Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
Jambo…We are safe and sound in Dar after having a very pleasant stay in London. Our hotel, the Royal Park, was in Bayswater, Westminster, very near Hyde Park. We took the train to Paddington Station and walked our bags about 2 blocks to the small, unpretentious and very pleasant facility. We slept a lot and more or less adapted to the time change. During our first day we walked around Hyde Park and later took a bus to Victoria Station where we had a good Italian dinner at Zizzi’s. From there we walked around the corner to the Apollo Theatre and saw the play “Wicked”, about the unfortunate life of the witch of the West. It was a delightful musical. Sunday we took a bus tour of the city, including a long stop at the Tower of London. Learned all the gory details of activities that took place there. One building was full of weapons and armor that was more interesting than I expected. There were videos of how to put on the gear and how jousting works. We looked through an armor helmet to learn what one sees from the inside and it is not much at all. Must have been miserable being in such a suit—hot, uncomfortable, poor visibility and fairly un-maneuverable. The only way it would have made any sense is if the enemy was in such a suit too. Most interesting was the actual suit worn by Henry VIII. He was very big in every way, so his suit is very large and fancy in design. No surprise he quit using one in his early 50’s and soon died at the age of 55. On leaving the tower, we took a nice boat ride up the Thymes to Westminster Abby. Normally closed on Sunday’s, the Abby doors were opened just as we arrived. We lucked into a free organ concert of Bach’s Sonata II. The opportunity was too good to pass up so we enjoyed the stained glass windows and the ambiance of the Abby while we listened. We bussed back to the hotel, cleaned up and walked around the corner to the Aberdeen Steak House opposite Paddington Station. Had an excellent meal there and chatted a long time with two ladies from Wales who were in town to see a cricket match. One of them has 400 sheep on an 80 acre ranch. She says the land can handle it because there is so much rain and the grass is always green. Sure not like our ranches in California.
Monday morning we luxuriated in our hotel until noon. Left our bags there and walked to Buckingham Palace. Just missed the guard change. Then we walked to Harrod’s just to see what it was like. It is not only huge—seven floors of stuff—but there is every conceivable thing one can imagine to buy as well as things you would never imagine—mostly high end, but some clearance racks and medium priced things as well. All we bought was lunch and a couple of books. The most unbelievable item for me was an 8×3 foot slab of exquisitely beautiful, highly polished, petrified wood from, of all places, the Black Forest in Arizona. Asking price—only 70,000 pounds, about $120,000. We walked back to the hotel, grabbed our bags and pulled them to Paddington Station for the trip back to the airport. The train sure beats taking a taxi—both in price and time. Mark figured we walked at least 6 miles that afternoon. I know I was ready to sit on the plane.
Our flight to Dar Es Salaam was lovely. Our business class seats could actually go flat so we were able to get some good rest and sleep. We arrived at 7am and were met by our guide, Ian, a delightful and informative fellow from Zimbabwe who will be with us throughout Tanzania. We will be in good hands. The Sea Cliff is our hotel and we have a lovely room overlooking the hotel grounds and the ocean, about 100 feet away. The sky is a solid, dark overcast with intermittent rain. The air is hot and humid. We have arrived in Africa.
Kwa heri (good bye in Swahili) for now and blessings to you all, Julia and Mark
June 29, 2009
Cathedral Peaks, Drackensberg Mountains, South Africa
Hello from the most beautiful mountain range in SA. The uKhahlamba-Drakensberg Park is a World Heritage Site. There are soaring basaltic buttresses, golden sandstone ramparts, rolling high altitude grasslands, steep-sided river valleys and rocky gorges. Additionally, the landscape has many rock shelters containing the largest and most concentrated group of rock paintings made by the San people over a 4000+ year period.
Today we completed a scheduled 5 hour loop walk in 6 hours and 15 minutes. We stopped often to absorb the scenery, take photos and enjoy a nice picnic lunch. Started from our hotel at 4820 ft and climbed 1700 feet for spectacular 360 degree vistas. The weather was a perfect winter day—totally sunny and gently warm, with a soft breeze now and then. Along the way we saw forests of protea shrubs the size of small trees, a few wild flowers, two waterfalls and a troup of baboons. This hike ranks in the top 5 for our all time best hikes. Very special! Our legs were like rubber and our knees were screaming when we returned—1000mgs of IBU for Mark and a rare soak in the tub for me. We are feeling very relaxed and ready for dinner. So more later.
Later it is. We got up yesterday morning at 2:30am in Matemwe, Zanzibar to catch an early flight to Nairobi and another flight to Johannesberg. With a one hour time change we arrived in Jo’berg at 12:30pm, were met by an agent who gave us our travel documents for SA, helped us pick up our rental car, gave us directions and tips on driving and sent us on our way with a picnic lunch for the road. Although we were very tired, Mark drove the 4 hours it took to reach Cathedral Peaks. It was almost dark when we arrived, but the scenery along the way was wide open golden plains and rolling hills—more expansive than driving through the big California valleys. It did not take Mark long to adapt to the left side drive. “Just keep the white line on the right” said our agent.
So what has happened since you last heard from us in London? We had a wonderful 2 weeks in Tanzania. We arrived in Dar es Salaam early in the morning along with another couple in our group, were picked up and driven directly to our hotel, where our rooms were waiting, thankfully. The weather was hot, overcast and humid with a few sprinkles now and then. We were too tired to do any sight seeing so we hung around the hotel pool and visited with group members as we met them. That evening we shared a welcome dinner and met everyone in the group. I can tell you now that we were all pretty compatible and got along very nicely. There were 14 paying members, two specialist guides, Ian and Andy, and a Stanford trip coordinator, Deborah. Deborah made the trip run smoothly and handled all problems and issues quietly and efficiently. With her working on all the details the rest of us were free to have fun and enjoy our adventures. Ian and Andy now much about the animals, birds, trees and plants we encountered and they did their best to help find as much action as possible.
From Dar we flew in a chartered Caravan to Ruaha National Park for four nights in Kigale, a tented camp. Recently built and operated by an Australian couple, it is a fairly simple and rustic camp. We had our own toilet and bucket shower, which were outside and adjacent to our tent in small enclosures. The water was boiled and smelled like smoke from the wood used to heat it. The electricity was solar and generator powered. We were careful not to use too much of either. One bucket provided Mark and I with a hot shower in the evening before dinner and Mark with a cold shower the next afternoon. Our tent was the farthest from the dining tent and we had to be escorted back and forth after dark as there was no fencing around the camp and the animals wander around freely. Nothing exciting ever happened to us, although others saw elephant and civet near their tents. The food was reasonable and plentiful, especially given the effort required to get it to camp. The nearest shopping post was three hours away by dirt road. Must stop now to get some sleep.
June 30, 2009
We have a relaxed morning sitting in the sun on our balcony at Cathedral Peaks, so back our adventure.
Ruaha National Park at 4000 square miles is one of the largest game parks in Africa and one of the least visited. During the 4 days we were there we saw only a few other vehicles and never did we share a sighting with anybody else. The landscape consists of gentle rolling grassland, savannah dominated by forests of baobab, acacia and euphorbia or candelabra trees. The escarpment can just barely be seen in the distance. There has been no rain this season so the whole park is very dry, with few places for the wildlife to get water, except the Ruaha River, which was a long drive from our camp.
The animals are not adapted to vehicles as in heavily visited parks so it was harder to find them and much harder to catch them stalking prey or doing something interesting. We did see a number of lions (17 in one group alone) doing what they do best on hot days—lay in the sun digesting their last meal. However, we saw no other cats, or aggressive carnivores, except crocodiles, vultures and fish eagles. There were large numbers of maasai giraffe, Birchell’s zebra, cape buffalo, yellow baboons and impala, a two toned antelope. Not quite so plentiful but still numerous were the saharah elephant, vervet monkeys, wart hogs, greater and lesser kudu, crocodile and hippo. We were lucky to spot a few dik diks (a very small, shy and cute antelope that takes one mate for life), a few black-backed jackal, one small group of Grant’s gazelle, a few rock hyrax and banded mongooses. This park presented us with our first sighting of a bat-eared fox and a slender mongoose. Each animal was close to the vehicle as we came around a bend and stayed put long enough for us to get several photos. Very exciting!
There are over 450 species of birds in the park and we saw many of them. Our favorites include the lilac breasted roller, little bee-eaters, red-billed hornbills, marshall eagle, hammerkop, saddle billed stork, pied kingfisher and many more. We both really enjoy looking at and identifying birds.
To see the park, we traveled in 4-6 passenger bush land rovers and went in different directions to avoid each other’s dust and have a more private experience. We mixed ourselves up on the game drives to get to know each other better and have time with each guide. Each day we went out early in the morning for a drive or a walk, had lunch in camp and relaxed during the heat of the day, then went out again in the late afternoon until dusk. Sundowners under a baobab tree on a slight hill with a view of the surrounding scenery were delightful for us and gave the staff a good vantage point to watch for animals. Unfortunately, from our point of view, the park management does not allow night game drives in either park we visited in Tanzania. In the evening we enjoyed outdoor candlelight meals and star gazing until bed time, which came early as we were awakened at 5:30am each day for the morning drive. During the night we could hear the occasional roar of a lion and yip of hyenas. Otherwise it was very quiet.
On June 21, we said our farewells to the Kigale Camp staff and drove to the airstrip for our Caravan flight to The Selous. The flight took an hour and 45 minutes in a south easterly direction and landed at the Sand Rivers airstrip in The Selous Game Reserve, which contains about 17 thousand square miles. Most of the reserve is managed for hunting with only about 20% devoted to photography safaris.
We arrived at the San Rivers Safari Camp and were greeted by smiling staff offering cold towels and cool drinks. We all felt the pleasure of experiencing the uptick in the world of bush camping. Perched on the bank of the Rafiji River, the air was a touch cooler, the lodge spacious and built with concrete floors, stone walls and a heavy thatched roof. Unlike Kigale, which is a temporary camp, Sand Rivers is permanent and has a much larger staff even though both camps are built for 14 people. Each unit is built partially on stilts, has partial stone walls and thatched roofs like the lodge. All for side open to the outdoors and animals come and go at will. So we had to keep our dop kits zipped and stowed when not being used. Our main visitors were baboons, monkeys and bushbabys, who make a very distinctive and loud shrieking sound. Our bed is totally enclosed by mosquito netting and gives a feeling, at least, of safety during the night. In Kigale the tent zipped up so we were protected from the bugs and animals. The food is also a step up from Kigale along with the choice of activities. The facility has a nice swimming pool, a library and curio shop. In addition to game drives and bush walks, there are boating excursions, fishing opportunities, and a ranger station where there is an ongoing effort to save the rhino. At the moment it is believed there are about 17 rhino in the whole reserve. Poaching of rhino and elephant is a big and growing problem for park rangers in every park and for the world for that matter.
