A ring-tailed lemur near Ambalavao. Cute, huh?

As we work our way south through Madagascar we spent two nights in Ranomafana National Park and then a quick one-night stop in Ambalavao. Ranomafana is a 160 square mile tropical rainforest, established as a national park in 1991 and as part of a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2007. Due to Madagascar’s geographic isolation over tens of millions of years, the plants and animals here evolved independent of others and there are large numbers of species of both that are native here and nowhere else. And while I’m sure unique frogs and insects and birds and trees are interesting and important, it’s really all about seeing the lemurs.

Of course my first question was “Just what the heck is a lemur?” Not surprisingly I learned a fair bit about them here. First, they’re primates, related to monkeys and apes and humans, but primates that evolved completely separately from the rest of us over those millions of years of Madagascarian (I just made that word up; spell check doesn’t like it) isolation. The result is that they’re more cuddly and furry than most other primates, with big long tails that you just want to tug on. Today there are over 100 species identified on the island, most of them recognized only since the 1990s when research really picked up. Because of various pressures on their habitat, though, the International Union for Conservation of Nature considers lemurs the most endangered of all mammals, with 90 percent of the species facing extinction within 20 years or so.

The rare golden bamboo lemur

That would be a real tragedy because lemurs are really cute. Officially of course even ugly animals need to be protected but the cute ones deserve really special care. And lemurs are cute. We stayed at a reasonably nice lodge just inside the park boundaries and set off early our first morning for a long hike into the rainforest in search of lemurs. And we found them; the golden bamboo lemur, the black and white ruffled lemur, maybe the oddly named Milne-Edwards sifaka, and perhaps one or two more. These were truly animals in the wild; while they weren’t too upset by our presence we had to go way out in the rainforest to find them.

To be honest, we found the tour itself kind of annoying. The guide talked too much, kept repeating himself, typically went too slow, and was awfully difficult to understand. On the other hand we never would have found the lemurs on our own; it takes a real talent to find those little buggers hiding up in the trees. I loved watching the lemurs but my favorite part of the hike was when it was time to head back to the park headquarters: the guide said it would take 40 minutes or so but when Mark took the lead on the trail we got back in 15 minutes. That’s more my style!

The drive from Antsirabe to Ranomafana was long enough that we needed to stop along the way for lunch. Bio, our driver, said there was a good restaurant en route. I was modestly skeptical but when we got there we were damned impressed. It was a hotel called Artisan in the town of Ambositra and was totally worth the stop. Who knew there was such good food in these out-of-the-way places?

My soup and Mark’s shrimp cocktail at Artisan. What a place!

We decided to break up the long drive to our next destination – Isalo National Park – with a stop in Ambalavao, a couple hours further down the road from Ranomafana. We got there, had a surprisingly great lunch, and then headed out to the Anja Community Reserve for another, shorter lemur tour. This time the stars were the ring-tailed lemurs, and they were all over. Our guide was a funny little guy whose “shtick” was to say, with eyes big and wide “Oh, you’re so lucky!” when we’d find lemurs or a chameleon or something like that. By the third time or so I was on to him.

So yeah, more lemurs.

Beyond the cute animals there is a lot we’re loving about Madagascar. High on the list is the food – it’s just been crazy good and crazy cheap. I’m supposed to know that food in former French colonies is good but this is just blowing us away. And to our delight the road has been good – we understand that there is one good road in the country and it’s the one we’re on – and the scenery is gorgeous. The hotels have been better than I would have expected. Our hotel at Ambalavao was awfully basic, but given that the price was under $24 for the night you can’t really complain that much.

The road from the capital Antananarivo down south is in good shape but we share it with the cattle, called zebu here.

Another unique feature of Madagascar is that pretty much the whole country is a malarial zone. We haven’t been in any meaningful malarial zone in the five-plus years we’ve been on the road so we had to dig out those anti-malarial pills we stocked up on back when we started all this. We finally get to get rid of some of those damned things!

The black and white ruffed lemur

And his friend

I loved the way this guy as staring down at me. You could just see him thinking “Yeah, don’t try anything.”

Oh, and did I mention their long tails?

