The Manambolo River and the Petite Tsingy

Kati, (Moxie), and Me at a Cave Along the Manambolo River

After nearly five days of traveling, we finally made it to Bekopaka and the highlight for the first week of our trip - the Tsingy de Bemaraha.  This national park (also a UNESCO World Heritage Site) was one of the primary reasons that we decided to come to Madagascar.

This area of the country is unique both because of the ubiquity of limestone and the drastic changes in the water level.  In the rainy season (December through March), the Manambolo River rises ten feet!  Not only does it flood vast stretches of fields and farmland, it puts large portions of the tsingy underwater!  The current in the river becomes so strong that it is not navigable using the pirogues the locals rely on.  Moreover, the only road between Bekopaka and Belo becomes unpassable.  In effect, the residents of Beokpaka are stranded and helpless for four months out of the year.  To make matters worse, the Manambolo River is rife with Nile crocodiles that are not shy about feasting on unsuspecting Malagasy and their zebus!  Yet, it is this insane aquarian change that makes the tsingy so fantastic.  

The rising and falling water has carved out much of the limestone in the area into formations that look truly surreal.  The area is split into two parts - the Grand Tsingy and the Petite Tsingy.  In the Grand Tsingy, there are "pinnacles" of limestone (think giant stalagmites) that stand more than 100 meters tall.  The Petite Tsingy is much smaller (hence the name), but still made from the same erosive processes.  The Manambolo River also poses such an insurmountable barrier to many terrestrial critters that the fauna in the tsingy can be found nowhere else in the world, or in the country.  More than 80% of the animals in the tsingy are found only in the tsingy.  For example, Decken's Sifaka, while very similar to its southern relative - the Verreaux's Sifaka - can only be found in the tsingy.  Similarly, several species of plated lizards are exclusively found in the tsingy.

We started our day with a trip in pirogues - dug-out canoes made from a single tree - up the Manambolo River.  I was shocked to learn that each pirogue is used for a maximum of three years, even when it's made from the best wood possible.  The fact that that I thought pirogues would last for three times that long is just further proof that I would not make a good Malagasy worker.  

Marc and Tivy (our local guide) were fantastic.  We saw a cave that, when the river is high, is a haven for crocodiles, but when the water is low, houses colonies of bats.  I only caught a glimpse of a bat, as our flashlights scared them away, but it was neat nonetheless.  We also saw a variety of Malagasy birds, including egrets and what the locals call Vikiviks, after the call that they make.

Our trip up the river culminated at the tombs of the Vazimbas.  The Vazimbas were the first people to colonize Madagascar.  For a long time, people thought that they were aboriginals, but the archaeological research done in the country has not turned up any evidence to support that claim.  It's now widely accepted that the Vazimbas were the first Malay-Indonesian immigrants to make it to Madagasacar and that the remaining groups now on the island simply made the same trip later in history.  The Vazimba "buried" their dead in concealed crevices of the rocks along the Manambolo, just high enough that they would not be washed away during the rainy season.  We didn't actually climb up to look at the skeletons, but it was pretty cool to see where people buried their dead nearly two thousand years ago.

After we made it back down the river to Bekopaka, we set off into the Petite Tsingy.  We followed a

Kati and Me in the Petite Tsingy

two-hour circuit that led us down into the rock maze below the tsingy, up and down to see the mini-pinnacles, and then on a walk through the woods surrounding the tsingy to see some wildlife.  It was hot as could be, but it was at least a little cooler in the shaded forest.  Plus, we got to see a ton of cool critters.  We found a French Sparrow Hawk, a Magpie-Robin, a Crested Coua, and a variety of different lizards.  We did see a few Decken's Sifaka's, but they were way up at the top of a fig tree and obscured by leaves.  My hope is that tomorrow, in the Grand Tsingy, I'll be lucky enough to see a few more sifakas and maybe even a Madagascar Fish Eagle (one of the rarest birds in the world)!

We made it back to our hotel by noon and had the rest of the afternoon to relax by the pool.  It was a pleasant surprise because we had thought that our tsingy explorations would be all-day affairs.  Having some time to ourselves to rest up and relax was a surprise that neither of us realized we needed so much!