Tana to Andasibe – July 2

We wake up around 9:30AM, feeling relatively refreshed and ready for our adventure to truly begin. We shower – quickly – the hot water tank is small and doesn’t last very long (though we learn soon that a hot water tank is a luxury in Madagascar!!). We re-pack our bags and go downstairs for breakfast. Breakfast is coffee (for James) and Malagasy tea (for me), bread and jam. We soon learn that this is the typical Malagasy breakfast. The coffee is excellent. The tea – well, I was a bit confused whether it was water or tea. It looked fairly clear and didn’t have much taste, but I later learned it was just too weak. The bread and jam were delicious though. Colin came down to talk to us, and we ask him about Madagascar, his business, tipping practices and other subjects. He advises us that, in general, tip small (around 2000 AR) for something small like carrying bags, and perhaps 5000-10000AR for something like driving you around all day. He said, if you tip too much, they start to expect the larger amounts, and get upset if you don’t tip enough. We see a car pull up and Ben comes inside. We sit with him and he reviews our trip with us, giving us our plane tickets, vouchers for our hotels, boat rides, and so on. We meet our driver Alin and see our transportation for the next several days, a white Audi. We bid farewell to Colin and Ben and head off to Andasibe National Park.

We drive through Tana, heading towards the countryside. Tana turns out to be a very large city. Alin tells us it has a population of around 4 million people. As we drive around, we see people walking – everywhere. The public transportation is vans (known as taxi-brousses) – not buses. This is because the roads are narrow and rocky, and a bus wouldn’t really be able to navigate very well or even fit on the street. Its interesting because the taxi-brousses go from place to place on the side of the road and people get in from the back, rather than the side. The cars driving down the road are probably from the 70s and 80s. Alin is partial to listening to 80s soft rock, Celine Dion, Richard Marx, and Lionel Richie. We decide we are going to send him some new tapes when we get home. We slowly make our way out of the city and buses and buildings give way to rolling hills and rice fields. It’s a stark difference. The air quality is obviously drastically improved. There are still people walking around everywhere, but the biggest thing we notice is all of a sudden its ALL children. Where are the adults? Children carrying baskets in their arms or on their head. 8 year olds carrying 2 year olds on their back or infants in their arms. Children selling things in stalls. We drive through the crowds and see curious but kind faces. You can see both the African and Asian influences in their faces. Madagascar was first settled by the Polynesians, and you can see many people who look completely Asian, or others with dark skin but almond shaped eyes and high cheekbones. We continue through the countryside – its funny, the roads outside of the city are paved - perfectly, and are easily traveled.

We eventually arrive at Peyrieras Nature farm – La Mandraka. We had thought it was a butterfly farm, but we learn we have made the wrong assumption. This stop was a perfect introduction to our trip to Madagascar. We order our lunch before we start our tour (advice from Ben, and we learn that this is what you have to do in Madagascar, order your meals at least 2-3 hours in advance). We didn’t know what to expect, but Michael, our guide, starts to lead us up a path. We pass by many huge netted enclosures that we imagine contain butterflies and other wildlife. However, we bypass all the enclosures and head up a slightly steep incline along the trail into the forest. We quickly realize we aren’t here to see butterflies. We reach a trail that wraps around a small hill. Michael is carrying a bunch of small bananas – they are about 1/3 of the size of the bananas we are used to, with at least double the number of fruit on the stem. He starts to call out for the lemurs. We peer into the forest, looking for them. We see…. Nothing. He calls and calls, perhaps for about 10 minutes. We start to wonder if they will come. The forest is silent, no noises of anything crashing through the trees. He tells us to stay where we are and goes off to another part, calling loudly. Lo and behold, there they are – a pair of orange eyes surrounded by black fur and a long snout – a lemur. He’s sitting on a branch, about 20 feet away, staring at us. Michael comes back and holds out a banana. That’s all the temptation the lemur needs, and he comes jumping from branch to branch, until he’s right next to us. It’s a brown lemur, Michael tells us. We hear a grunting noise – almost like a pig (or, if you know me, the weird noise I make to scratch my throat.) The lemur takes the banana from Michael’s hands and eats it noisily. Michael entices the lemur onto his shoulder and then onto mine. I’m mesmerized. The brown lemur is about the size of a small dog. He’s sitting on my shoulder, eating from my hand. I’m in heaven. James says, “Look!” and we see that two other lemurs have come through the forest for bananas. They are soon joined by a third. We have four lemurs now, clinging to the branches around us, eating bananas and jumping on our shoulders. We feed each of them and take some pictures and videos of them jumping around us. I think this was my favorite experience in Madagascar. These animals were wild, they lived in the forest, but they were friendly enough to let you get very close and feed and pet them. Eventually Michael says to move on, so we say goodbye to the brown lemurs and move to a different part of the forest.



Another person is there waiting, and he has already coaxed the next species out of the forest – the Coquerel Sifaka. There are four in the branches around us. These aren’t quite as willing to jump on our shoulders, but will eat from our hands. They look very different from the brown lemurs. They are very beautiful. We enjoyed watching them eat and climb from branch to branch. Eventually we have gotten our fill of watching and taking pictures, and descend back to the main part of the reserve. We then enter the net enclosures which are full of trees, plants, and wildlife, as well as smaller enclosures. Michael opens up cage after cage and brings our all different species of chameleons, geckos, frogs, insects, giant doodlebugs/roly polys for us to observe and handle. He puts up a grasshopper so we can watch the chameleon grab it with his long sticky tongue. They also have a crocodile pit, with 4-5 medium sized crocodiles. We see butterflies, bats, and a small rodent-like creature that looks a bit like a opossum or a hedgehog without spines. We finally finish seeing all their creatures and go up to their lodge for our late lunch. Its delicious – curry chicken, green beans and THB – or Three Horses Beer Pilsener – the only beer in Madagascar. All is delicious. We tell our waiter “Ma-chi-roh” or “delicious” in Malagasy. He seems tickled by this and he runs back to tell his family. We hear them saying something like “they said machiroh!!” in French and laughing. We aren’t sure if they are laughing at our pronunciation or pleased, but we’re proud of our mastery of the Malagasy language . We take a few pictures outside of the lodge, it’s a beautiful view, buy a neat chameleon wall hanging and get back into the car with Alin and head to Andasibe and Vakona Lodge.



The drive to Vakona is uneventful until the end. I doze in the car until we turn off the main road for the last 7 km to Vakona. The road is again unpaved. We bump along, weaving back and forth to avoid the potholes. I wonder if Vakona is accessible after a heavy rain. We finally pull up to the lodge. We go inside and check in. The lodge is octagonal shaped with very high ceilings, windows all around, and opera music playing, giving it a very elegant feeling. We are led to our bungalow. It has a porch, a nice double bed, a room with an seating area that could be another bed, and a large bathroom. We shower and head down to dinner. Vakona is certainly a beautiful lodge in the middle of the forest. In retrospect it was definitely the nicest place we stayed. There is an actual menu (as opposed to “choose one, chicken or fish…”) with French food and wine with a slight Malagasy flare (for example, Zebu Carpaccio. Zebu is the cattle of Madagascar). We have the carpaccio and a bottle of white Malagasy wine, which turns out to be pretty good. We have foie gras, which is even better than the foie gras we had in Paris – its spicy. The food is delicious and we eventually return to our bungalow, complete with electricity and hot water, and settle in for the night. After all, we have to get up early for our excursion into the jungle.