South East Asia when we pass them.

Rice fields, Central Highlands`

One way that the country feels African comes from it national parks. These preserve forest and other threatened ecosystems, and just as in Africa the contrast between the protected and not protected areas is stark. In many mainland african countries, the megafauna exists only in numbers within park borders, because the economic incentives for hunting are so strong outside the park. But, there is a lot of poaching that takes place within park borders, as we saw with the deeply troubling scarred rhino carcass in Matobos National Park, Zimbabwe. Here, in the Marojejy National Park, the highly endangered silky Sifika only lives within park borders, as human pressure has driven it near extinction outside the park.

Views into Marojey National Park from village, Northeast

Admittedly, the French colonial influence is less prevalent with regard to place. However, in urban areas the colonial past is still felt. This is especially true in the remnants of the State, government buildings tend to be carryovers from colonization, with Madagascar achieving independence in 1960. Other examples are the high ceilings, the porticos which are even included on fancier huts in many villages and the thick walls of many buildings. Interestingly, the French had a heavier hand in their colonies than other European countries. The french sought to create little pockets of france throughout the globe, while the Brits tended to interact with exiting elites, collect their tribute and let those elites continue to run the colony. For example, several past or current leaders of previous french colonies in Africa served in the parliament back in France. Different models, with various strengths and weaknesses (beside the obvious overall weakness of colonization as a model). The consequence for place has been a longer legacy in previous French colonies, which carries forward to today.

People

Lastly, it is fascinating to look at the mass of humanity we see in larger cities, and realize the broad cross section that is on display. Some faces look distinctly Asian, and would not be out of place in Beijiing. Others look decidedly African, and would not be out of place in a Harare or Nairobi market. On a related note, it has been fascinating to see the social distancing that takes place between Malagasy people and Africa, which they always refer to as a place apart from their homeland. This has been a big contrast to how I would have identified the country before arriving, from a distance of thousands of miles. Then, there is the french influence, mostly French men with Malagasy woman (sexual tourism is a real problem on the island). To a limited degree, the melting pot effect is similar to the United States, on a smaller scale. Not only are there African, Asian, Caucasion roots, but there are also many individuals of Indian and Arabic descent. Just as the U.S. is the better for the melting pot, Madagascar has an abundance of good looking people that bring together multiple cultures in their blood.

Obviously, Malagasy culture is more that the sum of the French, Asian and African influences. There is an enduring character that goes well beyond those, albeit significant, inputs. I bet it would take months upon months to get a handle on all the various culture cross currents at play here. Sadly, I only have another week, but I will keep at it and am sure that there will be some surprises along the way.

Three Bays Hike, North

 

Travel thoughts: Celebrating your birthday in motion

Yesterday was a very long day, which is an agnostic statement but carries a hint of negativity. Luckily, on the balance the length of the day was decidedly in the positive side of the ledger. You see, it was my birthday and that is one of the days that i don't mind stretching out, as it now includes time for reflection and a little self-satsifaction. Thanks to the dozens and dozens of wonderful birthday tidings on email, FB, calls, which lead to me feeling so connected to my family and friends around the world. Seriously, thank you.

My birthday started at midnight as Mu and i had already been 8 hours en route --piled into a Toyota HiLux truck from about 1988. Us and about 20 other people crammed into the truck. The Toyota HiLux is one version of the taxi brousse, by far the primary mode of transport in a country without much in the way of air or train options. The taxi-brousse stitch Madagascar together and are private enterprises. Most of the time, the longer routes are done primarily at night when it is cooler, and this ride was no exception.

The rig - HiLux's are built to last

We had been slated to leave at 4 pm, which we automatically inflated to 6 pm since that is the norm here. However, and very surprisingly, at about 2 on the 19th, we got a call on our cell and were told to rush to the Gare. A taxi brousse leaving early? Impossible and improbable, but we high tailed it to the station, just in time to sit around for two hours while the rig got strapped down with all the baggage, left to get fuel, inflated the tires, checked all the jury rigged straps, etc. It was an ominous sign when the truck had to be pushed started to get going before we had even left the Gare, but in these situations you can't think too much about the long term implications of having a faulty starter on a deserted bush highway. Otherwise, you get your imagination wandering towards dark places and that is not a good trend in this situation.

