JORDAN CADIOT
MADAGASCAR
The red island
STRESS
- MARCH 17, 2019
It's sunday, march 17, 2019, 19h52, and i start writing this page. I will write here and share the images about this trip of ten days on the island of Madagascar.
In few minutes i will start a video chat with Dimitri Känel, it's because of him that i'm going there. He's leading a project called Macromascar, a Swiss project at first, and i came in, there was not enough Frenchies for me (https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/163882_bfc54586d5ea435f9b822984d57fc6df.pdf) !
Why i wrote "stress" as first word? I've travelled only once for now (at Burkina Faso) but it's not the trip itself that worries me, it's not the plane, it's not to know how it will go once there, not yet, this stress will arrive later, at the last time probably, before the last night in my sweet bed. For now i'm worried because my passeport and the visa are not in my hand, we are march 17 and our plane take off on march 30. But it's gonna be ok, no choice!
- MARCH 18, 2019
I just hang out with the embassy of Madagascar, and the stress decrease a little! It's possible that a person i know can get my passeport and the visa, a friend living in Paris can do this for me, thank you! I would be fully reassured when she'll tell me she has my papers in its hand however!
Last night's video chat with Dimitri allowed us to fit each other and keep me in date on how we'll do once there, what material i should buy and other things usefull for the trip (and others, because i won't stop at this one...).
So now i know where we start, how we'll go there, how we'll go to the next place, with who, and it's good! It's good to know that the main lines are set up, because ten days it's short and we won't have to lose time to enjoy at the maximum.
But why do i write all this? Why doing a "report"? Why am i sharing the before, my feelings right now? I doubt that many people will be interested by this, but selfishly, the before i'm currently writing is probably to make me think at something else. I actually think of it while writing about it... But you understand me right? I think it's to keep my mind busy, being less stressed regarding the passeport and the visa that are still not my hands, and i absolutely need these to leave, in 13 days now.
I also write these words to keep a record, maybe one day, years after this travel i'll want to remind it, my feelings before, during, and after. Because yes, if i write a before, you know there will be a during too, and an after, to be complete! But for those who are not interested by the writing, i'll share a gallery where you can see the pictures without bla-bla!
Writing also avoids me to bite my fingernails, well what i have left!
- MARCH 22, 2019
FINALLY! I HAVE IT! My passeport has arrived this day, at one week from departure. I now have all i need, I got the backpack, the sleeping bag, the tent, the batteries... EVERYTHING (i think!). I also got my friday (i was supposed to work but it would have be very short in time), so i have more time to go at the airport with the train, and it's good!
In 7 days i'm in Paris with Dimitri, in 8 days we fly away heading to MADAGASCAR, just saying it feels weird! I can't wait!
At one week from the departure, i have to : check all the material and be sure to not forget something, pack my bags, the one for the "little" stuff that stays with me H24 (dslr, lenses, flashes etc...), and the big backpack with the less fragile inside, and all the things i can't take with my into the plane, the clothes too of course. And i have to take my ticket for the train.
- MARCH 26, 2019
I bought the ticket, the room at the hotel is reserved, the bags are (almost) ready. I have weighed my bags just to be sure the big one is not too heavy for the place, but it's alright, 15kg, and the other one with my materiel a bit less than 10kg, great! Then i have weighed myself, just to know, i never do this usually, but i think it could be interesting to see the difference between now -so 73kg- and when i'll be back at home.
UPDATE : So, i've weighed myself once back home, and i weighed 69kg.
- MARCH 28, 2019
I'M WAITING, that's it, i'm waiting tomorrow morning for the departure!
- MARCH 29, 2019
D-Day.
My dad bring me to the train station. Now it's on, the adventure is starting!
The train leave at 12h09am, i'm in Paris 2 hours alter, my two bags on my back and my belly. It looks like the jungle, but the one i love! There is people, too many people for me, buildings everywhere, the street that we could confound with an anthill as they are so many people, the sound of the honk... A real urban jungle... But i'm not staying there too long, in few hours i'll be inside the real jungle, no more buildings but trees, no more people but plants and animals, and the honks will be replaced by the sound of the birds, cicadas and frogs, there i'll be good!
I'm joining Dimitri at the hotel, not a random one : The orchid hotel, he chose well!
We have few hours to kill so we are going to walk through Paris, eiffel tower; Louvre; Fnac to buy SD cards (better to have too much than not enough!); two taxis and one with who we talk about cocaine... Apparently it's common where lives Dimitri, in Switzerland. A plate of pastas and we go back to the hotel, check up of our material, shower, and sleep now! Tomorrow we leave at 6am to go at the airport!
Ces photos ont été prises avec le Huwaei p20 pro, il est vraiment bon!
Ready!
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- MARCH 30, 2019
Check-in of our bagages, control of my material that of course strays with me in the plane, boarding, take-off, and...
Pfiou, 10 hours flight it's long! We have all that we need to be busy, it's not the problem, there is many movies, i have my music, i can sleep too... It's long for the body actually, especially when you are 6 feet and 3 inches tall! But it's alright, no choice anyway!
So after some movies, a small thunderstorm and the turbulence that go with, we arrived at Antananarivo, or Tana, the capital.
Control of the papers passed, bags on our backs, now let's find our taxi. And after only 5 minutes on the road, we got a flat tire, so we help the driver to change it, quickly settled. We are going the hotel Sakamanga (means blue cat").
Tomorrow we will leave at 6am with Jacky the driver of an association, for 8 hours on the road heading to Ranomafana! It's already 2am, an other short night incoming.
