The Long Drive Back to Morondava

October 8 -- It's my birthday!  Thankfully, when I woke up today, I was feeling a bit better.  Better, but not great.  None of us were excited about the prospect of me on an 11-hour trip down a bumpy dirt road in a 4x4, but there was no other option.  I loaded up with water, downed a pharmacy worth of medications, and settled in for the long drive.

The trip wasn't nearly as bad as any of us expected.  The strangest part of the trip was that, not far outside of Bekopaka, we drove past four French guys - two on bikes and two running.  Apparently, they're ultra-runners and were running from Bekopaka to...somewhere.  It's ~80 km from Bekopaka to Belo, and they caught up to us while we ate in Belo, so there is no way that they ran that whole distance.  Still, they were running in 90+ degree weather, without any shade, and one of them was running without any water!

By the time we stopped in Belo for lunch, I was feeling well enough to eat real food for the first time in 24 hours.  It wasn't much, but it was an improvement.  Much to my chagrin, however, one of the meds they put me on means that I can't drink for 48 hours after I take it...I'm going to be stopping that one as soon as possible!

Even the ferry ride across the Tsiribihina wasn't too bad.  There was one hell of a line waiting for the ferry when we showed up, but we made it on.  It's a good thing too, because otherwise we would have been stuck there until the late afternoon and would have missed watching the sunset along the Allee des Baobabs!  They packed the ferries as full as possible.  Ours had six cars on it and dozens of people, so Kati and I stayed in the car with the windows down, enjoying the breeze.  The most entertaining part was watching almost a dozen Malagasy men trying to push a one ton (or more) engine up the steep, muddy hill from the ferry.  Even by the time we left, they had only made it a matter of feet!

After the crossing, the road got noticeably rougher and more difficult on my stomach.  Kati eased the pain, however, because she'd had some of my best friends (and family) send her pictures and songs that reminded them of me and made a 30th birthday playlist for me!  It was amazing.

At around 3:00, we stopped by the Great Baobab.  Mark says that, based on its size, they believe it's about 800 years old.  The problem with baobabs is that, unlike most trees, they don't have rings, so they are much more difficult to age.  He also told us the story behind why the Great Baobab is sacred. The tribe that settled Western Madagascar is called the Sakalava.  Many years ago, a Sakalava princess was traveling through that area and stopped at the nearby village asking for water.  She sat down at the base of the Great Baobab, stressed out because she had thus far been unable to give her husband a child.  As she sat there, she spoke to the baobab and wished that she could get pregnant.  She promised that, if she did, she would come back and sacrifice "many zebu" in its honor.  Six months later, she was pregnant.  She didn't think much of it until a year later when she remembered sitting under the baobab tree and the promise that she made that day.  So, she rounded up a number of zebu and took a caravan of people out into the country to find it again and fulfill her promise.  When she did, she told the villagers from that day on, no one was to harm the Great Baobab because it was sacred.  To this day, the Malagasy believe that tree to be connected with their ancestors and venerate it accordingly.

The highlight of the day was undoubtedly the Allee des Baobabs, and we hit it perfectly!  We got

there maybe 15 minutes before sunset (and the sun sets fast here).  The only way to describe it is as "incredible."  We got some amazing pictures, but even they don't do it justice.

We finally made it to Morondava around 7:00, and driving through the city at night was an entirely different experience.  There was still a lot of hustle and bustle, but of a very different kind.  We stayed at the Palissandre Cote Ouest Resort & Spa -- way on the Western end of Morondava, and right on the  coast.  I was still recovering from my illness, so we grabbed a quick dinner (I still ate very little), and then retired to relax in the room.  The only problem was that, even though we had an "air conditioner" in our room, it didn't really cool anything off very much and we were forced to sleep in the sweltering heat.

The Grand Tsingy and My Medical Mishap

In the Grand Tsingy

October 7 -- It was my last day being 29 and, looking back on it, it was fitting (in an ironic way) that I should leave my twenties in much the same way that I spent them -- that is, having grand ambitions, making poor choices, trying to do too much, and ultimately ending up on my back, miserable, vomiting, and cursing my stupidity.

