Wednesday 5 June 2024 – And so it was time to say goodbye to everyone at Masoala Forest Lodge: to Jessie and Alban, who had made us feel so welcome and run everything so efficiently; to Ursula and Pascal, who had shown us so much wildlife and taught us about it; and to Tom, who had added so much context and background to what we were seeing. We were lucky in a way; the high spring tides forced a later-then-usual departure of 9am, which gave us time for a more leisurely breakfast and to say our farewells.
Before we left, though, Jessie showed us the two tree boas, who had now separated. The male, still, presumably in a post-coital glow, didn’t seem to mind us taking a few more photos of him.
Tom went off kayaking
and we left on the boat to Maroantsetra.
You really can hardly see any sign of the lodge, it is so nicely blended in.
The boat trip was, as before, bumpy and almost devoid of interest. Towards Maroantsetra, one passes a couple of islands, the largest of which is called Nosy Mangabe and which is heavily forested.
looking closely, you can see egrets, too many to mention,
and then the waters calm as you reach the shallows around Maroantsetra.
It was clear that the boat had to negotiate some very shallow water in order to reach the landing point; we presumably couldn’t set out until the tide had come in sufficiently to enable the boat to get through.
But then, there we were at the dock
and it looked like quite some shopping had been done for stock to take back to the lodge.
Paola and Kenny were there to meet us and take us back to the airport. As before, the route took us through the periphery of the town
and we eventually bumped our way into the airport
where Fury was waiting for us again, with an aeroplane that looked the same as the one we arrived in,
but which was actually a Cessna 182, rather than the 206 of our previous journey.
Clouds obscured the landscape for a part of our flight, but cleared as we went along, and we took another load of photos of the landscape as we went. Reviewing them later, and given the extra information we’d gleaned from Tom, it was actually quite difficult to understand what was going on below us. For example, parts of this landscape look ravaged, but is it erosion? Was that caused by over-exploitation? There’s plenty of other agriculture happening over to the right.
What are the little lighter-coloured pit marks that dot this landscape?
What’s the story with the grey areas?
These gouges in the landscape: was this mining for something like sapphires? Whatever, if you look carefully, you can see lots of terracing, so there’s clearly still some level of agriculture going on.
This landscape looks terribly scarred, but is it just natural erosion? Or has it been exploited for mining? Again, there’s plenty of agriculture going on around it on the flat bits.
This final photo of Jane’s gives a great insight into the amount of rice planting that goes on, to support this important part of the Malagasy diet.
So many questions, so few answers. Anyway, Fury got us safely down and we were escorted back through the domestic terminal where a driver called Adza (again, ?sp) was awaiting us. He took us back through the colourful streets of the outskirts of Tana
and explained that he would be our driver for the next 12 days or so whilst we explore parts of the island south of Tana. We meet our guide, Kenny, tomorrow and head off eastwards to Andasibe and Mantadia. The next few days should prove to be as educational and absorbing as our time in Masoala, and quite possibly as busy and involving as many photos of wildlife. Stay tuned to find out how our onward journey unfolds.
Tuesday 4 June 2024 – The day started the same way that the preceding days had – having rained all night, it rained on us as we headed to breakfast, which, by the way, was taken every day on the “sea deck”, virtually the only clearly visible building to indicate to passing boats that there is actually a lodge here.
The photo above was taken a couple of days before; this morning, the conditions were much less benign, with a cold wind and some rain. This made the prospect of going out anywhere much less attractive; the original plan A had been for everyone to go for a serene outing on a canoe along a nearby river, and I didn’t much fancy the idea of floating along getting wet, which in any case makes wielding a large, heavy and expensive camera setup inadvisable.
Also, I was getting all behind with writing this blog.
I therefore decided that a morning at leisure, or at least at the laptop, was my plan. Jane and Tom decided eventually that the canoe thing did appeal, and so made ready to go for the short walk down to the river. As they were doing that, Jessie came by to tell us that there was a good snake photo opportunity nearby. She led us through the lodge buildings Out Back (where all the hard work takes place – see later) to this scene.
It was a little difficult to make out what was going on, but it became clear that there were actually two snakes, tree boas, and they were making out.
There’s a snake at the top of the photo, and another one at the bottom. Careful examination revealed its head
and where the action was happening.
Apparently, they would be At It all day, and, while we were careful not to disturb them, they certainly seemed to have their minds on other things.
