Madagascar...A Tough Place to Travel

By no means is Madagascar an easy country in which to travel. This I knew (or at least I assumed) when I finalized my travel plans a few months back while sitting in the comfort of my apartment in San Francisco. The four weeks traveling around South Africa (AKA Africa Lite) certainly did nothing to prepare me for the hardships that will certainly follow as I traverse the “Eighth Continent”. I arrived in the country’s capital, Antananarivo (Tana, for short) at the ungodly hour of 2:30 am. Not knowing whether anyone would be there to receive me at Madagascar Underground (the newly opened backpackers hostel that claims to be the only one of its kind in the country), I decided to wait around the airport until sunrise before embarking on my journey to the center of the city.

The thought of sleeping for a couple of hours was quickly forgotten due to the seemingly high number of shady looking characters hanging around the arrivals area who, in my mind, where ready to relieve me of my valuables the moment I shut my eyes. To help pass the time, I talked with a British couple who had also been on the same flight from Kenya and who were in transit awaiting their domestic flight to the northern town of Diego Suarez.

Three hours had passed and I was surprised to see the sun rise at 5:00 am. My immediate thought was how early I would have to set my alarm each morning as I would begin my search for Madagascar’s unique wildlife. I overheard a couple from Canada saying their good-byes to their local guide and I immediately approached him and asked if he was interested in making some money by driving me into the city. He was happy to do so and soon we were on our way, first passing through the outer suburbs adjacent to the airport, then through a series of beautiful rice paddies, and finally up to the front door of Madagascar Underground. I was happy to find the receptionist inside the hostel who welcomed me in and assured me that, while all the dorm beds were occupied, I would have access to a spot within a short amount of time. (Up until this night I had spent the previous 37 nights sleeping in my home-away-from-home; my orange NorthFace tent.) I had a great time over the next 2 full days hanging out with Martin, 25-year old French guy living in Madagascar where he works for a French telecommunications company; Lisa and Eli, an Israeli couple on their honeymoon; Ernesto, a Peace Corps volunteer working and living south of the capital; and Pedro, a former sugar salesman from Brazil who as has recently quit his job and is on a round-the-world trip. Antananarivo For an African country (if you can call Madagascar Africa) Antananarivo is an nice city. Surrounded by rice fields and sitting within attractive hillsides, the capital retains a French colonial feel. Several late 19th and early 20th century buildings dot the city’s landscape, older model Citroen 2CVs act as taxis, and French is heard throughout the streets. What interests me the most, however, is the city’s people.