To say that I didn't sleep well the night before is an understatement.  Though I had to be awake for breakfast at six so we could leave for the Grand Tsingy at 6:30, I slept little after 4:00.  That's when I woke up in a cold sweat, feeling horrible.  Nevertheless, this hike through the Grand Tsingy -- which Kati not-so-affectionately calls "the death hike" -- was the impetus for planning this whole adventure through Western Madagascar.  I was not about to miss it because I didn't sleep well and didn't feel great.  At breakfast, I could barely eat anything.  That should have been yet another sign that I was making the wrong decision, but I ignored it and pushed on.  Meanwhile, Kati was still sleeping and dreaming of her coming day relaxing by the pool.

Faly and Mark picked me up at 6:30 and we headed into town to grab Tivy on our way to the Grand Tsingy.  Driving through the residential side of town was very interesting because I got to see how the Malagasy actually live when no one is watching.  Most shockingly, I saw a butcher chop the head off of a newly killed, hanging zebu as he prepared to cut it up for the day's product.  We also drove by a brick works and a very primitive (and entirely manual) quarry on the outskirts of town.

The drive to the Grand Tsingy took about an hour, and I was feeling a bit better.  I loaded my backpack with nearly three liters of water for the upcoming trip and had been drinking constantly in hopes of replenishing the fluids that I had sweat out the night before.  By the time we reached the "base camp" for the Grand Tsingy hike, I felt good enough to eat half of a cliff bar that I brought.  Tivy showed me the path we would be taking on a large stone map.  It was a 3 km hike that was supposed to take no longer than four hours.  He expected us to finish in two.  On any other day, I suspect he would have been right on the mark.

The first kilometer consisted mainly of walking through the woods, descending into the rock maze that erosion had carved out in the bowels of the tsingy, and then pushing through an extended (and narrow) cave to the base of the true tsingy.  I found myself sweating profusely not even halfway through that first section, but I chalked it up to the heat and exerting myself too hard when I had eaten so little.  After asking for a break, I felt good enough to continue and shrugged off my condition.

The maze was incredible.  We must have been 50 meters below the tops of the rocks, walking through abnormally shaped passages created by Mother Nature herself.  The system of ladders and make-shift rock footholds we used to go up and down the maze were a ton of fun.  The cave was also cool (both figuratively and literally), but by the time we reached the end of it, I was feeling bad again and took another break.  This time, however, I didn't feel fully recovered when I started back up.  I also couldn't bear to eat any more of my cliff bar because my mouth was too dry.

As we started through our final section of forest before we hit the first climb up the tsingy, Tivy spotted a troop of at least eight or nine red-fronted brown lemurs.  They were on a mission to do...something.  I used the lemurs as an excuse to take another break in the hopes of regaining my strength, taking a few minutes to snap some pictures of them leaping from tree to tree and playing with each other.  Then it was time for the climb.

I took a few big gulps of water, clipped myself into the safety lines provided on these sections, and followed Tivy up the side of a 50 meter rock face, taking each step with care.  About halfway up, I lost my strength and tried to catch my breath.  After a few minutes of waiting, Tivy said that there were other groups behind us and that if I needed a rest, we needed to back down to the base.  As I started my descent, I felt it coming and quickened my pace in a panic, only just making it to a ledge out of the way of the trail before I lost what should have been my breakfast, but in reality was only neon-yellow water.  Tivy and Mark were very understanding  and helpful, dousing me in cold water and giving me as much time as I needed.  They asked if I wanted to turn back, but I insisted that I would be ok and wanted to move forward.  After all, when in my life will I ever be back here?

