Day Four: Can I Move Yet?
The food poisoning incident that rounded out our last installment and featured explosive decompression from many members of the group wasn’t a one-day sick. I can’t speak for the others, but for me, it drained every ounce of energy from my body. Even after I got over the worst of it (during the days I’ll describe in this entry) I’d be running on fumes for the rest of the trip.
Needless to say, I took the morning off. Not that my body gave me any choice. Antsirabe’s on-again off-again electrical grid kept turning my CPAP off during the night, and the hard-ass bed and lack of AC would have kept me awake in any event. I spent the morning trying to drink fluids, hoping that some would stay in my body instead of flushing through me every five minutes. By late morning, I was just well enough to force down a little trail mix and a warm, Fanta-adjacent soft drink left over from the day before.
While this was going on, Lea and the others were out on an excursion I’d been looking forward to—a hike to Tritriva Crater Lake. I guess Lea’s geology nerdery has rubbed off on me, because hiking around a dormant volcano sounds like my idea of a good time. By all reports, the picture I had in my mind of this caldera was probably cooler than the genuine article—and Lea says the touts near the volcano were bothersome despite Armand insisting they leave his tourists alone.
By the time the group came back to lunch, I felt more like myself (if still a frail, enfeebled version). I was able to nibble half a sandwich for lunch and was mobile enough to attempt the next excursion, which was a rickshaw ride to the center of town. It was fun in a “well, at least I can say I did it” kind of way, and some of our fellow travelers got a chance to switch places with their rickshaw-pullers and pull the rickshaws themselves. I wasn’t feeling that up to it, so I just stayed in my cab, warded off the occasional tout, and tucked myself back on the bus for our afternoon drive to Ambositra.
This drive wasn’t as grueling as the one the day before; we got to our hotel with plenty of daylight left, though the rooms themselves had finicky locks that hadn’t been oiled since the French ruled the island. Plus, the storm drains in the hotel parking lot smelled like raw sewage, sparking another round of quease from myself and others.
The thing about Ambositra: Even through our food-poisoned haze, that night we had a blast. Armand took us to the Zafimaniry Voteta Centre to see a local community group dance. Armand himself busted some moves, and then one by one, the dancers roped us in, myself included. Why the hell not?
It was nice to feel energized for once, at least until dinner, but after the soup course, a wave of exhaustion hit me like a truck, and I didn’t touch any more food that evening. Instead, I went back to our room, collapsed, and according to my notes, I had really weird dreams.
Day Five: Artisans? Cool! More Chameleons? Not so much.
In the morning, I skipped breakfast except for a Bounty bar. I didn’t feel capable of dealing with anything that wasn’t ultraprocessed chocolate and coconut that was most likely sealed and packaged in another hemisphere of the planet. (Side note: Despite their popularity overseas, the Mars company doesn’t sell Bounty in the US, ceding the entire coconut candy bar market to Hershey’s Almond Joy. IMO, Bounty is better. Here endeth the ad.)
After breakfast, we didn’t have far to travel—our next stop was just a few miles away in downtown Ambositra’s crafting district. There, we saw demonstrations of woodcarving and marquetry before being left to browse around a really cool shop with really cool stuff to buy (hint hint). To be honest, I’d never heard of marquetry before, though evidently I’d seen things made using the technique: creating wood “paintings” by carving shapes and stencils out of really thin pieces of wood of different textures and hues using a really, really thin, foot-pedaled saw. While I’m sure there must be marquetry hobbyists in the US, I can’t imagine there are very many people who do it for a living.
On the road out of town, we stopped yet again so the group could wander and shop the local Thursday market (something akin to a giant weekend flea market in the States). I skipped that part since I was still feeling queasy, and I don’t enjoy being crowded by people trying to aggressively sell me stuff on the best of days (see also: Marrakesh). Lea told me later that it wasn’t as bad as all that, and that it was really pretty interesting. For future travelers: If that’s your thing, go for it. It just wasn’t for me.
All through the day, the temperature dropped, and I started to regret leaving my coat in the luggage. It wasn’t just the temperature; the wind picked up too. We stopped for a chilly roadside picnic, which was the first of several where we’d get to experience what I suppose is typical Malagasy tourist fare: a hoagie roll with thick slices of hard, white cheese, plus boiled eggs, sliced cucumbers, and whatever snacks we’d bought at the last gas stop (which likely included candy bars, a variety of chips in flavors not available in the US, and tamarind candies that, as of this writing, we still have one bag of in our kitchen two years later). (Lea’s note: I’m saving them because it’s my last bag, it’s not like I’m ever going to go back to Madagascar to get more!).