Despite the delays, we pulled on to the road at 4:15 pm, a preemptive departure that was much welcomed as the drive from Sambava (which mu wrote about) to Diego-Suarez comes in around 20 hours, the bulk of which covers a very nasty dirt raod that is prone for ensnaring taxi brousses and trucks. Mu and i paid an extra 10,000 malagasy ariariy a piece ($ 4.48 USD at today's exchange rate) so that we can sit in the cab of the HiLux and not in the very cramped back. Think of it as 1st class, Malagasy style. It is a far cry from business class on a trans-continental flight, let me tell you, but every little bit of comfort helps and i am so grateful for this space throughout the night and into the next day. I am tall and these rides always wreak havooc with my knees, so it is pretty much essential. In this case, it has worked out well for 50% of us, as i am the co-pilot seat, however mu is right behind me and instead of the customary 3 people on the bench seat (cramped enough as it is), there are 4, of which two are quite rotund middle age guys. I look back and she is squished against the doorframe, in a position i would be complaining about but she bears with grace and aplomb. Of course.

Once we are flying along the roads out of Sambava, we steel ourselves for the ride and are both in really good sprits. I, for one, really like this mode of transit as it is so gritty and local. I am fully aware that these tickets cost the roughly twenty two days of income for the average malagasy, and that despite the cramp confines this ride in and of itself represents a luxury good. We crusie along through rice paddies and the lush green of northeastern Madagascar, it is verdant. As the sun sets, we see what appears to be a fissure in the earth's atmosphere, as an intense and focused ray of light breaks the low clouds, creating a rainbow unlike any i, or anyone in the rig, has ever seen. I feel at such peace, with a quiet confidence that this ride is going to be enjoyable and successful, and the knowledge that when the sun rises again it will be my birthday.

Sunset, take 1

Sunset, take 2

As darkness descends, we pull into a little town for dinner, which is just rice and some scrawny chicken scraps. Our driver is all business, getting the truck going quickly, which is better than a fancy meal in this circumstances. You can waste so much time in the transitions along the road, and we are not having it tonight. He is switching between kwat, the leafs with a mild amphetamine quality that are popular here, and cigarettes, clearly focused on the buisness at hand. We have 162 kms of rough road, which does not seem like a ton of distance but when we are slowing to a crawl to get through huge, car size craters and ominous, deep puddles, you just can't open it up. With a continuous mix of soft and hard terrain - all in dark, this is one of the more impressive driving performances i have witnessed, with my ringside seat in shotgun.

The night passes intermittently, and not unpleasantly. One time, i wake up from a nap and sense we are listing ominously at 30 degrees to port, with the driver side of the truck deep in a 100 meter puddle/rut. Uh oh. But, the driver calmly locks the differentials and then guns the engine and we inch through the muck. A few times, he employs the trie and true rocking technique to get traction and we get through this hurdle. Soon after, we come across a massive 4x4 bus-thing that is proper stuck up its rear wheel well. This looks real bad, as the 70 or so passengers are all milling around and the bus doesn't look to be going anywhere soon. Thankfully, after scouting out the puddle, we cruise through with twin rooster tails at 1:30 am and i exhaled.

The long night of driving, which extends deep into the next day, is a very good situation for thinking as i turn 33, as i can only think, listen to music on the itouch and fitfully doze, after all. With my limited ability to sleep on the truck, this leads to a birthday that i had to be awake and alert for the highest portion of the actual day, probably 22 out of 24 hours in total from midnight to midnight. Since i vastly prefer being awake to sleep, and have pretty much since i was born to the chagrin of my mom and dad, this works out well. I spend a healthy portion of the night reflecting on the past year and what a whirlwind it has been.

Big year, hard to believe so much has happened and changed in 12 months.

- 5 months of 'the dream' in 20 countries, an abundance of great and vivid memories. These last 140 or so days have been so alive and memorable, i can (and did on the taxi brousse) walk through each and every day and place in my mind with stunning recall and clarity. Hard to recall another stretch of my life with so many strong memories, probably because it doesn't exist.

- John Muir Trail: 165 hard miles covered in 10+ days, all over 8,000 feet of elevation, most above 10k. The hardest sustained physical challenge of my life, in a great way.

- Leaving SF, with so many friends in the Bay, it was very hard to leave. The quality of life is so high and a great mesh to our preferences, i have long referred to the city as my American nirvana and nothing in the last 6 months has dissuaded that opinion.

- Leaving a job i greatly enjoyed, and was really good at. Loved the diversity of subjects, the people and the freedom I had to steer the sustainability program @ Avaya. Am really proud of the progress we made with the program over my time there, think the results speak for themselves. Loved working from home as well.

- Privileged to attend a bunch of weddings, these wedding weekends are so special and it was very special to see so many friends tying the knot throughout the country.