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- MARCH 31, 2019
The road to go at Ranomanafa was very long, very very long! 10 hours with at least the half of the roads in a very poor condition! It reminded me the Burkina faso!
It's slowing down, it accelerate, it shakes! And i wasn't feeling great... We slept 4 hours, ate nothing the morning, the flight and the two short nights in a row didn't help!
We arrived at 4h30pm, the landscape is wonderful. A dense forest on mountains, i love it!
We are at "Chez Gaspard", an hotel with some bungalow, at the edge of the forest.
Despite the long road we just made and the fatigue, we couln't resist to make a short nocturnal session, right in front of the bungalows.
A lot of vegetation, so many animals! Mantids, frogs, spiders, and also two chameleons. Great welcome!
Then we went to sleep, up at 5h45am tomorrow to go in the Ranomafana national park.
The firsts animals we see are Phelsumas, there's a lot of them!
Peucetia madagascariensis
Heterixalus alboguttatus, and a mosquito!
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- APRIL 1, 2019
6am, Jacky is waiting us to go bring us at the national park that is at few kilometers from the village. After a short discuss of what we would like and what we do, we are going into the forest with two guides, Patrick and Roger.
We barely started the walk that we see our first giraffas (Trachelophorus giraffa), the girafe beetle. It's kind of an "embleme" here, there is one painted on the wall of the hotel "Chez Gaspard".
So let's take some pics!
Right next to it we found a small chameleon, Calumma sp.
We are going deeper in the forest, how beautiful it is! If i had a forest like this one near my home i would spend all my time in it! There is already magnificent plants, some orchids, a dream! Some Aspleniums (bird's nest fern) HUGE, they are wonderful!
A guide call us, there is a group of golden bamboo lemur (Hapalemur aureus). A nice meeting but complicated to take pictures!
We are moving forward, not many animals but a nice environment.
Few images from my phone :
An hour later Roger find a Brookesia superciliaris, awesome! One of the smallest species of chameleon, it's terrerestrial mostly and it mix up very well with the dead leaves on the ground.
Brookesia superciliaris
We walk again since an hour now, it's 10am, we stopped a little bit to photograph a lemur with its baby (Hapalemur griseus). Then on the path, Patrick stop walking and look at us, he smiles, up his hand in front of him and says "amen", he found an Uroplatus phantasticus!
I'm asking him to not tell us where exactly he is, so we can find it by ourselves. He show us a small area where to look for it, and it took 1 or 2 minutes before i find him! Incredible mimetism, and this individual was small, it doesn't help!
But what a joy to see this marvellous creature in situ, really awesome.
So awesome that we spent an hour and a half at photographing him, this is not something that will happen again everyday so we would better take the time now right?
Uroplatus phantasticus
Later, we find a particular caterpillar, a well colored millipede, a well camouflaged spider, a beetle with magnificent colours, and a phasmid with a good mimetism!
We walk again, plants, plants more plants, WAOUH! I stop everytime, it's really beautiful.
We take a break at a place where the river slowly cross the forest. And there i discover my first leeches, most of them under my socks!
We take some pics and we go back.
We still have to walk a bit so let's go.
There's a beautiful orchid on a trunk, Aerangis sp.
Its white flowers under the soft light created by the canopy make the scene like magical, it looks like the flowers were highlighted, really beautiful.
After thirty minutes we see a group of red-fronted brown lemur, they were close but didn't care about us, they were eating and jumping right in front of us, awesome!
Sadly i didn't get any good pics, the light was so low already, not easy!
The last meters (kilometers?) of this day were really hard! Ten hours with constantly up and down, it's warm and humid, and the approximately ten kilos on my back making it a bit harder!
Despite that we decide to go back by foot at our bungalow, BIM, almost one hour and a half again. We arrive at the village and we stop to eat, then once at the bungalow we won't have to move again!
We put our stuff next to the table, and we sit down. My neck and shoulders are so tired! A plate of rice and peas and go home. A good shower now, great! I wash some clothes, I quickly take a look at the images taken during the day and I transfer them to hard drives (two actually, more security!).
I write these last words while listening to some music, and now I’m going to sleep.
We don’t really know what we’re going to do tomorrow yet, maybe try to go alone in the forest and spend one or two nights, it would be risky because forbidden (and we don’t know the place at all), but it would be quite an adventure, good times, and probably nice animal encounters!
On that note, see you tomorrow!
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- APRIL 2, 2019
A good night without waking up too early this time, we rest a bit. We decide to go to the arboretum of Ranomafana, about twenty minutes from the village (by foot of course). A place where there are trees, their name and a little paragraph with it, but we’re not going there for the trees, we’re going to get some animals!
We walk few minutes and we find a first Gasteracantha, then a small mantis in the grass.
Then while Dimitri was busy photographing the spider i was exploring around to find other interesting animals. Without expecting it, i find a small chameleon on a branch, he's all brown and has nothing special but i found it by myself and that makes me happy! We know they are here, at Madagascar, but i think the first days we don't really expect to find them just like that. Then i've been really surprised by this brown chameleon about fifteen centimeters.
Brown, but not for long! After few minutes he made a festival of color! It was really amazing, it went from brown to white/black/yellow with spot of blue, then the white was joined with green, then after black dissipated to give way to a lighter green. Chameleons change colour, it’s no secret, but to see these changes when you’re in front of a wild individual, in his natural environment, is really crazy.
We learn a bit later this is a Furcifer lateralis.
We take photos of this chameleon in every angle for about 30/45 minutes, then looking around to see if there are any other animals, I realize that on the same tree, a little higher, there is a Calumma nasutum, great! Already two species of chameleons today, and in the same place!