So whilst I sat in the beach house doing my blogging thing, Jane and Tom departed, in fairly gloomy weather but bright spirits, to their canoe ride. I will let Jane take up the narrative.
A short forest walk (no wildlife of note to report) brought us to the bank of a river and a largeish dugout canoe – the locals make these dugouts from the buttress-rooted trees in the forest, but this one had been treated with an extra skin of fibreglass to make it slightly more robust and smoother for the softie tourist! The boatman and our guide Pascal shared the paddling fore and aft while Tom, Ursula and I perched on the cushioned seats amidships.
The rain held off until the very end of our trip; the vegetation was lush and dripping from the previous showers, and it was very quiet and peaceful.
Of course the air of peace and tranquility is completely misleading, since what is going on here is a silent and almost motionless fight for survival, as the various trees compete for light, air and water; either by being the tallest, or having the biggest leaves, or growing the longest aerial roots:
I say motionless, but in fact trees here can “walk” – a phenomenon we also saw in Costa Rica; aerial roots are thrown out in the direction of improved conditions, be that more air, light, or water, and the tree is therefore gradually supported further and further in that particular direction.
There are no crocodiles or water living predators; we saw a pair of dimorphous herons
and several of the tiny jewel-like kingfishers.
We saw evidence of the presence of the Aye-Aye, a lemur we are very keen to see – they demolish rotting tree trunks to reach the tasty grubs and larvae inside – but no sign of the (nocturnal) beast itself.
Our boatmen managed the river very smoothly, avoiding the many sunken boulders in the rather shallow water
and we were back unscathed and relaxed at the Lodge in time for lunch.
The Masoala Forest Lodge operation is superbly well-run, and yet is a distant outpost of civilisation – Maroantsetra is a 75-minute 40km boat ride away. Ever since we arrived we were wondering how the team dealt with this remoteness such that everything fitted together to give such excellent service to their guests. Jessie had told us that there were, all told, some 57 employees, once you take in the kitchen staff, the hotel service staff and the grounds maintenance staff, all marshalled with great efficiency by the administrative team. Going to look at the tree boas in the morning showed us that there were quite a few buildings behind the scenes, and after lunch Alban offered to show us around. It was really interesting to see how things fitted together so that the guests were properly looked after. We had, for example, wondered where the solar panels were that powered the lodge, and they were part of what was behind the scenes,
and fed into a battery room
where there are a couple of freezers to keep essential supplies. These are used alternately so one can be cleaned whilst the other is in use.
The site also uses another ingenious idea to keep some fruit and vegetables fresh – a charcoal ‘refrigerator’ – the charcoal acts as a dessicant enabling the contents to remain fresh for longer.
For storing other dry goods there’s a building which looks not unlike the horreos we saw in such profusion across Galicia in Spain.
Note the “mushrooms” atop the legs, which serve to keep the rats out (and, yes, they take the steps away at night!). The roof thatching for these types of buildings is made from traveller palm leaves and lasts about four years before needing to be replaced.
Alongside the laundry and kitchen facilities there’s the bread oven
where the bread is baked fresh every day (and the room can be used to dry wet boots as a welcome side effect). The staff sleep in dormitories
and even the lodge’s two dogs have their own traditionally-built kennels.
All of this infrastructure sits behind the beach house, which is where the guests eat lunch and dinner, and, importantly, find the bar.
All of these facilities came together for today’s dinner, which was a traditional Malagasy meal.
The tablecloth is made of traveller palm leaves, and diners also have a spoon made by doing origami with palm leaves. The final table was well loaded with food.
In the foreground, you can see a pile of rice. There were four piles of rice to be shared between the 10 diners, but Jessie pointed out that actually each pile of rice would be what a single Malagasy person would eat in a day; as you can see, rice is an important part of the Malagasy diet. There were kebabs and samosas and kingfish and cassava root and fried sweet potato and beans, and altogether it was a splendid dinner. The way to eat is simply to use the spoon to take a scoop of rice, add a little bit of whatever takes your fancy and eat it as a single shot. And at the end of the meal, you simply roll up the tablecloth to clear the table – a marvellously sustainable approach.
Staff, guests and guides after an excellent traditional Malagasy meal
The last activity of the day was another night walk, with the hope that finally it might be possible to track down the Aye Aye. Once again, I decided to prioritise writing over squelching around in the rain forest (because I thought the likelihood of spotting an Aye Aye was remote), but it wasn’t long before Jane came back from the walk demanding that I come at once to see something. I knew better than to demur, and so picked up the Big Camera and followed. This is what the excitement was about – something that Jane herself had spotted – the guides had missed it!