. During our arrival lunch we were told about our adventure options and Mark and I signed on for an afternoon boat ride on the Rifiji and an all day drive in search of a wild dog den, which the staff had recently located. We loved being on the water for a change from driving on rough roads in the bush. Hippo and crocodile were everywhere and always fun to watch. We also saw shore birds such as the African Skimmer (considered on of the 10 classic African birds), a few fish eagles and monitor lizards. Back at camp we enjoyed sundowners on the patio overlooking the river, a delicious dinner by the pool and crawling into the largest bed we have ever slept in. It was the size of three twin bed put together, but was only one mattress. Great sleeping once the bushbaby finished screaching. We could hear hippo grunting as they walked passed our units heading to their grazing grounds. Wish we could have seen them, but we stayed tucked in our netted bed.
The next day was most exciting for me as I have never seen wild dog. Mark has never let me forget that the only time I stayed in camp rather than go on a drive, several years ago, he got to see them hunting during an evening drive. Because the dogs are so far from camp we depart at 7pm and drive for over 3 hours before finding them. The unexpected bonus was that we drove through a wide variety of landscapes including a huge meadow of bunch grass(really hard to drive through); palm forests with the unusual dome palm that starts with one trunk that branches into 4-5 trunks with the expected palm tree top; wide open savanah with the odd acacia and mixed brush and dry grass lands. The day was nearly perfect—a partial overcast sky kept the blazing sun at bay and a slight breeze kept us comfortable.
In spite of agreeing not to stop for photos until the return trip, we had to stop for unusual sightings along the way. Finally, we find the dogs—4 of them—doing what full lions do—sleep. One male and 2 females were in the shade of a tree, while the mother slept on the other side of a small drainage, where we believe the den must be. The mother looked really awful. Much of her skin was bald and she seemed to have a bad rash around her neck and upper body. The other dogs were in better shape, although our guide thought that they probably have lesser degrees of the same condition. We stayed with the dogs for an hour, drove a long way for lunch prepared by Sun Rivers staff and back again for another 45 minutes of being with the dogs, who moved around just enough for us to take more photos. We were sorry not to see the pups, but glad for the drive and the encounter. We stopped at several places on the return trip and got back to the Lodge just in time for a shower and dinner.
Need to stop to get this sent before we run out of internet time. Will continue at the next opportunity. Tomorrow we have a very long day driving up through the Drackensberg Mountains via Sami Pass and into Lesotho.
Hope you are all well. We are completely adjusted to African time and place now. Three weeks seems to be the amount of time we need to hit our stride.
God bless you all, Julia and Mark
July 8, 2009
The Royal Villas, Ezulwini Valley, Swaziland
Dear Friends,
Am picking up from where we left off in Cathedral Peaks. On our third day there we got up at 5:30 to hit the road at 6am for a 3 hour drive south to a small town called Underwood where we met our driver/guide. This is the day we travel up the Sani Pass at 9700 feet and into Lesotho. From Underwood the pass is about 50km, but from the base of the mountain to the pass, only 8 km, the road is so bad we are glad we have left the driving to the guide. He was quite conversational and drove very slowly and carefully over the boulder strewn hair pin turns up the steep grade. It took us 2 hours to get to the Lesotho border crossing just beyond the top. There the landscape was barren, partially ice covered and cold. We drove just a short distance to a small Besotho village and visited with a woman, Belina, who has lived there all her life and seemed quite content and maybe even happy. She makes bread, beer, small fabric dolls and grass baskets to sell to visitors. We tried the bread (excellent), the beer (not so good) and bought a doll for the kids at Hennessey School. Also took lots of photos. Then we had lunch at the “Highest Pub in Africa” on the edge of the pass and headed back down the mountain. Got back to Underwood about 3pm and arrived at our hotel at 6:30. Exhausted, we went directly to dinner without cleaning up and then to bed. We had a good experience. I only wish we had planned to spend more time in Lesotho.
The next day, July 1, we were at Cathedral Peaks heliport at 7am for an early flight around the central and northern Drackensberg’s. It was a crystal clear morning with no breeze or clouds, perfect for our close and personal 1 hour 15 minute flight. Having told the pilot we also flew, he took us really close to the ridges and peaks and dropped us over and down a few mountain cliffs. We loved it. Then we stopped on a ridge looking up at the popular postcard view of the “amphitheater” for a mimosa and photos. Wow!
Back at the hotel, we thanked everyone for a wonderful 4-day stay and began our drive to Fugitive’s Drift. We drove south through an upscale neighborhood called the “Midland Meander”, skirted around Pietermeritzberg and headed north-east through Greytown and Pomeroy before turning off the tar roads onto gravel for the last 45 km to our next lodge. We had a 6pm deadline to get to the place before the gates were locked and Mark was driving pretty fast for the road conditions. It was here at Elandskraal, about 14 km from our destination, that the right rear tire blew. Fortunately, it was not quite dark and the roadway was level. Mark managed to change the tire in under 15 minutes and we made the gate at 5:45pm. Our accommodations were very nice and we welcomed the upgrade. We were in our own cottage with a large bedroom and sitting area, a huge bathroom and a private patio looking into the near garden with the bush beyond. Shortly after our arrival, we were summoned to the outdoor fire pit for cocktails followed by dinner. There were two large tables and about 20 people present. The food was plentiful and good. Our table mates included 7 men from Wales who were taking a break from the SA vs. British Rugby tournament and learning about their ancestors who had fought with the British during the Zulu battles. We had several good laughs with them and learned the British Lions have already lost 2 of the 3 games to the SA Springboks. No one minds. They will go to the next game and root for their team regardless. Later we learned that the Lion’s won the final game, which must have made the Welsh fellows proud. After dinner the group received instruction about the coming day–up at 6am, breakfast at 6:30 and out the door at 7 for the battlefields where we would hear the stories. Next morning we piled into a big vehicle, were handed hot water bottles and told to be quiet and listen to a CD about the build up to the battles we will witness. We listened to the CD’s the whole 45 minutes it took too reach the first battlefield and felt primed for the personal tale to come.
We are in the heart of Zulu country and the battle ground for much of the fighting between Zulu and British; Zulu and Boer and British and Boer during the 1800’s. We visited two battlefields called Isandlwana and Rorke’s Drift and relived the events with the fabulous storytellers keeping us spellbound for 2+ hours at each site. In the first conflict 20,000 Zulu on foot with spears and clubs crushed the 1600 well armed and partly mounted British and 2500 Africans in less than 2 hours. In the second conflict 140 British held out against 3-4000 Zulu for 10 hours during a moonless night. Only 17 British died while 5-600 Zulus were killed by British fire power. The surviving Zulus picked up what dead warriors they could and walked away just before dawn. Eleven Victoria Crosses, the most given in any conflict in British history, were given to British soldiers for valor in that conflict. Both battles took place on January 22, 1879 within a few miles of each other. It is no surprise that the Zulu remember the Isandlwana battle and the British remember Rorke’s Drift. Both storytellers were very careful to be unbiased. I think we know more about the Zulu-British War now than we do about WWI.
Beyond all the fighting, the landscape is vast–mile after mile of rolling grass land interrupted by thousands of acres of planted pine tree forests. The trees are planted so regularly that they look like fruit orchards in our California valleys. We learned that they grow rapidly for 20-30 years and are then harvested for paper, pulp, poles and lumber, after which nursery saplings are planted in between the stumps. We saw forests of every age and diameters of 2 to 10 inches. As it is winter, the grass lands are dry, golden stubble. The main roads are paved and mostly in good repair. Other roads are full of pot holes or gravel. Leaving Fugitive’s Drift Mark drove more slowly as we had no spare tire. After several miles of gravel and then many more of pot-holed tar roads, we took a short detour to the Richard’s Bay Airport Budget office for a new tire.
From Fugitive’s Drift we drove south through Richard’s Bay on July 4th (we thought about home and parades and fireworks and realized that, for the rest of the world, it is just another day) to Phinda, a private game reserve, where we spent 4 days and nights in the bush enjoying more wild animal and bird sightings and luxuriating in the exquisitely thoughtful and creative service provided by the staff at Phinda Rock Lodge. A couple examples of the service include; hot towels and spiced chocolate at the end of each game drive, a first rate dinner served in the bush with many lanterns creating a magical effect under a full moon and a surprise candlelit bubble bath waiting for us in our room after a long day in the bush. We saw a number of the same animals and birds as we had in Tanzania with some notable exceptions. On our first drive the afternoon we arrived at Phinda we spotted 4 cheetah–a mother and 3 10-month old cubs–and watched them until dark. On two other occasions we saw 2 male cheetah on the hunt and again we had to turn away as it became too dark to see them. We also saw many nyala–antelope with interesting white markings that make them look similar to a kudu, red duiker–one of the smallest and shyest antelope, blue vervet monkeys and a few new birds. One of the benefits of being in private game reserves in South Africa is that night drives and off road driving are permitted as long as the animals are not approached too closely. Thus we were able to follow the cheetah off road until it was too dark to see them. Six elephants came very near our vehicle after dusk while feeding on trees and we watched giraffe necking in the moonlight. Magical, memorable moments!
