Tag Archives: Scenery

A scramble in Isalo National Park

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Saturday 15 June 2024 – Le Jardin du Roy is very nicely put together. The rooms are spacious and comfortable; my main gripe is that there’s not enough light to see what you’re doing.  I suppose that this is a consequence of running from solar power and/or a generator, but it makes finding things (e.g. a black laptop on a dark surface in an underlit room) very frustrating. The internet availability was pretty poor, too, but the food was good and the service very agreeable.

Its buildings were in very lovely stonework,

and whoever designed or crafted it put several “hidden” things among the stones. At a basic level, you could find things like this star among the stones.

but there were more complicated creations as well.

Two lemurs and a palm tree

A nativity scene in our room

The day dawned, as I imagine is a regular pattern at this time of year (beginning of the Malagasy winter), cool and misty.

Our mission for the day was to explore Isalo National Park, so we headed to town (Ranohira) and Kenny (a) introduced us to our guide, José and (b) got tickets for the National Park , which, at 815 square kilometres, is pretty substantial. It was created in 1962, and is mainly dry, deciduous forest, based on sandstone landscapes, which means there has been plenty of erosion from wind and rain, creating rocky outcrops, plateaux and canyons up to 200m deep.

Our main objective for the day was to walk along one of these canyons.

After a short drive, we started our hike, for it definitely wasn’t a walk in the park, as you’ll see as you read further.

The scenery was quite spectacular with the sandstone cliffs we’d seen elsewhere.

 

We were headed alongside a river, as one could tell from the aquatic bamboo plants we could see.

The path started off easy enough

and, as happens so often, we started off with José explaining all sorts of non-wildlife stuff, such as: the difference between young Pandanus palms (single stem, thicker leaves, in the foreground) and older Pandanus (branched, leaves thinner, in middle and background);

and the iron pipe leading water to the town, some 6km away.

We did see some of the local fauna:

A butterfly – sorry, don’t know which sort
A red dragonfly, nothing to do with Hannibal Lecter
Sleepy Scops Owl
Sleepy Scops Owl

Darwin’s Bark Spider and its web

Madagascan White-Eye

I was dead chuffed to have nailed the image above, as the birds that we occasionally saw around us were exceedingly skillful at detecting the instant before a camera shutter is pressed and buggering off.

We soon reached a picnic area

where some lads were starting the preparation of a cooked lunch (what is it with men and outdoor cooking?) for those who had booked it (we’d chickened out, or rather cheesed out, and ordered a packed lunch to protect our, but particularly my, digestive systems). Here, we saw a Red-fronted Brown Lemur

who was very cute, but actually had a very sad back story.  She had got separated from her family group during a bush fire, and had failed to find them again; so she was lost and solitary. She hung around the picnic area trying to steal food – of course everyone was told not to feed her – and she must have been very lonely.

José also found us a White-browed Owl

but the real excitement was seeing a Ground Boa crossing the trail just in front of us.

We stayed very still, hardly daring to breathe, so that it carried on its way into the forest. It was about a metre and a half long.

The walk continued alongside the river into the canyon, which was the main objective of the day’s hike.

and we were treated to a succession of great views as we scrambled over the rocks (it was a real scramble in places,

and we were both grateful for the sticks we’d brought with us from Ranomafana).

Some of the trail had been prepared to make it easier for the punters

and José told us about what happens during the rainy season, when the water level rises several metres.  Some evidence of this could be seen in the trees that had been deposited among the boulders in the canyon.

We eventually reached a couple of pools: the Blue Pool

and the Black Pool (which had no illuminations)

where the trail basically ended.  So we took a rest while Jose and Kenny shot the breeze

and then headed back the way we came. There were a couple of encounters with the local fauna:

Dragonfly

Water beetles

And the colours of the stone were fascinating.

When we got back to the picnic area, we were lucky enough to see a group of Verreaux’s Sifakas.

They were very athletic, as ever, leaping from bough to bough, rather better than the Monty Python sheep, who, of course, tended not so much to fly as to plummet.

After our packed lunch, eaten amid the haunting scent of delicious food being cooked for the other picnickers,

we headed back to the car.  On the way, we passed a rock on which was perched what I heard Jose describe as a “snot bug”.  Eventually, we understood it was a Snout Bug, for fairly obvious reasons

though I suppose that if it caught a cold, then maybe Jose’s original description might have been the better one. We also saw (among the other, more orangey coloured ones) a butterfly with a beautiful blue hue.

That was it for the hike; the canyon was a lovely, if slightly tense, experience, and I was glad to have caught some video of the sifakas.

On the way back to the hotel, we passed a couple of very colourful local scenes.

