Sun, Aug 25 - Flying to Diego Suarez

The alarm went off at 3:15 and we staggered up, made coffee and tea, and put our luggage outside our door.  Our great crew loaded the van and we took off for the short drive to the airport.   There we checked in - Fano again somehow stuffed our third suitcase into his so we wouldn’t have to pay extra!  A little cafe was open and due to the French influence, excellent pastries were available, so Bob and I split a figure eight of puff pastry filled with chocolate and a Fanta.  At 6:45 we boarded and took off into clouds.  

We were served a third breakfast snack of a banana-filled donut and cruised over rugged mountains and quite a lot of undamaged forest.  The beautiful circular bay of Diego Suarez appeared and we landed, got our bags, and emerged into warm trade winds and tropical vegetation.  Fano found our local guide and we loaded into two 4-wheel drive vehicles and set off inland toward the Amber Mountain National Park. 

The Nature Lodge

We drove through farm land and up to about 2000’ where we suddenly turned off the road, through a tiny village to Nature Lodge.  We walked towards the main hotel building with its large wrap-around veranda and settled into seats with a view all the way to Diego Suarez and the ocean. 

We had some Three Horse Beers as our rooms weren’t quite ready, and then decided to order lunch.  I had a delicious piece of fish with leek sauce and some ice cream.

Our rooms are small bungalows overlooking the view and very nicely outfitted.  We snoozed until 2:30 and then met up the vans and were driven up another 1000’ and into the park.  The road became very rough and rutted and we had to creep along.  Angelum, our new local guide, had us come to a halt to see a lovely Amber Mountain Forest-Thrush, and then amazingly found a very tiny chameleon. 

He has very good eyes!   We walked along a trail though a lovely green forest full of monkey-puzzle trees (we found out later that these were planted by the French and are Not native) and other large species.

Chameleon head

  Sanford’s Brown Lemur appeared, all brown with white whiskers on the males.   We got great views of the White-necked Rail, a notoriously shy bird. 

Madagascar Pygmy Kingfisher

We were going to go on a night walk once it got dark, but at five, David realized that we were all exhausted and suggested driving back to our hotel for dinner and bed!  A great idea!  We drove back through the tiny villages leading to the park, past people heading back to their homes.  There is very little electricity - only a few small shops had lights on.  The grinding poverty of the area is quite profound.  Sitting for 12 hours in a dark hut must be a difficult life, although most people waved cheerily to us.  

   At six  we had a good dinner of an escargot starter for Bob and me, followed by duck and lasagne.

Sat. Aug 24 - Returning to Tana

David arranged for us to get breakfast at 5:30, and we set off at 6 AM for the three hour drive back to Majunga.    We stopped occasionally to look at ponds and stretch our legs. 

Working the Rice Paddies

As we approached the small city, traffic got busier as a lot of people were going to market on Saturday.  As we had time to pass, Fano took us to a family who makes sand paintings in bottles. 

The young girl of the house demonstrated how this is done by putting colored sand down a narrow bamboo tube into bottle and amazingly creating intricate scenes that don’t shift by packing the sand very tightly.  Quite a unique art!

We finally arrived at the airport around ten.  We sat around until the cafe opened, grabbed a table, and ordered some beer.

  Fano had some pizzas delivered and we munched on that for a while.   We boarded our flight to Tana at 12:30 and took off at one.  We flew right over the delta where we had cruised a few days ago, and then over many miles of open brush and grass lands.

We landed in Tana at 2 PM, got our luggage and climbed into a Au Bois Vert van. It took a while going through traffic jams but we finally slipped through the gate into our quiet hotel grounds.  

We grabbed showers, caught up on email.  Bob and I had Cuba Libres and met the others for  dinner at six.  I had a fine piece of duck breast, and Bob had Zebu (beef) with a banana chocolate cake pudding for dessert.

Tomorrow we are flying to the very northern tip of Madagascar, and taking an early flight...so up at 3:15!   Just as we were organizing our gear, two of the very adorable maids of this hotel arrived at our door with an elaborate breakfast set up: Keurig coffee machine, sweet rolls, yogurt, etc!  We were expecting a packed meal but this is the full deal!

Sent from my iPad

Fri, Aug 23 - Birding Ankarfantsika Park, Day 2

ET?!!

I got up at 5 AM, went into the bathroom, turned on the faucet...the water coughed a bit and out came my froggy friend from last night!   He ran up the wall and disappeared!   I had a Pain au Chocolate for breakfast, and we took off back to the park headquarters.  I had my hiking poles as we were to climb a bit.  It was a clear warm morning; we first stopped by a marshy area to try for the Madagascar Jacana, a bird on tall spindly legs which walks on top of lily pads.  We managed to see one, but this area is being converted to rice paddies, so who knows how long they will be around.  

