MADAGASCAR

Exploring MADAGASCAR

An unforgettable fun-packed three week Outlook Expedition with life-changing experiences –from amazing wildlife, waterfalls and spectacular sunsets to a successful make-over.

In July 2019, three teams of WGHS students, three Outlook Expedition guides, Dr Rhodes, Mrs Maher, Mrs Oliver, Mrs Taylor, Madame Djokovic and I spent three weeks exploring the island of Madagascar.

After a coach journey to Heathrow, we boarded our overnight flight to Madagascar, stopping off at Istanbul and Mauritius. With the plane emptying significantly after the Mauritius stop, I was able to switch to a window seat and eagerly watched as we approached the east coast of Madagascar before landing at the capital city of Antananarivo (usually referred to as Tana for obvious reasons) more or less in the centre of the island. After disembarking, filling in immigration forms and not being 100% sure what to write in each box, queuing for passport control, having the pleasant surprise that the visa cost had increased by 8 Euros and being relieved that all our rucksacks had arrived, we boarded three minibuses ready to brave Tana’s traffic. Our accommodation for the first two nights wasn’t particularly far away, but Tana has some of the worst congestion of any city and dealing with junctions appears to be a combination of luck and consensus rather than rules about priority.

We arrived at our accommodation around mid afternoon and after getting settled in, we bought a somewhat overpriced meal there before getting an early night. Next day’s tasks were to change our money into Malagasy Ariary, the local currency, buy a mobile phone and to meet our guides for the next few days. The next morning, we boarded our bus which was to take us westward through the central highlands, to the Tsiribihina river. It took two days of travel, stopping off at Antsirabe (where we stayed in an almost unfeasibly large hotel with no sign of any other guests) and Miandrivazo. As foreigners (or vazaha) we had to report to the local police station, so Alfie the Outlook representative, and I were driven there. We spent an hour sitting in darkness while one policeman laboriously copied out the details from fourteen passports with Alfie and I shining our phone lights on his desk, while the other officers and the prisoners in the two holding cells watched the Madagascan football team’s homecoming from the African Cup of Nations.

After a short drive the next morning, we left the tarmacked road and transferred ourselves, our bags and our food to another vehicle which could cope with the dust track which would take us to the river. Once there, our equipment was loaded onto a number of canoes or pirogues and we sat in twos, threes and fours in these with a local boatman, seemingly precariously standing at the back, expertly navigating the river with his single oar. Given the fact that we were provided with some rather flowery parasols as some protection against the Sun, there were times when I did feel somewhat like a genteel Edwardian lady being taken for punt on the River Cam.

Much to mine and Dr Rhodes’ excitement, the river was excellent for birdwatching, extensively populated with malachite kingfishers (though blue not green), bee eaters, kites, herons, bitterns and many others. The boatmen also pointed out chameleons, including this striking pink one.

On the second day, we lunched near a waterfall where we were not only able to have a bit of wash in the plunge pool, but also had our first sight of lemurs.

We spent three nights camping as we made our way down the river. The boatmen showed us how to use pieces of dried reed which worked much better than tent pegs for the sandy soil. Evening meals were cooked on our antediluvian petrol stoves, usually as the sun was going down at around 6:30pm. I was slightly disappointed that the full Moon meant that we weren’t going to see much of the spectacular Southern sky constellations and Milky Way but it did mean that we were treated to an unexpected (on my part) partial lunar eclipse.

After three days we said goodbye to the boatmen, loaded our bags onto zebu carts (the Malagasy equivalent of ox carts) and trudged for a couple of hours to our pick up point. After buying bottles of water for some exorbitant price, we got onto a cross between a lorry and a minibus, which might have been one of Henry Ford’s first attempts and drove through a parched landscape to where we were due to be taken for an afternoon safari through a bamboo forest. However, as we were several hours behind schedule, after a bit of negotiation between the teachers, Alfie and the guide, this turned into a night safari. This surpassed all of our expectations and we were able to see nocturnal mouse lemurs thanks to our guide’s torch and expertise as well as sleeping drongos, chameleons and spiders. However, the real surprise was back in the car park where we saw the fosa, a top predator a bit like a giant tree dwelling otter, endemic to Madagascar. After a meal and Dr Rhodes embarking on a fosa hunt, we were driven through the night to Morondava. In the absence of a car radio, the students formed their own surround sound system and gave us renditions of the school song, ‘Jerusalem’, ‘Jubilate’ and even Mr Eggleston’s favourite hymn.

After all our travelling, we had a day in the coastal town of Morondava. Around 5pm, we drove to the nearby baobab grove to watch the sunset against the surreal backdrop of these ‘upside down’ trees. We were hoping to stay for a while after sundown to get in a bit of stargazing, but a combination of some local soldiers wanting to clear the area and the bus driver revving his engine in rather unsubtle manner curtailed this hope.

The next day we started on our way back to Tana, overnighting at Antsirabe again. Although it was a long day’s journey, we were treated to an amazing sunset and the clear, moonless night showed the Milky Way arcing over the zenith with amazing clarity. This meant that comfort stops on the journey were also opportunities for ad hoc astronomy sessions and Dr Rhodes to capture yet another photograph of the centre of our galaxy.

The next few days were spent in Akany Avoko children’s home. Our main task was to redecorate the girls’ dormitory. While one team was dispatched to the local hardware shop to buy brushes, scrapers and paint, another team interviewed the girls to ask them what they would like to have painted on the walls. With a brief to include animals, plants, fish and trees, the more artistic amongst us set about designing a mural and the rest of us did the colouring in. During the evenings, the students got to know some of the home’s residents and we also spent a day visiting the boys’ home on the other side of Tana. However, once again the notorious traffic was an issue and it must have taken three hours to make our way to the other side of the city. Despite our long days and hard work, we only just managed to complete the decorating in time before we left but both our students and the girls from the children’s home were delighted with the result.

“We saw several species of lemur, including the largest and very rare Indri which we could hear howling at dawn and dusk”

The last few days were spent in some of Madagascar’s remaining rainforest. Unfortunately, around 90% has been lost over the years and like many places, Madagascar has the conflicting interests of feeding its population and trying to conserve its natural history. Most of the forest lies in a ribbon of green along the eastern mountains and there are now increasing efforts by not only the government, but individuals to conserve this and its unique wildlife. One of these is Evariste, our guide and the owner (or more perhaps custodian is more appropriate) of a reserve which he hopes to link to the nearby larger National Park. Evariste took us on both night and day safaris. We saw several species of lemur, including the largest and very rare Indri which we could hear howling at dawn and dusk. However, Dr Rhodes was particularly excited to see a pygmy chameleon, especially as it had taken David Attenborough three visits to Madagascar to see one.

In what seemed to be almost no time at all, it was time to return to Tana for our final days before catching our flight back home. I would like to thank Mrs Maher, Dr Rhodes, Miss Djokovic, Mrs Oliver, Mrs Taylor and all of the WGHS students for their part in making this a very memorable expedition.

If you would like more details of the expedition, please follow the link to Dr Rhodes’ blog. This was one of her regular evening tasks when we had access to wifi. https://madagascar238709856.wordpress.com

Dr Durell