The Group Tour, gruelling and relentless but worth every ache and pain!

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(I have now finished the group tour but had no time to write a blog & no signal to send it anyway so I am trying to bring them up to date in the next few days, so apologies if they come thick & fast! On the other hand, they may not go at all, so fingers crossed)







Daniel, the wildlife expert ( mainly herpetology, the little things), and Harry, (Hery), the Malagasy tour guide/director met me at the airport. The group met up on the evening of the October 1, and set off early on the 2nd. We soon realised ‘early’ was our new normal! We rarely started later than 6am and sometimes earlier. It was a motley crew, sharing only one thing in common, we are all retired and of a certain age. There was a couple from the US, a couple and woman travelling alone from the Home Counties, a woman from London, and me.







Rainbow are very honest and explicit in their literature about what travelling in Madagascar entails. They emphasise that on this tour you should be able to walk for 3 to 4 hours over rough ground and up hills. The roads are either badly potholed or non existent making all journeys bumpy and challenging, touching local currency without immediately sterilising hands can have dire consequences, tap water cannot be used for anything but washing, internal flights run by Tsaradia ( necessary because of lack of roads & big distances) can be altered or cancelled at a moment’s notice, and vehicles travelling the roads are liable to breakdown occasionally because of the harsh conditions. In theory, traffic drives on the right. The reality is that in order to minimise damage from potholes vehicles travel slowly and weave around the obstacles so can be on either side of the road, or even off the edge. It only works because speeds are low and drivers patient and polite. There are warnings in the literature that if you have back or neck problems then travel is best avoided.







I have explained this because it quickly became clear that the US couple could hardly walk up a couple of flights of stairs unaided, one person had a recurring back problem and another had developed a severe skin rash which may have been stress as a result of deciding whether she wanted to do the trip or not, ( it had been cancelled previously because of Covid). The rash worsened quickly and she suffered the whole trip which was a real shame. Daniel & Harry must have looked and thought, this group is going to be a challenge!







So the pace suddenly changed. No longer was I pottering about to my own timetable but concentrating hard to know when I had to be up, set alarms, make sure I had everything needed for each segment of our trip ( we were able to leave unnecessary bits like snorkelling gear in the Tana hotel) and try to squeeze in enough sleep to survive! You will see I photographed little apart from wildlife for a couple of weeks, as I didn’t have time, especially when I encountered a few health blips but more about that later. You may ask why there was such pressure? The simple answer is that the tour is designed to visit as many different areas/eco-systems as possible in the time available in order to see a good range of wildlife.







We started by flying to the mid west coast to Morandava, staying one night at a beautiful lodge before moving to Kirindy the next day, where we stayed two nights before returning to Morandava for a night before taking a flight back to Tana. It was necessary to stop over twice in Morandava as the journey Tana to Kirindy can’t be done in a day.







MORANDAVA





The Lodge in Morandava was close to a river estuary so we went for a boat ride in pirogues ( dug out canoes) to see the birds, including huge numbers of whimbrels. One bird looked like a whimbrel but had a upturned bill like an avocet. After much scratching of heads and squinting at photos the consensus was that it wasn’t an exciting discovery but more likely a whimbrel whose bill unfortunately turns up rather than down, but he seemed to be eating well anyway.











It was a beautiful sunset and peaceful evening apart from a gathering on the beach which could have been an impromptu party, or people waiting for a boat but we were totally confused when one woman walked out into the river with goods on her head. Perhaps she was tired of waiting?

The only downside to our river excursion was that we sank into mud getting into the pirogues and it was 5 days before I had chance to clean my sandals, yuk!







KIRINDY





Kirindy was everything I hoped for despite warnings that things had changed since Covid. It has been a place where you are likely to see a Fosa, and very late at night, a jumping rat. However messages had been sent out that as everything had been closed during Covid, the wildlife had disappeared into the bush and there had been no sightings since 2020.









Ntsoa (who escorted me to Ifaty & Anakao) had joined us for this part of the trip as Harry had remained in Tana. As we pulled in to the Kirindy campsite, the start point for walks, lots of people started shouting, ‘ Come quick, a fosa, a fosa’. We all grabbed cameras and ran around the back of huts where a fosa was racing about in a frenzy, up and over out-houses.