Roadside views from Madagascar:
By nightfall, we’d driven back into the rainforest where our next lodge awaited—but we didn’t go right there. Instead, we pulled off to the side of the narrow road, got out of the bus into the cold, wet air, and cozied up to the brush on the side of the hill, hoping no oncoming traffic was going to plow into us in the dark. (Maybe that was just me.) “And why are we stopping?” was the question I asked aloud to no one in particular.
Apparently: To see chameleons. It took a while to find one, and once we did, the whole mob of us (which I think included at least one other tourist group) crowded around the poor, befuddled lizard for photos. To be fair, the tours used to offer night walks for those who wanted to see them, but had to stop because of Chinese tourists allegedly stealing chameleons to take home as pets.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, was the exact moment when chameleon fatigue set in. I’d already seen several, in daylight no less, so I had no interest in standing on the side of the road, in the dark, in the cold, in the misty rainforest, to get a glimpse of another under a wavy flashlight beam. I was exhausted, starved, and dehydrated, and all I wanted was to get to our room.
Since laundry facilities aren’t a thing in the bush, we washed some clothes in the bathroom sink and shower, then festooned the room so they’d dry overnight.
Day Six: Rainforests Aren’t My Natural Habitat
According to Armand and our various forest guides, Madagascar’s rainforests have been steadily shrinking for the last few centuries as more and more land has been cleared for agriculture. Therefore, Ranomafana National Park would be the last rainforest we’d get to explore on our trip.
If only I felt like exploring. The options for the day were to join a crack-of-dawn bird watching hike, an 8:00 a.m. hike that would meet up with the first group, and an afternoon walk through the jungle for those who didn’t get enough the first time around.
Lea chose to go on the 6:00 a.m. walk with the telephoto lens to catch birds. I elected to follow with the later group. I wouldn’t have the good camera, but I didn’t mind. Sometimes it’s more relaxing to walk around in nature without having to record it. I did bring a gallon jug of water, both for myself and to refill Lea’s bottles whenever we finally met up. Since there was a definite chance of rain that morning (because there always is in a rainforest), and since I absolutely hate getting rained on, I chose to wear a disposable plastic rain poncho.
That was possibly one of the worst travel decisions I’ve made in my life.
Kids, learn from Uncle Jared’s bad choices: Never wear a poncho while hiking, especially in a rainforest. For those in the back of the class, ponchos don’t breathe, so in the jungle they act as miniature saunas for whoever’s dumb enough to walk around in one. You might ask, “But Jared, why didn’t you just take it off?” Well, hindsight’s 20/20, but at the time, I blamed the heat, humidity, and my profuse sweating on the environment, not my clothing choices. It wouldn’t be until the end of the hike that I finally put two and two together. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
I don’t think it rained at all on my portion of the hike, though it had definitely rained earlier. The path, if you want to call it that, was muddy and slippery as hell, and the path was long. I hadn’t appreciated how far we’d have to hike before reuniting with the other group. Yes, they had a two-hour head start, but I also knew they’d be stopping to take pictures of birds, and birds in the jungle are only slightly less elusive than a Bigfoot in the Canadian Rockies.
I did what I could to enjoy the hike, but in addition to being freshly watered, the path was steep—like trying to hike up a mudslide in spots. One of our guides saw how much I was struggling and started helping me along, arm-in-arm, as if I was a feeble old man. Which, to him, I’ve no doubt that’s what I was.
About two hours after the hike started, we finally caught up to the other group, where I passed off the water, reclaimed the camera for a bit, and dragged myself the rest of the way up the mountain. There was plenty of wildlife to see, including a ring-tailed vontsira (also called a ring-tailed mongoose, only it isn’t a mongoose). The mongoose actually snuck up on our group as we were taking a breather at the rest stop atop the mountain, then darted away as soon as he knew we’d seen him.
After that, we made our way back down the mountain. This was much easier, thanks to gravity—getting down wasn’t an issue; the only problem was controlling my descent. I believe I could have made it on my own, but the guide who’d helped me walk part of the way up refused to leave my side on the way down, and he kept a grip on my arm the whole way. I tried to tell him I didn’t need the assist, but he didn’t know any English. My guess is I was probably overestimating how much strength and balance I had left in me, and he’s seen multiple tourists of my ilk before who fell flat on their asses and had to be carried out.
Once we got to the gift and art shops at the bottom, the clouds had all scurried away, so I peeled off my poncho and learned about my error. I’d been sweating far more profusely than I’d known, and since ponchos keep as much water in as they keep out, my clothes were utterly soaked from top to bottom. If I could send a camera back in time and take one more photo that I’d missed from that trip, it would have been of me, standing there, soaked to the bone.
After lunch, Lea went back to hike again. I retired to our room to rest, read, and rehydrate. The next day would be our earliest departure yet, but the payoff, as it turned out, would be worth it. But that’s for the next installment.
For now, enjoy the Ranomafana Photo Barrage:
