All posts by Alex and Annie

Adventures, Hiking, Madagascar, Outdoors

Tsingy de Bemaraha Nature Reserve

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We had heard a lot about the otherworldly jagged pinnacles of Tsingy de Bemaraha. Tsingy is a nature reserve on the west coast of Mada, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We heard that the park is closed in the rainy season (Dec – March), so if we wanted to see it, we had to go in November. We emailed and asked around a few tour operators, but decided to go on our own. Most nature parks must be visited with a guide, but that doesn’t mean a complete package tour is necessary. It is much cheaper (if you have the time) to turn up yourself and organise a guide on the spot. Most tours were going from Antsirabe, and we figured there was no need to pay for two-four days of a tour that was just transport. From Ambositra, we caught a 7am taxi-brousse to Antsirabe. We then had to wait for 2-3 hours for the next taxi-brousse to take us to Miandrivazo. We had contemplated going all the way from Antsirabe to Morondava, but that taxi-brousse wasn’t leaving until 5pm and we didn’t want to wait that long. Miandrivazo was a good stop over to break up the trip. It took from 1pm-7pm. A tout/guide came up to us in the taxi-brousse while we were waiting in Anstirabe and offered us a tour. We didn’t really want to spend 2.5 days in an unsheltered pirogue down the Tsiribihina river, so we asked if he would hire a 4WD in Morondava to take us to Tsingy and Kirindy. He offered 75Euro a day (for four days) including petrol.  So this was our itinerary:

  1. Day one: Drive Morondava to Bekopaka, camp the night
  2. Day 2: Hike Grand and Small Tsingy, camp Bekopaka
  3. Day 3: Drive to Kirindy, night walk, had to stay in bungalow as ‘apparently’ fossa eats your tent
  4. Day 4: Morning walk Kirindy, sunset at Baobabs, drive back to Morondava

He said if we found another 1-2 people, we could share the costs. It sounded like a good deal, and much better than anything we had been offered so far, so we agreed. He recommended a hotel in Miandrivazo and the next morning was waiting for us with a contract to sign. This was our first mistake, signing the contract and paying more than half up-front. Don’t get me wrong, we had an awesome trip and it was still a pretty good price. But it was a lesson not to pay up front if possible, even a deposit. In hindsight, we probably should have not committed and seen if we could get a better deal in Morondava. It was low season, and as two people we were in a good place to negotiate. We took a taxi-brousse from Miandrivazo to Morondava at 8am and arrived about 3pm. We had planned on seeing if we could find any other tourists to share the car. We made cursory efforts, but didn’t find anyone. The next morning we were picked up by our driver and were taken to another hotel. That was where another vazaha (foreigner) was waiting. He asked if we knew that he was coming. We didn’t. We were happy to have another person join us if we could share the costs, but when we got in the car, the driver told us his boss said we weren’t going anywhere until we all paid the full amount, so much for sharing the costs! We were all pretty angry, but he had us, we had each already paid a hefty deposit, so could hardly walk away. Needless to say, it was a bit of a sour start to the trip.

However, the French tourist who joined us was a really interesting, cool guy, so we were happy to share with him. We weren’t too impressed though when a wheel bearing broke and we got stranded in the heat. Luckily another car stopped to help us and we all squeezed into their car. We were a bit anxious that evening because we really didn’t trust that if the driver couldn’t fix the car, that our ‘guide’ would help us, particularly if he knew we had another car to go in. Fortunately, our driver fixed the car and met us later the next day.

But…back to the Tsingy. Despite all the setbacks, we had an awesome trip. During the journey to Tsingy, we had a few river crossings where the car is put on a raft and motored along the river, passing laughing children bathing in the water. The sharp limestone formations were other-worldly and really fun and challenging to climb. The view was really spectacular. We had to wear rockclimbing harnesses which we attached to metal rope. We went through narrow caves and crossed some hairy drawbridges, it felt like we were Indiana Jones! We saw sifakas and brown lemurs up close too. This was the complete Malagasy experience, definitely worth the long journey. Next stop…Kirindy…

Adventures, Hiking, Madagascar, Outdoors, Volunteering

Ambositra, Madagascar

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We were very fortunate to have the National Director of Ny Tanintsika and one of her brightest staff show us around their project sites in Ambositra.  The town is approximately four hours’ drive south of the capital city, Antananarivo. We visited local plant nurseries and the endemic, threatened Tapia woodland, home of the silk worm. Ny Tanintsika has developed small scale agroforestry plots within these communities– with cash crops such as sweet potato, tomatoes and citrus trees.

