I was certainly a bit surprised to have a woman guide. Like most third world countries, Madagascar seemed like a place where the woman rules the home and the man made the money. However, the difference here is that it isn’t that way because of machoism, but more out of functionality. I learn later, through discussions with Merrill, that there is little discrimination based on gender or race here. There is some towards people in South Madagascar, but that’s about it. We start our walk up the wet trail into the rainforest….
Monica’s English is pretty limited. James seems to understand her accent much better than I. As we walk along, she points out a kingfisher (bird), some chameleons, orchids, and tells us some little facts about each. We travel deeper into the forest. I see her start to scan the treetops and I do the same. Its hard to see much though, the forest is dense, visibility is limited because of the rain and mist. She seems to walk so quickly and I wonder how she can see any of them at all.
We walk……and walk…..and walk……I know its supposed to be a 4 hour tour and we are perhaps 45 minutes into it, but I start to wonder if we’ll be the unlucky tourists who won’t see the “Indri Indri” aka “the ghosts of the forest.” The Indri are the largest lemurs, and also the rarest. They are only found in the eastern part of Madagascar, the vast majority being in the forest through which we are walking. They don’t ever come down out of the trees, so they can be difficult to observe.
However, after walking for awhile we finally start to hear some voices and noises in the jungle ahead. Monica takes a sharp turn off the trail and starts walking faster than before, pushing through the brush. We push through branches and bushes, trying not to let anything swipe our faces and suddenly she stops, and points upwards. Up in the trees, we can see what looks like a skinny panda bear, sitting in the branches above us, quietly gnawing on some leaves. It doesn’t seem disturbed by the people below. Monica starts making a funny kissing/groaning sound, and tells us its their “call of love” trying to get the Indri to come down. The Indri seems unimpressed, but soon she points again and we see two more coming slowly to join the first. It’s a family. According to Monica there are 54 families of Indri in the park. They have one baby every two to three years, and are polygamous. Soon, through some guide ESP, several other guides and their tourists have joined us. Cameras snap, camcorders roll….. the Indri eat in peace and seem undisturbed by the excitement below them. We take lots of pictures and some good video, and finally move on to the next area.
We continue to walk deeper into the forest. Monica points some nocturnal lemurs well hidden in the trees – how does she see them!! Two fluffy furry balls with a pair of red eyes look out at us – if they weren’t so cute, I would think they were vampires, but one just looked at us while we took pictures and then we moved on. We hear voices and what sounds like branches hitting trees a-ways off. Monica moves off the trail and back into the jungle and we follow. We traipse down a steep hill, through the brush, stepping over branches, navigating around trees, pushing vines out of our path. The voices and banging gets louder. It sounds like a bunch of men yelling while they chop down a tree. We hear intermittent dog barking. Monica tells us to wait, and she vanishes into the jungle.
We listen to the sounds coming from below us. Five minutes pass, and another. The sounds below us don’t change. We wait……the cynical American in me wonders if we have been left in the jungle, but James and I smile at each other…. “It’s an adventure……” and wait patiently…..all of a sudden, about 30 feet to our right, we hear “Yoo-hoo!!!!” We call back, and hear a crashing back through the jungle, we sight Monica, moving towards us, and she beckons for us to follow. She carefully guides us down the rest of the hill and points upwards…. Another family of 3 Indris are above. She makes her “call of love” again, and this time it works – they start jumping from tree to tree, and fast!!! We run through the jungle as quickly as we can, jumping over logs, dodging branches, trying to keep them in our sights, 30 feet above. Other guides hear us running through the forest and soon there is a group of 10 people pushing through the bush, trying to keep the family in sight. They finally stop, and so do we. We all clamor to get a good angle to take pictures…. And watch. They jump from treetop to treetop, stopping occasionally to eat some leaves or peer around. I let another tourist have my place to take a picture.
All of a sudden, Monica appears to my right, and starts picking at James raincoat. I look over to see what she’s doing and she looks at my hand and grabs it. She lifts it up so I can see it. I see what looks like a small worm on my hand. Not understand, I look at her, and she says, “leech…” She pulls it off quickly, and I immediately look down at my clothes, I see several on my anorak and grab them off quickly. There are very few things in this world that legitimately freak me out, but anything that sucks my blood qualifies. I check James and pull a few off his clothes as well. From then on I can’t shake the feeling that I’m covered in leeches, though we don’t see anymore the rest of the trip. We finish taking pictures of the Indri and head out from the forest, as more tourists arrive to that spot to view the Indri.
We find the trail again, and continue down it. We see some Sifaka high in the trees, and another nocturnal species. It is amazing how well she can spot them, and it is amazing to see these beautiful creatures in their natural habitat. We finally emerge from the rainforest, feeling wet, a bit creeped out by leeches, but elated. Alin greets us with his usual smile and we get back into the car. He drives us to the restaurant at Feon’ly’ala, “the best place to have lunch” according to Alin. I have fish with Malagasy sauce. The fish is lightly friend with head, bones, eyes, and BIG teeth intact. The Malagasy sauce is delicious. We enjoy a THB and recollect our jungle experience. Alin brings us back towards Vakona Lodge and we decide to stop at the Lemur Island before heading back to the hotel. The Lemur Island is a refuge owned by Vakona, that has taken in injured or previously owned lemurs who can no longer survive on their own in the wild. We pay our entrance fee and get in a small pirogue and are brought 10 feet across the channel where we are greeted immediately by 3 black and white tufted lemurs. They enthusiastically jump all over us, looking for the carrots the guide brought with him. We feed and pet them and watch them as they jump from my shoulder to James’ and back. After we get our fill of them, we walk down a short path and four brown lemurs emerge, the size of small cats. We also see a Diademed Sifaka, “Caramel,” who hangs upside down from a branch for his carrots. Our guide tells us that this breed of lemur is known as the “dancing lemur.” We soon learn why…. Our guide crouches down about 15 ft away and calls to Caramel. He stands up on his hind legs and sort of jumps/shuffles over to him to grab the carrot. We look around and at any given time there are five lemurs of three different species on trees 2 feet away from us, sometimes jumping on our shoulders. As we continue down the path, one of the brown lemurs follows along behind us, just like a dog.
We finally come to the end of the trail, and our guide asks how many species of lemurs we have seen. We tell him that we think we have seen four species. He says, “have you seen the ring tail??” We say no. For 10,000AR he says he will bring us to see the ring tail lemurs “as long as you don’t tell the hotel.” We shrug and say ok. We get back on the boat and he paddles around the back of the island and down another channel to another island. We pass a slightly menacing sign that says, in French, “Be careful, we bite….” James and I exchange glances and keep our eyes peeled in the treetops. We pull up to the shore and our guide starts calling out. We see movement in the trees about 100 ft away. All of a sudden there are several lemurs jumping out of the trees onto the ground towards us… .the ring tails!!!!!! They are very small, very slightly built. They come close to our boat and our guide throws carrots. They grab them and nibble, almost like rabbits. We take pictures and watch. They are shivering!!!! I suppose it is the dead of winter. Six come out and we feed them. One jumps on the side of the boat, but we can’t pet them, these are too wild. We watch with fascination as they eat and watch us. Eventually our guide says, “OK??” and we paddle away. I look back to see them leaping back towards the forest. We dock and Alin comes out to greet us, again, grinning. We hop in the car and head back to the hotel around 3pm. We immediately fall asleep for a long nap, waking just in time for a delicious and satisfying dinner and then back to sleep to awake early for our trip tomorrow to Manambato.
No comments:
Post a Comment