We never go anywhere without our Kindles so while our guide was trying to locate some lemurs for us Mark made the best of his time.

In Antsirabe and again as we passed through Ambositra for lunch you see all these pulled rickshaws or pousse-pousse as they’re known in French. The guys doing the pulling are typically running while on the job. It gives you a sense of the level of poverty around here.

And then there are the kids traveling down the highway in their very home-made carts

Very home-made carts

Speaking of the highway, we’ve seen a surprising number of bridges that look like this. We’re hoping to avoid being on one of those at the wrong moment.

On the road to Ranomafana

Have I noted that we like the food here? After our hike in Ranomafana National Park we came back to the lodge for lunch. Here we have a grilled tilapia with fresh green beans and a view to die for.

At a stop on the way Mark noticed this little kid with a nice little lizard on a stick

And with all his little friendies

Speaking of little animals our guides have been good to show us all the other strange little creatures that exist here and nowhere else

Mark on our hike in Anja Community Reserve

Our guide in Anja showing how this piece of plant he just plucked gives out a resin-sort of liquid that serves as a natural chewing gum

Colorful rocks in Anja

Just one more gorgeous view

Mark above the river at the entrance to Ranomafana

Oh, and for all the interest in lemurs I had to include one more picture of the massive poinsettias they have around here

A view of Antananarivo from the Rova, the old fortified palace that towers over the city

So here we are in Madagascar, which definitely feels off the beaten track. I missed the great African safari adventure we’d planned to be with my family when both an adult nephew and a young great-nephew died within just a couple days of each other. Obviously a difficult time for my family. But after 10 days or so it was time to move on so I flew back to Africa to meet Mark in Nairobi for the last meal with our friends from DC. Sadly, after all the great meals Mark had on the Safari our final meal was in some forgettable place that served massive portions of meat that was all … OK. Late that night Dan & Lorraine and the kids started their flight back to the States and the next morning we flew down to Antananarivo, Madagascar’s capital.

We have three weeks planned here and we’re pretty excited about it. After the luxury of Mark’s safari this will be a change; Madagascar isn’t exactly a major luxury tourist destination. It does seem to be interesting though. Here’s one thing I learned since arriving: although the island is just a little off the coast of Africa it actually split off from the Indian subcontinent some 88 million years ago and until quite recently (in the context of the history of the earth) was not occupied by humans. The earliest archeological evidence of any human activity (probably transient foragers who did not stay) dates to about 4,000 years ago while the earliest settlements are barely 2,000 year old. In other words, Madagascar is one of the last land masses on earth to have been settled.

One of the things you’re struck with here are the massive poinsettias, with perhaps the most vivid red we’ve ever seen

And then to my surprise I learned it was not settled by Africans. Instead the first humans here were from Borneo and the surrounding islands traveling in outrigger canoes. Africans, though obviously a lot closer, didn’t arrive here until just a thousand years ago. There are a couple of implications from this.

First, Madagascar has an almost utterly unique biosphere; because it evolved so completely isolated over millions of years, some 90 percent of the animals here exist nowhere else on earth. And second, while this is certainly part of Africa, the people here clearly have features that remind us of being in Malaysia or Indonesia more than the rest of Africa. I just wasn’t expecting that.

And what of Madagascar today? Well, a few things to know: it is the fourth largest island in the world, after Greenland, Papua New Guinea, and Borneo. It is a deeply poor country, where the 25 million inhabitants have an average per capita income of under $1,600. And – one more thing I didn’t know – it had been colonized in the late 19th century by the French. One thing I’ve learned about that is that it suggests they’re going to have good food here. And so far that’s really true. (The other important part about that French history is that I am again grateful that Mark studied French so hard: there’s just not a lot of English spoken here.)

Antananarivo is a city of big hills

Our first stop, then, was in Antananarivo, the capital that is known to all as Tana (thank God I didn’t have to struggle pronouncing the name all the time). A city of 1.6 million people, there is no question about the poverty here. This is a big city full of poor people. And yet there was a lot to like. Our hotel, the Sakamanga, was charming and quite comfortable. The restaurant in the hotel was nothing short of outstanding, absolutely full both nights we were there. Absolutely top quality food with shockingly low prices: we would have a cocktail, two appetizers, two main courses, and a bottle of South African wine all for $50. Having recently been in New York City, that was almost unbelievable.