Fifteen minutes later, after I had obviously emptied my stomach, I said that I was ready to go.  Mark kindly offered to carry my backpack, and I started the ascent again.  This time, with significant effort, I made it to the top!  But it took everything out of me.  I had to break at the top, under the shade of a rock for quite some time and had to admit to myself, and Tivy and Mark, that I couldn't go on.  Tivy took me up the additional 15 feet to the viewpoint so I could at least see what the climb was all about. It was incredible!  Unfortunately, being in the hot sun exasperated my illness and made me very faint, so I had to back down right after Tivy pointed out a Decken's Sifaka way in the distance.  I was even too faint to ask Tivy to take a picture of me in front of the tsingy.

The descent was not fun.  We took it slow and Tivy made a point to clip me in and out of all of the safety lines as Mark carried my gear.  Luckily, Tivy knew a shortcut that allowed us to circumvent the maze and take a pretty easy walk through the forest.  Though, it was still long and wore me out more than it should have.  Back at the car, they put me in the front seat and laid it all the way back for the drive to the hotel.  As the day progressed, I felt worse and worse.

By the time I made it to the hotel, I felt like death.  I found Kati relazing by the pool, explained why I was back early, and plodded off to the room to lay down.  Not long after, Mark came to talk to Kati, very concerned about me and what disease I had contracted.  He insisted that I be tested for malaria, so the three of them loaded me into the car and drove me into town to see a Malagasy doctor.  The office was like many Malagasy buildings and not necessarily clean or sterile, but the doctor pulled out an official WHO-issued malaria test (scary that I know what those look like).  She spoke only French, and Mark's English, while good, does not extend to medical issues, so the language barrier was difficult.

The Doctor's Office

The general consensus was that I was very sick because she had to prick my finger three times just to get enough blood for the test.  Luckily, the test came back negative.  I told them that it would, because we had only been in the country for six days and it takes at least seven days after being infected for malaria to manifest.  The doctor ultimately gave us a number of medications that she insisted we take and charged us 50,000 ariary (~$15.38).  It's ridiculous that a doctor visit, anti-malarial test, and medications cost less than my copay to see a doctor in the US!  And, she called Mark on our drive back to suggest adding an antibiotic, which Mark just picked up at the pharmacy without any prescription or anything.  Still, we had no idea what the meds were, or any side effects or risks.  Luckily, we have a top-notch pharmacist on call.  Dr. Powell gave us all of the information we needed and told Kati exactly what I needed to do.

The remainder of the day was a painful blur.  I ate nothing.  I drank my body weight in fluids, but lost all of it almost immediately, either through sweat or otherwise.  Staring down the face of a 12-hour trip back to Morondava along a bumpy dirt road the next day was unpleasant at best.  Yet, if we didn't make it to Morondava in time for our flight on October 9, we would be stuck here for three or four more days.

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!

Driving to Bekopaka

 Kati and Me on the Ferry

Today we continued up the Malagasy equivalent of Route 1 - the dirt road that runs from Morondava to Bekopaka and is only passable during the dry season.  We had just 100 km of road left but it took us almost eight hours to get to Bekopaka!  Now, in all fairness, about 2.5 hours were spent crossing the Tsiribihina River and in Belo Sur Tsiribihina, but still.

The road is torturous.  In just the three hours before we made it to the Tsiribihina River, we saw four cars that had broken down.  The driver of one old-school jeep had apparently gotten a flat, but didn't have a spare tire, so he took the bad tire off, started a fire, and set out to patch the hole himself.  The Malagasy are nothing if not ingenious when it comes to fixing problems without spending money.

"Tsiribihina" roughly translates to "that river which you must not try to cross."  It got its name because of a large population of Nile Crocodiles that inhabit the deep river.  In the past, they had used makeshift wooden rafts to cross the river, and I was getting excited as we pulled up to have that kind of hardcore jungle experience.  Unfortunately (or fortunately for just about everyone else), technology has come to the Tsiribihina.  They had built a wooden raft on two motorized long-boats, which substantially expedited the crossing.  Interestingly, the crossing is not directly across the river.  Rather, the ferry takes you down the river 4 km to Belo Sur Tsiribihina.  They squeezed four cars, a motorcycle, and roughly two-dozen people onto a single ferry.  Now, getting those cars on the ferry was quite an ordeal.  The ferry was at the bottom of a steep, eight-foot hill and they put curved steel platforms from the hill to the ferry.  If your car went off those steel platforms, it (and you) were toast!  Faly, however, was a master and navigated onto the ferry with no problem.

