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Day 16. Night Walk
In the morning, there's a limousine in the shape of a bright green Renault 4 waiting for us to take us to the airport. The co-driver is babbling non-stop to the driver who, after 30 minutes, suddenly turns on the radio on high volume. Did he had enough of his chatter?
We arrive at the airport where, after an hour of waiting, suddenly a loud air alarm sounds. We wonder if we have to seek shelter but it turns out it's just the signal of our plane arriving from Morondave. With only 30 minutes of delay, which is nothing for Malagasy standards, we leave to Fort Dauphin, Madagascar's most southern point. It looks pretty from the sky with green mountains and a rough coastline. Unfortunately we won't stop here as it's only our transit stop to Antananarivo.
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| Feon'ny Ala |
As we arrive at Tana safely Dyna and Rija are waiting for us
with the car. We send emails and buy groceries in a huge, air
conditioned supermarket called Shoprite. I figure not
many of the people outside the capital have seen something like
this from the inside. Afterwards we drive straight through Tana,
on our way to the east.
This part of Madagascar seems to be more developed and more densely populated than elsewhere. Like in Tana, there are lots of pretty colonial houses, but we haven't seen a single one that has had any kind of preservation since they were built, about 60 years ago. Madagascar became independent from France on june 26 1960, and i wonder how much this independence has contributed to the unprecedented decay of the buildings.
We stop in a small village to prepare a sandwich where we see
a small boy with a very long stick. Two miniscule toy wheels
are attached to the end from which a long wire runs to the top
of the stick. On top a big steering wheel is attached so the
boy can maneuver his stick through the street. It's amazing
to see how people can make such an innovative toy out of nothing.
The road is starting to curve. Below us a wild river flows
and there are forests all around us. Because of the climate
it rains 270 days per year here, so the east of Madagascar is
particularly green.
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| Analamazoatra
river in Perinit N.P |
In the afternoon we arrive in Feon'ny Ala, a complex of pretty bungalows on the edge of the rainforest of Parque Nationale de Perinet. After nights of crab and lobster the familiar chicken is hard to consume this evening.
After the sunset we go for a nightly walk through the rainforest. Accompanied by a guide and equipped with flashlights, we make our way through the pitch black forest. All around us sounds the deafening noise of thousands of undefined insects. We're walking for a while and our guide is on the lookout, but finds nothing. It's my own girlfriend who discovers several mouse lemurs. These tiny nocturnal animals are the smallest mammals in the world. They measure the size of a thumb and weigh only 25 grams. We see their eyes illuminate in the light of our flashlights as they make small noiseless jumps over mini-branches. They remind me of those small stuffed toy animals with squeezable arms you used to attach to your schoolbag.
My girlfriend, who could by now be an accomplished guide, also
discovers a baby Tenrec, a little black-yellow endemic hedgehog,
fumbling for insects. Our guide makes an attempt to catch up
by showing some spiders, a dragonfly and a frog, but it doesn't
make much impression. It starts to rain gently but soon it becomes
a shower of extreme proportions. Where are those ponchos when
you need them? Right, in the bungalow. I desperately try to
keep my camera dry, and fortunately i succeed. The shower lasts
and we're soaking wet.
Then suddenly Dyna, with car, appears out of nowhere. He brings
us back to the bungalow, where a colony of ants has taken possession
of our food. We attach our bag of food on a hook up in the air,
out of reach for the insects. I see an insect hopping on the
floor. Closer inspection reveals it's actually a frog. It has
the size of my little finger's nail.
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