It soon became clear why. He was hungry and there was a big hen house totally covered by mesh screening. He moved so quickly it was difficult to get a shot until he stopped in one corner where he had spotted a small hole, but then only his backside was visible. He dug into the ground furiously while at least 20 people watched. Then suddenly the unexpected happened, he was inside! There was a tremendous noise from the chickens, feathers flying everywhere, until someone came out of the trance we all seemed to be in, and opened the door to the coop, and chased him out. He didn’t mind too much as by then he had a good grip on a chicken in his mouth! I managed an out of focus picture but in the circumstances was quite proud of it.







It took a few minutes to gather our breathe and our wits sufficiently to start our walk. We saw lemurs and birds.









After half an hour the US couple had to be taken back to the camp as they couldn’t walk any further. Daniel & Ntsoa had a quick chat and said that they would arrange extra guides for future walks so Scotty and Barbara could go at their own pace for just short distances. They made a few phone calls and it was arranged. We found this was the norm, a problem arose from time to time, calls were made and it was sorted without fuss. It was very impressive tour management.







Then, just a few minutes later, I started with a streaming cold, very antisocial in post Covid times. I took day medication and retired to my room as soon as possible. The medication minimised the symptoms and I continued with the night version and was able to rejoin the group the next morning. I had missed the night walk but Daniel & Ntsoa managed to fit in a couple of quick stops so I could see the Madame Berthe’s mouse lemur, a rare and endangered species and a Skops owl so I did not miss out. I was very grateful for their thoughtfulness.









That morning we returned to Kirindy camp to start another walk and unbelievably saw the fosa again ( minus the chicken). Not really sure if it was the same one as there was a suggestion it was younger. At least we were able to watch him for a while and take some video. Fosas, who look a little like a cat and a little like a dog, are in a group of their own and endemic to Madagascar. They are difficult to spot in the wild as they are often high up in trees, so we were very lucky.







Then we had a wonderful encounter with a family of Verreaux’s Sifaka. The sifakas are a particular lemur group of their own as they have a different body shape from other lemurs, having long arms and legs which enable them to walk upright. It is often said they ‘dance’ but that is how they walk. The father of the group sat on guard in a tree keeping a look out while the others fed on fruit and the two youngsters play/fought together. The baby clung to mother’s back. There was also a group of brown lemurs which joined them and they seemed to happily ignore each. Perhaps because the fruit seemed very popular and there was enough for everyone.









Unfortunately we never caught sight of the jumping rat as they don’t seem to have returned yet. Not that I am sure I could have stayed up until midnight anyway, which was the time they used to show themselves!









In the evening we stopped off at the Avenue of Baobabs to see them at sunset. This is one of the iconic sights of Madagascar, popular with tourists. Some baobabs are more than a thousand years old and Madagascar has 6 out of the 8 varieties worldwide.This is also the high season, as opposed to the wet season December to March so I expected lots of people but it says something about the number of visitors that there was probably 40-50 people maximum stretched out along the road, so certainly not crowded. In fact most of the lodges on all our trips were either empty apart from us or just had a handful of other guests.









The next morning we started our return journey via Morandava. Our Tsaradia flight back from Morandava to Tana had been changed by three days a couple of weeks before we left for Madagascar. That would have blown our itinerary completely but Rainbow arranged a charter flight at their own cost. So we returned in a 12 seater plane, slower and lower than the Tsaradia planes which meant we had a good view of the countryside. We arrived at the airport shortly before we were due to take off, went straight through security to the plane and were airborne 15 minutes later. On arrival we were greeted with cool towels, drinks and snacks. The bags arrived in ten minutes and off we went. It was so relaxing compared to normal flights back to Tana that we had enough time and energy to visit a RAMSAR bird site, a lake with thousands of birds around & in the water. We saw numerous ducks, heron and kingfishers. It was a gentle way to end our first group segment. That evening we said goodbye to Ntsoa and Harry rejoined us for our next adventure, which for me did not start well. More of that in the next blog.





I am waiting for a list of everything we viewed that Daniel is sending us so that I get the names correct but as it hasn’t arrived yet I will leave precise naming until later otherwise I will never catch up with the blogs.

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Photos

Towel holder
Many lodges use these, poles out of the side of carved statues

Not sure where she is going, but can you see the yellow ‘mask’
Tree bark powdered and mixed to a paste to protect from sun and moisturise

The fosa ( pronounced foosa)
Trying to find a way in to the hen house

Gecko
Day geckos, night geckos, hundreds of different ones