One of the people who works at the park comes to see us and starts looking for animals for us, in a few minutes he finds three young Calumma parsonii, great, a third species, and not least! We take our pictures quietly, the weather is perfect, not too hot, no wind, we’re in t-shirt shorts taking pictures of chameleons in their natural environment, without worrying about the time or anything else, Enjoying and having fun, happiness! Christophe, the person of the park, tells us that he will try to find the biggest Calumma parsonii, yes because there we have three small ones nearby, they are only a few centimeters, but you should know that this species is one of the largest in the world, more or less 60 cm depending on the specimens.
As easily as for young C.parsonii, he comes to tell us that he has found an adult male. I’m going to see and wow, the hallucination. It’s huge and beautiful, I can barely believe it! He is high in a tree, I start taking pictures with the big lens but Christophe, who had already left to find others chameleons, comes back almost immediately, he found another Furcifer lateralis a little further. There’s less chance of C.parsonii moving, so we go straight to F.lateralis, it’s a beautiful specimen again, a pregnant female apparently. I really have trouble getting decent photos, the light is very hard and the chameleon keep moving and moving. We take pictures as well as we can and another "guide" arrives, they discuss between them then after having left he comes back to see us, he saw a hedgehog but he doesn't find it anymore, too bad!
We go back to the big C.parsonii, it has changed place unfortunately. But Christophe decides to climb to the tree to get it down, he manages to make him climb on a stick as well as possible and gives it to us, what a beauty, EXTRAORDINARY!!
I can’t believe it’s so beautiful.
This male is not in very good condition, normally it is supposed to have two growths on the nose but it seems that this one, because of fights, lost them. But fortunately Christophe finds another one, and I didn’t think it was going to be even more beautiful than the first one I already found incredible! But when I went to see him, and when i saw from far, i couldn't believe it, one more time.The two guides had placed him on another branch for us.
This one is in good condition, and really beautiful, it is light blue with three greenish stripes on each side of its body, its back is yellow, the tail green, and the two small horns well present on this individual.
We take pictures of us with the chameleon, and I ask the guides their names, Christophe and Cathy, "but I am not a woman!" Cathy told us, it made us laugh!
We spend about an hour with this C.parsonii taking pictures of him from every angle. An Australian (original English woman) arrives and sees the beast, she is obviously surprised, takes some pictures and continues her way. We finish our photos with this beautiful chameleon and pack up the gear.
Christophe, Cathy and Dimitri
We start to turn back but not even a minute after Cathy finds a hedgehog, and now I have to say that it’s quite a surprise! I see him running around, a bit lost, I think. When he said several hours before he had seen a hedgehog I had not imagined a hedgehog different from those of France, naively, but here we are in Madagascar! The small hedgehog (tenrec actually) is black and white with bright yellow spikes! He doesn't stop running, but I can’t leave without having a picture, so I’m taking the stuff out! I install everything and I lie on the ground a little damp very complicated to take a picture as it runs in every way, but I manage to have some decent images, one of which I am really satisfied with!
About cuteness, i think we're pretty good there!
This time we’re really leaving! We see the Australian woman at the exit of the arboretum who joins her husband in their car, we ask them if they can take us back to the village, it would save us some more walking! So they accept and drop us off. Dimitri and I go buy fruits, bananas and oranges. We haven’t eaten since the morning, and it’s already 4:30pm, time goes fast when we're busy like that! Knowing that our breakfast was 2 bananas and a few small local biscuits, we were starving!
We eat the fruit quietly in the bungalow, barefoot on the steps, resting! Oranges turn out to be lemons actually, but less acidic than ours, they are really excellent!
We’re giving some news to our friends and families in the same time.
6pm now, we decide to go to find a place higher after the village, at the side of the road. It's already dark, we hurry to walk not to come too late and to be able to eat in one of the small restaurants of the village. We find a place and we go there, looking for animals again and again, that’s why we’re here and that’s what we love! The steps are a bit broken and there is a river next to it, all on a hillside, with the forest surrounding us, so it’s very wet. Not very safe, but whatever, you have to take risks sometimes!
I find two mantis that Dimitri begins to photograph, on my side I explore the area, there is a house right next to it so we remain silent, it's a bit stressful situation... I look on the walls and in the vegetation to find animals, then I come across a spider that I wanted to meet: A Deinopis, super cool! This spider (known as gladiator spider in French, and "ogre faced spider" in English) is really special, it is brown, not very big, but its eyes are huge, and its unique hunting technique.
She makes a net with her web, which she holds tight with her front legs, she uses this trap to catch any prey that passes nearby, as soon as the prey is within range the spider projects its trap on it to capture it.
Huge eyes proportional to his body that gives him a... strange look! But personally I love it!
This is the typical posture of this spider, upside down, its trap held by the legs, ready to capture the first prey that will pass nearby.
While I was photographing the spider I saw something moving on the stone, it was a tiny scorpion, it was really small, 5mm more or less I would say!
A millipede is eating just beside, a black cockroach is a little further on a leaf, we did well to come there!
I also take a picture of the mantis, it’s pretty!
It starts raining and we can’t find anything else so we leave, we're gonna eat a little! Rice and zebu on the menu, it’s good, and it feels good. Back to the bungalow, it rained well so I decided to find some frogs, I see some, I take pictures and I take the water too, it rains quite a lot now.
I finally go back inside to settle down, a good shower is really appreciated after this productive day.
I listen to music, I write this report.
