New Years Day started at 4am - probably around the time some people were coming home. We caught a flight to Tolagnaro (Fort Dauphin) in the south, where Madagascar’s tropical rainforest meets the desert. We had a delicious first coffee of the year at the airport - Melbourne standard. Met by our guide our hearts sank a little when we were told it was a 4 hour drive to camp through spiny forest and national park - some bumpy and some Tarmac road. It was a fascinating drive as you saw the climate and landscape change from lush palms and wet forest to spiny cacti and octopus trees…and later hectares and hectares of sisal plantations.
Early in the 20th century many French companies had planted sisal replacing the indigenous spiny forests, home to hundreds of species of birds insects lemurs and reptiles. These rapacious companies farm the sisal, used mainly in the manufacture of rope, employing cheap local labour and on the surface giving little back to the community - most of the villages we passed had little electricity and no ready water source _ the basics. But people were happy with wealth measured through zebu (cattle) and not dollars. However we thought that these companies still need a lot of work on their CSR.
We arrived at our river camp on the Mandrare River just in time for a welcome cold beer and lunch. Our hosts Theo and Zizzi showed us around and to our comfortable tent - we discovered we were the penultimate guests before cyclone season shut down and were the only guests there for the next few days - heaven….the staff were eager to please with 90% of them locals.
Our first venture was a night walk through the spiny forest a seemingly inhospitable place with thin spiky trees and cacti. Led by a local village guide under a beautiful full moon we were fortunate enough to see night jar, kops owl, white footed sportive lemurs waking up, sifakas just going to sleep, warty chameleon and a tiny rather busy grey mouse lemur.
Back for a sumptuous dinner and much needed sleep.
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