As we drove out to the coast from the capital city of Antananarivo a week ago, we passed through a national park and saw our first lemurs high up in a tree. They were far away but it was very exciting. Little did we know how much more we would be experiencing just a couple days later.
We have a driver Zimbo here who has a tiny four-wheel drive car. It is the smallest 4x4 I’ve ever seen. It is about 20 years old but it gets us around! Once we arrived, we sat down with Zimbo and made a plan of activities for each day. At $50 a day, we didn’t feel we could afford to use the car everyday but three or four days a week will get us out and about.
We speak to everyone here in French. It was a French colony for about a hundred years and Madagascar gained its independence in the early sixties. Not surprisingly, the French influence remains today. Most people our age speak Malagasy and French fluently if they have been to school. Also they have a working knowledge of English but it’s nowhere near as good as their French. So we end up speaking French most of the time. It works pretty well but sometimes difficulties arise since we are all communicating in a second language.
Our first week here was a mix of getting to know the town of Mahajunga and adventures into the wild. It was the latter that gave us memories that we will never forget.
One activity that Zimbo proposed was a visit to Lac Sacré (Sacred Lake). In his explanation, we really weren’t too sure what we were going to see but off we went. After a forty-five minute drive from our house on a pot-holed dirt road, we arrived at le Lac Sacré. It was this dammed up manmade fresh water reservoir that contained many fish and huge eels! The Malagasy come here to make wishes. Then once they come true, they return to bring food and coins to the fish as thanks. Zimbo had purchased some raw meat and bread that we offered to the lake animals. Corbin loved feeding the eels that would pop out of the water up to six inches to retrieve the meat! He made a great iReport all about it. Watch for it on YouTube.
As we walked back to the car, Zimbo told us that now we would drive five minutes and see lemurs up close! How had we missed that this was going to happen today!??!
We arrived at a lightly forested area with a tiny village nearby. One of the villagers began making a high pitched yelp to call the lemurs. His two very young sons also helped in our lemur search. Within minutes, a group of lemurs were in the trees near where we parked our car.
They descended when they saw we had brought bananas and baguettes. They allowed us to feed them from our hands. It was INCREDIBLE. Corbin was all smiles as he gained confidence in being near them. We spent thirty minutes hanging out with this group of five lemurs including a one month old baby. After a while, they even let Corbin pet their backs while they were eating. We had to remind ourselves that these lemurs lived in the wild and we weren’t at a zoo!
Mango season is just starting here and Zimbo told us that once they are ripe, the lemurs stuff themselves with the delicious mangos and they don’t have any use for our bananas and bread. So we were lucky that they wanted our food.
After our visit we realized that we really hadn’t seen them walk. They jumped around a bit from tree to tree but we didn’t see the reason they are famously called “dancing lemurs”. That would come the next day.
Early Friday morning at 5:45am, Zimbo picked us up and drove to the port in Mahajunga where we queued for the ferry to take us across the Madagascar bay. Once the car was in the queue, we took a walk to find a nice place for some chocolat et croissants for breakfast. Can I repeat that we LOVE that this used to be a French colony!
It was a 90-minute journey to traverse the bay to Katsepy. On the boat, we were the only foreigners. Walking the streets of Mahajanga, we occasionally see other Europeans, mostly French. Corbin had noticed that we were THE white guys on the boat.
Katsepy is a tiny dot of a town and is the port for a sugar refinery built by the Chinese. We drove only about twenty minutes before reaching the lighthouse at the tip of the coast. Once again, we were greeted by a local who helped us search out the lemurs in nearby trees. Almost immediately, we found a different variety than the previous day. This group of six lemurs were noticeably more timid around us. They took a while to be comfortable to eat a banana that we were holding. We thought it was interesting that lemurs prefer that you place the banana in their month instead of them grabbing it with their hands. After they had full bellies, they walked off showing us their bouncing walking that makes it look like they are dancing. Corbin managed to record a great iReport on the lemur experience.
After 45 minutes, Corbin spotted two smaller lemurs of a different variety still. They never descended from the heights of the trees.
After the lemur experience, our local guide took us to the top of the solar powered lighthouse. From the top, we had a spectacular view of the coastline and the Malagasy savanna.
We made it back to Katsepy by 11am but there was no ferry in sight. It runs two or three times a day normally. So we found a deserted restaurant and had a relaxed lunch of white fish and cow-like zebu. Zimbo who was waiting in the queue with the car finally called to say that he had heard the boat would be back soon. By this point we had reached the hottest point of the day and the sun beat down upon us as we walked back to the port. Corbin asked that we carry him and my response was “I need YOU to push me in a wheelchair. “ Then Terry and I invented the double wheelchair. The double stroller exists for babies. So why not the double wheelchair for a son to push his dads around!
By the time we reached Zimbo, he let us know that the ferry had not even left Mahajunga yet and it would be another one and a half or two hours! So we walked back to the restaurant that was shaded, had a nice breeze and cool drinks. A game of Scrabble filled our time nicely.
The ferry finally made it back to Katsepy around 3pm and we boarded without problems. Zimbo had been worried that we might not get on this ferry and be forced to spend the night in Katsepy! It’s all a part of the adventure of traveling in Africa. Luckily, we made it home by 6pm after a long, fun day.
As we ate our dinner, we all talked about our two amazing experiences with lemurs. I would never have guessed that we would be interacting with them so closely. They are beautiful animals with many human like traits.
After we finished, we all three crawled into our big bed, pulled down the mosquito net, and watched the animated film, Madagascar. I hadn’t seen it since it was released. While the animated version of lemurs can sing and dance, the real ones gave us memories that we’ll never forget.
No comments:
Post a Comment