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- APRIL 3, 2019
This morning we will try to find a good place near the park of Ranomafana and next to the waterfall, walk again and again. On the way we pass a traditional house, several children are there and they are obviously curious, we tell them that we go to the waterfall and they show us the way with the finger. Then one of them says "chameleon," there’s a Calumma parsonii in the tree, but we can’t see it,
Emile, the oldest, starts climbing the tree to take it (without having asked). So he gets him down, and we take some pictures quickly with the kids and the chameleon.
We get back on our way and the children start following us. Finally the waterfall, it’s nice! We sit down and take some pictures, we take out some material so the children are quite curious.
After several minutes we continue the path to go higher in the forest, it climbs hard! We finally stop, exhausted, but we don’t see much, Dimitri saw some lemurs but they left quickly. We think about how we’re going to do the next few days, we absolutely have to go to the forest at night, which is essential, that’s where we’ll see the most animals!
Tonight we’re gonna try to get a ride to another part of the park, there’s apparently some Mantella over there.
And tomorrow we will return with Patrick, the guide of the Ranomafana park to spend at least one night in a tent in the heart of the forest.
A nice Asplenium nidus
For now, we're going back to the waterfall, and we take a good break. Photos, swimming under the waterfalls, how awesome! Probably one of the nicest places I’ve ever seen
Jusqu'ici, tout va bien !
Ca se voit sur le visage de Dimitri !
On voit de belles choses, on passe de bons moments, aucune complication, c'est top !
A nice place, i'm good there!
We leave this place to go to eat, it is already 2:30pm and there is a little walk to return to the village. We already went to the restaurant we’re about to join, the boss is kind, he was the director of the arboretum a few years ago, retired now. A plate of rice with a few pieces of zebu on the menu, and a bottle of fresh water, it feels good!
We go back to the bungalow, i take a shower and Dimitri calls Patrick to know if we can go see the Mantella tonight, but apparently it’s forbidden at night, so we'll go there tomorrow morning, then we'll go to the park to join the primary forest, spend the night and the day after. We still doing a nocturnal session with Patrick on the side of the road, as they usually do. And what a surprise to see so many chameleons, it’s crazy! We also find a small snake, cool!
Another group of tourists tries to see microcebs, the smallest lemur in the world. They leave quickly, great! I prefer if there’s no one there so we can take our pictures quietly.
For about two hours we take pictures of chameleons, there’s plenty of them! We see several microcebs in the trees, and several arthropods and two frogs.
We go back to the park, but if no one takes us back to the village we have to walk for about an hour and a half, and we won’t have eaten... Dimitri’s calling the driver who dropped us off on the way in, but he’s out of gas. Patrick tells us that one of his friends who lives right in front of us has a scooter, he calls him and the person arrives, his name is Dada, and we are getting ready to live a great time!
Two options: either we walk an extra hour and a half, or we ride three on a scooter in a pitiful condition, with the photo gear of course... And without a helmet, obviously! We chose the scooter, and despite the risk, we did well! It’s the adventure after all!
It was a very funny moment, even if the thighs suffered all along the way (no support for the legs...), we had a good laugh and it makes a hell of a memory!
On the road Dada suddenly slows down and tells us there’s a snake. Indeed a beautiful red striped black snake is on the side of the road, I can not not photograph it so I catch it with my hands after Dada assured me that there is no danger. I ask our driver if we can take the time to take some pictures, his answer made us laugh, he said: "No worries anyway I am waiting for the football match Paris-Nantes after!" All right! I’ll get the equipment out and we take some pictures.
We going back, always at three on the scooter, my photo bag between the feet of Dada, and we have a good laugh of this situation a bit unlikely with Dimitri, a little dangerous indeed...
Once in the village we go back to eat at the same restaurant, it is 10pm. Rice and zebu again, it is good! We have to eat well because tomorrow may be quite intense, and we won’t have much to eat in the evening, fruits and biscuits, it promises to be a good memory too.
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- APRIL 4, 2019
This morning we’re going to try to find some Mantella, a beautiful little colored frog. We take a bush taxi (with Edmond) to the entrance of the park to join our guide. A friend of Patrick takes the three of us to the place, a few kilometers away from the village of Ranomafana. We reach the spot on foot and we start searching for the frogs. The ground is not very practicable, it's not easy, and it's not very humid... But we manage to find one, well, Dimitri actually! Patrick manages to catch it so that we can take pictures. I’ve prepared a small bed of dead leaves as a support, we’ll try to do this quickly, they’re small, fragile frogs. We use our little water bottle to moisten our hands, dry skin could hurt amphibians.
So we take our pictures, quickly but surely, and once satisfied, Patrick goes put it back where he took it, that’s important. We now go to the second spot, which is a few hundred meters away. A small stream with a lot of vegetation that joins a river a bit lower. Patrick gets to see two but we prefer to leave them alone, we got one that’s already great, they are already suffering the destruction of their habitat, so we are going to avoid adding an additional disturbance that could harm their well-being.
Here’s the little jewel!
When we were looking for frogs, Dimitri saw something hanging on a leaf, "cool a jumping spider!" he says, I look at the spider, and after a few seconds of silence, we actually realize that dealing with a great case of mimicry.
Petrophila is the name of this particular butterfly. When you look at the picture I think you can see it directly, but believe me, on the spot, even for two guys who are used to small animals and the animal world in general, it wasn’t direct!
This is the kind of thing that I find absolutely incredible, it is when I see this that I say to myself "nature is well made". A butterfly (which is an easy prey) whose wing pattern has evolved to mimic a jumping spider (which is a predator), It’s amazing, isn’t it?
