It’s 2000km into our epic road trip around Madagascar (2500 km in total) and we’ve seen some quite incredible critters. Of course I had an idea that we would see a lot of wildlife, but the amount of diversity is quite staggering. Here are some numbers. Last week we were in the Tsingy de Bemaraha, a place which has 85% endemism and 47% local endemics, all densely packed into 723 square kilometres of huge limestone spikes and numerous different climates. An astounding place, which is inaccessible for any month when it rains a little bit, when the 200km track from the nearest town must turn from sandpit to mud slide. There have been a lot of entertaining moments so far, possibly the most hairy being the Tsiribihina river crossing, which involves getting four 4x4 vehicles onto what I would describe as a motorised raft, from a steep sandy river bank via some quite rickety ramps.
So the trip is mostly about wildlife. I’ve seen about 12 different lemur species, 8 or so different types of chameleon, a lot of orchids, birds, reptiles, amphibians (one mantella frog which I even managed to spot myself, a miracle), one microbat and an owl. There has been some pretty sweaty trekking, a bit of essay writing, some baobabs, a lot of sitting in a hot car, some wandering around buying stuff and a bit of watching the World Cup. I definitely can get on board with this nation, because they always have the rugby on if there’s a television. Also, it’s the season for every tree by the roadside over hundreds of kilometres to have little dangly mangos adorning it like christmas baubles, so you can buy a lovely ripe mango for a few pence. I think I’ll cover this in more detail in another post, but Madagascar is, as I expected, an extremely poor country. Most people have nothing, living on red dust and scratching a living from selling fruit, growing rice, cutting eucalyptus leaves or making charcoal.
For this reason, and probably due to the culture shock that people feel when they visit, most internet scaremongers will tell you that it’s dangerous and difficult. There has been a lot of unrest (Wikipedia can explain better than I can) but I have not felt *touch wood* any threat since I arrived. Our visit has been met with warmth, interest and helpfulness. We did make it easy on ourselves by hiring a car with driver, and I know this could be a very different experience from someone who used public transport.
​
There are about four main roads in Madagascar that are sealed. Even on the sealed roads, everything takes a very long time because it’s easier to navigate big potholes at 40 km/h than at a nice normal driving speed. So we picked three main things to do in two weeks. Aside from the Tsingy we have also visited Ranomafana National Park, an area of rich green forest to the south east of Antananarivo, in stark contrast to the dry sticks and towering Baobabs of the west coast. This week Helen and I will go east to Andasibe for the final leg of our trip. Sadly, Carlota goes back to Spain. I’ll miss my little Catalan potato!