- Lastly, Mu's life threatening ski accident, which was so scary and sobering. Seeing the love of your life lying in a freezing creek bed with uncertain injuries and a painful path to getting better was an experience i will never forget and one that we are both so thankful she was able to get through in such fine fashion. Reinforced what is important about this life. And also that my wife is a true badass.

These are the threads of my thoughts throughout the night, with the overall trend being so grateful for this last year and excited about the one to come.

Back on the physical world, once the rig got on pavement, i stupidly began planning the rest of our day for when we would, surely, imminently arrive in Diego. This was a rookie mistake, as the road was only about 75% pavement, with huge potholes abounding. Slow going and we averaged about 30 kms an hour over the 120 kilometers up to the city. We were happy to see the very pretty landscape, but hunger started creeping in and we were very ready to be done with the trip.

Eventually, we arrive in Diego-Saurez at the northern tip of Madagascar @ 11:00 am. Whew, tired but very happy to be here, which is as lovely as i had hoped.

View from our hotel in Diego

Dilapidated colonial charm, Diego

Post script: Pats' season ends

One thing i really anticipated for my birthday was watching/listening/following the Pats, my favorite sports team, in the AFC championship game. We even moved from one hotel to another, better hotel so that i could have reliable wifi for the 2:30 am kickoff. For a moment, i thought i was going to be able to actually watch the game at a local casino, but the channel it was playing on is not received in the entire country, so no dice.

I did manage to grab the live radio feed via the NFL's handy ipad app, and was really happy to listen to the game. Until the 2nd half. While the result was very bad, it was still a memorable experience to listen to the game on the patio of our hotel with the bay opening up below. I watched sunrise and daybreak as the pats season ended with a whimper. Disappointing, but any season your team plays for a spot in the Super Bowl is not one to bemoan.

 

'More Rain' with the Silky Sifaka: Marojejy National Park

Sambava, in the vanilla region of Madagascar, is a gate-way city to a national park that is filled with steep mountains, orchids, rain forest, 2 inch roly-poly bugs, and a lot of rain. In fact the national park's name, Marojejy, means a lot of rain in the local dialect. The local dialect and people are call Tsimihety, which literally means "do not cut". The Tsimihety are differentiated from the Betsimisarka people, in Sambava, a city less than 50 miles away, because they don't cut their babies' hair when they are first born. I wish that the name "do not cut" meant "do not cut" down the forest because the forest in here in the North East of Madagascar, like all of Madagascar, is mostly gone.

Heading up to the park from Sambava

Marojejy river and peaks

Marojejy is home to one of the most endangered primates in the world: the silky sifaka (check out the link for a few pics of this adorable animal). There are roughly 600 species of primates in the world and the silky sifaka is one of the twenty-five most endangered due to habitat destruction and poaching. Current estimates place the entire population below a thousand members, all of which live within this national park and a nearby protected area. The silky sifaka are incredibly beautiful -- as their name implies -- they have longer, silkier hair than other species of sifaka, like the one that we saw in Kirindy forest, the Verraux Sifaka. They also seem much bigger than the Verraux, even though they only weigh around 17 pounds. Maybe it's that silky fur!

Marojejy living up to its name -in the rain

We are fortunate to have seen how incredibly beautiful the silky sifaka are in person. Unfortunately, because Marojejy lived up to its name of More Rain, we didn't take any of our own pictures of the silky sifaka. We simply have mental ones of this majestic creature using its powerful legs to move from tree to tree in the canopy 75 feet above us. Wilson coined a new term that we got "Sifaka Bombed" when the tree above us would shed even more water on top of us after the sifaka landed on it, loosing a torrent of water right on our heads. Luckily, the sifaka did get closer than 75 feet. In fact, one young sifaka came within 10 feet of us, peering at us curiously before jumping off impressively, and above us.

No pics of the silky sifika, but did catch a chameleon

I think that another unexpected person accompanying us was also impressed by the sifaka. The unexpected person was our driver for the day, Rajao, a 40 something stoic Malagasy man. Because we were low on time and a little travel fatigued, we had splurged and spent an extra $25 today so that we could get a taxi to Marojejy National Park instead of riding in a taxi-brousse, a journey of 65 kms. This ended up being a very good decision because otherwise we would not have been able to hike high enough in the rainforest to see the silky sifaka. It was also a good decision because it was neat for us to share the experience with Rajao, someone who lived there, but had never seen untouched forest before, nor the sifaka.