Passing Ox Cart

Tuvo parked at the Headquarters, and we all set off climbing up steps into the sand forest of tall thin trees and a few larger ones.  Jackie took us off the trail and pointed out a hole in a dead tree with E.T. looking out!  Our first lemur of the Sportive genus: Milne-Edwards, and a very cute guy!

Strange Insect

Cuvier's Iguanid

David flushed out a beautiful bird, the Coquerel’s Coua, a road runner-size bird with red breast, dark back and brilliant blue skin around the eye. 

Coquerel's Coua

It dashed back and forth across the path, difficult to photo, but I got a bit..

With the full sun (95 degrees F) shining and the contrasting shade and all the small branches, photography was difficult.

We got back to the park headquarters at 11 and Dave bought us all gran beers in the restaurant and we relaxed,

before driving back to our hotel for more beers and lunch of delicious local fish.  Bob asked for a sandwich so I ate his fish in addition to mine!

Chameleon sp.

Very strange insects!

  We dozed until 3:30 and then set off again to try for the last specialty bird of the area, the White-breasted Mesite.    We walked for a mile until Jackie said he heard the birds a ways away and set off into the forest.  David told us to stand stock still as these are very shy birds so we froze for 15 minutes.  Jackie started towards us, making quite a bit of noise, and  just as the light was dropping fast, three Mesites scooted across the path!  We couldn’t see all the field marks, but their posture, heads held low, parallel to the ground, is very distinctive, so we were pleased!

Back for supper.  Our neighbors, three young German music teachers, gave us a concert of lovely singing as we sat in the open air dining area.  That inspired Dave and Nancy, one of whose hobbies is Scottish folk dance to give a demonstration to music on Dave’s computer!  A lovely evening!

Thu, Aug 22-Birding Ankarfantsika Park

(Sending this out Aug 28 - long time without wifi!!)

We met for breakfast at 6 AM, and found that the French influence even extends to this tiny village as we had excellent warm croissants with our cheese omelets.

Our hotel

Dining Area

We were joined by Jackie, our park guide, and drove a short distance to a trail head, and started walking slowly into the dry deciduous forest on a wide well-maintained trail.   We started spotting birds, and also some fantastic flowers and our first chameleon, Oustalet’s Chameleon, chunky and about a foot long.

Oustalet’s Chameleon

We saw Crested Drongo, and the Lesser Vasa Parrot, probably the world’s plainest parrot as it is entirely dull brown.  The bird of the day was a struggle: Schlegel’s Asity which took some time for all of us to get a good look, but really worth it!  Only 6” long, but with a black head, olive back, bright yellow breast, and an amazing mottled, shiny metallic green and turquoise skin patch around its eyes!  Really a gem!

We returned at 11, having walked only 1.6 miles in four hours, classic birding speed!   Bob and I split a large Three Horses beer and relaxed until noon, when we were served a large plate of carrots and fried fish.  David said we could siesta until 3:30 to avoid the heat of the day.

We had a short drive to a reservoir. Lake Ravelobe, in the middle of the park where we boarded a small flat boat with two rows of plastic chairs bolted to the deck. 

Madagascar Fish Eagle

We took off and immediately saw across the water a young Madagascar Fish Eagle in a tree.  We cruised along passing signs warning of crocs, and there was a reptilian eye looking at us from the water next to the boat!  

Croc by our boat!

We saw many people fishing and wading in water up to their waists.  Jackie says they don’t believe they will be eaten, although 8 have been in the last decade. 

Madagascar Kingfisher

We disembarked and Jackie showed us a couple of Common Brown Lemurs resting in trees next to  the village.

Tuvo drove us back to our hotel and 5 minutes later at 6:15 we took off once again to walk up a road to look for nightlife.  The park doesn’t allow hikes after dark so we walked next to the village and, amazingly, Jackie was able to show us the very cute Golden

Golden Mouse Lemur

Brown Mouse Lemurs, more chameleons and a tiny gecko about three inches long.

Back at 7:30 for dinner:  pasta beef soup, grilled shrimp, and banana with caramel sauce! We have several cute geckos who live in our room and make little chirping noises at night when they’re out hunting insects.  I also found a small green frog hopping around the bathroom

Wed, Aug 21 - To Ankarafantsika National Park

We got up at 5 AM and joined the others for breakfast overlooking the pool.  At seven we had to leave this luxurious hotel and load back on the van.  Tuvo drove us a short distance to a beach where we were to board a small outboard motorboat to cruise around the delta.  There was no jetty, so we had to roll up our pants, and wade through the surf, and clamber aboard!  