With a population of 2 million, Tana’s people represent a broad spectrum of skin colors. It’s Africa, but I don’t feel like I’m in Africa. Within the airport alone, I observed people who reminded me of past trips to Malaysia, Indonesia, northern Philippines, India, and mainland Africa. Andasibe and Matandia National Parks Together with my newfound travel partner, Pedro, we headed off a bit later than planned to one of several taxi gares (stations) within the city to catch a ride eastward to Andasibe National Park. The level of anxiety was high as I anticipated being mobbed by touts looking to take advantage of two inexperienced “vasas” (the term used by locals to describe white foreigners….to all my fellow PCVs and RPCVs, think “Porto”, “Toubabou”, “Blanc”, “Hey, Joe”, etc.) AND a long wait for the taxi to depart. Experience in Africa certainly helped me cope with this highly stressful situation, but, nevertheless, a visit to any public transportation station in the developing world will certainly always be a lowlight for most travelers. As our taxi neared the “gare”, we were immediately assaulted by one overly-eager man who even attempted to enter our slow-moving vehicle in hopes of earning a small tip from the taxi company for “bringing” us to them. Going on advice from a couple of Peace Corps volunteers we had met at the hostel, we told him that we were not interested and made sure to keep a strong grasp on our bags as these guys will try to take them from you and force you to follow them to their taxi of choice. This reminded me of one experience I had years ago in Babadjou, Cameroon where I had exited my taxi, looked down to notice that my bag had disappeared, and then had to run after the guy who had already placed it on top of the bus that I was not intending to take. Several inappropriate words were shouted and some light physical contact to his face eventually resulted in the retrieval of my bag. Because the taxis only leave when full, we were lucky to have spent “only” 20 minutes looking for the vehicle with the most amount of passengers, and within 10 minutes, we were off. The drive to the outskirts of the city was slow, but soon enough we were driving eastward, descending from the central plateau through beautiful countryside. More rice fields, followed by forested mountainsides, small villages of wooden houses that pressed up against the sides of the roads, and degraded hillsides soon made the experience much more enjoyable. We made a short stop in the town of Moramanga before continuing the journey and within 3.5 hours were at the crossroads of the national highway and the road to Andasibe. Pedro had already made a reservation at one of the few small guesthouses and I headed off to the “resort” across the road where I had read that it was possible to camp. Reaching the reception, I was told that they no longer allowed camping, which was a big disappointment as the resort butted right up against the forest of the national park and the hope of seeing birds and lemurs from the door of my tent had been high. After a little begging, I was told that another site further down the road, and closer to the national park entrance, allowed camping. I hitched a ride with the owner of the Madagascar Underground hostel, who was in the area guiding the Israeli couple I had met in Tana, quickly set up the tent, and spent the remaining hour or so left of sunlight birding the road back to the guesthouse where Pedro was staying. At the guesthouse’s restaurant we had dinner and met Luc, our guide that Pedro had set up in advance. We negotiated the itinerary and price, bid farewell to the Israelis and, together with Pedro, slowly walked the road back to my camp in search of any nocturnal life forms that we had hoped to see. By the time we reached my camp we had seen nothing, but I was not too disappointed as we planned a night walk with Luc the following night and my hopes were high that we would see several interesting creatures. That night, as I laid down inside my tent, I anxiously awaited the nightly sounds of the area’s wildlife. I was the only one staying in the camp so it was very quiet and the slightest noise would certainly have awakened me. Over the course of the night I exited the tent three times to see what was happening in the trees around me, with the first two occasions introducing me to the nocturnal Wooly Lemur. From the sounds they made, they must have been no more than a few feet above my tent. Using my flashlight, I scanned the trees and soon found no less than 4 pairs of glowing orange eyes staring down at me. The excitement of being that close to wild lemurs made it difficult to go back to bed, but as I knew that we were having an early start the next morning, I forced myself to return to the confines of the tent where I was finally able to fall back asleep. By 4:55 in the morning I was awake and preparing for the day’s birding and general wildlife viewing within Andasibe NP. Waiting for Pedro and our guide, I spent a good hour birding along the road between my camp and the park’s entrance where I ticked off a few lifers, including the common Madagascar Bulbul, the colorful Blue Coua, and the raucous Lesser Vasa Parrot. Luc and Pedro arrived at 6:30, we paid our entrance fees, and then entered the forest. Luc immediately picked up on several species of vangas, a bird family endemic to Madagascar and the neighboring island nation of the Comoros. While I loathe using a guide when birding, in Madagascar it is mandatory within the national parks, and I had absolutely control over this. This said, we were exceptionally lucky to have Luc, as he knew his birds, something we would find out over the next two days with him. We continued along the forest trail, ticking off new bird after new bird. When we reached a small patch of bamboo, Vic stopped, took a quick look down a small clearing, and called us over to slowly and quietly enter the area. There in front of us, roughly at eye level, was our first Bamboo Lemur clinging to a stalk of bamboo and enjoying his breakfast of shoots. We then began a short, but steep, climb up through the forest along the aptly-named Indi Circuit, excited to see (and hear) the world’s largest lemur, the Indri (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d3vFI5UpIc and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eaTBoqpNEg). From his vest pocket, Luc pulled out his phone, which he uses for bird and mammal playback, pressed a few buttons, and from the phone came an audio recording of the eerie cry of an Indri. Within a matter of seconds we were surrounded by the piercing cries of 2-3 indris located directly above us. We had heard the cries the night before, but they had come from a distance away, and we were amazed by the volume that an animal this size could make. For anyone who has heard a howler monkey or a siamang vocalizing, the volume from the Indri is even higher!

Over the next 3 hours we continued walking, and sometimes bushwhacking, through the forest, ticking off new birds. As the time with Luc was drawing to an end we encountered another small group of Indris, but this time the experience was different. Having started out the day at 6:30, we were among a very small number of others within the park. But as the day progressed, more and more people arrived; some as part of a long day trip from Antananarivo. Instead of just the 3 of us sharing in the experience with this amazing animal, there were at least 10 others, and as we left the lemurs behind, we must have passed 20-30 people who were on their way up the trail to have a view. We reached a point along the trail where several people had stopped to look at something. Instead of following the group, Luc directed us into the forest, off-trail, and within 20 yards he was pointing out a Red-Breatsed Coua, a terrestrial endemic and much sought-after bird in the park. The large group of people showed absolutely no interest in birds, so we had the coua all to ourselves for a good 10 minutes. As we left the coua behind we quickly found what the others had been watching. A group of 6-7 Diademed Sifakas (thought by many to be the most beautiful of all the lemurs) was in the trees above the trail. I had only a quick look as they continued deeper into the forest and out of sight from those standing along the trail. We, however, were being led by Luc, the master of the forest, and he quickly told us to jump down into a deep gully, up the other side, through tangled vines and over protruding roots to follow the animals. Within moments we had found the Sifakas sitting together, busy feeding on seeds that covered the forest floor. Completely uninterested in us, we were able to approach within just a couple yards where we stayed and watched in awe.