 

Coming home again: A marathon of a different kind

When I left Marofandilia, Madagascar in April 2005, some of my closest friends still lived in mud huts 10ft by 25 ft with woven grass for ceilings that were too low for me to stand erect. Over a little less than 8 years, they now live in 2 room, large wooden or mud houses with metal roof ceilings. The village is still off the electricity grid but some of my friends now own things like motorcycles and cell phones that seemed inconceivable when I arrived 10 years ago. I was astounded to see twenty plus cell phones charging at my friend's house on electricity brought through another Peace Corps Volunteer's successful application to the U.S. embassy for a solar panel. The ubiquity of cell phones was actually a bigger surprise than the solar panel.

Kids playing in front of traditional hut

The solar panel is a very useful tool in Marofandilia, and its region -- the Menabe, because the sun is so strong, especially now during Malagasy summer. Upon stepping outside, the sun can feel as if it is torching your skin, somehow immersing your body in heat and burning. Combined with the humidity, sweating is a condition of life in the Menabe. Menabe appropriately means "very red" in Malagasy.

4 days ago, Wilson and I rented some bikes in Menabe's tourist capital, Morondava, to make the hot journey to Marofandia. The journey to Marofandilia passes through one of the most iconic images of Madagascar -- the Baobab Alley.

Baobab Alley was mile 25 of the Giant Jumping Rat Marathon -- a marathon that I, a fellow Peace Corps volunteer, April Matthews, and many Malagasy folks from the Menabe community organized in 2004 (the marathon continued for 4 more years). I dreamt up the marathon because even though April and I had no illusions that a marathon in one of the poorest countries in the world constitutes sustainable development, we saw the Marathon as an opportunity to advertise and kick-off a gift shop in Marofandilia, to raise environmental awareness (the giant jumping rat is only found in this area and is endangered), and to engage the larger Menabe community in a variety of ways such as building latrines at the primary school where the Rat Marathon finished.

Carvings currently on offer at the gift shop

 

On our bikes, Wilson and I passed the latrines and Baobab Alley around mile 13 or 14 of our own different kind of marathon. Over the next 4 days, we would sleep 3 nights in 3 different places, go 105 miles by bike and 30 miles by truck, encounter one Madagascar Boa Constrictor at 3 am, experience one 4 am Patriots playoff victory, and see many friends not seen or heard from for 8 years.

Our first day ended after 40 miles on the bike -- where the Rat Marathon had begun -- Kirindy Forest. Kirindy Forest is 40 miles North East from Morondava and 10 miles North East of Marofandilia. We planned to spend the night at Kirindy Forest because no one in Marofandilia knew that we were coming and Kirindy Forest is home to the giant jumping rat, eight species of lemurs (including 2 mouse lemurs -- the world's smallest primates), and the endangered narrow-striped mongoose.

From the Baobab Alley, we passed through sweeping vistas of rice fields and Baobabs and clusters of mud huts until we reached Andranomena Special Reserve. Marofandilia is surrounded by 2 protected forests -- Kirindy to the north and Andranomena Special Reserve to the south. The last 8 miles of the road before reaching Marofandilia pass through Andranomena. This road of forest felt very quiet as we pedaled on -- trying to push through the deep spots of soft sand but sometimes being stopped nonetheless.

At mile 29.5 of our bike journey, we were so happy to see, a half-mile before Marofandilia, the pond "Rano Vory" where I collected water before clean water from a Japanese built water pumps came in 2004. This pump remains in business today, providing water to the community on a nearly continuous basis.

Wilson doing # 131 at Rano Vory

And then we arrived in Marofandilia! I saw the faces of Fanja, Tsilafy, Tinova, Jean, Limode, Marineze, Vavy, etc., faces that had been so familiar to me for two years. I embraced them and asked about their news "vao vao" in Malagasy.

"Akori'anareo. Ino vao vao?"

"Tsy misy vao vao. Ino vao vao aminareo andefi'any?"

"Tsy misy"

When I saw my best friend in the village Mihary, tears bubbled out. Mihary looked pretty much the same even though so much of his life had changed a great deal -- he'd become the local shop owner, gotten divorced and remarried, and now has 2 kids. Our first stop felt so short, but Wilson and I had to continue because the sun was setting and we still had 10 miles to go. I had been overly optimistic and had incorrectly remembered that Kirindy forest was only 5 miles (instead of 10) after Marofandilia.

