They say the ideal holiday length is 10 days. You need 4 days to decompress from the real world, a few days to deep dive into the present, and a day or so to get ready to go back to reality. By dia cuatro, I felt a shift, whether it was the whales, a surrender to the humidity, or the fauna, I felt like I was on a proper escape from the real world.
My last day of diving was a Friday. The currents were shifting with the moon, bringing higher tides and more surge, which could mean lower visibility. But as we were getting ready for our first dive, a manta ray swam directly under the boat, chasing plankton on top of the reef at the el Diablo dive site.
I’ve dived in Thailand, Burma, Zanzibar…but I’ve never seen a manta underwater. These creatures are as graceful as they are massive (giant manta ray wingspans can be nearly 9 metres or almost 30ft!), yet they eat the tiny stuff: krill and plankton. This was going to be an interesting dive!
The ocean did not disappoint: we were graced by 3 giant mantas in total, an aloof pair travelling together and a solo one who seemed to really enjoy swimming over our bubbles. The sheer size of these animals is breathtaking; absolutely enormous, yet they fly overhead like chubby kites.
This day made up for every other thus far!
And I had 2 days left for wandering, birdwatching, critter-finding, and hammock lolling before needing to wrap up and get back to reality.
The Bahìa Drake trail is a path that follows the line where the sea meets the jungle, and runs many kilometres from Drake Bay down the coast towards Corcovado National Park. It was brutally hot out, so I walked about 30 minutes, landing on a beach inhabited by a fleet of college spring breakers. I quickly retreated to another little beach, completely quiet save a few thousand hermit crabs skittering around the sand.
I spent my remaining time in Drake Bay trying to slow down time. I knew that when I got back, the pressures of an impending product launch would be all-consuming. So I sat and watched while a small company of scarlet macaws amassed in a mango tree to gorge on the unripe fruit. I watched as giant iguanas appeared out of nowhere to slowly yet lithely scamper up trees. I stalked hummingbirds and a handful of different kinds of tanagers.
And like that, the week was up. The trip back was without issue, though I felt more nervous travelling back into the US than I did leaving it. My passport has a somewhat chequered history, and the current news cycle didn’t make me feel any more comfortable. This too shall pass.
Awesome souvenirs.
I got a text message from one of the French guys on the dive boat a couple of days after I got home. “Awesome souvenirs,” he texted. I had sent some of the manta photos and videos to the group. And it made me smile. I think we have it all wrong here…the word souvenirs in French means memories.
A trip to Madagascar would not be complete without a seeing where its world-famous vanilla comes from. And so, on the way back from the north to Nosy Be, where I’d spend my last two nights, we stopped at a small locally-owned vanilla plantation. Here, the owner showed me his cacao trees – he opened a ripe pod, from which I tasted the surprisingly sour and custard apple-like fruit. He played the “guess the spice” game with me: peppercorns (red and black), cinnamon, lemongrass, and turmeric among others (I think I surprised him). I hadn’t ever seen any of these plants in their original state before, so it was fun to see where what I cook with comes from. And although I think this little show-and-tell was the smaller version of the larger spice sowing/growing/reaping enterprise, the experience at the vanilla farm felt a little more authentic than the one the French tourists were paying 50000 Ariary to enter just down the road. Needless to say, I left there with an armload of cocoa, vanilla, pepper and other spices, and felt like I was contributing to the livelihood of a local family.
Another curiosity on the road to the north: a certain section of the road is lined with tables. The tables are stacked with recycled tin cans. The cans are filled with roasted cashews. You go up to a stand, and for 5000 Ariary, you get roughly 250g of cashews, the equivalent of about $2 a pound here in the US (for the record, an unexpected amount of math went into writing that sentence!). We stopped at the house of a cashew guy my driver knows, and met his wife/sister/daughter who showed me how they roast and hull the cashews. Earlier in the week, we had found some cashews still on the tree. As with the spices, I had never seen a cashew in the wild, so it was another fun learning experience seeing it end-to-end. The amount of manual labor we take for granted here while consuming little luxuries crossed my mind.
Of note: raw cashew nuts contain urushiol, the same enzyme that makes poison ivy a terrible plant (or villain). This is why, even when we purchase raw cashews in those clean and tidy plastic packages back home, they are still roasted or boiled to remove the toxins. Also of note: freshly-roasted roadside cashews are about the best road snacks one could ever ask for (and if you know me, you know I like road snacks!).