We had an evening entertainment laid on – a short walk to watch the sunset. On the way, we were lucky enough to see a Hoopoe,

though I had the wrong lens on the camera for a truly good shot. It was still nice to see it. The hotel had laid on a resting place for us (which we laid on)

and a cocktail service

(with nibbles).  The scenery was striking in the setting sun

and the sunset itself was not bad,

(middle photo from a mobile phone; outer two from my Big Camera; shows that mobile phone cameras these days are pretty damn’good).

Actually, we got more striking colours looking behind us

but it was a nice way to finish off the day. The nibbles had been enough food for us, so we simply retired to our room and took no dinner. Since we were (we were told) the only residents at the hotel for that night, it must have meant an entire kitchen staff on duty for no purpose; but we’re at the start of the tourist season, so I guess the hotel must expect quiet times.

We leave the hotel tomorrow, rather early, as we continue our south-westerly journey to Toliara, on the coast.  We have a Thing To Do en route, which we hope will be interesting.  I’ll of course report, so please stick with these pages to find out what we got up to.

On the road (1) – Antananarivo to Antsirabe

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Monday 10 June 2024 – We have to get to Ranomafana in order to see our next batch of wildlife, a journey of about 420km that can’t be done in a single day. The distance equates to about 260 miles, or London to Durham, a journey which can be driven in under six hours.  So, why not Tana to Ranomafana?

RN7 is the answer. Read on for details.

The practical upshot is that today was the first of two days spent on the road – 170 km to get to Antsirabe, then 250km tomorrow to complete the journey.

Getting out of Tana through the Monday morning rush was the first hurdle. It was motorbike central for quite some time through the city and into the suburbs.

It took us about three quarters of an hour to get into the countryside

where the views of the passing landscape were quite good. However, there was also plenty of evidence of quarrying, past and present.

The demand for granite blocks and chippings is sufficient to maintain plenty of small scale quarrying, often run as one of the various side hustles that farming families undertake. Another such side hustle is excavating clay from the rice paddies to make bricks, and we saw plenty of evidence of this, too.

One thing Madagascar does not have a shortage of is bricks, which (outside rain forest areas) are a principal house building material.

In many cases, the bricks are covered in a plaster based on the local soil (enriched with zebu droppings which apparently set hard!), so the houses look as if they’re mud houses, but they aren’t.  They are, however, often the same colour as the landscape and can blend in rather harmoniously.

Interestingly, later on in the journey, we passed through an area where the houses are built with bricks but without using any mortar – the brickmakers and masons are skillful enough that this works as a construction technique.

It also helps that the cyclones which bedevil the edges of the island rarely reach this far inland.

Brickmaking sites dotted our journey

and in some places were part of larger scale operations which dominated the landscape.

The roadside retail opportunities demonstrated once again the entrepreneurial spirit which is ubiquitous in our experience of the island so far.  The types of stall varied by region, it seemed.  We stopped briefly at a craft market

and other roadside stalls in the area all, like these ones, specialised in raffia work.

Later on, several stalls specialised in ceramic sculpture,

then came a series which sold musical instruments

and then toy vehicles carved in wood

(with some overlap!).

It seemed that when someone had a good idea for a roadside stall, others in the area picked up on it.  This actually doesn’t seem such a good idea to me; after a while, choice is so wide that custom must inevitably drop off, one would think.

Roadside stalls were plentiful throughout the journey, often selling fruit and/or vegetables;

others we saw sold plants;

inevitably, charcoal;

and even live animals, either as pets or as lunch, apparently.

Everywhere, we saw rice paddies, often terraced:

the country’s appetite for rice is phenomenal.

Despite our driver Haja’s best efforts, progress was slow.  We left Tana at 8am and were on the road for six and a half hours to cover the 170 km.  The reason for this was that we were on Route National 7, the principal route from Tana to the south west of the island. The reason for slow progress was partly congestion (these vehicles are all local or longer distance minibus buses)

but mainly a crappy road surface.

We thought that we’d suffered bad road surfaces in Costa Rica, but that was nothing compared to the slaloming necessary to avoid the craters in this road. That’s why the journey to Ranomafana takes two days.

So, what else did we see on this first segment?

As well as brown brick buildings, there were some more gaily appointed;

there were plenty of churches along the way, both protestant and catholic;

it being sweetcorn harvesting time, several houses were using their balconies to dry the cobs;

ox carts (the first I remember seeing on the island) were frequent as we approached Antsirabe;

and the landscapes were impressive, with significant irrigation channels to support what is a very large, but not the largest, agricultural area on the island, growing a variety of crops in addition to the ubiquitous rice.