Return to Ranomafana, by bush taxi! Before leaving through the forest to join the "camping" in the primary, we will go to eat, to have the stomach a minimum filled. We invite Patrick and Roger to come with us. This time I take duck, always with the rice plate of course, and it’s excellent, I’ve never eaten such good meat I think! We’re full and ready to walk, we’ll get the sleeping bags and tents for tonight and we’re gone. Roger is taking the camping gear directly to the place, we are with Patrick, it’s barely 2pm and we’re leaving. We see a few beasts, snakes, Brookesia and various insects, beautiful places, waterfalls and streams.
We take advantage of these moving waters and coming directly from nature to drink, Dimitri and I each have a lifestraw bottle, practical! Plus the water is fresh!
It’s 5pm, and it’s hard, i won't lie. It's hard for the legs, the camera bag must be about 10kg, after severals hours i really feel these 10kg... We see 3 researchers collecting lemurs data.
It’s 6pm and we finally arrive, after a four hour walk. It’s almost dark, we put our things down and we clean ourselves in the river, we’re sticky, we stink, we’re dirty, the leeches are enjoying themselves on our legs... We set up our tents and eat, well... snack instead. We only have almonds, a lemon and a banana each, and biscuits for tonight, double ration but the rest is for breakfast! It may be difficult with the belly so little filled. So we eat with Patrick and Roger, next to a fire, discussing a little bit of everything, it’s nice.
At 7:30 pm I see a special little mantis on the table, the night session is launched!
And it's a festival, grasshopper; phasmids; millipedes; frogs; snakes; a Uroplatus phantasticus; butterflies; chameleons, and even a arboreal rodent (Eliurus sp.), it’s great!
We enjoy the moment as much as we can, despite the fatigue and the awakening that may be early tomorrow morning. At 11pm we stop and go to bed, what misery... I feel (and I am) all dirty, sticky, sweaty, I have leeches on my feet so it bleeds when I take them off... I have no mattress, and even if the ground is a layer of sand, it’s tough... The night will be quite catastrophic. And indeed, it was! I still managed to get some sleep. But it was a great evening, so the night is quickly forgotten!
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- APRIL 5, 2019
I woke up at 6:30am and went to the river alone. I wanted to make to enjoy at the maximum this wonderful forest and its atmosphere, lonely. I take pictures of the landscape, it’s really beautiful!
I really loved this place, it was wonderful!
A tiny orchid I found on a rock in the river.
At 8:30am we leaving, the stuff is tidy and what we don’t need for the photos is brought directly by Roger, it gives us less weight to carry! Patrick’s taking us to another part of the river, a few minutes from where we are, we’re going to eat some fruit and dried cakes there.
We were about to leave but I saw these two frogs in amplexus (technique of coupling of many amphibians), well placed on a branch, in a light subdued by the canopy.
We take some breaks, mainly for photos, we have the chance to see on a male bird of paradise (or paradise flycatcher, (Terpsiphone mutata), we have seen very few birds so far, but this one is superb! It was the kind of images that we see in animal documentaries, the beautiful bird in the jungle, on a well placed branch with the light that pierces the canopy, great!
Several other birds of paradise and Malagasy drongo made us « crazy » afterwards, it's not easy to photograph a bird in the jungle!
We also see some lemurs!
Another paradise flycatcher. It seems that this species shows two different colors depending on the individuals, there are those oranges like the one in the photo below, or black and white like the one above.
The males have two large feathers at their tail.
At 12am we sit, the climbs are exhausting... A child arrives on the way, he was fishing crayfish which he carries in a "basket" in liana, his father is behind, he carries branches, a dog accompanies them.
Patrick takes us to a viewpoint with a view of the forest on the other side of the village and view of the waterfall where we bathed a few days ago, a great place, these wooded mountains and the waterfall in the middle, I love it!
Dimitri, Patrick, and me.
If you planning to go to Ranomafana, I can only recommend to you to find Patrick to guide you. He is very nice, he speaks good French, and he knows the flora and fauna very well!
We end up at the entrance of the park, it’s 2pm, and we’re out. We sit, we breathe and we rest our legs. Tomorrow morning we leave for Antananarivo (the capital), so we say goodbye to our guides, Patrick and Roger. Edmond, or "Petit" as they call him, takes us back in his bush taxi, we’ll be able to take a good shower and take off those clothes that don’t smell very good... It’s a good weather to wash a few things, it will dry faster. We are going to eat around 4:30pm, we starving! Rice and duck finished, we'll buy fruits; oranges, bananas, litchis and pineapple, it will perk up! Pineapple is excellent! We’re resting now, I’m packing up my stuff because we’re leaving at 6:30am tomorrow. I put my photo bag properly, and I sort the photos I took during these two days and the night in the forest, rather satisfied!
We both have our headphones on, our clothes are outside to dry, you see it coming? Dimitri realizes that it's raining, and not a small rain! Shit... Our clothes won’t be dry, and now it’s night, too bad!
We go back to eat, the last meal in Ranomafana, in the same restaurant because the boss is very kind, and it’s good! He wishes us good luck and we go back to the bungalow, last night here.
Tomorrow ten hours on the road, one night in Tana and then Sunday, we go to Andasibe-Mantadia.
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- APRIL 6, 2019
Let’s go for 10h drive, last look on this beautiful forest still a bit in the clouds. A few breaks, to eat and to take pictures of the landscape. We stop at a bridge partially collapsed, next to the road. A group of children are there to sell fruit and wood, they come to see us and we take pictures of them after having asked. They are really surprised I think when we show them the pictures. They don’t know all that, they are almost all barefoot, clothes in bad condition, trying to earn a few pennies... This is another world.