One day, while at Phinda, I went scuba diving at Sadwana Bay on the Indian Ocean. It was a 1 ½ hour drive to the Bay. Mark stayed behind to watch land animals, so one of the Phinda staff came with me to be my dive buddy. Young enough to be my grandson (ouch), Matt was thrilled to have the chance to dive and very thoughtful about watching after me. We made 2 dives and had our own Phinda packed lunch on the beach in between. The dives were fantastic. The visibility was only 30 or so feet, but we saw 7 extremely large sting rays, 2 huge potato bass (one as big as I am), a very large octopus, 3 moray eels, several nudibrancs, a rare paper fish with a large dorsal fin as thin as paper, schools of various sized fish moving slowly with the current and many reef fishes in rainbow colors. Hard and soft corals were in abundances. I was told that the St Lucia Marine Sanctuary, where we were, is the only known marine environment in the world where there is a net increase in coral growth and thus has been declared a World Heritage Site. At the Phinda manager’s suggestion, Mark flew to Sodwana Bay in the Lodge’s plane and picked Matt and me up so we would get back to the Lodge quicker. While enroute we flew down the coast to St Lucia Lake, then over the lake and around the countryside and game park to the airstrip near camp. A perfect end to another perfect day.
Yesterday we went for a morning boat ride to watch birds and have a relaxed final experience at Phinda. Our guide, Andy, was with us for all our bush experiences and she made them all interesting, informative and fun. We truly hated to leave, so she gently pushed us into our car and sent us off with a packet of snacks for the onward journey. We really loved every bit of the pampering we received.
On July 8 we drove north to Swaziland. Getting through the border crossing took about 40 minutes and then we had a pleasant drive into the heart of the country where our current hotel is situated. The scenery changed slowly as we climb into the mountain country. The rolling hills gave way to rocky bluffs and scrub, which gave way to bouldered peaks towering above green valleys with clear running rivers. Expecting to see more poverty than in SA, we found better houses, more electricity and increased prosperity–at least here in the heart of the country. Last night we checked into the Royal Villas, a nice place, but without the Phinda service. We had dinner at the hotel and went to bed. Today we drove around the area, shopped at several craft and art shops and visited the cultural center, where we saw traditional Swazi housing and dancing and heard about Swazi life as it was until 40 years ago. While at breakfast we met 3 US military people who are here planning a medical clinic for the rural people all over Swaziland. It will last 14 days and include the services of 24 professional medical people. The population of Swaziland is about 1 million and decreasing due to Aids related deaths and fewer births. Roughly 40% of the adult population has Aids or 27% of the total. Swaziland has the highest percentage of Aids infected people in the world. Huge numbers of children are orphaned because of the high death rate from Aids complications. Meanwhile, the king, Mswatti III, has 14 wives and refuses to draw attention to the problem. His father had 70 wives and 600 children. King Mswatti is only 40 years old and could take many more wives before he goes. The situation is very sad and frustrating. According to the traditional culture we learned this afternoon, a king must be an only child of his mother and never been married. So the king must continue to marry until he has a wife who bears only one child, a boy who has not married by the time the old king dies.
The probability is that his earlier wives will bear many children, while a wife taken during his old age may have the one who will become the next king. That mother of that single son becomes the Queen Mother and regent for her son, if he is under 18, until he reaches his majority. Imagine how small the blood lines are when so many people are children or cousins of one king or another.
Anyway, tomorrow we plan to drive and hike around more of the country and meet some local people.
To catch you up on what happened to us after our encounter with the wild dogs in the Selous and before getting to Cathedral Peaks, let me just say that we saw lots more animals, especially giraffe, zebra and impala, we visited a ranger station where the endangered rhino are the focus of attention and learned there are only 17 rhino in The Selous where there used to be many hundreds, we took one afternoon off and sat and read by the swimming pool overlooking the river filled with hippo and crocodile and we spent a quiet couple of hours in a tree blind overlooking a green marsh with many water lilies and birds. For our last evening at Sand Rivers, the staff provided a group sundowner on a hilltop with a lovely sunset vista. Unfortunately, one of our group members became very sick on the spot. Then a couple of others didn’t feel so well. By the time dinner rolled around several had fallen and only 8 of the total 17 in the group finished the meal. Fortunately, Mark and I were 2 of the 8. By the next morning when we departed for Zanzibar, all but 2 were feeling better, if not perfect. The 2 really sick people made it to the plane and to the hotel in Zanzibar with help and were down for another 24 hours.
I am really tired after so much writing and staying up late–Mark is sawing logs already–so our three days in Zanzibar will have to wait. However, I am almost caught up to real time. Hope I get more writing time before we fly to Madagascar on the 12th.
Blessings to you all, Julia and Mark
July 12, 2009
South African Airways enrooted from Johannesburg to Antananarivo, Madagascar
Hello again,
In the last letter I promised to write about Zanzibar. We arrived there mid-day on June 25, 2009 with 14 of us remaining from the Stanford group. The airport was old, unpleasant and somewhat infested with mosquitoes. For once, I was not bitten, but Mark and others in the group were. It was one of those few times when we are glad we are taking malaria pills.
Zanzibar is part of Tanzania, but it has its own government, its own president and it functions fairly autonomously. The main city, really a medium sized town, is Stonestown, which is named for the many stone buildings made from coral during the 17th and 18th centuries. The buildings are nearly all a dirty white color and have touches of Portuguese and Arab architecture. Many streets are too narrow for cars, making the more pleasant walking. The island is most famous for its spice and slave trades. Stonestown had one of the biggest slave trading ports in Africa that came to a reluctant end when the British forced the issue with pressure from David Livingston, who had seen its effects on the people and hated the practice.
We took a walking tour of the local markets and smelled many fresh spices. Would have purchased some, but did not want to have them in our bags for the rest of the trip. Vanilla beans were about $3 for a package of ten. Last time I wanted to buy one bean at home it was $21. Maybe I will find some in Madagascar. Down one of the walking streets I found a Zanzibar flag for our collection. Wonder if we will ever put up all the flags we have collected. Need to find a place. We also saw several slave sites including the cramped spaces in which they were kept until sold and the market place where they were auctioned off. That spot is now the site of the alter in the local Anglican church, which also contained beautiful, tall and slender stained glass windows.
After the tour we were bussed to our hotel. It took an hour and a half to negotiate the terrible roads to the northerly end of the island, Stonestown being about in the middle. The roadside activities were interesting for awhile–people and animals walking wherever they wanted, business stores and shacks all along the roadside, grain and corn drying on roadside mats, green trees, shrubs, grasses and some flowers near and beyond the road all wild and unkempt. However, after awhile we just wanted to get to our rooms and have some lunch. Finally we arrived at Matemwe Lodge. Our bags were already in our cottage, which was only 30 feet from the edge of the bluff against which the Indian Ocean waves were crashing. There are only 12 cottages at the lodge and our group used 7 of them, all on the bluff edge. The weather was warm, the bugs were few, the beach was white powdery sand, our private space had a patio with comfortable seating and a hammock. We did not want to leave the place. After lunch, we lounged by the pool and on our patio. The whole group took the next day off and did nothing but read, swim and walk on the beach. The ocean water was very warm, but full of seaweed. Swimming was more pleasant in the pool. The next day Mark did more of nothing, while I went scuba diving with two other people in our group. The dive shack, where we were outfitted, was only 10 minutes away, but we had another awful drive further north to a beach where the large motorized raft waited for us. The tide was low and the only place to get beyond the reef, which surrounded that side of the island, was through a single opening. Once beyond the reef we were shortly at our first dive sight. The water was reasonable clear and the drift dive at 60 feet amid coral heads was delightful. Lots of colorful reef fish. We also saw nudibrancs, moray eels, 2 different kinds of lion fish, octopus, stonefish, soft and hard corals and sponges. Our first dive was to 60 feet and our second one was to just 25 feet and was not as good as the water was murky and there was a fair amount of dead coral. Our guide told us later that his ears were hurting him and he did not want to take us deeper. Oh well, it was fun just being able to dive again. On the way back the tide was higher and we were able to cross the reef near the dive shack. The three of us got back to our lodge just in time to join the rest of our group for a sunset sail inside the reef on a dhow-a wooden boat with a single wooden mast and triangular sail. Mark calls it “a rickety ass homemade boat”. We had a lot of laughs along with our sundowners and snacks. That evening we shared our last meal with the group. The table was beautifully set outdoors in the sand. We had just sat down and were watching video photos of our trip, when the sky opened suddenly and we were deluged with rain. We grabbed what was not rain proof and ran for cover in the bar. Not long later the table was re set in the dining room and we commenced our meal, no worse for wear. At 10pm Mark and I said good bye and went to bed. We were awakened at 2:30am for a 3pm departure to the airport for our 6:10am departure to Nairobi. Fortunately this is the only awful departure time in our itinerary. We had only an hour in Nairobi before our flight to Johannesburg.
I think that catches you up to just a couple of days ago. We were in Swaziland where we had two days to explore the country, which can be driven around in only one day and is the smallest country in Africa. The first day we meandered around the local craft and art shops and bought way more stuff than we intended–much of it heavy and bulky. We also visited a Cultural Center where we toured a traditional village and saw traditional Swazi dancing. We also did a short hike to a waterfall. The next day we drove around part of the country and did another hike to some San, bushmen, paintings that are about 4000 years old. We had a long visit with the volunteer, Nellie Dmlini, who took us to the paintings. She shared her personal story and dream of becoming a nurse. He spoke excellent English and answered all our questions forthrightly. We were much impressed and plan to stay in contact with her via email and may try to help her at some point. Who knows. Aside from meeting Nellie, our drive about was rather uninteresting and we finally returned to the hotel to pack up our new acquisitions, have dinner and go to bed.
The next day, July 11, we drove to the border post at Oshoek, spent 40 minutes leaving Swaziland and entering South Africa and then sped our way along excellent roads to Johannesburg. We stopped at a small town called Carolina and bought oranges and biltong (African version of jerky) and ate along the road side under a tree. We arrived at the Johannesburg airport and the Budget car rental return with no mistakes, were collected by the driver for the Witwater Guest House, which is near the airport, and soon were welcomed by the staff at the entrance. What a place. Totally top of the line in every way except that the place is not quite finished and we are one of the 2-3 guests who have stayed so far. We were given the “presidential suite as there were no other guests and it was available. The HVAC system was not finished, the TV and computer hookup were not available, the landscaping was incomplete and there were not many staff on duty including the manager. The owner’s son catered to our every wish including setting up a Far-Infrared heat treatment for us to warm up, driving us to a nice restaurant for dinner, Jose’s, and picking us up afterwards. He gave us hot tea before bed and a wakeup call in time to have breakfast and depart at 7am for our flight to Madagascar. We certainly could have stayed there longer.
