A Husky in Madagascar

After our successful trip into Andringitra, we decided to spend another night in Ambalavao so that we could enjoy some of the more tourist-y aspects of the town the next morning before heading back to Fianarantsoa. To our relief, Marcel had arranged with Les Bougainviilies to extend the discount for yet another night, so we indulged once more. The following day, we took a Tuk-Tuk a couple of kilometers to some random outpost on the side of the road, as advised by our guidebook. After getting the driver to agree to meet us back there in 2 hours, we tentatively made our way downt he path until we found what we were looking for: Soavita Winery. Even my friend Jannet, a native Californotian, agreed that the rolling hills blanketed in long grass reminded her of the orchards and vineyards back in California. After being pointed in the right direction by a kind older woman balancing a heavy-looking basket on her head, we passed through some old gates into what was clearly a vineyard. We continued cautiously past the barking dogs and deeper into the seemingly-abandoned land, wondering if we were at the right place. We were about to turn back and try the next orchard, when a young man motioned for us, without speaking, to follow him. We obeyed and he led us to a small group of women. After they chatted to each other in some rapid-fire Malagasy, an older woman with a radiant smile welcomed us to the winery, adjusting her blazer and smoothing out the wrinkles in her navy blue skirt. She gave us a short tour of the winery and from what I understood (she only spoke French and Malagasy), it was one of the oldest wineries in the country and made wine throughout the year from locally grown grapes, which was sold only within Madagascar. At the end, we enjoyed some delicious wine tasting (I didn’t even know peach wine was real, but I feel in love as soon as that bad boy touched my lips and tickled my tastebuds), bought a total of 15 bottles (I always hear wine makes a good gift), and dragged our prize back to the side of the road, where we met our faithful Tuk-Tuk driver and were brought back to Ambalavao. Look at THAT run-on sentence; I apologize for anyone who, unlike me, doesn’t speak like a savage and uses proper English grammar rules. I’m not used to communicating with anything that doesn’t have a tail these days, so my ability to speak has really gone off the deep end.

  Back in Ambalavao, we toured the Antaimoro Paper facilities near Les Bougainvillies. Madagascar is, apparently, famous for this special kind of paper, which is made from some kind of plant (once again the tour was in French, so I only absorbed bits and pieces), boiled to a pulp, mashed, dried, and this and that. The most interesting thing about the paper however is the different kinds of designs the artists will embed in the pulp before it dries. Flower petals and leaves are most commonly used to decorate the light paper and are arranged to make all sorts of patterns. It was interesting to see this simple yet artistic piece of Malagasy culture, and naturally I bought a couple hundred pounds of the stuff in the souvenir shop, also to shower as gifts to my suitors back at home.

  After all that, we made our way by taxi-brousse back to Fianarantsoa. There, we met up with most of the other volunteers and went out to a nice Malagasy restaurant for a delicious meal and several plates of french fries (sadly, they were out of milkshakes). Afterwards, filled and satisfied, we galumhped to a Karaoke Bar for a night of cuh-razy fun since 2 of the volunteers were leaving the next day. None of the songs were in English, but the rest of the volunteers still managed to coerce me to get on stage and dance wildly to some of the songs. It was properly humiliating, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it.

After our rigorous hike through the canyons and gorges of Isalo, the four of us returned to Ranohira to enjoy a relaxing night out and treat ourselves to ice cream and a fancy dinner. The ice cream exceeded expectations (like making love to an ice nymph in the middle of the desert, essentially), and the dinner was satisfactory. The food took forever and in the middle of our wait, a brouhaha erupted from the balcony above us as people sang what sounded like some sort of opera-sermon. The cacophany quickly turned from regal to loud and irritating, so we quickly shoveled down our food and sauntered back to Chez Alice to rest up for the next day’s Taxi Brousse ride. On the way, we ran into Dauphin and our Porter who were adamant about taking us to a party (Dauphin insisted he knew everyone in Ranohira), so we followed him back into town and enjoyed a few drinks, played some cards, and danced for a while. After I vigorously danced to a Shakira song, I headed back, exhausted, to Chez Alice and climbed into my bed (Kelsie and I had decided to indulge in a hotel room and beds for the night while Cara and Jannet subjected themselves to another cold night in the tent).