We arrive at the Sakamanga Hotel around 6pm, we'll be able to sleep well, tomorrow Jacky comes to pick us up at 8:30am to go to Andasibe-Mantadia, about 2 hours and a half drive, in theory.
The following pictures are pics taken while we were driving, it’s so different there that I had to try to take images of the population and life there to show the others, the people here.
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- APRIL 7, 2019
The night was not as good as I thought it would have been, it was warm and it was particularly unpleasant, not even 6 hours of sleep, i though catch up a little bit on the past nights but nope!
It finally took us about 5 hours to get to Andasibe, half more than expected. Tana was full of people, a real anthill, I think it took us over an hour to get out of the capital... Then the first part of the road was catastrophic, full of holes, so it shakes and we are moving slowly. We arrive around 1pm, we find a "hotel" where to sleep for the last 4 nights, these are beautiful rooms!
We drop off our bags and without delay we will eat in the only small restaurant of the village, Andasibe is a very small city.
In the village of Andasibe, a young stranger takes care of putting color on the walls!
That’s where we’re staying for the next few nights, pretty cool!
We're going at « le parc des villageois » to walk in the forest and looking for animals, with Patrice, a guide that the lady of the hotel advised us to call.
We're not seeing much, still a beautiful chameleon, lemurs who play in the trees and sometimes get close, then, on the way back, an Uroplatus sikorae! Unfortunately his tail is missing and the guide took it directly from his tree to show us, but I would have liked him to leave it on, too late.
However, although I was impatient to see one, I'm a bit disapointed about this encounter, the Uroplatus has been manipulated too much for my liking, it did not hold in place for the photos, the guide put it on a branch that he himself held... Not great ! But still glad to have seen this beautiful animal!
In the meantime, we came across a surprising creature
Here is a very strange spider! It is part of the family of Archaeidae (probably Eriauchenius sp.)
They are called "Pelican spider" or "Assassin spider" in English, the pelican spider, because of its morphology that reminds the bird.
She has an atypical morphology, but also its hunting technique is atypical. Its preys are the other spiders, and to catch them it vibrates their web to make believe a prey captured. The spider in its web will therefore approach and, thanks to its huge neck and its long cheliceras (hooks), the pelican spider can catch its prey while having the margin not to become the prey itself.
We go back to eat, then we do a short night session, once again not much seen, some spiders, and especially a very pretty Gasteracantha, completely red!
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- APRIL 8, 2019
It’s a hard awakening, we feel really tired. But we go to the national park anyway, we’ll sleep later!
We find Edmond and we go to the park, not many animals, and the bag with my photo gear of about 10kg that I wear every day since the beginning of the trip really starts to weigh me, my shoulders and the upper back suffer a little. During this walk we see a red millepede, and a group of Indri indri which we've been able to observe from close.
D'autres sujets observés entre temps
Then we find ourselves quite close to several Indri indri, the greatest lemur. They started screaming, it’s their way of communicating with each other and the other species of lemurs, the power of the sound is impressive. My eardrums vibrated when they screamed, literally!
We find a small mantis on a tree. Then we saw from very close the iademed sifaka, a very beautiful lemur.
We finish the visit and decide to go eat, again in the restaurant of the village, which has been run for more than 30 years by the same little lady, very nice. We’ve barely finished that Patrice calls Dimitri, they found a Sanzinia madagascariensis in the « parc des villageois ». A snake we wanted to see, let’s go!
He’s not a large individual, and unfortunately he has two wounds on his body. We try as much as we can to take a picture of him but we can’t do much, it’s not the day... I finally manage to make some pictures not too bad of this snake, but after replacing it.
At the same place we find a chameleon, two or three invertebrates, and then Patrice tells us that he found a Uroplatus sikorae, right next to us too. It’s really beautiful, and incredibly well camouflaged, it’s impressive.
The camo king now!
What a beauty!
Tonight we’re going on a night session with Freddy, a guide that Dimitri had already met in 2015, but before that we’re going to eat.
We leave with a full belly, a short walk to get there, we pay and let's go! It doesn’t take long to find the first subject, a beautiful scorpion on a tree trunk, I did well to bring my uv lamp it seems!
White light
Ultraviolet light
Soon after, a beautiful Deinopis, super cool, I love this species!
While I was taking a picture of her, I see a beetle (i thought at first but it's actually a cicada) on top of a small branch, less than a meter from the ground. He was not moving at all and had like two whitish horns coming out of his body, I realize that I'm dealing with a case of Cordyceps, and that makes me very, very happy! I find that absolutely fascinating.
The Cordyceps is an entomopathogenic fungus, a fungus that parasites only invertebrates. Once the insect or spider is infected, the Cordyceps takes control, forces its host to climb on a branch or something, so that it can be elevated so that its spores can disperse better. To make it simple, it zombifies its host, literally! He then forces the host to hold well on the support, and he waits for his death to develop his spores, which will scatter to infect other animals. Amazing process!
Then we don’t see much, a Calumma parsonii nevertheless, always beautiful! And another Deinopis next to it. It’s time to go home to sleep, a good shower and we won’t late, tomorrow morning we go to the park of Maromizaha with Edmond, Patrice’s brother.
The tail of the chameleons is kind of "hypnotic"!
At the very end we come across this pretty spider, of the genus Thwaitesia.
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- APRIL 9, 2019
Awakening even harder, decidedly! We even went back to sleep after the alarm this time... But not for long because the light shines a lot on the room. We get up and get ready quickly, Edmond is waiting for us. One part of the road is on foot, the other in a bush taxi. I must say that the motivation is quite low, contrary to the fatigue which is at the top, but whatever, we are there anyway! It didn’t take very long to cross the first animal, and what an animal! One of the biggest glomeris in the world (Zoosphaerium neptunus), huge and beautiful, I love it!
