At 7 in the morning Jerome picks us up in a rattling minibus, driven
by an old chauffeur, and go on our way to Parque National Andohahela.
This park is known for its dry Spiny Forest, which transfers into
rainforest through a buffer area. The road that leads there is
in a horrible state. It was once paved but now looks like a lunar
landscape. The old minibus bumps through the holes.
The hot south is very poor, where the only crops are Manioc and Corn.
Vegetables don't grow here and fresh water is sparse. Very young children, not
more than 10 years old, are busy fixing the deep holes in the road in middle
of the burning sun. It's their way of earning a few cents, and they rely on a
small fee from the drivers of the tourist busses, especially from those on
their way to Berenty.
Concerning Berenty, it is the most prominent, if not the only attraction
in Madagascar that attracts huge amounts of tourists from all over
the world. It is world famous: when you see lemurs on TV, there's
a big chance they were filmed in Berenty. The reserve is owned
and managed by the rich monopolist Jean de Haulme, who also owns
3 hotels. Those who want to visit Berenty are obliged to sleep
in one of his hotels and use one of his expensive mini busses to
get to the park. When you come on your own, you won't be allowed
to enter. One night in Berenty including transport costs about
280 euros per person. There may be many lemurs, but some of them
are ill (bald) because of a poisonous plant, introduced there by
De Haulme. He's also tried to import elephants, ostriches and gorillas
to his park (fortunately the authorities forbid it) and he takes
lemurs from nearby reserves. Besides that it's quite zoo-like,
mass touristy and expensive. Hence, it's nothing for us.
After a long ride we reach the entrance of the park and start to
hike through the burning hot, desert-dry park. There are thick
Baobabs and remarkable plants that exist nowhere else on earth,
but above all it's - really - hot. We walk for 4 hours through
the heat and see no lemurs. It's very tiresome and we're pretty
exhausted at the end of the day; not really worth the long drive.
At some point i've lost my sunglasses somewhere near the entrance,
so we drive back to it and walk back into the park, but we give
up after a few minutes. However Jerome and the maintainer of the
Park continue for a while and when they come back, they did not
only find my sunglasses, but also a group of White Sifaka's..
On the way back we do see a group of Ringtail Lemurs on the road. It's dark by
now, have a 2 hours drive back, see spectacular cloud formations filled with
lightning and around 8 we are back at the hotel.
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