It’s a Leaf-Tailed Gecko – quite a sizeable beast, probably the better part of a foot from top to bottom. It was not at the best angle for photography, so Pascal chivvied it along a bit so we could get a better view.
It has simply extraordinary eyes,
like the Eye of Sauron in Lord of the Rings. Its other noteworthy feature is the leaf-shaped (shed-able) tail; that, together with its tree-bark-and lichen colour scheme, makes it very difficult to see when perching against a large tree. Since this one was on a thin branch, which allowed its shape and pale underbelly to show, it was less well camouflaged.
After that, it seemed a good idea to join in with the walk, so we all carried on, and, indeed, found a few other creatures.
Tufted Tail Rat
Young Brown Leaf Chameleon
Long-nosed Chameleon
And, among some excitement, Pseudoxyrhopus Tritaeniatus, which any fule kno is the posh name for the Three-striped Ground Snake
This one had lost its left eye somehow – we’re not quite sure how.
That was that for the day’s action. In some ways I regretted not joining in on the canoe outing, but on the other hand I was happy that I had looked through and processed all the outstanding photos and brought the blog up to only a day behind.
This was our last day at Masoala Forest Lodge. The morrow sees us transferring back to Tana in order to continue our Madagascar adventure. This will be the reverse of our journey out – boat, car, light aircraft – but maybe we’ll see some things worth writing about. Who knows?
Sunday 2 Jane 2024 – After less than four hours’ sleep, we didn’t exactly spring out of bed with a song on our lips, but we did manage to get ourselves presentable and breakfasted in time for Aina to take us to the airport, past scenes of Sunday morning activity.
Even though it was Sunday, the streets were quite busy and the shops were open. Aina pointed out that shopping was a major activity, since very few people had the means to keep food fresh, so going shopping several times a day is the norm.
Once again, arrival at the airport was a slightly disconcerting experience; instead of dropping us off in front of the terminal building (where quite a lot of people seemed aimlessly to be standing about doing nothing), he parked up and suggested we stay in the car for five minutes. A couple of guys in red high-vis came over and Aina got out and opened the boot so they could get at our bags. Trustingly, we followed them and they appeared to be going towards the check in area, which was reassuring. En route, we met a friendly American chap who introduced himself as Tom and told us that (a) he was going to be joining us on our flight and (b) we three would be the only passengers. The check-in area bore out his story.
It was a fairly standard check-in, except that all three of us were weighed alongside our baggage. Having gone through the standard security thing, we climbed into a battered minibus for our mystery tour to the middle of the airfield, which is where we found out why there were so few passengers and why the weight mattered.
Our transport was a Cessna 206, which has just four seats. One of them is, of course, needed for the driver, who was called Fury.
We settled ourselves in for the two-hour flight and donned ear defenders, which were very uncomfortable, but absolutely necessary.
A flight in a small aircraft is a golden opportunity to get some aerial photos – if the weather permits. We had moderate luck. Jane was on the better side of the plane for photos and got a shot of the extensive rice fields outside the town,
but as we ascended, blanket cloud coverage developed below us. This persisted long enough that I decided I would try to make up for lack of sleep, so dozed for a while. When I woke up, it was to see that the clouds had cleared and so there were some good aerial shots to be taken. They were quite revealing, and, as it turns out, demonstrated to me how easy it is to miss a story if you’re not paying attention.
Out of my side of the plane, I saw mainly forests.
but what I missed was the signs of cultivation even among the hills, which you can see bottom left in this photo.
What Jane saw on the other side of the aircraft was a radically different story – that of massive agricultural exploitation.
which extended pretty all the way up to Lake Alaotra, which lies about halfway between Tana and Maroantsetra, the airport we were headed to.
At the north end of the lake, there were extensive rice plantations.
Even in the forested areas, it was possible to see the consequences of this exploitation in brown water in the rivers caused by agricultural run-off.
The flight had given me entirely the wrong impression about the state of the land in this area of Madagascar. It turned out that Tom, our fellow passenger, is a distinguished academic – a Professor and chair of the Global Health Institute at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia in the USA, and heavily involved with the Valbio Centre at Ranomafana, which works to protect Madagascar’s unique and biologically diverse ecosystems through conservation science and projects that directly benefit the local people.