They are not everywhere in Madagascar, but apparently during the breeding season, they can be seen in very large numbers. Right after this glomeris we see researchers on a flat terrain in height, there are tents, they wear suits, it looks interesting. We’re asking if we can approach, there are two American from Princeton University and three Malagasy from Antananarivo University, they’re collaborating with the Natural History Museum in Washington. Their work involves three species of bats, specifically looking for possible pathogens that could be transmitted to local Malagasy populations that feed on these bats. It looks really interesting, and young researchers (they must be about our age, 20-25 years old) are very kind!
Before being released they give them sweet water, then they put them on a tree a few meters away, they go to the cave on their own once they are ready.
Back on our way, there is a beautiful view, and the first individuals of Indri indri. We cross other specimens right after, really not shy, they are used to people I imagine.
Then we tried to see a group of black and white Vari, they moved so it was complicated to follow them, we only saw them from far. We sit down a bit, and while looking at the floor I see a beautiful red mushroom.
Then on the way, we see another paradise flycatcher, really a beautiful bird!
The guides show us a group of diademed sifakas, they don't care about us, but it's pleasant to observe.
On the wat back we see two other glomeris, a Brookesia superciliaris, as well as a young Calumma malthe, and a little further an adult.
After an hour we went out of the park, we found someone with Edmond to take us to the intersection before going up to the village. We eat here and we leave, let's go for a ride in a bush taxi, and not least! It is coming and there are already a lot of people inside, and many of us want to go up, it will be complicated. But no problem for Malagasy, there’s always some places! They’re tight on the inside, one on top of the other, every square inch is taken, and we’re still a few to climb, looks like we’re gonna have to stay outside, on the ladder and the little ledge in the back, good for me, I’ll be better outside! There are five of us at the back, held to the ladder that goes on the roof, there must be about thirty people inside, for real! It’s kind of a funny situation!
Now we put our gear down, and a good shower is needed. We go to the village to buy fruit and water, then we go back to eat.
Tomorrow day off, we’ll rest, I’ll pack up my bags and wash some clothes, Thursday noon we’ll leave for Tana, already my departure.
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- APRIL 10, 2019
Day off as planned, quiet awakening, it feels good! The weather is still nice, we really had luck with the weather.
I start by washing my clothes, so they can dry under the sun, and I’ll have nothing dirty in my bag. We eat some fruits bought the day before in the village, bananas, oranges, and we taste a pocanelle, it’s special...
I’m packing my bags for departure tomorrow, and we’re transferring the images to my hard drives, they’re in different places so we’re "sure" not to lose them!
I took advantage of the time out at the bungalow before departure tomorrow noon to write a short text about my feelings about Madagascar, I was inspired! (you will find this text at the very end of the page, as a conclusion)
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- APRIL 11, 2019
One last night not great, I did not manage to sleep for at least 2 hours in the middle of the night, I hear a rooster that starts to sing (it must be badly adjusted...), birds whistling, a vehicle that honks... And I’m gonna have to stay up till 1am in the morning on Friday, until takeoff, ouch!
This morning we wake up with a hunger already present, and for good reason, last night when we wanted to go eat, the small restaurant was closed. So we ate the pineapple, the two oranges and the few biscuits we had left.
So this morning we were already hungry, let's try to find food in the village, we meet a salesman of traditional masks, bracelets, statues and other which we bought some souvenirs yesterday, We ask him where we can eat at this hour, it’s 8am. We manage to find a restaurant, the boss has trouble understanding us, he looks a bit drunk... We get a plate of rice with white beans, what a breakfast!
At least our stomach are full, now we’re packing up the last few cases and waiting patiently for Jacky.
I sat in front of the room outside, and a little bird of prey was in a tree in front of me, madagascar sparrowhawk (Accipiter madagascariensis), that will be the last photo of this trip.
Here we are back in the capital, Antananarivo, a real anthill... And I’ll be frank: I don’t like Tana at all (even if we just drove by). There are a lot of people, it’s a misery to move inside, it’s dirty, and it doesn’t inspire me at all, as a white man I won’t walk there. When I got to the hotel, that was the first thing I told to Dimitri! We’re at the hotel for an hour, then we’re off to see the president of the Doria Association, of which Jacky is a driver. It is one of the three associations with which Dimitri has teamed up for this project, Macromascar.
The discussion mainly focused on the continuation of the adventure for Dimitri who stays until June in Madagascar, once it done, it's time leave ! It would be stupid to miss the flight... We will eat before, 10 hours flight incoming, i'd prefer to make them with a full belly! A pizza and go to the airport, the time for "goodbye" has arrived.
When I checked in my luggage, an airport employee in charge of helping the travelers came directly to me to "guide me" on the bollard, ok cool it’s nice!
But once he did, he comes up to me and asks me "you don’t have any money to give me", I wasn’t sure I understood the first time, but he was pretty insistent, "a few euros" he told me, I declined saying that I had nothing and I left to wait for the plane, back in France.
Return to France, but of course, through the PARIS box. Another kind of jungle, but I much prefer the one of Ranomafana, as you can imagine... Anyway, I left for about ten days in Madagascar, a country rich in biodiversity, but very poor in financial means.
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If you have gone so far, thank you very much! I hope you were interested and appreciated this "story". If you have any questions do not hesitate (either via the contact tab of my site, otherwise you will find me on social networks)!