The next day we took a brousse (which, aside from 2 flat tires, was rather uneventful) to the quaint town, Ambalavao, which is the gateway town to the well-known Andrigitra National Park. Despite the flat tires, fate must have been on our side that day (or one could say we had the chance to change our fate) because we just so happened to arrive on Wednesday, Ambalavao’s Market Day, and the town was a hustle-and-bustle of excited shoppers and the occasional hungry vazaha. We were no exception to that. So desperate were we that Cara bought a nugget of brown sugar, thinking it was a chunk of fudge. We were pointed and laughed at by passers-by, of course.

After gorging ourselves on about 20 fried mashed-potato balls, spring rolls, and fried bananas, we shopped for lambas, a traditional cloth worn by women (and sometimes men) here as a skirt. On that day, I was less interested in the lambas (which often times boast cool designs and sometimes odd Malagasy proverbs) and more interested in finding different snacks, which is how I ended up with 3 unripe tamarinds sold to me by an overly enthusiastic (and probably slightly drunk) saleswoman.

Back in Ranohira, one of the taxi-brousse coordinators gave us the phone number of Marcel, a friend of his who was also a guide for Andrigintra. We were grateful and planned to call him when we arrived in Ambalavao, but Marcel beat us to it. With a beaming smile, he greeted us as we disembarked the brousse, helped us with our bags, took us to Les Bougainvillies--a really swanky hotel which we could in no way even hope to afford had Marcel not pulled some strings with reception and got us 2 rooms for half price--and planned our adventure into Andringitra. Still tired from Isalo, we decided to only camp out for one night and take a relatively easy path to climb Chameleon Mountain (so named because of its resemblance to the googly-eyed reptile). We would leave at 7 am the next morning, right after breakfast, and we would have 3 meals, and a ride into the park for a very fair price. We were surprised at Marcel’s compliance and easy-going attitude, and went to bed content.

After our first night of camping at Chez Alice, we headed off towards the picturesque canyons and mountains that seduced us int he distance. Being cheap, we decided to walk to the entrance of the park rather than take the lift from the car, much to the dismay of our porter. Our guide, Dauphin, eagerly led the way across the plains and told us a little bit about Ranohira and the trees and birds we saw along the way. It was hot, but unlike Kianjavato, the air was dry and every once in a while a crisp breeze sliced through the air, making the walk quite enjoyable. We then spent 2 nights and 3 days in the park, descending into gorges, hollering into canyons, wading in frigid natural pools, and getting weird looks from the posh European tourists (It’s been so long since any of us have seen so many vazaha in one place!). Although Isalo is more praised for its geological and botanic beauty rather than its fauna, we were lucky enough to see some interesting wildlife including (but not limited to):

Several kestrels who, despite their small size, are agile predators who use their angular wings to glide swiftly across prairies

A murder of pied crows riding the breezes and performing acrobatics while their metallic caw-caws echoed throughout the cliffs.

A modestly colored crested coua whose drab, yet elegantly long, tail teetered as it hopped around a tree searching for its next meal.

A behemoth stick insect which blended in so well with the surrounding trees, she could easily evade the hungry beak of any crested coua.

A grumpy scorpion attempting to ignore us as we overturned its rock

A quick glimpse at a hoopoe, whose orange and black feathers broke up the monochromatic morning sky

A ring-tailed lemur, who, unfortunately did not like to move-it move-it, but rather languidly feasted on some fruit as we gawked.

As for everything else, I’ll save you the trouble of attempting to describe something so breathtakingly beautiful and just upload pictures of the highlights. A picture is worth a thousand words, but not even the best photoshoot could do Isalo’s gorgeous moonscape justice.