After 2 miles, Wilson and I were pedaling in the dark. Whoops! We were dehydrated, it was proper dark, we were still sweating rivers, and we had eight miles of sand to go, at least. We biked with our headlamps on, most of the time focusing on the sandy road ahead. When we turned our attention off the road and into the forest, the eyes of mouse-lemurs reflected back at us. Finally, we reached the turn off of Kirindy Forest but we had a little more than 4 miles to go on the single-track sandy road with foot deep puddles interspersed. It took us 45 minutes to negotiate the road and right before we arrived, I panicked that perhaps we had turned down the wrong road and there wouldn't be any bungalows (or more importantly food and water) waiting for us. But then Wilson heard the noise of the generator and after 80 minutes of cycling in the dark, we had arrived again!

In Kirindy, we were too exhausted to take a night hike so we missed our opportunity to see the giant jumping rat but we did do a morning hike and watched brown lemur, white sifaka, and narrow-striped mongoose. The diurnal lemurs of Madagascar are very special because not only are they not found anywhere else in the world but also because they use medicinal plants. In a troop of lemurs, usually one lemur acts as a sort of doctor and will bring plants with medicinal qualities to injured lemurs or lemurs giving birth.

By 9:30 am, after our morning hike, Wilson and I were back on the road again re-tracing the first day's 40 miles of biking. We needed to return Morondava that day because the Patriots (Wilson's favorite American sports team) were playing a very important playoff game, kicking off at 12:30 am local time that night. We passed through Marofandilia again and got to see more friends, were fed some delicious rice, beans, and freshly killed fried chicken for Wilson. Locavore in action. We promised to return the next day and we continued through the forest of Andranomena.

Amid other problems with his bike, Wilson got a flat tire right before we reached the village after the Andranomena reserve. It seems that the bikes we were able to rent, while very good for the area, had not been designed for anyone 6'3''. We walked a half-mile through different parts of the village asking for a bike pump. No bike pump to be found.

We then gorged on water from the ground spring in the village and actually pretty quickly found a ride in the back of the truck to the town past the Baobab Alley. Got the flat tire fixed and we were on the final 10 miles back to Morondava when the bike tire went flat again! A half hour later, we were riding in the dark once again to reach our friend Laetitia's house -- ugh.

After reaching Laetitia's house, we made the grand search for American Football on TV -- no luck but we did talk to someone who recognized me from eight years prior who let us the wifi at a local hotel. At 1:30 am in the middle of a windy night, we got Wilson set up at the completely dark hotel so he could follow the gamecast of the Patriot's game. Getting up in the middle of the night after our physical and mental toll was a very big challenge, but he was so happy we made it work.

I returned to Laetitia's house to get some sleep. But I didn't sleep for long -- at 3 am, the guard at the house called in because a 4 foot long, 8 inch in diameter Madagascar Boa was slithering around him outside. News to me -- Laetitia has a pet boa. Her pet boa had gone into his house adjoining Laetitia's house and he was scared! A few adventures later and by 3:30 am, Laetitia had locked the snake in the kitchen. However, the next morning as me & Wilson organized our journey to return again to Marofandilia -- she asked, "Is the snake with you? Because it's not in the kitchen." Although Laetitia's house is absolutely lovely, we were glad to continue to Marofandilia and escape the missing snake.

Back we went, there we stayed the night, and it was wonderful (laughing and telling stories in Malagasy). There were sad moments too like when I learned that one friendly acquaintance from the village had passed away. I was also sad to see how much more forest around the village had been cleared and to see many trees illegally felled in Andranomena Special Reserve when Wilson and I ran my old running route through the forest. Wilson was so patient throughout -- listening to the incessant conversation in Malagasy (when I often forgot to translate), suffering on a faulty bike through the sand and heat, and finding joy in my former life there.

We left Marofandilia and I felt sad to leave but I am so much happier leaving this time around because people seemed to be doing so well and I now have cell phone numbers to stay in touch. It wasn't so fun to be back on the bikes with our sore bottoms and heat exhausted skin but we made it back to Morondava for a dip in the ocean, beating the sunset, and darkness, with hours to spare. A text back to Mihary completed the journey, and reinforced the shortening of the distance between wherever I am and my Malagasy home.

Village Office

 

Arriving on a Jet Plane: Madagascar

Madagascar. One destination that has been first among equals in anticipation, for both its 'out thereness' as well as it personal connection - Madagascar. Even the name is exotic and unique. We have been to many, many amazing and beautiful places along this journey, more than i had predicted actually. Now we are arriving at this eagerly awaited island/continent and i do not know what to expect.