For the first time ever in this five-year-and-some-change adventure we’ve hired a car and driver to take us around the island; public transportation is just too limited and the thought of driving ourselves in some of the places we want to go too intimidating. So we made use of the driver on our one full day in Tana to take us first up to the Queen’s castle (the Rova) on the highest point above the city and then out to the Royal Hill of Ambohimanga, a UNESCO World Heritage site recognizing its spiritual and historic importance as the one-time home of Madagascar’s royalty. The roads out there were pretty awful but both sites were worth doing.

The Rova, the palace built for Madagascar’s 19th century queen. The wooden interior was destroyed by a fire in 1995 but the exterior is still impressive.

The next day it was up early and off south to Antsirabe. Though it is Madagascar’s second city we didn’t have any real need to go there except that it would break up an otherwise too-long drive to Ranomafano National Park, our actual destination. First I should note that we both loved the drive down here; the hills and scenery were beautiful and to our delight the road was in pretty good shape, at least compared to our expectations. Lots of terraced rice fields (shades of ancient Asian roots!) and people out working in the fields and all that quaint stuff you see in the countryside.

We loved the country views on the drive down to Antsirabe

And then we were charmed by the city itself. Our hotel had an old and definitely aged colonial feel to it, but with lovely gardens. And again we found a great restaurant, Chez Jenny, where the drinks were cheap, the food was great, and the service was delightfully friendly. With three days in Madagascar under our belts now, we’re pretty happy.

It was too cool to use the pool, but this was one of several lovely and comfy places to hang out in at our hotel

Steak tartare in Madagascar. It makes sense when you realized it was colonized by the French. What doesn’t make sense is that it was just about perfect and the main course portion was under $5. I was a little leery about cheap steak tartare but it was really, really good.

Our guide at the Rova showing us that if you fold a leaf from the poinsettia in half it is the spitting image of the island of Madagascar. And – we loved this – if you punctured the red flower a white fluid comes out making the green, red, and white poinsettia identical to the country’s green, red, and white flag!

A big cactus up at the Rova but what really intrigued me were the massive spiders in there

Here we are with Florida, our guide, at the end of the tour

Then it was out to Ambohimanga, the original capital of the first royal family to unite Madagascar. Again, the poinsettias were the big stars.

While the queens’ palaces were big and imposing, the kings slept in vastly more modest buildings. Here I am leaving what was little more than a shed. I had to be careful to back out as it is considered highly inappropriate to turn your back on the king’s home.

Lunch was a cute little place right next to the historic site. There were three other people there besides us and nine people (three musicians mostly hidden) providing entertainment.

One more shot of the poinsettias

The road to Antsirabe. I’d gone down there to take a pee but Mark thought it was a good view, too.

Our olde-French-colonial-feeling hotel in Antsirabe

The hotel had a lovely garden in back that was perfect for an afternoon read. I’m reading a book about the Enlightenment philosophers, many of whom of course were French, so it was perfect.

The cathedral of Antsirabe

One of the challenges of Madagascar is that ATMs are limited and they only dispense what are the equivalent of $3 bills. Credit cards are often not accepted so before leaving Antananarivo we filled up on what feels like a massive stash of ariary, the currency of Madagascar.

The highlight of Antsirabe for us was Chez Jenny, a cute restaurant with great food and lovely staff

Ouef mimosa is a classic French appetizer so we were delighted to see it on the menu. To be honest it wasn’t great but just the idea of it made me so happy.

And of course you can’t enjoy Chez Jenny without a little time with a very friendly cat

Think she’s happy?

As if good food, great service, a friendly cat, and cheap prices aren’t enough, this is the most beautiful tulip I’ve ever seen on the table at Chez Jenny

And finally, the ride home. We walked the mile route to dinner, feeling guilty that we were depriving the hardworking boys who ferry people around on their rickshaws. So we felt almost obligated to each hire our own rickshaw to get back just so we weren’t walking around a strange city in the dark. Mark’s bike had a bit of a problem but we got home alright.