(I just chucked in the photo of the man with the straw because it was interesting.)

And then we were in the outskirts of Antsirabe, where we stopped for lunch. We actually managed to get proper Malagasy food, which was very tasty but a bit tricky to deal with – Jane’s chicken had a gallon of broth with it and it was a bit tricky to get the good meat off my zebu with vegetables.  The restaurant we were at had some other tourists in it, and by the time we had finished lunch, the word had got out that There Were Tourists In.

The entrepreneurial drive of the Malagasy showed itself in their willingness to tempt us to buy any number of different sorts of tat.

Antsirabe means the “big town of salts”. It is, also, the town of cycle rickshaws, which are used by local people to get around, and which, we are told, are often contracted by parents to take their children to and from school.

The “salts” bit comes from the local geothermal springs, around which an impressive hotel was built.

It’s still in operation, but if you look closely it couldn’t half do with a lick of paint.  Just nearby is an almost equally impressive railway station building

outside which I saw the first horses I’d noticed on the island.

Nearby were some miniature cars for kids

and a small fairground setup

which Kenny explained was all in place in the lead up to the Independence Day celebrations slated for June 26th.  After checking into our hotel (see later), Kenny then took us on a “city tour”, which meant a bit of exposure to some retail opportunities before a stroll through the town’s market.

We were led to three different outfits, one of which was absolutely fascinating, one quite interesting and the last a little uncomfortable.  The first was really lovely; it specialises in making realistic miniature models of various modes of transport, using entirely recycled materials, which are then offered for sale to tourists.  We got a demonstration about how to make this tiny little bicycle

almost entirely from recycled bits of other things: the tyres are surgical piping, the wheels are cut from aerosol cans, the spokes are fishing line and the saddle is wood.  I have a video of the construction process and will publish it in good time; but it was lovely to see something like this made from materials which would otherwise have been thrown away – nothing gets wasted in Madagascar, it seems.

Part of the same enterprise produces embroidery, which is beautiful but Not Our Thing, and leads to a precious stone emporium which, again, has some beautiful things, but one began to feel a bit of pressure to buy, which makes me very uncomfortable.  Next door is a place which deals in things made out of zebu horn.  Once again, we got a demo of how things can be made, which was interesting; and their showroom

has some imaginative uses of horn,

but once again we weren’t tempted to buy anything. Kenny then walked us through the (busy, colourful and noisy) market that surrounded these emporia.

It was pretty standard fare (i.e. you could find almost anything, actually), but a couple of things caught my eye: a stall with a bewildering variety of rice;

a bicycle repair man;

and rickshaw repair man.

The horsey chaps rode through the market, though I don’t know why

and then we repaired to our hotel, the Couleur Cafe.

It has “bungalows” around rather nice courtyards,

and ours on the face of it seemed very good – lots of space, unusual decor and even its own real fireplace (in which, yes, we had our own real fire to sit around). But it felt actually a bit odd – somewhat faded in its elegance, somehow. We had a perfectly decent evening meal there and retired for the night in preparation for the second leg of the drive down to Ranomafana, with which I’ll regale you in the next post.

 

Camino Finisterre Day 9: Muxía to Quintáns – Normal service resumed

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Friday `10 May 2024 – So, the burning question was: would I feel I could cope with a 10km walk?

Actually, I did.

Our hotel room was very warm, so we didn’t have a particularly comfortable night. Despite that, however, the auguries were good that I was recovering from my digestive meltdown: I was hungry! Breakfast was at 8am, also the time we like to make our bags available for collection, and so we headed down for a leisurely, and in my case, quite sizeable breakfast.

The lack of a way to cool the room was the only significant detraction from my view that this has been the best hotel so far, particularly for being well-organised. The breakfast room was no exception, nicely laid out in a way that allowed for a decent buffet whilst still feeling spacious for those at the tables.

A couple of noteworthy points: firstly, there is a rather shocking picture on the far wall.

It depicts the Sanctuary of the Virgin of the Boat, the one at the headland that we saw yesterday, in the 2013 lightning-strike fire that destroyed it.  It’s been rebuilt remarkably well, as we saw yesterday.

Secondly, the background music took a trend that we’d previously noted to an extreme.  The trend is to play cover versions of well-known pop songs, usually in a totally inappropriate style, often sung in English by someone who clearly doesn’t understand the words. We’ve heard a bossa nova version of Depeche Mode’s Personal Jesus, for example. But the hotel absolutely took the biscuit today by playing a smooth, salon-jazz version of Pink Floyd’s Time. It was so incongruous that it took me ages to work out why I vaguely recognised the words but couldn’t place the piece.