On taxi-brousse out of Tana

A little background might help; Mu spent over 2 years doing the peace corps in a village, Marofandalia, near the central west coast of the large island. There she worked with local villagers to increase the sustainability of their agriculture practices, as well as established a tourist gift shop that has been extremely successful in bringing cash into the community, still running over 7 years later. We will be visiting the village in a few days, which brings excitement, and apprehension, for both my lovely wife and me.

Muriel has just returned from these two years when we met, so there is a strong sense of continuity from that time to our relationship, and marriage. Many of our first times hanging out, the conversation would drift to her time there, what an adventure it was and how different Durham, NC and the States in general was from her time in the village. A dominant thread throughout these talks was the burning desire she has to help those less fortunate than herself, and she had most certainly operationalized that in her time in the Peace Corps. It is abundantly clear that this time in Madagascar had a profound affect on Mu, helping her crystalize her world view. When someplace is that important to your life partner, and someone you greatly love and admire, that palce necessarily becomes deeply personal and important to you. Call it the Transitory Love Property. And now, we will be back in this place, and i could not be more excited.

A little background on Madagascar might be helpful, as it is far removed from the American conscience. I imagine most people only know of it through the Disney movies, or perhaps the Discovery Channel. The island is sometimes called the 8th continent due to its size and geographic isolation. It is over 1,000 kms long and 500 kms wide, and the poor state of its roads make it feel much larger. I have taken to using travel times, and not distance, as the primary metric for measuring the size of places. We took roughly 12 hours to drive 1,200 kilometers from the southern coast up to Jo-burg in South Africa, yet it took 20.5 hours to travel 640 kms in the taxi-brousse (think a combi van) from Antananarivo, the sprawling capital, to Mu's banking town, Morandava. Which journey felt grander, hotter and harder? Those taxi-brousse kilometers sure felt longer, even if it is half as far. In a a way the actual physical distance is irrelevant, all that matters is how long, and how comfortable, the journey, as that is what is of material impact on my being.

Morondava Beac

Back to Madagascar, the island is a bit of a lost soul tectonically, as the island separated from mainland Africa about 180 million years ago. After roughly another 80 million years, India broke off from the northern shelf of Madagascar and made its way north, while Madagascar remained more or less in its present location, about 400 kms of the shores of mainland Africa, primarily Mozambique. The isolation did wonders for the biological diversity, as the island is home to tons of species that are not found anywhere else on earth. For example, it is the only place in the world with lemurs, which are a cousin of monkeys (and hence people). It will be a thrill to see so many endemic species of flora and fauna over these next 3 weeks.

Anthropologically, people only arrived on the island about 2,000 years ago, as traders making their way around the Indian ocean waters came across the shores. It has been a melting pot of African, Asian and European influences for roughly 500 years, and was controlled during the colonial period by the French. These 3 major cultures mix quite fluently and deeply on the island, with parts of the Malagasy culture feeling deeply embedded and indebted to each. Beyond those three larger threads, there are 18 individual tribes on the island, which share the basic Malagasy language yet can have different diets, words, and cultures. But they all love rice, 3 meals a day of rice if they can.

Rice paddies in the central highlands

The political present is quite a bit murkier, as the country continues to feel the effects of a coup in 2009 that installed the current president to power. This came several years after Mu left the country, and it will be an ongoing inquiry for her to try and discern the real impact of this coup on the lives of people here. At the macro level, the coup created political uncertainty, as well as increased risk premium associated with any foreign investment. As a result, the economic of the country is stagnant, even in the face of increased extractive activity. GDP/per capita is basically at the same level here in 2012 as it was in 2002, a lost decade of sorts.

We will be in Madagascar for 3 and a half weeks, traveling to points in the West, North and South of the country. It will be an emotional time, of that i have no doubt. Also, I will have to come up with a new answer to the query, 'where do you want to travel to the most in the world' and i could not be happier.

Sunset over the Mozambique Channel

 

South Africa: Country of Contradictions

We are away, 30,000 feet above the South Africa countryside as we head on to the next phase of our adventure, Madagascar (much more on that to come, I promise). The last ten or so days have been a whirlwind, very full and enjoyable. Mu did a nice job summing up 24 hours in Cape Town, and it just kept going from there. With daylight running from before 6 am to around 8 pm, there is so much time to enjoy the outdoors and great weather, both of which South Africa does in great style during their summer.

