Madagascar 2024

Antananarivo, Madagascar

Upon landing, the heat of the sun and the blasts of dry, dusty wind shock the tired and groggy body....25 hours of flying has mixed up days and nights, wakefulness and sleep. The roads are buzzing with life. Colours, sounds, smells and wonders swim in a hot and dusty haze. The barefoot citizens, the tuktuks, the zebu carts, the belching trucks and stray dogs offer a heady welcome to life in "Tana". There is such a rawness to the streets. Bright and vibrant colours of the market place, the clothes, the neon signs, the shining iron and motor parts...make the eyes dart and squint...wanting to capture it all. This is the swirling life of a city, chaotically breathing and bleeding. Looking close, the market, although full of colour, only has four or five choices of produce. The clothes are beautiful and vibrant; faded, patched, cleaned to threadbare but worn with pride and confidence. The iron and machine workers hands are black with iron filings ... flip flopped feet are used as tools to rim balding tires and to bend re bar. No one and nothing sits idle. There is constant movement and life as vehicles slither and bolt through the streets. Only divine intervention and masterful driving keeps certain death and accident to people, produce and animals at bay. Welcome to Anantanarivo. Welcome to Madagasgar.

Antananarivo

LEMUR SANCTUARY

A hot and dusty drive through narrow, unpaved and unmarked roads leads to a Crocodile Park. A sanctuary that graces the glossy pamphlets in the lobbies of hotels...a place of pride for burgeoning eco-tourism programs of Madagasgar. The park is small with curving pathways that lead you through a natural pavilion: home to crocodiles, lemurs, tortoises and endemic birds and lizards. An open air zoo that hopes to educate visitors about Madagasgar flora. A whistle and some banana brings out the curious ?? lemur. Brown eyes that sparkle and look directly into your eyes greet you with no fear. There is a softness to their expressions. A gentle intrigue ... they lift my hands smeared with banana to their mouths. It feels like the hand of a child...soft, delicate, trusting. They edge closer, I can hear their soft breath and feel their downy fur. There is a mutual kindness,delight and trust with our simple connection. The feeling of their soft hands and deep eyes is etched in memory...a sensual memory that blurs animal and human.

Nosy Be, Madagascar

Antoremba Lodge - Nosy Ambariovato (Komba (Lemur) Island)

Antoremba Lodge

Sakalava Bay, Madagascar

THE ROAD TO SAKALAVA BAY

Travel ... when a road isn't always a road...

Antananarivo is Madagasgar, but Madagasgar isn't only Antananarivo. The "road" north to Sakalava Bay requires a plane, a myriad of boats, multiple 4x4 jeeps, constant jostling and bone jarring stops and starts for hours, and eyes wide open to take in the sights and sounds of remote villages and life. The RN6 is the only road leading to the north of the island. Madagasgar has only 6000km of "paved" road throughout the country..."paved" being rock, sand, rutted, muddy, pot holed, narrow, diverged, streamed, and sparingly "iced" with asphalt. A cyclone in March 2024 washed away three bridges leading to the north. Ingenuity and necessity is not dulled by nature. Boat crossings passed the broken and missing bridges, pulse with life and noise. Motor cycles, people and goods share the slim Madagasgar canoes. There is no question of will it fit?? All is simply loaded, life jackets are handed out, passengers bunch up with one another, chickens sit in the gunnels, and shouts of "Go go go!" are constant. A car change, another boat crossing and finally we arrive in Sakalava Bay. Our zebu cart is right on time...as dependable as can be. Luggage is loaded and we walk the 500m of sandy white beach to our final destination. It has been 10 hours since we set off from Ankify...