We also visited a womens’ silk weaving cooperative, which was created by Ny Tanintsika. This project supports women’s groups and households to protect the endemic tapia woodland – the last remnants of highland primary forest – through the revitalisation of the silk industry in Madagascar.

The Tapia woodland is only found in the central highlands of Madagascar. The dominant tree Uapaca bojeri is endemic to Madagascar.  Tapia woodlands are adapted and resilient to the regions natural fire regime however frequent intense fires and land clearing has resulted in habitat degradation and fragmentation.  The Tapia woodlands have now been restricted to fragmented stands that total less than 130 000ha. Most of these isolated stands have lost their species diversity and are no longer intact representatives of the former Tapia woodlands prior to high levels of disturbance.

The woodland we visited in the Faliarivo community is one of the last vestiges of intact Tapia woodland within the region. During our visit it was clear that almost no seedlings were present of the dominant native trees and the process of self-regeneration had stopped. The woodland has become infested with pines and this threatens the long-term biodiversity value of this woodland. If the pines are not eradicated the health of the Tapia woodland will only further decline.

Ny Tanintsika wishes to engage the local community to eradicate the pine from the Faliarivo Tapia woodland. Monetary compensation will be provided to locals for harvesting all of the pine within the woodland. Local nurseries have already been established for Tapia woodland restoration and will provide seedlings for infill planting once the pines have been eradicated. The timber harvested represents a commercial gain and profits will be re-invested into developing alternative income schemes for the local community.

This is one of the projects that Anni and I will focus on while we are here in Madagascar.

Adventures, Madagascar, Outdoors, Volunteering

Native Silk Moth project in Tapia Woodland

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Textile silk has a long history in Madagascar.  The moth Borocera cajani is endemic to Madagascar and primarily found in the Tapia woodland of the central highlands.  It is one of three silk moths found within the region but only B. cajani is exploited in the silk industry. The woodland is dominated by the Tapia tree (Uapaca bojeri) and has been highly disturbed in recent years due to frequent fires and land clearing resulting in habitat fragmentation. Ny Tanintsika has worked actively with local communities to protect the remaining woodland, reduce habitat degradation and engage in restoration activities. Training and support was provided to establish community nurseries to produce Tapia seedlings, fruit trees and Eucalypts for construction and fuel wood. Ny Tanintsika and Feedback Madagascar also provided resources to establish a centre for breeding the silk moth. The centre concentrates efforts to increase the wild population of silk moths in the Tapia woodland.

This project works with a womens’ silk weaving cooperative, which was developed by Ny Tanintsika. It provides support to women’s groups and households to find alternative income streams compared with traditional methods that relied solely on woodland resources.  The project trains women weavers on all stages of silk production; from raising the silkworms, to spinning, weaving and increasing the commercial value of their silk products such as scarves and cloth. They also train households in the conservation and forest management of the Tapia woodland. This dynamic program helps to increase and protect the amount of silk that the women can sell allowing them to earn a good living. The end result is greater levels of education, health and well-being in the communities; especially the children.

It was heartening to see how this business has transformed a community. For further information, or if you would like to donate, please see http://www.treemad.org/wild-silk-forest-appeal/

Watch the  silk weaving video here!

Adventures, Hiking, Madagascar, Outdoors

Andringitra, Madagascar

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Early on during our stay in Mada we took the opportunity to explore a bit more of this amazing country. The Darwin Project’s trimester planning meeting in Antananarivo was postponed and left us with some spare time.  We are fortunate to have a small house next to the Ny Tanintsika office in Fianarantsoa.  This we share with a Dutch/German couple. We also had an American ‘couch surfer’ stay with us for a few nights. We decided to take the opportunity when we were all together to go on a tour of Andriginitra National Park. We did a bit of research and decided it made the most sense to engage a tour operator. They are called Chez Dom tour guides, and you can find them in the restaurant by the same name in Fianarantsoa.