Sunset on the Garden Route, Wilderness - WC

In many ways, the parts of South Africa we got to see reminded me of the West, and specifically California. The coast on the Garden Route is rugged with big long beaches that have relentless swells coming in off the Indian Ocean. Elsewhere, we got in some climbing, on both sandstone and limestone, all of which was quite good. It felt great to be doing a sport we love dearly and the settings within river canyons at all three crags certainly justified lugging our gear down in the Rig from Nairobi.

View from the crag, Kliemond, WC

We also realized first-hand how large the country is, with some long drive days at pretty high rates of speed, especially when compared to many of the countries we went through on the overland trip. Here Mu was ripping along at 120 kph (over 70 mph) on a country road with no shoulder, and was still the slowest car on the road. Even at that quick pace (sometimes up to 80 mph) it took hours upon hours to make our way up from Cape Town to Jo-burg. The 20 hours or so of countryside that we saw sometimes recalled the grand vistas, distant mountains and vastness of Wyoming, and other times the flat agrarian nature of Nebraska. All the while, I held out hope of seeing more Kudu, the massive antelopes that can jump at least ten feet in the air. No dice on the kudu, but I did get to see some last sprinkboks and a foot long tortoise meandering its way on the side of a hectic country roads.

Heading up the N9, EC

Road tripping on the N2 - WC

Oh The Food!

Farm fresh bread, stone fruit and strawberries from the local fruit stand, corn on the cob from stalks right in front of us, cheap and delicious seafood, boutique little microbrews, fresh cheeses and all kinds of succulent cuts of meat. We did not go hungry. Not by a mile. This is a culture that intuitively adopts and embraces the locavore movement, so the local palette is right in our wheelhouse. The results are consistently yummy and with the Rand currently being weak against the dollars, it all felt like a deal. My personal favorite meal was yesterday's lunch at a local little deli/brewery in the funky artist community of Niue Bethesda. We sat by a little stream/fountain, had a glass or two of the local brew with a huge hunk of rosemary farm bread and a black pepper crusted chevre, with dates left over from a previous farm stand. Simple with every component pitch perfect.

But.

The 'apart' in apartheid is still sadly alive and well in South Africa. Apartheid only ended in 1994, and with such a broad human rights violation the tail of its impact will be long. In my view and very small sample size, there is still not much mixing of the races, nearly two decades hence. That is barely a generation, and the impacts of a systemic discrimination would seem to be embedded so deeply that it is hard for me to even predict when those endowments and privilege will be spread more diffusely across the society and races. There are many that argue, and i think compelling, the U.S. culture still carries the stigma and impact of slavery, nearly a hundred and fifty years after the Civil War ended and fifty years after passage of the broad Civil Rights Acts under LBJ. If that holds true for South Africa, we are looking at material impacts from apartheid out to at least 2144.

Disappointingly, we constantly found ourselves in settings that were just white, despite wanted to have a broader connection to people and places and the fact that whites constitute a small minority of the population (approximately 10%). All throughout our travels here in Africa, we have gotten right into areas that we are not always comfortable, be it the bustling market, or the overcrowded combi van. Here in South Africa, those opportunities never presented themselves. The few times i had a more than superficial conversation with a non-white, it felt like an oasis in the desert. I was often referred to as 'boss'; a term that offends me because of its racist history where any white was the 'boss' to a black african.

In the NYE post, mu talked a bit about celebrating on Long Street in Cape Town, and how the multi-racial crowd was one of the few times we were in such a setting in South Africa. That proved consistent throughout our time here, as we only found ourselves in that kind of place a few times in the 9 days that we were there.

At the very real risk of painting with a broad brush, I sensed many overt signs of wealth displayed by predominantly white elites, from the multi-million dollar Architectural Digest homes along the beaches in Cape Town to the countless new Mercedes, Jags and Range Rovers we saw hurdling down the highways, the inherent inequity of this society is clear to see. Of course, not all of these super-machines was piloted and owned by whites of British or Afrikaans descent, but the vast majority were from those minority segments of society. These brand new luxury cars were often barreling past black hitchhikers on the side of the road, pitifully holding up a ten rand note with the hope of a ride. We never saw anyone being picked up. I am embarrassed to report that we never picked anyone up either, being too fearful of security with all our electronics, cash and passports.

Since South Africa has a larger minority population of whites than other Southern Africa countries, their wealth creation and retention is more obvious. From a numbers perspective, there are more rich whites, and their wealth level is higher. I am honestly surprised that there has not been more actions like those in Zimbabwe, with land takeovers and other direct appropriations from the clearly impoverished sections of society. In setting after setting, blacks were doing the dirty work while whites reaped the vast majority of the financial gains. I can't recall a single instant where I saw someone who looked white getting their hands dirty, but this is an impossibly small sample size to make any grand judgment.