Evening of July 12, 2009
Relais des Plateaux, Antananarivo, Madagascar
We arrived in Madagascar at 1:40pm, spent an hour clearing immigration and visa control and finally met our new guide, a Malagasey named VY, and driver, named Atienne. In about 15 minutes we were at our hotel, the Ralais des Plateaux. It is very basic, just the opposite of the previous night’s accommodation, but clean and with a good bed. We check in, put our valuables in the safe, plug in the computer to recharge and head out to do some sightseeing with Vy and Atienne.
Although it is Sunday the streets are crowded and traffic moves slowly through the streets, which have buildings crowding right up to the roadway in some places. The architecture is very interesting and varied with many of the building 2 and 3 stories tall and most colorfully painted. Very different from South African buildings. Lots of churches as the population is 65% Christian. About 25% are animist and 8% are Muslim. For an hour we drive through this suburban area while Vy tells us about the history and politics of the country. By the time we get to the Queen’s Summer Palace we have learned about the centuries of tribal rule and the period called the Kingdom years from 1787 to 1895, at which time the French invaded and colonized the country. The French stayed until independence in 1960. At that time the country was doing well economically, but began to deteriorate under years of corrupt elected officials. Now the place is in very bad circumstance as the former elected President was ousted in April by a military coup for closing down a TV station that spoke out against the government. Since then a new government has taken over under the leadership of the man who had owned the TV station. Hmmm. The problem is that he is not an elected person and other countries refuse to recognize his government. Meanwhile, the ousted President sits in Swaziland at the Royal Villas, two doors down from our villa, trying to get the EU to help him regain power. Vy does not think that will happen and that new elections may be held in December. Meanwhile, the economy suffers and tourism has all but dried up, even though there are no problems for us tourists.
Back to the Queen’s Summer Palace. It is a very quaint collection of Malagasey and French architecture that clearly defines the people who used them. The original building was a 3 stories tall square structure with only a dirt floor that the first king lived in with one of his 12 wives, depending on his mood. The other structures were built in the French style by the widow of the first king’s son, who ruled from 1810 to 1828. She ruled with an iron fist for 33 years, eliminating any threats to her power. Following her reign, the succeeding monarchs were weak and ineffective. The French shipped the last queen off to Angola after they invaded and took control.
After our history lesson, we drove even slower back to the hotel as the roads were totally clogged. Dinner at the hotel and now it is bed time. Unfortunately, I feel a cold coming on so am doctoring up as best I can.
At last I am caught up. Hopefully I will not fall behind and we will have more opportunities to send messages.
God bless you all, Julia and Mark
July 13, 2009 Antananarivo Domestic Airport
We are waiting for our flight to Maroantsetra, a town in the north-east of the country and our access to the rain forest.
Here are some facts we have learned so far. Madagascar is the 4th largest island in the world. It has a population of 20 million, with 20% living in the urban center and 80% living in the country doing farming. The land mass is slightly smaller than Texas with a length of 1000 miles and a width of 400 miles. South Africa on the other hand is nearly twice the size of Texas. The population here is very young–40% are under 15 years of age–while the growth is 3% per annum. Malaria is a major health problem with 5-6 malaria deaths every day. AIDs exists but is not nearly as bad as in African countries.
Swaziland is the smallest country in Africa and has a population of about 2 million. Sadly 40% of the adult population has Aids and the life span is currently 35 and is expected to be only 32 in a few years. Thousands of children are orphans living with other relatives or in orphanages. It has the highest %age of Aids in the world with South Africa in second place. Numbers are misleading, however. Many people in the urban areas live in relatively nice houses and dress well. They own and operate upscale tourist shops and eat in nice restaurants.
Although Madagascar is listed as one of the poorest countries in the world, our eyes already see a different story. There are many cars on the road and people look well fed and reasonably dressed–here in the capital at least. Although the annual income is listed by the UNDP at $200 per person, many rural people do not even use money, but live on the barter system and urban dwellers must be making more. I think this must be true of many poor countries we have visited. Our guide and his wife both work and live in a rented house with 2 bedrooms/1 bath for $180 per month. That clearly blows the $200/annum theory as Vy, pronounced “V”, is an ordinary urban citizen and not a member of the wealthy or ellite. They saved for 5 years so they could buy a car with cash and he saved for 10 years before that to buy a motor bike. Apparently borrowing from the bank costs up to 3 times the cost of the item–once for the item, once for interest on the loan and once again for the bribe to the loan officer. No wonder they saved their money to pay cash. The same problem exists for buying a house. Vy is 34 and his wife, who has a law degree and works in a bank, is 28. They have no children so far as they are both working to save money to someday build a house. He tells us they are unusual in this regard as most of their friends already have 2 children per couple.
We arrived at Maroantsetra and were driven to our lodging, the Relais du Masoala. We have one of 15 elevated and very pleasant bungalows on the sand near the beach, but are the only guests. Even though this is the high season, tourists are staying away, unfortunately. Our guides are very frustrated about the political situation and see no resolution until there is an official election with an official winner. They are hoping for an election to be set in December. The elected president, Marc Ravalomanana, was ousted by a coup in February. The coup winner, Andry Rajoelina, was assisted by some of the military and has set up an illegal government, which most people do not accept. Apparently he was the outspoken Mayor of Tana and owner of a local TV station. Due to the bad press he gave the president about a variety of complaints–high cost of living with no solutions offered, monopolization of most big businesses and his pro American relations that pissed off the French who were backing the Mayor–the president closed the TV station, which precipitated the coup. People were glad that he had opposed the president in the press, but not pleased with his heavy handed ousting or the man. Everyone wants to see an election and choose who their president will be. The UN and the EU have since refused to honor grant funding of E400 million until elections are held. Consequently, the illegal president has said he will set elections for December, but so far he has done nothing. Vy is not hopeful for elections any time soon.
During the afternoon, we took a very relaxed boat ride on the local river, Anjahanambo (tall Mangroves), passing a village, many papyrus plants and rice fields being carved out of the river bed. The Malagasy grow a very high quality of rice which is exported to Europe. Meanwhile, they import cheap rice from China to feed themselves so they have a net economic gain. There is so much rain in this part of the country that the yield is 4 crops per year. There are 2 seasons– the rainy season and the season in which it rains. We are here in the latter season and have experienced only a couple of sprinkles so far. The biggest excitement of our boat ride was the spotting of an 18 inch long Punter Chameleon. It has 4 pigment colors and changed from green to reddish while we were with it. We moved in very close and Vy picked it up and handed it to me. I was thrilled to be able to see it up close, touch its skill–scaly but not prickly–count its toes–5 with three opposing the other two and have it walk down my arm and hang onto my finger. Mark was not so thrilled as it wanted to crawl down his back, but he took lots of photos.
We had an early dinner and I went to bed. I am really feeling lousy.
July 14,2009 Bastille Day in Maroantsetra
This morning I was still feeling awful, but I mustered as I didn’t want to miss the day’s activities. At 7:30am we were on a motor boat traveling as fast as possible through the Ocean to get to the largest national park in the country, Masoala, which takes up a whole peninsula but is nearly inaccessible by road. We hit the beach after 1 ½ hours of beating against the incoming waves. Our driver did a super job of avoiding the worst bumps. Midway through the crossing, we spotted a pod of Humpback Whales and stopped to watch them breaching. Two of them came very close to our boat. We were not even to the island and already I was glad I came. In addition to us, our head guide, Vy, and Claudio, the local guide Vy has selected to accompany us, there were 2 boat men, who dropped us off at the beach next to the trail head and moved around to a better location for parking the boat and having lunch. Instantly we were in the rainforest on a well marked trail. Our guides patiently told and retold us the names of trees as we walk by them, but all I can remember is tree ferns, Ebony trees and Canarium trees, which have stumps that look like cathedral buttresses and are used for making the local boat as it is light and hard and grows fast. We were very luck as the day was dry and there were very few bugs. Soon, we encountered our first lemur high in the tree canopy. It was the Red Ruffed Lemur, which is the second largest of all lemurs and is found only in this forest. During our hike we spotted a total of 5 of them. They were not very helpful about giving us good photo ops, but we did our best. We also saw one of the White Fronted Brown Lemur, which is more common that the Red Ruffed, but even harder to photograph.
Our bird sightings were also special. We saw the Scaly Ground Roller, which is very rare and hardly ever seen. It was on the ground holding very still in hopes we did not see it. Even so there was too much foliage to get a decent photo. Claudio told us hundreds of birdwatchers come to this park just to see this bird and leave without success. Another bird that held perfectly still on a nearby limb was the Pygmy Kingfisher, a small brick red colored bird. We got several photos of it. Less easy to photograph but equally interesting to see were the Blue Coua and the Crested, Fork-tailed Drongo.
We were in the forest for 3 ½ hours and loved every minute of it. Back on the beach we walked to where our boat was anchored and enjoyed a chicken and pasta salad lunch prepared by our hotel and served on the beach by the boat men. After lingering as long as possible we headed for home. This time we were moving with the sea and had a smooth, fast trip back.
Having docked next to the town, we decided to walk the main street, find some vitamin C and hang out with the locals. The roads are all hard packed sand with the stores built very simply of wood and corrugated metal standing next to each other and at the edge of the street on both sides. The configuration made for convenient shopping and visiting and most people were very sociable. As Madagascar was French Colony from 1895 to 1960, the common language, besides Malagasy, is French. Today being Bastille Day, several people were out and about all dressed up. We stopped at a dress shop where the proprietor was Chinese-Malagasy and quite friendly. We also saw a few Indians walking about. They are mostly in trade and are third generation. Quite a mixture for such a small town in rural Madagascar. After an hour, however, I was really feeling the effects of the cold. Back at our bungalow we cleaned up and relaxed on our veranda until dinner. The hotel owner made me a cup of ginger root tea for my chest congestion. It was really bitter, but drinkable with a lot of honey. We found some decongestants in our medical kit and between them, the ginger drink, vitamin C, IBU and my 12 hour nose spray, I think will improve– especially with a good night’s sleep.