Madagascar Bee-eater

We settled into plastic chairs as the twin engines roared us up into the Betsiboka River delta which consists of marshy islands and low woodlands. 

Bernier’s White Ibis

We got good views of  Bernier’s White Ibis and Humblot’s Heron, both endangered, and Greater Flamingos. 

Bernier's Teal

Greater Flamingo

  We passed small settlements cut into the woods - fishing and/or charcoal production?

At noon we returned and all disembarked successfully without getting too wet!  We had lunch at the Baobab, loaded up our suitcases and took off,

stopping briefly to admire an 800-year old baobab in a traffic circle.  Tuvo drove us east through the city and into the countryside with miles of rolling grassland and small villages and rice paddies.

At 4 we entered Ankarafantsika National Park, about 300,000 acres,  fairly recently created so it includes small hamlets of people who hopefully will benefit from the park and protect it.  We stopped at the main campground and immediately saw a troop of very furry, endearing Coquerel’s Sifakas - our first lemurs!! 

Coquerel’s Sifaka

They are about 2’ long, and were leaping around the treetops.  They have white body, head, and tail, with chestnut faces and chest, and reliably roost at the park entrance for the night, making them one of the easier lemurs to see.

Lemurs are known as “Prosimians” - before the monkeys - and survived and evolved into many species on Madagascar. They never had to compete with the more-evolved monkeys and apes here as they would have had to in Africa and elsewhere, until, of course, humans came along!

Fano, our guide, has built a small hotel nearby as the facilities at the park headquarter are so primitive.  His hotel, the Tia Asity, ("I love the Asity", a bird we will look for tomorrow) has an open-air dining room, overlooking four attractive, thatched bungalows which are quite spacious. We’ll be here three nights, a slight change in plans, as we were to drive back to our beach-side hotel on our way back to Tana.

We met at seven for a good dinner with an amazing coconut tart for dessert, returned to our room, turned on the fan, and collapsed into bed.

Tue, Aug 20, Flying to Majunga

Reticulated Tortoise - Hotel resident

This morning had a relaxing start as we were to have our suitcases outside by 9:15 and leave at 10. 

Bob birding with the hotel's pet rabbit!

We had breakfast and settled in to rearrange our luggage.  There was some confusion as to Air Mad’s regulations on amount of luggage.  Since we are returning to this hotel several times as we fly in and out of Tana, we considered leaving a suitcase behind as we were told we could only check one bag per person.  0n the other hand, it seemed to make better sense to pay for excess luggage as we had brought all our gear with the intention of using it rather than leaving it in a hotel storage room!

Fano’s solution was to plastic wrap our extra bag with David’s tripod and his day pack into one piece of luggage.  We took off to the airport and managed to get everything checked in.  My personal pack was too heavy, but David rushed me past the objecting official which seemed to work!   We settled into seats to wait for our 1 PM flight to the NW coast.  We had some beer and looked at each other’s photos, until suddenly we were off and dashing to the  gate, and walking quite a ways to the 68-seat 2-engine turbo prop sitting on the tarmac.   We took off and had a comfortable ride north, over undulating grasslands with bits of forest.  The latest theory is that this was always mostly grassland and not completely covered with forest that disappeared with the arrival of humans.

We flew over a large river delta into the town of Majunga, a trading post since 1745, and now populated by immigrants originally from India, and landed around 2 PM.  Our driver, Tuvo, had driven up from Tana to transport us into town and on to our next destination. 

Our room at the fancy Baobab Hotel

Street scene in Majunga

We checked into the quite fancy ocean-side hotel, the Baobab Tree, dumped our luggage in Room 301 (no elevators!) and returned to the van.  Fano stopped at a grocery store to pick up oranges, cookies, chocolate, and yogurt drink to hold us until dinner.  We drove to another private reserve consisting of a lake and surrounding marsh. 

Lineated Day Gecko

We saw more egrets and herons along with Madagascar Bee-eaters (similar to enormous hummingbirds) and the black and white Pied Crow.  David pointed out a bright green Lineated Day Gecko (12" long)clinging to a tree trunk.

Light was beginning to fade by then, so we headed back to the Baobab Tree.  I grabbed a shower and washed my hair as our next three nights will be spent in a more primitive hostel,  and thought I ‘d better take advantage of the rare hair dryer!

Hotel bar

My delicious Malagasy chicken

We got together for dinner:  I had Malagasy chicken with rice and a ginger slaw, beer and local white wine.

 There is excellent wifi here which we won’t encounter again for a while.