Our morning with Luc was finished and in the end we had seen 26 species of birds (all lifers for me), and four lemur species (Indri, Common Brown, Bamboo, and Diademed Sifaka). The three of us parted ways and I headed back to my camp where I took a much needed two hour nap. Around 4:30 I headed back down the road to Pedro’s guesthouse where I had an early dinner and where we met up again with Luc for the night walk through Parc Mitsinjo, the private reserve where I was camping.

Almost immediately Luc had found a Leaf-tailed Gekko along the trail, quickly followed by a pair of Leaf Chameleons, and then a Snub-Tailed Chameleon. We spent the next hour and a half in pitch-blackness, guided up and down the hillsides only by our flashlights. In the end, we had seen 4 more lemur species (Hairy-Eared Dwarf, Wooly, Greater Dwarf, and Goodman’s Mouse Lemur), two Malagasy Spotted Tree Frogs, and at least one an Elephant-Eared Chameleon.

Update on Gen's Activities: July 29 to August 13

Arua, Uganda- Visit to Our New Home (July 29 to August 5): Gen and her colleague were introduced to Arua by a Language and Cultural Facilitator (LCF) who traveled with them and who hails from Arua. Along the way, Gen was regaled by sights of baboons, macaques, birds (which she couldn’t identify but appreciated), elephants, the Nile River and Uganda’s countryside, which showcased farms, traditional huts and rural Ugandans in action. She and her colleague (Janet) were greeted by their home-stay host families and shared with them afternoon tea at White Castle Hotel. Amazingly, the host families had vehicles that eased transport issue from the hotel to their respective homes. Gen and Janet had fun participating with their respective host families’ activities after each day’s formal orientation sessions with their host country colleagues. They toured local government offices and institutions and met local officials including staff members at the Arua Regional Referral Hospital. They also had Lugbarati language lessons with Alice, their LCF. They have mastered their greetings and leave takings! Awadifo saaru (Thank you very much)!

August 6 to 13: Going back to Kampala, Gen traveled with PC staff members who were in Arua for a workshop. At the end of the trip, she and her fellow passengers enjoyed tasting fruits (highlight: Atis and Guyabano) in season found along the way. It took 9 hours to arrive at the hotel in Kampala. Craig beat Gen by 10 minutes in checking into Kolping Hotel- Kampala. More orientation sessions happened including a tour of Uganda’s national referral hospital, Mulago. Mulago is a multi-building health service delivery complex which caters to all of Ugandans’ health care needs. Gen and her colleagues also visited a traditional healer and a bone-setter. The visit to Kampala ended with the Swearing-In ceremony.

Update on Gen's Activities

Orientation in Washington, DC (July 12 to 22): Gen spent 10 days in Washington, DC to prepare for her volunteer work in Uganda. Although a Returned Peace Corps volunteer (RPCV), Gen had never seen nor set foot in Peace Corps’ Headquarters (PCHQ) until this time. She became acquainted with PCHQ during her orientation as a 2015 Global Health Service Partnership (GHSP) Peace Corps Response volunteer (PCRV). Her days are packed with sessions necessary to prepare her for her role as a Nurse Educator in one of Uganda’s universities. She met her doctor and nurse colleagues who are like her slated to depart in one of the 3 GHSP partner countries: Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda. She also met some spouses of these colleagues who are serving as PCR volunteers. Being in DC gave Gen the opportunity to re-explore the area a little bit (we visited DC at least 10 years ago) and reconnect with friends whom she has not seen face to face for as long as 20 years like Marion, her college friend. Although Gen and Marion have stayed in touch through the years through snail mail at first, then email and most recently through FB, they have not seen each other since graduation from nursing school. They were able to connect and spent time together at Marion’s home in Charleston County where Gen ate Filipino food and sang along with Marion’s family who were having Karaoke fun- thanks to Marion’s mother in-law who was celebrating her birthday! Gen also met up with friends she met in Guyana and Zambia where she served as a PC volunteer.