I'm a lazy beast, okay, I know. I apologize for the lack of blogs, pictures, lemur anecdotes, etc. I've found myself quite busy picking spider webs out of my hair (which, much to everyone's dismay, is no longer a rockin' mohawk), and eating everyone's leftovers, so I haven't had as much time to write my blog posts. Don't be upset, this is mutually beneficial. I'd rather take the time to tailor a beautiful, poetic, artistic blog post (as is so evident from my previous posts, right?) than slap up some ghastly, half-hearted attempt at an update. The things I do for my fans/suitors/myselfcausenobodyreadsthisblogyolo.

Do not try to fit 4 people into a 2 person tent. Being clever travelers, we wanted to pack as light as possible to minimize all of the junk we’d have to haul through brousse rides and through our treks in the parks. I had the ingenious idea of bringing only my tent, since it was the biggest out of all of ours. Convinced my idea was sublime, I shoved my fellow travelers into my tent. It was snug, but we were certain we could all fit comfortably in the tent for a few nights. Woohoo, we only needed to bring one tent and two sleeping bags to minimize space! We could use one sleeping bag as a mattress and the other as a blanket, it was foolproof. How come other travelers wasted their space on extra tents and sleeping bags?! We now had plenty of extra room for more food, which, in reality, is the only thing worth bringing at all.

That first night at Chez Alice, we galumphed back to our tent, hypnotized from the delicious three-course meal we had at the hotel’s restaurant. Our friendly server, Giovanni, said he had a good friend who worked as a guide and would call him to meet us the next morning so we could avoid more confusion at the parks office. Feeling triumphant that we now had a guide and proud for finding a hotel that allowed for cheap camping, we prepared for bed. It was clear that we had a slight problem when we realized that when we tested out my tent back at KAFS we didn’t account for all of our backpacks, which were quite plump. No matter, we were on vacation, everything would work out. We stuffed our bags in the corners of the tent and some outside underneath the rainfly, and positioned ourselves, shoulder to shoulder, 4 in a row, along the longer sides of the tent. The ground was hard. We were squished. And cold (the sleeping bag method proved to be absolutely futile). But, damn it, we were on vacation and refused to admit that we might not have made the best decision by only bringing one tent. Drifting off into a sleep filled with denial and aching hips I--oh wait, I don’t think I ever drifted off into any sleep.

Ah, it’s been a long time since I was a proper tourist. Having been granted a week off from work, myself and 3 other volunteers decided it was time to really indulge and take a trip to one of Madagascar’s well-known and well-frequented national parks: Isalo. We excitedly stuffed our backpacks (mine contained only 2 outfits. I’m a savage, I know), I packed up my tent (into which we managed to consolidate 4 people. More on that disaster later), and flagged down a taxi-brousse first thing that Friday morning. We spent a night in Fianar, where we ate our combined weight in pizza, bought out the city’s supply of peanut butter and cookies, and enjoyed steaming showers before snagging a taxi-brousse to the small town of Ranohira, lying farther southwest of Fianar and on the way to the famous western coastal city, Tulear. The brousse ride, although relatively long at 6 hours, was quite pleasant (Travel tip: try to take National brousses over regional ones. They’re a bit more expensive, but they make fewer stops and don’t usually overstuff the vehicle. I had enough room to lead a yoga session in there, let me tell you) and included a nice lunch break in the small town, Ihosy. Annie, another volunteer who had made the same trip a few weeks prior, suggested I do everything in my power to hunt down some Ihosy baguettes. As a conoisseur of anything edible, I tracked down those bad boys like a bassett hound and eagerly purchased somewhere between 10 and 100 of the fluffy, ciabatta-like rolls. We bought them with the intention to save them for lunch during our camping trip, but I ate most of my ration before we even got back into the taxi-brousse. The only thing keeping me from eating the rest of my share of divine baguettes was the stunning view sliding past us as we drove. Kianjavato, on the East side of the country, is mountainous and lush: an area of rainforests, pastures, and green hillsides. Continue west from Fianar and it seems like you’ve hit a totally different country. The landscape stretches out for miles in nothing but plain grassland, dappled with a few shrubby trees and adorned with a backdrop of bare, rocky mountains in the distance. Two of my fellow travelers, Kelsie and Jannet, fawned the entire drive about how the landscape reminded them of their homes back in California. It’s been years since I’ve been to California, but I’ve seen Easy A enough times to feel comfortable trusting their judgement.