July 15, 2009 Relais du Masoala, Maroantsetra
Today I felt a little better and we were out again on the water headed for an island called Nosy Mangabe, only 20 minutes away. The whole island was designated a preserve in 1987 to keep the locals from cutting down the trees and wiping out the habitat. So far so good. I am sure the caretaker/guard makes a difference too. Interestingly, nothing can be taken from a preserve, but a person can take all the medicinal plant material they need from a National Park.
We pulled into a lovely little cove that was set up for overnight camping. We had been given the option to stay here and try and find the nocturnal Aye-Aye. Had I felt better and had Mark been willing to live with only a cold shower we probably would have camped. The place was really charming. Having made the decision ahead of time, however, we plunged into the forest for our planned day hike and walked slowly to the top of the island, over 1000 feet, looking for the Black and White Ruffed Lemur, which completely eluded us even though we heard its call many times. We did see a male and female Paradise Fly Catcher and another Pygmy Kingfisher. Mostly the walk was about small things close to the ground–several Brookesia Chameleon (which are the smallest in the world), crabs, lizards, 1 large millipede, 3 hard shelled centipedes, several interesting frogs, mushrooms and conchs. After 4 hours of walking, we finally spotted two White-Fronted Brown Lemurs high in the trees and totally un-photographable. Not far from the camp and our lunch sight, Claudio found the very hard to spot, Leaf Tailed Gecko. It was hard to make it out even when he told us where it was, about 8 feet high on a similarly gray tree trunk facing down. Once we saw it we were really impressed and took lots of photos, hoping at least one will be good. Claudio proceeded to find us two more gecko’s. At the last one, only 5 feet off the ground I was able to get in really close. When I was told it was ok to touch the creature, I rubbed its back and it went into a totally threatening and angry stance which it held for as long as I took photos and we walked away. In the process, it changed color from gray to green, flipped up its leaf like tail and opened its crocodile shaped mouth to reveal a blood red tongue. I would have been afraid except that Vy said not to worry. Its major predator is the Blue Coua and I suspect it would have looked pretty formidable and much bigger that a mouthful to that foe.
Our walk took 5 hours and we were really glad to see camp. The air inside the forest today was hot and steamy and we were sweating like crazy. Yesterday’s hike had been cool and breezy by comparison. The humidity seemed to be good on my lungs, however, so I had no complaints. Lunch today was boiled prawns, couscous salad and fresh pineapple. We are certainly eating well. While we ate, two local pests, male and female White-Fronted Brown Lemurs, challenged us constantly to get at our food, but we prevailed and got some photos as well. Not exactly wild shots, but better than nothing. Again, as yesterday we had the whole island to ourselves.
Back at the hotel, we were very happy to have hot showers and relax on our veranda, even when there was a light sprinkle. We have been very blessed on this entire trip regarding weather. We have enjoyed sunny skies, mild temperatures and light breezes most days in Tanzania, South Africa, Swaziland and now Madagascar. We have not yet had more than a light shower anywhere and most of the showers have occurred at night. Sure hope our luck holds.
Unfortunately, Mark and Vy are starting to come down with my cold. Claudio has been spared, but today was his last day with us as we fly tomorrow back to Tana for one night, before flying to our next destination. Traveling within Madagascar is much like our experience in Bali during our honeymoon. Every time we wanted to go to another destination off the island, we had to overnight in Denpassar. Same day connections never worked there either.
July 16, 2009 Maroantsetra Airport
We sit waiting for our flight back to Tana for another overnight before our onward journey to Perrinet.
Mark and Vy are now coughing like I was a few days ago. Meanwhile, I am feeling better but still have a lot of congestion and an achy back from all the hacking. They both rested this morning while I took a long walk on the beach photographing people and watching the fishermen pull in their long lines. I have rarely seen people work so hard for so little return. After spending more than an hour pulling in about 1000 meters of line with hundreds of feet of net attached, the family would scrape through the grass, debree and muck to find a small bowl full of fish and prawns from 1-5 inches in length. Not even enough to feed themselves one meal. I felt so sad for one family whose line snapped half way through hauling in the line that, when they recovered and started again, I lent a hand. They were clearly exhausted by the ordeal. I grew tired after about 15 minutes.
Staying at our hotel were a couple of women from Berkeley, who have friends living in Grass Valley. They are some of the very few Americans we have seen on this whole trip. They are a mother and daughter here for 2 weeks, because this is “one of the few places in the world we had not yet been”. I mentioned a couple of out there places and they had already been to them. They must be more traveled than we.
July 17, 2009 Vakona Forest Lodge, Andasibe (Perinett), East-Central Madagascar
Salaam,
Much of yesterday was uninteresting due to a late flight back to Tana, just to reposition for a drive to Andasibe this morning, but we rested on the flight, ate dinner early and were in bed by 8:30pm. Mark woke up at 3am freezing and wrapped himself around me to get warm. I understood as I had had that same thing happen to me a few nights earlier. As there were no extra blankets in the room I covered him in our bath towels and tried to warm him up. Eventually he went to sleep, but by then I was too hot so did not get back to sleep myself. Anyway, we had a 5:45 wake up. Having started early to sleep, we did not feel too tired. Today was Mark’s and Vy’s day to feel perfectly awful. It was primarily a 5 hour road trip with lots of photo stops along the very scenic route east through the city of Tana and its suburbs to the rural countryside with many fields of rice, vegetables and fallow ground waiting for winter to pass. The early morning light made the landscape and the traditional houses of two-story mud brick look like paintings by the Dutch masters of the 16th century.
Mid-morning we reached the Mandraka Reptile farm that Vy wanted us to visit. It sounded rather hokey to us, but we went along and were really glad we did. We were allowed to hold and photograph every creature we saw and lingered long over the stick insects, dozens of different sizes and species of Chameleon (for some reason I am really taken by them), several leaf-tailed geckos of two varieties (Europlatus Fimbriatus and Europlatus Fantasticus), a charming Tomato Frog, who really was the color and wetness of the inside of a tomato and a medium sized boa, which we elected not to handle. The species of the chameleon included: The common Punter (male and female), Parson’s (which doesn’t not change from green), male and female Globifer (very colorful), Nazitus and Pygmy (which lives only on the ground). Sorry to bother you with so much detail, but I want to remember the names to put them with the photos. Of more interest is that all chameleons live in trees, except the Brookesia species. The average life span is 8 years. They lay their eggs in the ground and it takes 18 months for the eggs to hatch. Many males have one or two hornes, while the females have none. They have feet shaped like pliers and a prehensile tail that allows them to grasp a branch effortlessly. Their eyes are shaped like gun-turrets which can swivel 180 degrees independently of each other. They have a slow measured back and forth step, that more or less resembles a leaf in the wind. Color changing is an autonomic reaction to a range of stimuli. Chameleons have a transparent epidermis, then 3 layers of cells–the top ones are yellow and red, the middle laayer reflects blue and white light and the bottom layer consists of black pigment cells with tentacles that can protrude up through the other layers. Change occurs when one layer is more stimulated than others and patterning when one group of cells receives maximum stimulation.
Down the road, we stopped in one small town for tissue and water and another, Moramanga, for lunch and a walk around the streets. We were surprised to see barefoot men pulling rickshaws carrying people and supplies around. Clearly no tourist attraction as we were the only “vazaha” (white foreigners) around. Fortunately for the men, the town was flat, although most of the roads were dirt or mud depending on how wet they were. Apparently, the French brought in Chinese people as skilled labor in 1900 to build a system of locks and channels to connect a number of lakes for a 600 kilometers waterway, called the Pangalanes Channel, on the East coast. The Chinese stayed and today there are still 4 towns that provide rickshaw service.
Shortly after lunch we arrived at our destination, Andasibe Special Reserve. The guide book says this Reserve is composed of moist montane forest (930-1049m) and is rich in fauna and flora including a higher number of frog species than any comparable rainforest on earth“. We started by walking through the orchid garden and spotting a few birds and one chameleon. As it is winter we saw only one flowering orchid. Then we drove on toward our hotel as it was park closing time and we plan to return in the morning. Our hotel has a mini-park of its own that is home to 6 species of lemur. The hotel management created an island with no way to get off unless a creature flies or swims. Lemurs apparently hate water and don’t swim so they stay put on the island and are fed a kilo of bananas each every day. Most are not friendly with people, but a few were very habituated and climbed all over us to get a chance for a piece of banana. It was fun for awhile, but soon grew old as a couple of them continued to jump on my head and back. Once the feeding part was done, we climbed into a canoe and were rowed around the good sized large island enjoying the habitat and the lemurs at a comfortable distance. The 6 kinds of lemurs we saw included: Common Brown (jumped all over us like a pest), White-fronted Brown (friendly, but less of a pest), Diademed Sifaka (danced on hind legs for food), Bamboo ( a cute small lemur), Black and White Ruffed (hung upside down while eating his banana) and Ring-tailed (has a long, bushy, ringed tail).
At last we checked into the hotel, rested a bit in our small, but adequate, room, had our habitual (since we have been in Madagascar) JW Black neat, ate another so-so meal while talking philosophy and politics with Vy and then retired to bed. Vy had me try local Madagascar food this evening–consists of rice on one side of the plate and a beef or chicken stew made with bitter mustard greens and some juice on the other. Now that I have tried it, I can go back to eating the so-so food that is, at least, recognizable. It is 9:15pm and Mark is out, this time with plenty of blankets on him, and I am about to do the same as we have another 5:45am wake up call in the morning.
July 18, 2009 On the road from Andasibe back to Tana
We started walking into the fog and mist shrouded rain forest of Andasibe at 7:30am. Our forest guide is a very experienced Malagasy named Patrice. We walked silently over the leaf strewn ground for more than half an hour before Patrice left us in search of the world’s largest lemur, the Indri Indri. We waited quite awhile and then we heard the unmistakable sound of the Indri Indri singing. Patrice came back breathlessly to get us to follow him quickly in the opposite direction from the sound. Apparently we heard a distant group singing (their voices carry 3 kilometers) and he wanted us to be with another group he had spotted before they gave the expected singing reply. We just made it to a group of 4 lemurs as they started to sing. What an incredible sound. I was able to capture it on the video, although we were unable to get even one reasonable photo. There was so much mist and they were very high in the tree canopy. We stayed with them as long as we could. But as we have a 5 hour drive back to the airport at Tana for our 4pm flight to Tulear on the south-west coast, we had to walk out of the forest without lingering. We did manage to get a very good look at a Blue Coua, one frog and 2 Brown lemurs high in a tree near the entrance.