I am even a bit surprised that the African National Congress, the party of Mandela, has not tacked in this direction, as it would surely be a populist move with the strong supermajority of non-whites. Keeping this impulse at bay is surely a great accomplishment of Mandela and other ANC leaders, as you only need to look to Zim and its terrible problems stemming from the unraveling of the rule of law and the complete distrust of its institutions. The ANC is smartly playing the long game, one that preserves the existing capital, human and otherwise, and it must be painful for those leaders to see so many people still living in abject poverty after 18 years of freedom. Overall, across Southern Africa, I have been amazed at the ability of the tiny race-based minority to retain their privileged position in the face of the poverty so many fellow citizens struggle with daily.

In sum, our very brief and enjoyable time in South Africa was a never ending contradiction. We had a great time but were always aware that that enjoyment made us a little bit complicit in the inequality and racism that we felt omnipresent here. This was a duality that i don't want to be able to ever comfortably accept and was too close a reminder of Dr. Martin Luther King's words from Birmingham jail in 1963 as he struggled against America's gross injustice and racism: Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

 

Last sunset in South Africa @ 120 kmh - EC

 

Happy New Years: 24 Windy Hours in Cape Town

View of Table Mountain From Lion's Head

Happy New Years! We hope everyone had a great New Years. Ours was averagely hectic, extraordinarily windy, and very enjoyable in Cape Town, South Africa.

The wind plagued us in Capetown -- culminating in money literally being blown out of my hand on January 1st. I stuck 100 Rand ($11.73) out the window to pay the 33 Rand toll to drive the coastal road south of Capetown. And the wind tore the money from my thumb and 2nd and 3rd fingers. The money flittered swiftly down the steep road and within 3 seconds, it was gone, out of sight.

Our wind adventures all started 20 hours earlier when we learned that the Overland Truck group's plans of spending NYE on Cape Town's 3300 foot mountain, Table Mountain, were cancelled. The cable car running up and down the mountain was closed due to gale force winds. We had planned to hike the mountain, and then ride the cable car down after New Years.

True to form, because we were deprived of one mountain, we decide to hike a different mountain.

At 4:00 pm, we are hiking up another mountain -- Lion's Head -- with two friends from the Truck, Claire and Robyn.

4:30 pm -- Robyn is cursing Muriel because we are lost and bushwhacking through sharp and prickly brush.

6:00 pm -- we have all made it to the top. Yea!




6:10 pm -- Wilson's face is stinging from the wind as we negotiate the rocks down.

10:00 pm -- after making it back to the hostel, cooking some delicious food, and meeting up with the rest of the group, we have ventured out into the wind again. We are 14 strong (5 men, 9 women) with varying levels of fatigue and we have set off to walk a mile or so to reach a NYE party.

10:30 pm -- we pass people huddling waiting for NYE parade.

10:45 pm -- as the wind becomes stronger, we decide that it is much easier to run with the gusts rather than walk slowly. This technique leads to mixed results, including losing the group at times, being slightly afraid that you might not be able to stop, and eventually someone (Robyn) lost a shoe in the middle of a street.

11:30 pm -- After reaching the party, 7 of us decide to not go to the party and instead run back into the wind, spend NYE out and about, and find the parade.

11:35 pm -- Due to weather, parade is cancelled.

11:50 pm -- we find a party! Freya posted a video to FB. http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10200336156911838&set=vb.1391997761&type=2&theater. Not sure if the link will work.

MIDNIGHT -- We rock it until we don't know when. Everyone was dancing in the street (literally) on Long Street. The culture here is quite segregated and this was one of the first places that we have been that was truly mixed across the four main ethnicities (White, Black, Indian, and Colored -- in SA, there is a "Colored" ethnicity).

6 am -- We wake up to climb Table Mountain. And the wind was a bit much. As we hiked, I was scared, but Wilson was too far ahead of me to ask if we can turn back -- so I just grasped onto the rocks and moved forward.

Sun is coming up over the mountain.

8:30 am -- View from the top and it is COLD!

10:00 am -- back in town, and I pick up the rental car to drive on the wrong side of the road, with a stick shift, no power steering, and I really am not used to driving anymore. Happy times.

11:30 am -- View from Camp Beach of the wind pushing the waves back.

January 1st, 2pm: Money is lost but here is the view from the top of the toll road -- it all ends well. :)