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Day 17. The Call of the Indri Indri
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| Indri Indri |
Early in the morning we get ready for another hike through the
rainforest. The plan was to visit the nearby and less visited
Mantadia reserve, but our schedule doesn't allow it. This reserve
is mainly known for one thing. Madagascar's answer to the Giant
Panda, the black and white teddy bears measuring the size of a
full grown man's torso: The Indri Indri. These friendly herbivores,
the biggest of all lemurs, exist nowhere else on the world but
here they can be fairly easily spotted.
The rainforest is steaming after yesterday's rain and is covered
in mysterious fog. After walking for a while we hear the call
of the Indri Indri *. It distantly reminds me of the noise
that whales make. We enter their territory and soon we see about
5 of them; at first high in the trees but then more closely.
They observe us stoically with their teddy bear faces. It isn't
until one of them is right above our heads that we find out
how ear-deafening their calls really are. It makes our ears
hurt. We observe the lemurs for at least an hour but more tourists
are coming, so we move on.
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| giraffe beetle |
Our guide tells about the Aye Aye, a mysterious and extremely rare nocturnal lemur, detested by most locals. Many of them believe the animal should be instantly killed when it's seen as it's supposed to bring bad luck. It has a gruesome appearance with a bizarre long E.T like finger, used for fingering insects out of bark. When the animal was discovered 100 years ago and got captured it was exposed to the villagers. They all stepped back in shock shouting "Ai! Ai!". And that explains the name of this lemur, according to our guide. The only traces of an Aye Aye we see is a piece of pealed out bark. The animal is seldom spotted.
By coincidence we discover a cool big Parson's Chameleon and
we see a huge sow-bug. It quickly rolls itself up into a shiny
black ball and gets tossed up in the hand of our amused guide.
Around afternoon we begin the last phase of our journey. We
head further eastwards to Foulepoint, from where we will take
the boat tomorrow morning to our final destination; île
Sainte Marie. The area we cross is pleasant and quiet and looks
south american with lots of banana- and palm trees. Fruit is
being sold here, lots of fruits, and we stop to buy some lychees.
They are wrapped up in nice twined baskets. We buy a basket
- 4 kilos of lychees - en pay 30 euro cents. Meanwhile, a crowd
of ladies with baskets has gathered around the car. They want
their pictures taken. They're left baffled when they hear from
Dyna what we would have to pay in Holland for a similar amount
of lychees. Suddenly their attention is drawn away - a taxi
brousse stops further down the road. New customers, so the ladies
quickly move on.
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| Parson's Chameleon |
We pass a person with a stretched arm in which he holds an animal by it's tail; it's a rat, but a very big one indeed; i estimate it's body length about 50 centimeters! It must be the Giant Jumping Rat, another remarkable species native to Madagascar only. Fortunately it's not an endangered one.
This road is a transit route for goods coming in and out of
the harbor of Tamatave, mainly fuel. There are many large trucks
driving and considering the state some of them are in it's not
surprisingly that a lot accidents occur. In a short time we
see several crashed trucks, one of them capsized.
Everywhere travellerpalms are growing, fan shaped leafs, the
symbol of the national airline.
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| Toamasina Bridge (Tamatave) |
Around four we arrive in Toamasina (Tamatave), Madagascar's
largest harbor town. It's also a popular holiday destination
for the Malagasy people. For a while we wonder whether we want
to spend the night here but we decide to continue to Foulepointe.
Once we're there we move into some shabby but cheap bungalows
at Le Gentil Pecheur. We glance at the resort's kitchen
and are glad we're not eating here tonight. The whole kitchen
is black and looks filthy. Nevertheless, there are at least
2 busloads of french tourists that do eat here. We see them
eating chicken and veggies with long faces.
After Dyna told us so passionately about the lobsters of Foulepointe,
we invite him to dinner. He arranges lobster for 3. Around
8 we sit down on reed mats in the sand where 4 boys are grilling
fresh caught lobsters for us on a tiny barbecue. They have
a full basket, i count at least ten. They serve them with
homemade coco punch, coconut milk with rum, and its absolutely
fabulous. Every word we have with Dyna gets repeated by the
boys, so we give them a short lesson of english. We teach
them words like bottle, spoon and plate. The dogs run off
with the empty shells and we visit our bungalow in satisfaction.
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