Uganda-here comes Gen! (July 23 to 27): Gen and the rest of her colleagues scrambled to prepare for departure for their countries of assignments. Hand-held weighing scales were passed around several days before departure on July 23. Gen like her colleagues has amassed some more heavy nursing reference books and some basic clinical equipment. Thus the needs for the weighing scale to balance out bags. Nobody wants to be charged extra for overweight luggage on top of an extra 3rd bag on an international flight. The Malawi contingent left first early in the morning followed by Tanzania and Uganda which shared a flight from Dulles to Amsterdam. Gen was on a KLM flight all the way from Dulles to Entebbe via Amsterdam and Kigali. She got re-acquainted Amarula, a South African liqueur during the long flight and caught up some of the recently released movies. The arrival to Entebbe was less painful than expected. Despite arriving late at night- 1030pm, Gen was able o retrieve her luggage as soon as she stepped out of immigration. Thankfully, there was only one flight arrival that night which made getting out of Entebbe fast even with having 9 other colleagues who needed to get through immigration and luggage retrieval procedures. Gen and her colleagues arrived in Kampala after midnight and had a midnight “snack” of what is typically served during dinner in Uganda. After room assignments and basic logistic information, everyone went to bed around 230am, July 25 to be ready for session at 9 am of the same day. The first part of in-country orientation lasted until the 29th when they departed fro their respective work sites. In Gen’s case, she headed for Arua in the West Nile Region which is 6 to 8 hours by private or public transportation.

Entebbe Botanical Gardens - Part II

The morning started out nicely as I arrived at the entrance to the gardens, but within 15 minutes the skies to the south turned black and I was soon standing in a makeshift shelter along with 8-9 local fishermen as rain fell for almost 2 straight hours. By 9:00 the skies had cleared and I was able to get in a few good hours of birding. Only one lifer (Orange Weaver), but ticked off 6 new birds for the year, including Water Thick-Knee, Grey Parrot, African Crake, Wood Sandpiper, and White-Throated Bee-Eater. It was then back to Entebbe Backpackers to watch back-to-back English Premier League matches, including Man U's loss to Swansea.

Travelling to Kampala

Is it only in Africa where a 20-mile bus ride can take 2 hours? After a full morning of birding around Entebbe’s botanical gardens, I headed back to Entebbe Backpackers to pack and shower before heading off to meet Gen in Kampala. As expected, I paid for 2 seats due to the over-humungous size of my backpack…not a problem. I knew the distance was not great and was warned that it might take 1.5 hours to get to the capital because of traffic. After picking up and dropping off en-route what seemed to have been the entire population of Entebbe, the driver finally pulled over and said that that was the end and we should get out. Having spent close to 30 minutes to travel the final half mile, I planned on walking several blocks north with my bags to get on the north side of Kampala’s center to get past what had to be the worst traffic jam in the history of traffic jams, but instead I chose NOT to follow my own advice and took the first boda-boda that I saw. This, after figuring that there was absolutely NO WAY that a Ugandan motorcycle driver would be able to take not only my weight, but the 60+ pounds of weight that was in my 2 backpacks. He assured me that it would not be a problem and after negotiating a price of 5,000 Shillings (approximately $1.20), we were on our way. Two seconds into the journey I realized that the 2-3 mile journey to the Kolping Hotel would not be a quick one. Words cannot describe the traffic jam that we found ourselves in. With no traffic signals, stop signs, nor care for road rules, the streets of central Kampala were literally lacking in a foot of clear and empty space between any two vehicles and/or pedestrians…all of which chose their own routes to traverse the city. After the first 20 minutes we had traveled less than one full block and the thought of my knees being shattered by oncoming traffic made me rethink traveling on these death traps. Thirty minutes into the journey my driver, who had been sandwiched between the handlebars and my massive pack had suddenly dismounted and said something to the like of “We must now walk”. We pushed the moto, with the backpack balancing on the bike’s seat, through traffic and eventually to a gas station another half block away. We had run out of gas!! No big worries. We filled up and were off once again, weaving and dodging foot traffic, trucks, buses, and other boda-bodas. We were suddenly free of the jam and sped at an alarming rate down Bombo Street. It soon became apparent that my chauffeur did not know of the Kolping Hotel and on two occasions stopped and asked for directions. Almost one hour after starting the journey I could see the Kolping Hotel sign. One hour to travel what had to be no more that 2.5 miles!! Feeling bad for the driver, I gave him a few thousand extra Shillings, shook his hand, and headed inside to check in at reception. Gen had not yet arrived back from her site visit to Arua and I patiently waited in the lobby, all the while enjoying a refreshing glass of passion fruit juice that the receptionist gave me. Not 10 minutes into my wait and I could hear Gen’s voice coming from the parking lot area. After almost a month separated, we were together once again!