I will leave you with a text that I wrote during a time out in Andasibe, as a conclusion.
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This is my first purely photographic journey. This is something I have wanted to do for a long time and I hope to do again many times. Nature in general has always been a focus for me, reptiles and invertebrates came out a little more than the rest about ten years ago now, and the photography a bit later. These two passions occupy a large part of my time at home, and the discovery of new places in which I can reconcile nature and photography is a goal for a while now. The trio has now started with this trip to Madagascar: Travel-Nature-Photo
Madagascar is one of the poorest countries in the world, but we do not see the people unhappy . On the contrary, just now I saw a group of children coming home from school running and laughing. But coming from France and living properly (I am neither rich nor poor, "the middle class" we can say) it can only mark. Absolutely nothing has to do with France. People there walk for miles most often to go here or there; many are barefoot; many have worn clothes, holes, dirty; many live off their cultures; many spend their days in their little wooden cabin on the side of the road to try selling their fruit or anything else; the houses are far from being like ours, they are still made of clay, wood and sheet metal for the most of them; it's also very very dirty in some places, mountains of garbage on the side of the road and in the cities themselves, as well as in the rivers. While we talk about waterways, people there wash themselves in it, they relieve themselves in it, they do their dishes and they do their laundry in it. To get back to the waste, although I’ve only been there ten days, I’ve seen people looking in, people but also young children, barefoot in the middle of a mountain of garbage probably full of bacteria and diseases.
We realize that these are two opposing worlds, and it breaks the heart.
When it comes to biodiversity, it's incredible! I was only there for ten days, and we explored two large secondary and primary forests, and the number of plants, the density of forests, the rivers and waterfalls in the middle of all those trees, that’s fantastic. The rainforest is a biotope that has always made me dream, and what a joy it is to finally be able to walk and explore some of these forests before they disappear. Every moment I was stopped, an orchid here, a fern there, an insect there, a chameleon there!
When you love plants and animals, you can only be amazed! Just yesterday, during a short break in a forest, my eyes stopped on a mushroom, it was small, but entirely bright red, it was there in the middle of the dead leaves and I found it crazy, a red mushroom.
The sound is also special, the stream not far away, the little wind in the trees, the frogs singing, the birds whistling, the lemurians communicating, it’s great. Seeing birds of paradise in these forests is really sublime, the kind of image you only see in books or documentaries.
Seeing groups of Lemurians live their lives is something we also see in the documentaries, even in a zoo it’s not the same, they don’t have that density of forest that allows them to fully express their agility. Seeing chameleons of different species is a bit like a dream, a chameleon, the animal that changes color, that is very slow and has an extremely long and powerful tongue, well in Madagascar that’s not what’s missing, We’ve seen plenty, really!
There are also the mythical Uroplatus, the kings of camouflage, those are complicated to find, but what wonders! About the invertebrates, there’s nothing to be bored about either, large butterflies, large grasshoppers, millipedes, centipedes, scorpions, pill millipedes, and also few spiders, the large and impressive Nephila obviously, but also tiny but metallic blue jumping spiders! Then of course the Deinopis, a spider possessing huge eyes and an interesting hunting technique.
Then there is the worst, how not to talk about mosquitoes, and especially about these adorable leeches! They’re infernal, they get all over the place without you knowing it, when you try to take them off, they slip between your fingers, they hold on tight, And even when they’re taken off, they piss you off because the blood flows down your leg, quietly soaking the socks and shoes...
You feel like you’re coming back from the war! But that’s how it is, and despite these strange and unpleasant beings, I will return to the rainforest to see this beautiful nature and its surprising and interesting animals, its flora with thousands of shapes and colors, and connect my passions again to try to bring back images of all this, and show people what’s out there, share my experiences and my knowledge.
There are still many other species, we are far from having seen everything, of course, but in ten days, I think we were lucky to have seen all that.
Now I look forward to processing the hundreds of photos, waiting for the next trip!
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Some information about this country:
- Madagascar is a country that has been colonized by France. It has been independent since 1960.
- The people of Madagascar are the Malagasy (not the Madagascarians, thought for a friend!)
- Madagascar is one of the poorest countries in the world.
- The currency is ariary. 4000 ariary is worth about 1€ (we ate for about 10 to 20 000 ariary, so less than 7 euros for a plate of rice (a good plate, not a pinch of rice) and a few pieces of meat).
- Madagascar’s biodiversity is one of the richest in the world (it's a "hot spot" of biodiversity). Huge numbers of species (plants, reptiles, amphibians, mammals) are endemic, which means that they are only found in Madagascar. For example, the majority of lemurs or chameleons are only present on this island.
- The cultivation of palm oil and the removal of pink wood among others are largely responsible for the deforestation in Madagascar. The eforestation is very damaging for many species.
- Madagascar is a 10 hours flight from France
- White tourists are called "Vazaha"
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Macromascar
The project in detail :
https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/163882_bfc54586d5ea435f9b822984d57fc6df.pdf
Thank you to Dimitri of course, if he hadn’t started this project I don’t think I would have gone to
Madagascar, this year anyway. Since he had already been to this country in 2015, it was much
simpler for everything, and especially for places to go to find animals, without wasting time. We
only knew each other via social networks before this trip but the current went well, easier when
we have the same interests!
My 10 days on the spot are part of the first phase of the project, the photo report concerning the biodiversity.
I went home, but Dimitri stays fifteen days with a Malagasy association, then another member of the project joined him on the spot to make the video part.
This should lead to an exhibition in Switzerland in September, on the Bluefactory site in Fribourg.