Now we are in the car and so far I am not carsick, but I think it is time to stop as the road is getting very curvy.
Later at the airport. So far I have not shared much about our logistical experiences. Air Madagascar is proving to be more than a little frustration. First our flight ftom Tana to Maroantsetra was delayed by enough hours to keep us in Tana an extra night and shorten our visit to Andasibe. Now our flight from Tana to Tulear has been delayed twice. If it had gone as planned we would be in Tulear and on the road to Isalo for a 3 night visit. The flight was delayed until 4pm so we spent more time in the forest this morning, a good thing as we got to hear the Indri Indri sing, but will have to spend the night in Tulear as it will be too dark to drive to Isalo and force us to stay one night in Tulear, a not so good thing. Then, as we entered Tana and headed for the airport, Vy received a call that the flight has been further delayed and now we are to depart Tana at 7pm. So we have gone into plan C and have been having a tour of the city center. Went to the top of the highest hill in the city, not unlike San Francisco, to see the view–quite nice–and look at the Queen’s Palace, the Prime Minister’s home and office and the ousted president’s home. Now we are sitting in the nearby and centrally located Hotel Colbert, where Mark is on line while I type away. Will try to get this off when he is finished. We sure hope the flight is not delayed again. As Air Madagascar has a monopoly in this country, there is nothing to do but……practice patience. J
July 19, 2009 Le Jardin du Roy, near Isolo National Park, south-central Madagascar
So much for sending a message from Tana. No internet available. Enroute to the airport we stopped at a hand-made-paper-with-pressed-flowers plant to watch the process and maybe buy a couple of cards. Ha! Forty-five minutes later, we departed with a large bag full of handmade notes. I’d have bought a lot more if we had room. Really beautiful work.
While waiting for our 7pm departure, Vy suggests we drive the 3 hours to Isolo after we arrive in Tulear rather than staying there overnight and then driving early in the morning. He sells us with the thought of 3 nights in a really nice place, a fast 3 hour drive night drive rather than a slow 4+ hour drive in the morning and the promise to sleep in in the morning. As sick as Mark was, he opted for the “get- there and-get-it-over-with” option. The road was mostly straight and all paved, but pretty bumpy so sleep was possible, but the time passed and we dove into bed at midnight.
When we looked out the window this morning we found ourselves in a lovely new stone bungalow complex called Le Jardin du Roy. In the night we had driven from the coast up into high desert, with the changed landscape a bit like the 4 corners area in the states. Unlike the rain forest, which doesn’t exist in the states, this dry desert is more like many scenes we have near home.
The local guide Vy arranged for us for our time in Isolo National Park, is a 41 year old husband and father of 4, called Tucson. Very friendly and helpful, he led us on a 4k hike up through dry grass and rice fields into a canyon in the park called “Canyon des Makis” (maki being the Malagasey word for lemur) for the Verreaux’s Sifika, a lemur that dances bipedally, and for the shady canyon scenery. He introduced us to a variety of endemic plants including the Pandanus tree, which looks like a palm bush when young and is medium height and multi-branched with as many small palms when old and the fire resistant Tapia tree that has an edible fruit and leaves that are the only source of food for an endemic silk worm, who’s cocoons are used by local women to make shawls and burial shrouds. I admired the native aloe plant called Aloe Isaloensis and a fairly small, soft and lacy Carrot Fern. My favorite plant is the Pachypodium or Elephant Foot, which is a bulbous rock-clinging plant that only grows in Isolo Park. It looks like a miniature baobab tree, but is actually a relative of the periwinkle family and sports white, yellow or red flowers that do have a periwinkle appearance. About 50% of the plants here are endemic and almost as interesting as the lemurs. Just as we finished our picnic lunch by the creek in the canyon, Tucson told us he was spotting lemurs on the other side. We jumped up and followed him to where they were feeding on leaves fairly low in the trees. Finally, we got some reasonable shots of wild lemurs close up, which was a treat. First we saw a Red-fronted Brown Lemur and then four Verreaux’s Sifaca’s, which were wonderful to watch as they leaped vertically and effortlessly from limb to limb in the trees. They were nearly all white with just a little black on their heads. After watching them until they leaped out of sight, we hiked further into the canyon on a trail that was literally carved out of the sides of the boulders in the creek making a very pleasant path.
From the trail head it took 45 minutes to drive out on a very rough dirt road. We dropped Tucson off in the village near the park and went on to a popular tourist attraction called “the Window” for sunset photos. The light on the sand stone hills in the vicinity made for some nice images. There were more tourists gathered at “the window” than we have seen in all of Madagascar until now–most were French or German. We did not linger, but headed to our hotel for hot showers and a game of dominos with Vy. He taught us the local domino game, which is played very fast and does not include counting and we taught him our traditional 5 tile game. He is a very quick study. Then dinner, pretty good food at this hotel with fresh green salad for the first time in weeks, and bed. Mark and I agree that this is the best hotel we have experienced in Madagascar so far even though the power goes off at midnight and stays off until 2pm the next day.
July 20, 2009
Well I am back to feeling normal except for a persistent hack. Mark is somewhat better, but not very energetic. Nevertheless, we are out by 8am for a couple of walks in the park. The first one is to Piscine Naturalle, perhaps the loveliest swimming hole I have ever seen, complete with a small waterfall, Pandanus trees providing shade, nice boulders to sit on and a sandy bottom from 2 to 6 feet deep. It took us an hour and a half to walk there through some beautiful sandstone crags cut by deep canyons and eroded into weird shapes, forests of Tapia trees and occasional Pachypodium plants, one of which sported yellow blooms. The water hole was rather crowded so we stayed only about 20 minutes. The round trip was just as pleasant as we learned about a few more plants and about burial customs of the local Bara tribe (there are 18 tribes in Madagascar and they have mostly gotten along with each other since the French colonial days. The Bara prefer to bury their dead in temporary, fairly accessible caves initially. After a few years, the bones are removed from the temporary cave, re-shrouded, placed in another, smaller, wooden box and relocated to an inaccessible cave for permanent burial. We saw a couple such cave sights. We also learned that it is bad form, or “fady”, to point at a grave or anything considered sacred or spiritual. Instead you must bend the pointing finger so only a knuckle guides your gaze.
Back in the local town of Ranohira, we had a delicious leafy green salad and sandwiches. Then we drove to the trail head of the next hike, about 15 minutes. It was to be a long hike, but Mark was only up for a short walk to a camp sight where we were promised more lemurs. They were there–both the Red-fronted Brown Lemur and the Ring-railed Lemur. We spent a half hour or so trying to get some good images with only limited success and finally hiked back to the car. Back in town, we bid Tucson good bye, spent half an hour in the Isola Interpretive Center getting a better idea of everything we had seen and got back to the hotel by 3pm so we could have some down time in the sunshine–precious time for us since we have been in Madagascar.
At 7pm we joined Vy for dinner, preceded by cocktails and a game of dominoes. Again we prevailed on the staff to provide us with a fresh green salad, which was not on the menu, and we loved it. It was early again to bed with hope that Mark feels good in the morning.
July 21, 2009
Very relaxed start to the day with breakfast at 8am and departure at 9am. Although Mark was not back to normal yet, he showed signs of continued improvement. The plan for the day was to take our time driving back to Tulear, stopping along the way for photos, a visit to the new Sapphire mining area, a picnic lunch along the road and a visit to the Botanical Gardens in Tulear before catching a 6pm flight to Tana. We did it all with time to spare.
We stopped for baobab tree photos as these were the first in Madagascar that we have seen. There are 8 different types of baobab and 6 of them are endemic to Madagascar. We saw two different species during the drive and a couple more at the botanical gardens. Everytime we stopped we were mobbed by children who loved nearby so I took photos of them as well. Vy had told us to expect the children to materialize so we were prepared with biscuits. The arrangement worked well for everybody. The rural villages we passed were among the poorest we have seen in Madagascar. As far as we could see, they grow cassava, make charcoal from eucalyptus, graze cattle and do other subsistence farming…or try to make it rich by mining for Sapphires.
In Ilakaka, the heart of the 10 year old Madagascar Sapphire trade, many thousands of people, including rural people and newcomers, have descended on the town and are trying their luck at digging and selling uncut sapphire stones to the Sri Lankan and Thai traders who have set up shop in fancy new buildings that contrast sharply with the wood and mud shacks lived in by the everyone else. Driving into this boom town after miles of empty open grass land was a bit surreal. I immediately thought Nevada City and Grass Valley must have looked like this shantytown in the mid 1800’s. We stopped at one of the few gem stores where one can purchase cut stones. Mostly the traders buy from the locals and send the rough stones to Sri Lanka or Thailand for cutting and distribution to the world market. The proprietor was French and had only a few small stones for sale. No one we saw looked any better off for the Sapphire boom except the traders who are making the market. Several other small towns have sprung up to take the pressure off Ilakaka and they look just as depressing and ramshackle. What gems were nearby and easy to pick are long gone and now the mining takes place 60-80k away in the desert so we did not get to see any mine works.
Further on we found a shady roadside place to stop for lunch. While we ate there was no other traffic on the road and we remarked about how silent the place was–no cars, no planes, no machines, no electricity, not even any birds. Vy and our driver were surprised that we thought it was unusually quiet as it was normal for them. We also commented on how many stars we can see at night after the generators are turned off. For Mark and me it is much quieter and darker than our ranch in Mendocino.
On the outskirts of Tulear we turned into the botanical gardens where there are 400 different species of plants on 8 hectares–90% of which are endemic and 80% of which have medicinal properties. We were given a pleasant walking tour and I took some photos for my plant loving friends along with the names so I wouldn’t have to remember what they are. Although it was winter and almost nothing was in bloom, I must say there were some really weird looking plants all surviving happily. In the garden we found 2 chameleon, a couple pied robins and a sunbird.
From there we went directly to the airport and caught our flight back to Tana for the third time. This was also our third time to stay at the Relais de Plateau. We are now familiar enough with the place to know what to ask for and what to order at dinner. So far, this is also the only place from which we have been able to send email, so I will close for now so these mumblings get to you soon.