Entebbe Botanical Gardens

After a relatively peaceful and comfortable night camping on the front lawn of the hostel, I caught a boda-boda (motorcycle w/driver that is used for getting around town…and Uganda’s most common form of public transportation) to the Entebbe Botanical Garden for a morning of birding. I paid the driver and as I approached the entrance, I read the garden’s sign that said the opening time was 9:00. This seemed bizarre, as I know the gardens are a popular birding site and 9 o’clock seemed very late to begin birding. The gate was open, so I decided to walk in, even though it was only 8am. I immediately saw a guy who told me to just go in and that I could pay the entrance later.

I ended up spending about 4 hours in the park. Birding was great with stuff popping up all around me. The best birding was down on the shores of Lake Victoria where, by the end of the morning, I had tallied a total of 66 species, including 8 “lifers” (species I had never seen or had overlooked and not recorded). Among the 8 lifers were Red-Headed Lovebird, Angola Swallow and Northern Brown-Throated Weaver (two birds I had undoubtedly overlooked in previous outings throughout Africa), Slender-Billed Weaver, Golden-Backed Weaver, Weyns’s Weaver, Black-Crowned Waxbill, and Western Citril. Most, if not all of the other 50+ species were all familiar to me, and while they were not new birds, it was great to see them after a nearly 7 year absence from the continent!

Getting to Entebbe

The flight from Copenhagen was long, yet painless. After spending my last few hours walking around the beautiful city of Copenhagen, I headed to the train station and caught a train out to the airport. After nearly an hour of arranging and rearranging my baggage to avoid paying excess baggage fees, I checked in and away I went. The first leg of the journey took me to Amsterdam and after a 1.5-hour flight and 2-hour layover, I was off to Dubai. Six hours later we were in what seemed to be the absolute middle of nowhere on Earth. The desert surrounding the city was vast and I never saw anything that resembled civilization outside the area of the seemingly biggest airport in the world. Gen and I had been to Dubai’s airport once before on our way home from Zambia and I remembered it to be first class. This time, however, things were not quite the same. After a very long walk from our gate the passengers from Etihad’s Amsterdam flight converged with hundreds of passengers from what seemed to be several other arriving flights. Herded like cattle through transit/immigration, I made it to my connecting flight to Entebbe with fifteen minutes to spare. We boarded a transport bus that drove us what seemed to be at least 2-3 miles to our plane. As we exited the bus, we were hit by a heat that reminded me of Las Vegas at noon on any given day in the month of July. The thermometer on the screen at my seat read 114 degrees for the outside temperature, and it was only 8 o’clock in the morning! The flight to Entebbe was around 5 hours, but the time seemed to pass by quickly as I spent the entire flight talking to the guys sitting next to me. One guy was headed to Uganda with a group of students from England who would spend a month in Mbale doing a cultural visit. The other guy was from Spain and he was going to visit his girlfriend who had been volunteering outside of Kampala for a few months. The most memorable part of the flight to Entebbe was seeing the landscapes change from brown desert of northwestern Kenya to lush green hills as we entered Uganda. The change was abrupt and I could actually see a north-south line dividing the two countries.

We arrived at Entebbe’s airport around 1:00 pm, disembarked, and joined the line for immigration. On the flight over I had learned that Uganda had increased the cost of their visas from $50 to $100 and I was happy that I had opted to send my passport to the Ugandan embassy in Washington prior to traveling, thus saving me $50 bucks! My fellow row mates were not so fortunately and had to fork out the extra money to enter the country. In line I met a Filipina from Cebu (they’re everywhere!!) and practiced (butchered) my long-forgotten Visayan. She lives in South Korea where she teaches English along with her Ugandan-born husband. She was there to meet her in-laws who, after having been married for 5 years, she had still not yet met.

I breezed through both immigration and customs, got some cash from the ATM, and then scanned the mob of people outside the airport for Billy Mambo. Gen came into contact with Billy through some people in San Francisco and after exchanging a few e-mails, he offered to pick me up at the airport. I was not 100% sure he’d be there as I had written to him a few days earlier to tell him not to bother as I had planned to spend the night in Entebbe and it would be a waste of time for him to travel so far out of his way just to escort me a couple miles to where I was staying. Ten minutes, and a thousand offers to drive me into town later, I saw the Spanish guy from the plane with his girlfriend and asked them how they were getting to Kampala. We shared a taxi into Entebbe where they were dropped off on the side of the road where they could hail a passing “matatu” (minibus used as public transportation) and I was taken to Entebbe Backpackers where I would spend the night.