We made it to Ranohira in the mid-afternoon, and were promptly harassed by hopeful guides in search of fresh tourists. Disoriented and carrying all of our stuff, we were escorted by one guide to a nice hotel called Chez Alice. The clerk smirked as I attempted to ask for a room in a language that could only be described as the lovechild between French and Malagasy. He recognized our type: young, rowdy travelers looking for like, the totally best trip ever, but doing anything in our power to save a nickel. When he saw us grimacing at the prices of the elegant bungalows, he explained (in a language that could only be described as the lovechild between French and English) that Chez Alice also offered tenting space for a mere 5000 Ariary (about $2) per person for night. We jumped at the offer and pitched my tent in a bare patch of dirt a few minutes past the bungalows and gardens, all overlooking Isalo National Park’s massive canyons and mountains and the vast prairie before them.

Afterwards, we were escorted by the same guide to Ranohira’s National Parks office to set up our tour for the next few days and to officially hire a guide. While our persistent escort explained to us our options, another guide swooped in and claimed that our man was insanely drunk and that we should hire him instead. We exchanged uncomfortable glances before the two started arguing. The woman behind the counter rolled her eyes and instructed us to leave and come back early the next day when hopefully the center was less crowded. We mosied our way back to Chez Alice, wondering why Ranohira (its name meaning Water Song) got its name in such a dry climate.

I’ve never been prouder to announce that I’ve been nicknamed the Human Garbage Disposal. My stomach was already a bottomless pit at home, but now that I’m hiking a good 700 miles a day, my appetite is voracious. Most people can’t finish the copious amounts of rice we get for dinner, so the drill is to just pass the plate down to me. Including my own, I cleaned five plates last night at dinner. The woman who owns a shop down the street knows that when I come in, I clean out her stock of sandwiches and is always prepared with back-ups. Ah, food. The international lover.

Don’t worry: I’ve retained my party animal instincts here in Madagascar. I do try to tone it down seeing as my antics might be too overwhelming for some. My friends would always know about the hottest parties, and I would strategically avoid contact with them so I could play Mario Kart into the late hours of the night obviously be the first to slap on my party pants and shades. Like I said, crazy. Despite my efforts to not overwhelm the Malagasy, the beast inside me was unleashed the first weekend I was here. There was a goodbye fumba for one of the volunteers who was reaching the end of her stay here, and once they started playing Brazilian pop songs, I couldn’t control my limbs. At first, people may have thought I was flailing maniacally trying to swat mosquitoes, but when it was understood that my thrashing was in fact dancing, I was welcomed to the dance floor. Despite my unruly hips (those bad boys couldn’t lie if they tried) and undulating arms, my dancing was nothing compared to the Malagasy’s. Fredo, one of the workers of the Reforestation Project, put my moves to shame when he shimmied onto the dance floor, hopping rhythmically, pumping his arms and shaking his knees like there was no tomorrow. As is usual in moments of desperation, I began to imitate a bird, flapping my arms and rocking my head to the beat, squawking occasionally. Needless to say, my moves were a hit.

The first (and only) time I’ve seen a palm reader to date was back in the 7th grade. It was at a bat mitvah, so I’m not sure how serious this woman was in the art of divination, but I was ecstatic when my turn came. She lacked the stereotypical turban, crystal ball, excessive jewelry, and billowing clothes, but I eagerly stretched out my palm for the woman and let her work her magic. My fortunes were meager: “You are attracted to biker women and will move to another city soon”, neither of which ended up being accurate. Before hastily giving me my fortune however, the palm reader marveled at my hands. She commented on their length, and insisted I become a pianist, and was disappointed when I told her I didn’t intend to contue playing the clarinet. As she examined my fingers--partly in astonishment and partly in awe--she commented, “But your fingers are perfectly fit for playing an istrument! They’re so...slender!”