Love and Hugs,
Julia and Mark
July 22, 2009
Nature Lodge, Diego Suarez, Madagascar
Salaam from the far north end of the island. After an on-time flight from Tana to Diego Suarez, we arrived in this city of 110,000 people that was discovered by a couple of Portuguese, William Suarez and Diego Diaz, in 1453. Their real find was the natural harbor that is second only to Rio de Janeiro’s harbor as the best in the world. It has one narrow entrance, a false entrance and 154 km of circumference. Unfortunately for the Malagasy people, the harbor is too far from world markets to be of any significance. It is a beautiful sight anyway as it straddles the Indian Ocean and the Mozambique Channel and is turquoise to dark blue in color. Even though this is the least populated region of the country, it is most cosmopolitan with a mix of Arabs, French ex-pats, Chinese, Comoros Islanders (between Mozambique and the northern tip of Madagascar) and the local Antakarana tribal people. Winter weather here is warm and sunny, unlike Tana weather, which is very cold and damp. The terrain around the bay and the city is mostly flat with medium hills and rain forest in the receding background. We drove around the bay, saw another variety of Baobab tree, the Andasonia Surenzensis, which has distinctively reddish skin and grows only in Diego Suarez. In the bustling city center, also full of rickshaws, we found a place to buy a Madagascar flag, took some photos in the market and then drove to our accommodations, the Nature Lodge, about 20 minutes out of town in the hills near the rain forest, Montagne d‘Ambre.
After lunch we headed into the rain forest, picked up a local guide who could not really speak English and who did not show us much in the forest. The guide Vy had chosen for us was not willing to wait, which forced Vy to take whoever we could get. It was a good learning experience in appreciating the quality of guides Vy has secured for us on every other local tour. We walked around in the forest for 3+ hours, during which it rained off and on a good bit of the time. Due to the overcast and rainy sky, the viewing was not the greatest, but I enjoyed walking among the lush plants, visiting two super waterfalls surrounded by large ferns and listening to birds even when we could not see them. Still, we saw a band of Sanford Lemurs, a Stone Chat, a Paradise Flycatcher and a chameleon. Back at the Nature Lodge, again we were the only guests, we enjoyed our bungalow perched on the edge of a hillside with a view of the bay, the Indian Ocean and the Mozambique Channel as well as the nearby hills. The sunset was lovely. Dinner was passable, but our ongoing conversation about life in Madagascar according to Vy continued pleasantly. We agreed on another early am departure and off to bed we went. The air was pleasantly cool and we were asleep before the power was turned off at 10pm. Nearly all the accommodations we are using are on generator power and, with so few guests, they are leaving the power on as few hours as possible. Can’t blame them. It does mean we have little time to recharge the computer and camera batteries, however.
July 24, 2009
Tsara Kumba, Nosy Komba (Nosy means “Island“ in Malagasy), Madagascar
Yesterday, we hit the road at 6am to get to the Ankarana Reserve by 9am so we would have some morning time with the wild life. Part of our problem in the rain forest the day before was that we were there in the afternoon when most of the animals are quiet. We hoped to experience more activity by arriving earlier and we did. The guide for the day, Jaffra, was quite pleasant and had his plants, animals and English in good command. The reserve is known for its unusual limestone pinnacles, called “Tsingy”, which means “walking on tip toes”, because that is how the local people had to walk over them as they were so sharp and pointed. Of more interest to us was a huge hole in the limestone into which falls and disappears the contents of three rivers. We could see the hole as the rivers are completely dry at the moment. Apparently the water does not daylight until it reaches the Indian Ocean 80km away. Jaffra was able to find several lemurs and birds for us including the Crowned Lemur and two nocturnal species, the Northern Sportive and the Ankarana Sportive Lemurs. We have tried very hard to get good photos of lemurs to share with you, but we cannot promise that our photos will be good as the lemurs are fairly high up in the trees and there is a lot of foliage between them and our lenses. The same is true for many of our bird sightings. Sometime we don’t even try to photograph them. At least we are enjoying seeing them. In this reserve we had good sightings of Crested Coua and Paradise Flycatchers. As for flora, we saw another rare baobab, the Andasonia Madagascariensis found only in this reserve. We also saw a weird bulb shaped creeper vines that has a bulbous-like trunk that holds water during dry times, called Adenia elephans. We found a Pandanus Biecaps with a large seed and Pachypodium decari plants with white flowers in bloom. Mark spotted stag horn ferns, Platyceraum alucorne, growing on tree limbs. Hope that is enough Latin for a day or a trip. If you think the above few items are a bit much, imagine how much we have had our ears filled with names and medicinal properties of rare and endemic plants that are at once very interesting….and almost as immediately, forgotten. There was so much to take in, we often asked our local guides to go slower, not because we were tired, but because the experience of walking in theses forests, parks and preserves was so rich and full of new things to see, smell, hear and touch.
We walked out of the reserve about 1pm and had a real Malagasy lunch prepared at a local restaurant–a place we would not have entered on our own. However, the place was clean, there was a bucket of clear water for wash our hands and the meal was good. It consisted of huge quantities of steaming rice accompanied by a stew of very “free range” chicken and an unusual green vegetable that made our tongues tingle, but which Vy could not name. Dessert was a whole banana. Other variations on this Malagasy dish include the substitution of beef or plain vegetables rather than chicken. We have read, and Vy confirmed, that the Malagasy people consume more rice per capita than any other country–400 grams per day or 323 pounds per person per year.
Fully filled on stew and beer, we began the drive south-east to our next lodging in a coastal village called Ankify. In spite of wanting to see the scenery, we both napped an hour or so. The tarred, but pot-holed road was only 140km, but took 3 hours to negotiate, as has been the case on all the roads in Madagascar. When awake we chatted with Vy and our driver, Charlie, who were both very humorous and made a few photo stops. Finally we arrive at the coast and our hotel called The Dolphin Bleu on the Mozambique Channel. It looked ok from the outside and the bungalow we were assigned seemed ok at first. However, this turned out to be the worst place we have stayed on the whole trip. We started by going for a refreshing dip in the sea and then heading for the shower, which dripped only cold water straight down the head to the handle making it hard to get any water on ourselves. After that unsatisfying experience we met up with Vy for a drink, which could not be served with ice as there was none. By then we were noticing that the place did not seem very clean and everything looked tired. We played a round of doms, the one good thing about the place, and then had the worst meal we have had in ages–a tepid, thin, fishy smelling broth with tiny fish bits at the bottom, followed for me and Vy by a plate of bad tasting fish and boiled potatoes and for Mark by the chicken, so tough it tasted like jerky, in an unsavory curry sauce also served with boiled potatoes. Vy had not stayed here in ages and thought it must have been booked because it was the only possible place for us to stay before taking a morning boat to our R&R resort. Then we went to bed, hoping to get a good night’s sleep. However, the power, along with the fan in the room, was turned off at 10pm and we sweltered most of the night. There was a mosquito net, as there has been at every place we have stayed, but we did not put it down as the air was so still and hot. Consequently we each suffered several mosquito bites before we crawled under the sheet and eventually closed the netting with some mosquitoes inside with us. The bed looked reasonably firm before we got into it, but when we got out of it in the morning it looked like a deflated tire. We could not imagine how they got it to look good for us and what they will do for the next customers. Needless to say, we were more tired when we got up than when we went to bed. It is hard to imagine how one can do a bad job of serving a continental breakfast, but this place managed. By 9am when the boat arrived to take us across the channel to Nosy Komba, we were more than ready. Charlie had driven back to Diego Suarez, but Vy joined us and we all felt better with the morning breeze coming across the boat as we motored only 15 minutes to our next destination.
The change was dramatic and most welcome. We stepped off the boat into 3 inches of warm sea water and walked up to the landing where we were met by the manager, Cecile, and invited to step into a tub of clean water so we would not get sand on the wood decking. The thatched roofed bungalows were set among a dense stand of palm, bamboo and bougainvillea plants that made the place cool and inviting and the restaurant reception area was high on the hill with a lovely view of the Madagascar coast line. Our grass and wood bungalow is spacious (Mark says about 750 square feet) and delightfully appointed. Mark commented on the detailed cleanliness and careful construction of the place and how much he appreciates quality when we get it. We have a large deck where we spend much of our time reading, computing, birding and listening to the gentle lap of the surf, which is directly below us at high tide. We will be here 3 days and 2 nights and Mark has declared that he is done doing until we leave this piece of paradise. I plan to scuba dive tomorrow and then relax the rest of the time. Vy hung out with us and we played dominoes most of the morning until lunch. Then he took the boat to another island, Nosy Be, to catch a plane back to Tana. Our time with him is finished and we will miss him. Mark and I walked him to the boat and handed him an envelope with his tip inside. We hope we have given enough to make him feel appreciated while not giving too much. Such a complicated decision which we discussed several times and for which we will never know what would be best. Now back to being on our own. Nice. Late in the afternoon we had a lovely rainstorm that lasted through dinner and off and on during the night.
July 25, 2009
The day dawned sunny and clear and we both felt refreshed. While Mark spent his day being, I went on my third scuba diving adventure of this trip. Toni, the French dive master who lives on the other side of the island with his Malagasy wife and two children, picked me up at 8:30am. I was the only client for the day, so he was not keen on taking me out to the favored dive spots in the marine reserve near Tanikely Island, but with a little persuasion, he agreed and we were soon motoring to the island. The gear he packed for me was a bit too small, but we made due and were soon below the surface in 85 degree water. If felt most warm to me and I was still comfortable after the second dive, an unusual occurrence for me. The first dive was about a quarter mile off shore of the island in 60 feet of water with at least 65 feet of horizontal visibility. We let the current take us on a drift around one side of the island and saw many different reef fish and schools of bigger fish drifting with us. The hard and soft corals and sponges were abundant and very different from many I have seen elsewhere. I have never seen so many gorgonian fans in such shallow water–quite a beautiful sight. Toni told me the area is a preserve and it felt great to swim in a healthy marine environment. We saw 2 medium sized sting rays, one moray eel, a few nudibranches and a 14-16 inch crocodile fish laying on the bottom looking as menacing as the shore bound variety. We surfaced at 54 minutes and went ashore for the hour break between dives. I was pleased to see more lemurs and to be able to feed them the bananas Toni brought for that purpose. There was a group of about 8 Common Brown Lemurs, who were used to being fed by divers and snorkelers who frequent the island. They took bits of banana from my hand and sometimes put their hand on mine to reach the fruit. The sensation was quite pleasant as their hands were soft and gentle. They were not so tame as to leave the shelter of the trees, but would come down quite close to the ground to get a piece of fruit. I was only sorry I did not have my camera. Ate a couple of bananas myself and then we were off again for the second dive, which was very close to the beach in 40 feet of water. This time we stayed down for an hour and 3 minutes, a fairly long dive. The visibility was just as good as the first dive, but the viewing was different. The sandy bottom was broken by clusters of coral where the sea creatures gathered for safety and food. We saw the usual colorful coral fishes including many Parrot fish, tangs, Moorish Idols, black and white clown fish and many whose names I do not have in my head. There were several large lion fish, lots of gobis on the sand in many sizes and colors and 4 very large turtles. They were fun to watch feeding on the coral and swimming between feeding stops. I was able to get close enough to touch 2 of them and one turned and stared me in the face only 18 inches away. I loved it.