Andringitra is not the easiest place to travel to by taxi-brousse (the local transport). We contacted several guides and prices always vary greatly.  Some guides quoted twice as much as others and didn’t even cover transportation. We ended up paying 400,000 Ariary each in total for four days (which is about $45USD per day). There were five of us. This included transport, guides, park entry, food and porters.

On the first day, we drove until about 3pm.  We stopped abruptly in a rural village, got out, and next thing we know we’re off walking. There was a bit of miscommunication, as we thought we had engaged porters to carry everything. Turns out they carried everything – except our bags.  Alex and I had brought a reasonably heavy backpack and a smaller backpack between us. It was ok though, good practice for carrying the packs. We walked for about three hours, which was quite strenuous as it was mostly uphill. There were some very picturesque views, abundant unique plants, in one of the remaining forest ‘corridors’ in Mada.  It really was quite beautiful. We got to the first camp at 6pm and were told we would stay the night there. However, we asked what time we would need to start walking in the morning to reach Pic Boby (highest peak in the park) by sunrise.  “1am!!!” we were told. We managed to persuaded our guide to walk another hour to the next camp so we could get at least another hour sleep. 2am we were up again and trekking in the dark. Our guide didn’t have a torch (so Malagasy) and we had to lend him one of ours. He had also been drinking a bit of toaka gasy (local rum) the night before and consequently forgot his jumper and long trousers. Needless to say he was freezing when we got to the top. He didn’t complain though, and let us stay up there as long as we wanted.

We reached the summit just before sunrise, and it was beautiful. Granite domes and ravines as far as the eye could see. We were the first to make it to the top and were quite possibly the highest people in Madagascar at that moment. We rewarded ourselves with some snacks, but didn’t stay too long as we got cold quickly. The walk down was also tiring, but rewarding as we saw the scenery that was hidden to us on the climb due to darkness. When we got back to camp, a simple breakfast of bread and coffee never tasted so good. After an hour or so of rest, the porters made it clear we needed to move again. They started some loud music and dancing to wake us up, and we were off. Another three hours walk (7 in total that day) and we made it to our second camp. The next day was a shorter hike (3hrs) to Camp Cutta. This place was really special, host to several families of ring tail lemurs and a natural swimming pool complete with bar serving cold beer! What a way to finish our hike.

If you like spectacular scenery and a decent amount of hiking, we heartily recommend Andringitra National Park. Relatively speaking, it is quite affordable and host to some really striking, other-worldy landscapes. Sometimes it really felt like we were walking on the moon. If you can go in a group of 3-5 persons, this is ideal to share a 4WD and costs. Don’t expect too much in the way of wildlife, however if you do stay in Camp Cutta, you will meet some very friendly ring-tails. Four and a half stars!

Adventures, Hiking, Madagascar, Volunteering

Visit to Mila Ezaka local community in Tolongoina

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We visited Tolongoina and a local community called Mila Ezaka situated in the east of Madagascar in the Ambositra-Vondrozo forest corridor known as COFAV. The forest corridor is part of a large project by Conservation International aimed at protecting the remaining vegetation within these communities. Feedback Madagascar and Ny Tanintsika are partner NGO’s actively working to secure these areas. They are supported by the Darwin Foundation and Kew Gardens.

During our visit we were introduced to farmers that have been engaged by Ny Tanintsika to practice sustainable farming; growing crops such as cassava, beans, potato, sweet potato, carrots and potatoes. Vanilla is currently under trial with the hope of providing farmers with another income generating crop. Ny Tanintsika assists these farmers to diversify crops and practice crop rotation to ensure a sustainable soil nutrient balance. Unlike traditional farming methods, known as Tavy, that depletes soil nutrients within 2-3 years. Using traditional methods farmers are forced to abandon their fields and look for new fertile ground. This in turn has caused the large scale clearing seen in Madagascar over the past decades.

We also visited the local nursery in Mila Ezaka. This was established with the help of Feedback Madagascar and Ty Tanintsika. The nursery produces both native and exotic species for planting in remnant secondary forest and abandoned agricultural land known as Savoka. Nursery staff was trained by Ny Tanintsika field agents. Supplies such as seeds and the plastic seedling tubes are provided by the project. The seedlings are then planted by the local community. In return they are provided with training in Agroforestry and the seeds of agricultural crops.