It’s the first time I’ve ever met someone who merits a Wikipedia entry.
In later conversations with Tom, we learned a huge amount about the Madagascan environment including its reckless over-exploitation – 90% deforestation across the island – and its consequences to the health of the population; for example, one in six children born in Madagascar die before their first birthday. Some reforestation projects are under way, but those aerial photos give some insight into the scope of the problems faced by the people here.
Eventually we landed at Maroantsetra, a decidedly rural airport.
The final stage of our journey to today’s destination – Masoala Forest Lodge – was by boat; but we had to get to the boat first, a journey which was undertaken in the sort of transport
which, it turned out, was essential for anyone trying to get anywhere on the local roads.
We passed the outskirts of the village, but the ride was so bumpy that I completely failed to get any decent photos of the life we were passing, which is a shame; it being Sunday morning, people were going home from church (or possibly to the pub, I don’t know) and so were dressed in their finery.
The boatport was rudimentary
but it had a decent loo (something we had been warned was not available at the airport) and, importantly, a boat.
It was also a chance for us to meet Ursula, who was our guide from the Masoala Forest Lodge. Accompanied by Pascal, the other guide from the lodge, she shepherded Tom, Jane and me aboard and we set off for what was a long, bumpy and really not very interesting hour’s ride to get to the lodge. There were a few other small boats out on the water, powered either by hand or by sail
but otherwise precious little of interest to distract us. So we were glad to get to the Forest Lodge, and were made warmly welcome by Jessie and Alban with a drink and a short presentation about How Things Worked Here, which seemed both content-rich and relaxed at the same time – no mean feat of organisation. There are many possible activities on offer – wildlife walks, kayaks, snorkeling, canoeing – all in a lovely rainforest setting, and executed with as much attention paid to sustainability as possible; built in local materials, powered by solar power, serving locally-sourced produce at mealtimes and so forth. It’s an effortlessly friendly place, superbly organised and a great place for what we were primarily interested in, which is to see some of the wildlife for which Madagascar is justly famed.
Alban showed us to our accommodation
which was the point at which I realised that Jane had snared me into something that was dangerously approximate to glamping – nice and comfortable, yes, but imposing a need to get dressed and to tackle a flight of stairs should one need to visit the loo during the night.
Hmmmm….
Having dropped off our bags, we went to the lounge area where we were once again made welcome and offered cocktails and lunch, which was very good. After just seven hours’ sleep over the last two nights, a siesta then beckoned before tea and a short excursion on an outrigger sailing boat which was parked in front of the bar.
The enjoyment of the day continued relentlessly thereafter, with sundowner cocktails
and dinner, which was, again, a very good meal. Much was made of the fact that the sun had been shining, which apparently is a departure from previous days.
After dinner, we had our first chance to see some of that wildlife, on a night walk. Similar to our time in Costa Rica, night time is the right time to see some animals, particularly the nocturnal ones, and so Ursula and Pascal took the three of us for a short walk around the local trails. As was the case in Costa Rica, I was astonished at the skill of both guides at spotting animals that I would have simply walked by, and with their knowledge about them. The walk was a good introduction to the local wildlife. There are 10 species of Lemur in the Masoala forest, and we found several within walking (or, in my case, stumbling) distance of the lodge.
Wooly Lemurs
Wooly Lemur
Mouse Lemur
Mouse Lemur
Masoala Sportive Lemur
We also caught sight of a bamboo lemur, but it was photographically uncooperative. As well as lemurs, we saw some of the other denizens of the forest.
Malagasy Kingfisher
Bright-eyed Tree Frog
Cyligramma joa Boisduval
Erebus Walkeri
At this point it started to become apparent why what we were walking around in was called a rainforest, so we retired swiftly to the lounge area and thence to bed for the night.
Before we retired, we discussed plans for the morrow and decided that, weather permitting, we’d go for a morning hike a short way up the coast. This thing, “weather permitting”, is a feature of staying at the lodge. The Masoala rainforest is the largest area of rainforest on Madagascar and the Masoala National Park is the largest protected area on the island. I have been to things that called themselves rainforests before, but never one as wet as this. All the people we talked to seemed to be overjoyed that the sun had actually shone today, and equally uncertain as to what tomorrow’s weather would be like. So we’ll take a check on the rain and perhaps the hike will be a reasonable plan. Stay tuned to find out.