Back in the boat, we motored back to the hotel. We had been gone for 5 hours of total pleasure. Meanwhile, Mark had an equally wonderful time being. I showered and we had a delicious lunch of gazpacho, fish Carpaccio, dorado kabobs and duck stir fry. And there was still the afternoon to while away. We read, went for a walk on the beach, a swim and a shower and did some computing. A super day. Now, for a drink in the twilight and dinner.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
I learned that there was a Catholic Mass happening in the village around the corner from our beach resort so Mark and I took a pirogue (wooden outrigger canoe with a motor on it) ride to the village and walked to the church for what we thought was to be 8:30 service. Slowly people arrived and Mass began about 9:15. The small building was full of children and a few adults. I could follow the parts of the service and we enjoyed the singing. By 10am the priest, who was dressed in street clothes, was still giving his sermon and we had had enough, so we walked through the pleasant village chatting with people and taking photos. We saw a wood construction business, where the men were hand making fine joinery for building beams; a pirogue building business; lots of people washing clothes; people napping on their porches; women selling their handmade table clothes; coffee drying and vanilla being cured.
Vanilla is very cheap here as there is so much growing everywhere, but it is very labor intensive, which, I guess, is why it costs so much to buy it at home. It grows on a vine and is green when picked. Then it is boiled for no more than 3 minutes, dried exactly 15 minutes in the sun every day for two weeks, then dried all day every day, unless it rains, for three months. If it gets wet, every bean must be hand dried immediately or it will rot. The hard part is that good vanilla must be individually massaged every day during that 3 month period or it will be brittle rather than supple. Knowing if it has been correctly cured is the part that stumped me. We bought some when we first arrived in Madagascar and now realize that it must have been smoked to assist in the aging–it has a smoky smell–duh! Boy did I get taken in. So we purchased more from Cecile, who told us she markets the “good” stuff for the ladies in the village and does not keep a percentage for herself. I believe her.
Eventually we passed through the village and followed the trail through the woods and along the beach until we got back to Tsara Kumbe. By that time we were really hot so we went for a long, last swim in the warm ocean and talked about being sorry our holiday was almost over, that we were about to begin our slow process home, via Tana and Johannesburg and what a wonderful adventure it has been. A shower, one last lunch overlooking the sea and we were on our way.
Nosy Be airport, Nosy Be Island, Madagascar
We have just had an abrupt end to and idealic visit to Tsara Komba. We said good bye to Cecile, the manager, and got on a speed boat with an Italian couple also heading for the airport. The ride was fast and bumpy and we got a bit wet, but it still felt like we were on holiday. Then we pulled into the port at Nosy Be. Nothing pretty there. Lots of people, noise, diesel fumes and filth. A small car was waiting for us, but could not take all our luggage with the trunk closed, so we departed with it open. The city buildings were very dated colonial and, like most of the colonial building all over Madagascar, not well kept up even if still in use. The town was hot and dirty and it felt better to get out into the countryside for our 20km ride to the airport. About half way there, the car had a flat tire, our second of this trip. We all piled out and took out our bags. The driver managed to change the tire in less than 10 minutes, even faster than Mark did it. Back in the car, we made it to the airport in ample time. Now we wait for the plane to arrive for our 5:30pm flight to Tana, which, as usual, was late.
Apparently Madagascar was in pretty good physical and economic shape in 1960, when the French left. Unfortunately, bad leadership and lack of skilled labor caused the country to go downhill rather rapidly. By the 70’s the country was as poor as other African countries which had been granted independence. In Vy’s opinion, the people were not ready for independence. No one had been taught leadership skills. Reunion, a French Protectorate, fared much better as the French continued to offer help. Vy wishes Madagascar had become a protectorate too, so the people would be better off today. It is really sad to watch African countries flounder through bad governance. The people deserve better.
At Tana our driver was waiting and in about 40 minutes we were at the Hotel Colbert in the heart of town. We quickly freshened up, had dinner in the hotel and went to bed. Tomorrow we will do a bit of shopping at a couple of art galleries that have been recommended and then head back to the airport for our mid-afternoon flight to Johannesburg.
As we finally have internet access here at the Colbert, I will send this off now. Don’t know if I will have time to send another message.
See you all soon, Julia and Mark
July 28, 2009
AtholPlace, Sandton, Johannesburg
AtholPlace is a guest house on a residential street in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg. Every property in this and other nice neighborhoods is surrounded by high walls and further secured with a watchman stationed in a glass booth next to the gate. We arrived here last evening about 7pm. The managers were two charming gentlemen, who upgraded us to a suite because they did not want to bother putting us in a standard room in an adjacent building where we would be the only guests. No complaints from us. The suite is quite large with very high ceilings and contemporary furnishings with touches of distressed wood pieces and fresh flowers scattered about. The best part is the bedding, which has a 725 cotton thread count and is made by the Italian company, Frette. Most sumptuous for our last two nights in Africa before the 30+ hours it will take before we see the inside of our own bed, which happens to have a much lower thread count, but is HOME.
Today we took a guided tour of the city and really enjoyed learning the history of Jozi, as Johannesburg is known locally, from our guide who is 64 and lived through and participated in the struggle against apartheid. He mostly spoke from his experience and brought that whole period to life for us. In addition to driving through different neighborhoods in the city, we visited Constitutional Hill, where the men’s and women’s prisons were located until 1983. We joined a group of university students for the prison tour and they were as shocked as we were to learn about the atrocities imposed on the prisoners, especially black men and women during the apartheid years. So bad I don‘t want to describe them here. Ask me later, if you are interested. Suffice it to say, it was horrible and hard to imagine how the whites could be so cruel. Apparently, they thought of black people as inferior beings, who did not need to be treated with decency or respect, which is why apartheid was so bad and lasted for so long. Desmond, our guide, said the blacks were and still are grateful to the rest of the world for imposing sanctions, which helped considerably in bringing apartheid to and end. From the prisons we walked into Constitution Court, built in 2003, where issues affecting the new constitution and its array of popular rights, passed in 1994, are heard and sorted. It has been built from brick taken from parts of the dismantled prison and is very provocative.
The plan was to visit the center of the city next, but Desmond learned that there was a large strike of municipal labor workers in the downtown and he would not take us near it. So, we went to Soweto and spent several hours driving around its various neighborhoods including where the new middle class live–even a few millionaires; where the majority live in very small box houses that are very tidy as they are now owned by the residents; where thousands more still live in tin shacks and squalor; where 5 large shopping malls, complete with cinemas, now exist and appear to be doing a robust business–we bought lunch at McDonald’s in one of them; where industrial buildings and businesses are adding to the mix in the hope and plan that Soweto will become a city in its own right and no longer a bedroom community of Johannesburg. Nelson lives in Soweto and was very enthusiastic about the progress that has been made and hope will continue to be made. So far the government has clearly poured a lot of money into the area. I am somewhat skeptical as we were not taken to other slum neighborhoods to see what help, if any, they have received. While there we toured Mandella’s home from the 40’s until he was arrested in 1963 and visited the Hector Pieterson Memorial Museum regarding the 1976 student uprisings. Hector was the first person, a child of 13, killed. This uprising, which left many children dead and drew the attention of international press, was the beginning of the end for Apartheid.
By late afternoon we agreed that the strike must be over for the day and headed into the Central Business District, CBD, which was abandoned by most businesses, restaurants, shops, tourists and residents during the 80’s and 90’s when crime brought the center to a standstill. Most every business, including the stock exchange, moved out to the northern suburbs. Now there is an effort being made to revitalize the area and many big historic buildings are experiencing a renaissance. Unfortunately many vacant buildings have been taken over by migrants from Zimbabwe, Nigeria and other unsettled countries. I asked why the landlords didn’t through the people out or turn off the power and water and was told that landlords are not allowed to cut off services to the poor and getting them out legally is a nightmare of paperwork. So the building owners are sabotaged. What a distressing predicament. Meanwhile, it is relatively safe to visit during the daytime, but by 7pm the streets are empty of all but vagrants.
Desmond provided us with a very full day and we were glad to have learned so much. Back in our cocoon, as the guest house feels to me, we relaxed a bit and then headed to another “safe” suburb called Melville for dinner at Moyo, a restaurant with African décor, food and live music. I had hoped for something lively and interesting, but the musician of the evening was a solo guitar player/singer from Cameroon. His music was monotonous and boring. At least the food was good. Melville proved to be a pleasant upscale village, with outdoor dining and pleasant pedestrian streetscapes.
July 29, 2009
This is our last day in Africa. We use it by going to the Apartheid Museum in the south side of the city for a 3 hour visit. It reminded me of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC–very informative, dramatic and intense. The museum covered the period from the first appearance of man in Africa–ie. everyone–through all the various contributing racial factors and periods in South Africa contributing to Apartheid to the presidency of Nelson Mandella. Very well done. Go if you get the chance.
Driving back to the cocoon, we commented on how much more comfortable we are in Johannesburg than we expected to be. Although we must be conscious of our surroundings and keep aware, which is the case in all our travels, we found nothing to arouse fear or serious concern. We will happily return.
And now we head for home.
God willing we will see you real soon,
Julia and Mark
Adventures with Julia 