For walking, the forecast was great – sunny and about 19°C – so I decided to undertake the walk and we thought that we could have a lesisurely departure, since the distance was short, there was little point in arriving early and we wouldn’t have to worry about overheating.  So I used the time before our departure to sort out my walking poles, since the profile of the day’s walk was somewhat up-and-down.

It’s not too extreme – the ascents are only 100m or so – but the slope is 1 in 10, I was recovering and out of practice at hills; so sticks were the order of the day, for me at least.  I checked mine over to make sure that the little plastic pots, the “ferrules”, that cover the spikes at the bottom of the poles, were still in place.  I’d once carelessly lost one on some ascent or other, and Jane (who, of course, had organised some spares) was grudging in her willingness to hand out replacements.  So I took care today to ensure that I wouldn’t upset the Ferrule Godmother. [One?? Hah! Several!! – Ed]

And so we set off.  It was almost immediately clear that the extra layers we’d donned were going to be unnecessary; there was a cool breeze, but hot sunshine as we bade goodbye to Muxía

and started the first climb.

It led past the Capela de San Roque de Moraime

which didn’t look interesting enough to detain us, and on, through some interesting-looking pines

and past a Fonte which looked like it was also once a lavadoiro,

into a village, Moraime, where we’d notionally planned to have our first coffee stop.  Sadly, La Taberna was Spanish Open, so we didn’t get our coffee. But we did get a chance to look around the monastery there,

which is from the 12th Century and which is a very fine place to pop into. It has an impressive entrance portico

and a splendid interior.

A very significant item of interest there is the frieze which runs all the way along the north wall and which is in remarkably good nick.  Here is a stitch of three photos covering it; it’s not perfect but I hope it gives you an idea.

and here is the official explanation – it represents the seven deadly sins,

from left to right: pride, greed, anger, lust (my personal favourite, ever since Raquel Welch), gluttony, envy and sloth, with death awaiting them on the right.

Our next port of call was Os Muiños, which thinks enough of itself to have erected a Town Name

and which is appealing enough

but, most importantly, had a café which was Open Open, and which served us coffee, juice and beer, all of which were very welcome.

We carried on, along a path with some nice views

which led into woodland, through which we could have seen a beach if it weren’t for the trees in the way.

At about the point where we could see clear across the bay to Camariñas,

and I was busy taking photos of a nice flower arrangement,

we noticed a line of something in the water.

It seemed to stretch a long way,

almost across to where we could just make out the Muxía lighthouse, and we wondered if it was some kind of fish farming frame.  Nothing shows on the satellite picture of Google Earth, but on the other hand the town from which it stretches, Merexo, is home to Stolt Sea Farm, an industrial-scale purveyor of turbot.  Maybe the two are connected?

The countryside around there is very attractive, particularly on a sunny day

and, as we passed the scene above, we wondered if we could catch sight of the bonkersly-large horreo de San Martin that we’d seen on our day trip last Autumn. In the distance, we could see something that might be it.

There.

Yes, that thing.

It’s clearly a big horreo, but we couldn’t see it clearly enough to count the legs. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t the one we were looking for, but read on anyway.

The village of San Martiño is home to a substantial church, the Iglesia de San Martiño de Ozón.

As with many of the churches we’ve seen, it has a cemetery around it, and I went to have a look whilst Jane panted quietly in the shade for a bit.

It’s an impressive sight, with quite a contrast between the older memorial markers,

which are decoratively weathered, and the more modern ones

which are identical, but look less interesting because they haven’t weathered at all.

The rest of San Martiño has some very attractive little corners

and the utterly huge 16th-century horreo de San Martiño de Ozon. I posted a photo or two of it last Autumn, but it’s impressive enough to be worth showing again.

It is one of the largest in Galicia, running to 27m in length and having no fewer than 22 pairs of legs. Its large size is because it belonged to the clergy, which imposed a tithe of the crops of the farmers of the parish -10% of the total harvest – and thus they needed a large place to store it all. Apparently, it now “stores” volunteers working in the community. It’s a great photographic subject.

We were by this stage quite close to our destination, the village of Quintáns. The final surprise the walk had for us was this snack vending machine, seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

I think it’s linked to a nearby albergue. Anyway, this brought us to our pension for the night,

the Plaza, which, despite our arriving at about 2pm, wasn’t going to offer food until 8pm.  Still, it has a bar, and where there’s a bar there’s gin and maybe some crisps or something. The view from our room is rather nice

and we’re hoping for a comfortable night before heading on tomorrow. The forecast is for cooler, cloudier weather, but no rain; hopefully an ideal day for covering the 13 or so kilometres to Dumbria, our next port of call.