As we waited on the ferry for the other cars to load, we got a look at the Malagasy river culture.  From the variety of hotels, "hostelys," and restaurants catering to the river traffic, to the commerce flowing south, there was a lot to see and we got some great pictures.  The crossing itself probably took 25 minutes, though it will take twice as long coming back up the river on the way back.  As we got off the ferry at Belo, we were accosted by young children talking very quickly in Malagasy.  After talking with Marc, we learned that they were asking for our water bottles, so that they could sell them for reuse or recycling.  Throughout Belo, the kids were very aggressive in looking for, and repeatedly asking for bottles, even if they weren't empty.

We stopped at the Karibo Hotel & Restaurant in Belo for lunch.  It seems to be the place that all of the tourists eat.  I suspect that's because it has walls separating it from the bustling streets outside, so tour guides and most of their clientele feel safer there.  Kati and I both had some great barbecued prawns and some THB while watching the Malagasies go about their daily business in the city.  My favorite was a guy across the street, smoking a cigarette right below a  giant "no smoking" sign on the front of the petrol station.  Kati also saw an old guy wearing an old bachelorette shirt!

Me at Lunch in Belo

After lunch we had another 3-4 hours of driving, but luckily the road was in better shape.  The last Malagasy Prime Minister was from the area and had promised to make the road better.  We passed a number of places where construction workers were busy rehabilitating ruined sections, laying out new dirt, of firming the road out with steamrollers.  In one instance, we got to be the very first car to drive over a newly laid section of road...right after the dirt spreader got out of our way!

Unfortunately, we also passed a number of areas that were being burned and cleared by the locals.  Some charred areas of the forest were miles long and went back as far as the eye could see.  They clear this land so that they can make rice fields.  The problem is that the Malagasy use antiquated cultivation methods and are not nearly as productive as they could be.  Even clearing large tracts of land will not produce enough rice to support a village or prevent them from having to purchase rice from elsewhere.  An interesting aside, the Malagasy eat more rice than anyone else in the world.  That includes Japan, Vietnam, and all of the other asian countries! 

About halfway through our afternoon drive, we stopped to stretch by a watering hole where a number of local kids were swimming and washing clothes.  Several of them were fascinated by my camera and kept insisting that I take pictures of them, even going so far as to dance while I did.  Finally, we got to Bekopaka and crossed one more river - the Manambolo River - before we got to our hotel, the Soleil des Tsingy.

The Soleil des Tsingy was only built in 2013 at the top of a mountain, and it is stunning.  The main building is completely open with thatched roofs, giant wooden beams, and a view of the forest around it.  There's also an infinity pool overlooking the forest below.  Our bungalow is also incredible.  We've got a king-size bed, complete with a mosquito net that makes Kati feel like a princess, an amazing front patio with a view of the sunset, and a giant bathroom where you can hear lemurs calling to each other as you take a shower.

Sunset at the Soleil Des Tsingy Pool

It was a long day of driving, and we were both hot and exhausted, so we decided to take it easy.  After taking a dip in the pool and grabbing a bottle of THB's "Fresh" (a disappointingly low-alcohol beer with a great and refreshing taste), we sat down to watch the sunset.  After that, we grabbed dinner, which included a zebu carpaccio with pesto and cheese, tilapia with roasted vegetables in a cream sauce, and some sort of panna cotta-like dessert.  It was all excellent.

Tomorrow we're going to split the day in half.  First, we're going to take a pirogue up the Manambolo River to see the tsingy from below, check out some caves, and see the Malagasy tombs built into the cliffs.  Then, after grabbing lunch back at the hotel, we're going to take an afternoon hike in the Petite Tsingy.  With any luck we'll see not only some great views, but some more lemurs and other wildlife!