Anyone who’s had a good look at my hands will be quick to agree. Long, bony, skeletal. Mmm. One person did tell me I would make a good hand model, but the more common reaction is slight alarm at how long and thin my fingers are. It may sound harsh, but these descriptions don’t bother me. Nope, I put off all the hand-hate and comfort my ego by the knowledge that I have similar hands to one of the most interesting and handsome animals in the animal kingdom: the Aye-Aye (pictures to come. Oh yeah, there was a photoshoot). 

Looking back, I’m still not entirely sure if my day-trip to the seaside town of Mananjary was a dream or reality. The taxi-brousse ride took only 2 hours and, although there was a chicken pecking at my feet the entire time, it was infinitely more bearable and quicker than the drive back from Fianar. Stepping off the brousse and still having feeling in my legs was appreciated and definitely helped to set my mood for the city. The whole town just has the feel of a warm, laid-back summer day. The sounds of the waves can be heard throughout the entire town, which boasts small charming buildings and tall palm trees that rustle lazily in the salty breeze.

I traveled with Annie, another Varecia volunteer, and the two of us beelined it to Le Patio, a charming internet cafe where we met up with a couple of Peace Corps volunteers who were stationed in towns neighboring Kianjavato. After some nice chatter and a cold glass of Coke, I was happy to video chat with a few friends from home and respond to emails. After our access to the outside world, Annie and I headed to an empty cafe which sat just across the street from the edge of the beach.

There, I plunged into icy bliss with a bowl of Ylam ice cream, which is apparently a type of flower used for perfume, according to the waitress. However, my French isn’t as good as I like to think it is, so don’t quote me on that. Either way its subtley sweet taste was like a kiss from a Flower Goddess...or a Belossom (for any Pokemon fans out there). After making love to that refreshing bowl of ice cream, I had an intimate affair with a bowl of lasagna, the cheese oozing between the prongs of my fork and enticing my tastebuds. Oh man. My moans of pleasure probably would have really worried Annie if she wasn’t doing the same as she eyed her pizza like it was a previous lover from a distant land. The rest of the meal was too lustful to describe in detail.

Still hypnotized by the food, the two of us then moseyed to the beach and were delighted to find that we were escorted by a cute and friendly dog. We were weary at first seeing as most of the strays in Madagascar are dirty and aggressive, but this one stayed right by our side as we dipped our feet into the warm Indian Ocean and lost our minds in the ocean’s steady splashing and the soft sand’s warm embrace. After about an hour of enjoying the ocean’s welcome, we decided it was time to turn back and start looking for a brousse back to Kianjavato. Our escort awoke from his nap and trotted ahead of us to make sure the path back to the main road was free of any danger (like conniving seagulls). As we walked past Le Patio, their collared dog also joined us and we found ourselves being escorted by two adorably friendly dogs. They stayed with us the entire time, even as we waited in the brousse for over an hour. When the brousse finally departed, our furry sentinels followed it as it slowly drove out of the sandy streets until we turned onto the main road. Annie and I waved goodbye at them from the window. Despite the fact that the Malagasy in the brousse thought we were insane for saying bye to dogs, I fully expect those two to be waiting for me on the beach with a gallon of Ylam ice cream the next time I visit Mananjary, whether it be in my dreams or the material world.

To make up for my lack of posts this time around, I'll add some pictures. I hope you enjoy my attempts to be artsy and professional with my sophisticated point-and-shoot. Aperture. ISO. Don't forget to update the shutter speed. Am I photographer yet?

I'm pretty indecisive. If given options, it takes me ages to choose one, and when I finally do make a decision, I often times fear I made the wrong one. Usually this just involves deciding whether to eat an entire sandwich or an entire bowl of pasta, but here it's a little more involved.

