The wild west part three: Tsingy de Bemaraha

The best places always seem to be the ones hardest to get to, so after the insane roads we drove, the Tsingy de Bemaraha national park, deep in western Madagascar, really ought to be pretty special. And we were certainly impressed with the three days of hiking we enjoyed. The first began with a cruise by canoe up the Manambolo river - in truth this was essentially punting but I resisted the urge to improve the style of our boatman as it was very hot and after all the river has crocodiles. Fortunately this fact didn't stop our guide quickly retreiving Leila's sunglasses after she dropped them in. We visited the caves and saw some open tombs from the 13th century and hiked back to the village through some spectacular forest. It was great to be exploring the forest after much time on the coast and we saw more lemurs, sifakas and exotic birds - many of which our guide assures us with various statistics exist only in this part of Madagascar.

Our second hike was to the Grand Tsingy, the massive razor-sharp limestone pinnacles which the park is famous for. These are geological formations called Karst which are created be erosion of limestone rock by rain and wind. They are also rather difficult to walk over so the park is set up with via ferrata - cables, footholds, bridges and ladders which make it possible to get around in a harness. Our last day was to the Petit Tsingy, which included more time climbing beneath the Tsingy in the underground caverns and lemur spotting in the forestfollowed by some relaxation in a swimming pool.

We stayed at the Tanankoay hotel in Bekopaka, the bungalows were simple but clean and had character and very reasonable priced. They have a botanic garden with hammocks where we tried unsuccesfully to find chameleons. Our long drive back to Morondava ended at the Alleé des Baobabs, where large baobab trees line the road making an impressive sunset scene and children find chameleons for the tourists' photos.

The wild west part two: getting a 4x4 across a river

About half way between Morondava and Tsingy national park lies the Tsiribihina River. During the rainy season this river becomes highly dangerous and completely impassible. And there is no way around it. Fortunately the local rainy season doesn't start here for another few weeks so the ferry is still in operation. This ferry gets you almost all the way across and then suddenly stops leaving you to drive the last bit yourself. All went smoothly although Ali was less than impressed with some of the knot work being used!

The wild west part one: lemurs in Kirindy forest

We have taken a week away from ReefDoctor to explore the west coast of Madagascar. We chose to fly to Morondava rather than go by road, a route which the Lonely Planet describes as taking 'three bone-shaking days' by car. From the town of Morondava it is a mere 8 bone-shaking hours by 4x4 to our final destination of Tsingy de Bemahara national park!

To break up the journey our first stop was at the Kirindy forest reserve national park, where we stayed one night and were able to explore the forest by day and also at night to see some of the endemic species of lemurs living there, including some of the nocturnal ones. The highlights included the nocturnal mouse lemur (the world's smallest primate), a chameleon, and lots of white sifaka lemurs which were happy to let us get quite close. We also spotted a couple of fossas (wild cats, Madagascar's largest predator) lurking around the camp.

Underwater adventures

We've been at the camp a few weeks now and most days so far have involved training for surveys of the marine conservation areas which are monitored by ReefDoctor. This has included both dive training and science training. Leila has just completed her PADI Advanced Open Water course in which she specialised in underwater photography and fish identification and many of the photos are credited to her. Ali has completed the PADI Rescue Diver course which, after practicing in-water rescue techniques as well as first aid and CPR, culminated in several surprise rescue scenarios acted out by staff and volunteers including being woken up to rescue a lost diver at 4.30am!  Leila is soon starting the Rescue course and Ali has begun the Dive Master training and is assisting with training new volunteers.The science training has been learning to identify around the many species of fish, invertebrates and corals as well as underwater surveying techniques. It's going to take some practice before we can reliably survey but we are keen to start helping collect useful data.

We have also assisted the fisheries team on the beach with counting, weighing and identifying the catches brought in by the fishermen of the local villages. They monitor what's being caught and by which method of fishing. The fishermen let the team weigh their catch in exchange for coffee and cigarettes. Some boats come back with nothing, others for example have caught ten octopus with handmade harpoons, whilst others have large catches of big emperor and rabbit fish. Sadly beach and boat saining is becoming increasingly common. This involves using huge nets with small holes (like giant mosquito nets as big as 50m wide sometimes) that are dragged along the sea bed collecting everything that is there. This results in hundreds and hundreds of small and baby fish being caught each time and also destroys the seabed. This method of fishing is illegal in Madagascar but due to more and more people relying on depleting fish stocks, an increasing number of fishermen are now doing it in order to feed their families.

The spiny forest

About an hour's walk away is the village of Mangily which is a bit larger than Ifaty and has a few restaurants and attractions to see, including a 'spiny forest' which we recently visited that has many of the baobab trees which are huge trees iconic of Madagascar. These are known to grow as large as 29 metres wide. There were also many other interesting species which we learned have remarkable healing effects for almost any ailment of the body. The journey was a short way inland on a comfortable if bumby 'zebu chariot' ride. Even just the short distance from the sea we realised how arid this part of the country is, it really is a desert climate and very difficult for any plants to grow.

We stayed the night at the Hotel Solidaire, which is an eco-lodge type hotel that treated us to such luxuries as hot water, 24-hour electricity, cold beer and ice cream, and even an illuminated swimming pool... all powered by solar panels. The hotel is run to support another local conservation NGO which works to preserve natural land-based habitats in Madagascar by researching and educating locals on novel methods for farming such as combining beans and tomatoes in the same plots and developing nutritional suplements for childen from a nutritious plant called Moringa. Anything that helps with improving sustenance from the land will also reduce the burden on the overfished sea.

Also staying at the hotel was a colourful all-female band of drummers who were supported by the NGO to promote the role of women in Madagascan society and they performed a loud procession through town which was encouraging locals to vote in the forthcoming national election.

The school opening

Last weekend marked the re-opening of the local school building in Ifaty village, which is just next to the ReefDoctor camp. Ifaty is a poor village even by Madagascan standards and it suffers from having no fresh water supply - let alone other infrastructure like electricity. Most villagers live in bamboo huts and rely on fishing in the local pirogue sailing boats for their livelihood, often struggling to catch just a few small fish to feed the family. The village school was all but destroyed in February by the exceptionally strong cyclone and since then ReefDoctor staff and volunteers have been working to rebuild the school. As a result we were all invited to attend the re-opening event.

The first we knew of the sacrifice was the mysterious mooing noise that started outside our room at about 2am the night before. We later found out that this poor zebu (a cow with a camel like hump) was to be slaughtered in celebration. Traditionally this only occurs to mark significant events like weddings. The blood is mixed with rum and then drunk, whilst the meat is grilled or eaten as kebabs. We did not witness this although when we got to the school the large pool of blood could still be seen (see picture below) (one lady nearly slipped in it!).

It is also traditional here to slaughter a zebu to mark a boy's circumcision, a big celebration where all the extended family is invited. Due to the huge cost of doing so it seemed that as a zebu was already being slaughtered to honour the school opening, this provided an opportunity for local families to take advantage of. Apparantly 60 boys aged from toddlers to 27 years old received the operation on the day before the school opening.

The school opening itself was a series of speeches in Malagasy from the local mayor, president, head teacher etc. (which we didn't understand at all apart from the cutting of the ribbon) whilst the youths of the local dance troop provided entertainment. This was finished off with some dancing, which Ali of course was amongst the first to get involved in!