So each morning we get up at sunrise, eat breakfast, get some lunch from town, and head out to the field. There, we meet our guides and we usually get into groups of three (one volunteer and 2 Malagasy guides) and head off into the jungle to track our lemur. In the project I'm assigned to, there are 3 different species of lemur being followed: Varecia variegata, Eulemur rubriventer, and Eulemur rufifrons. With each species there are 4-6 collared individuals that need to be monitored a certain number of hours a month. Each day we try to complete 3 full follows for 2 hours each. Once we decide on the individual we want to follow, we track them down using that cool radio-tracker thing and then literally watch them for 2 hours. Every 5 minutes we record their behavior and keep track of what animals they're with and every 15 minutes we GPS point the tree they're in. It's fairly simple. The guides do most of the work and they just tell me all the information, and I act as a scribe and record it all in the notebook. Easy enough, right? Yeah sure, when the lemurs are tired and sleep for the full 2 hours. Some days however, they're full of energy and leap from tree to tree the entire time. I don't know if you've ever seen a lemur leap, but those little beasts are fast. The guides don't have much trouble keeping up with them, but I often find myself sprinting to keep up with the guides. The sprinting is even more challenging when there are literally vines, spider webs, rocks, hills, cliffs, and trees everywhere--so all the time. Usually I'll literally have to pick between a rock and a hard place (or vine, or questionable mud puddles) in about a second if I don't wanna lose track of my guides. It's physically exhausting, but I'm growing accustomed to being constantly tangled in thorny vines and wiping spider web out of my mouth. But worry not! I sweat so much that it creates a veil around my body that acts as a force field!!!! Some would say that the sweat makes it even harder to grab onto vines when climbing a hill and ensconces you in this layer of grime that you're literally drenched and smell more pungent than fertilizer in an incense shop. But I prefer to be more optimistic.

Despite the literal physical exhaustion I feel after each day, I do enjoy the work. Seeing the lemurs play with each other and leap above my head in the trees makes it all worth it. Besides, my calves are actually becoming muscle now! Calm down suitors, not all at once. 

I've been in Madagascar for 2 weeks now and I still haven't totally absorbed the fact that I'm actually here. A week and a half ago I left the MBP residence in Tana and took the 12 hours car drive to the Kianjavato Ahmanson Field Station (KAFS), my home for the next 6 months. 

The car drive itself was long and slightly harrowing (many winding roads), but enjoyable. Madagascar has some beautiful landscapes, but it's unfortunate how obvious the effects of deforestation are in certain areas. We stopped a few times for nourishment and bathroom breaks (by bathroom I mean pulling off the side of the road and really letting nature call. Keeping it classy.) so we arrived at KAFS just as it began getting dark.

Kianjavato is certainly different than Tana, and so was practically every city we passed on the way. I use the term city loosely...large villages might be more appropriate. Kianjavato itself is a rather small village nestled in the jungle. It has homes, some markets, and farms along the side of the road that passes through it and its residents are welcoming. MBP has been working in Kianjavato for quite a while, so the Kianjavatotians are accustomed to seeing vazaha, or foreigners. Other people aren't as used to it, and some of them even stare quite obviously as you walk by, and others whisper or just shout, "vazaha!" at you. They almost never mean it offensively, but it's interesting to stand out. 

KAFS is nice. Much nicer than I was expecting. There is a large dining area and kitchen at the bottom of the hill only a few feet away from the main "building" where supplies are stored, the outhouses, showers, and some tent sites. Most of the tent sites are located at the very top of a hill overlooking the base area. If you aren't tired by bed time, simply walking up to your tent site will make sure you're ready to sleep by the time you reach it. 

The showers are just buckets with water that we draw from the well. They're quite cold, but after a long day of work and

sweating like a boar in labor, cold water isn't so bad. I do wish I had invested in a solar shower though; a warm shower conquers all. 

The outhouses are shacks with holes in the middle into which we dispense our goods. I'm not exaggerating when I say I don't think I've ever smelled anything worse in my entire life than that outhouse, but it's fairly clean and gets the job done. You just gotta hold your breath, ignore the cockroaches, and complete the mission. 

Sleeping in a tent is quite nice, actually. My sleeping pad is plush and my sleeping bag warm. The tent is spacious and the rain fly does a good job keeping it even warmer and drier. I obsessively keep it closed at all times to keep out as few unwanted roommates as possible, and constantly bang my head on my suspended lantern after dark, but I enjoy it. The tents are set up on large wooden platforms, so they aren't even on the ground and have thatched roofs that do a good job keeping out most of the rain on wet days, so real campers would scoff at me if I were to say I was "roughing it".