I felt a little like cattle again, being shuttled from car to port to boat to island, and I was feeling sad to leave the mainland, to have left Bush Camp and the tsingy (ooh, that could be a great band name!). I landed back in Nosy Be hoping I could come back one day, but also knowing that going back to a place is never like experiencing it for the first time with beginner’s eyes.
Nevertheless, we dodged tuk tuks and people and bikes and road construction as the taxi wended its way through Hell-ville* and the other towns on Nosy Be en route to my final destination, a weird beach resort near the town of Madirokely. I would have 2 days here before flying back home.
*Hell-ville is the holdover French name for the main city on Nosy Be. Locally, it is called Andonay.
As perfectly-suited Bush Camp was to who I am, the cushy beach resort where I was booked for these two nights seemed like an ironic joke. This is no fault at all of the resort – it was lovely by resort standards: a salt water infinity pool overlooking the beach and the cove. An open-air restaurant overlooking the bay. A masseuse and a spa and a beauty salon. But on arrival I experienced a moment of sort-of culture shock, coming off a couple of weeks spent in nature and amongst much less-curated wildness.
So as I lay on a chaise lounge next to said saltwater pool and read a book while I waited for my room to be done up, I thought this for my final days: I wanted to see the town and also bring home some of the local rhum arrangé, I had planned to visit with Stella to hear about what the Madagascar Whale Shark Project is up to next, and I felt that some time to decompress a bit before transitioning back to the real world would be in order.
A rhum mission and the ugly side of paradise.
If you read only sensationalist reporting, you may hear that Madagascar is unsafe for foreigners, that human trafficking is rampant and that crime is pervasive. While I felt entirely safe during the whole of my stay, and I would recommend Madagascar as a destination 1000%, back in Nosy Be I wasn’t UNaware of the number of older European men in the company of very young local girls. I was to learn that prostitution is legal in Madagascar. According to Wikipedia, the prostitution here developed around the Japanese fishing industry; and as tourism flourished, so did sex travel and human trafficking. Because of this, Europeans, and mainly French and Italian men, are drawn to Nosy Be. During the day, they swim and snorkel and do the touristy things. By evening, they visit the bars and clubs and easily find companions. Many of the resorts here (including the one at which I was staying) have pledged against the sex trade, especially child sex trafficking which is apparently and unfortunately rampant here.
I mention this, and provide this link to the International Justice Mission, to say two things: if we don’t go to these places, these kinds of activities will continue to exist but only with fewer eyes on them. If we do go, and in the process bring practices of responsible tourism, and in doing so support local businesses that care about change, and give to charities such as the IJM, we can move the needle and help drive a better future for the girls who may have no other choices today.
I walked down the beach that afternoon, replaying the past couple of weeks in my head: the vibrant greens and blues and terracotta hues; the sea and land creatures that exist nowhere else on earth; the geologic marvels that seem to have been painted in place.
Sharks discussed and rhum arranged, I wandered around the little town. The rhum shop looked like an apothecary of sorts, shelves lined bottles of amber liquid and myriad mystery objects suspended in each. It is a local tradition here to distill rum and infuse different fruits and spices. I watched the shop owner wrap the bottles of lychee, vanilla, and ginger rhum arrangé I bought, all the while hoping the tape on the tops would hold until they arrived at their final destination. It’s a bit sad, and possibly a tad judgey, but I couldn’t help to also wonder which of the single men at the various little beachy bars were there for nefarious purposes. I didn’t stick around to find out.
It was nice to have time on my own here, with no itinerary to keep to or particular sites to see. And so I followed my own advice: relax a little, let the trip sink in. I walked on the beach, dipping my toes into the last warm tropical water I’d see for a while. I read by the saltwater pool, doing my best to ignore the pompous loudmouth nearby filling up the air with his words. At dinner, I stayed a while to listen to the local music. At breakfast the next morning, I watched in amusement as a guy drove a herd of zebu across the beach. Later, I cheered on as local school kids played football on the same sand.
And like that I was in a taxi to Nosy Be airport, nearly 3 weeks flown by like I was about to. The trip back was uneventful, but included some highlights to help the trip end on a high note: A long stopover in Addis Ababa gave me time to enjoy some really great Ethiopian food and tej, their honey wine (airport food, no less!). A night in London made me grateful for decent tea and the luxury of indoor toilets (with seats!). An aisle seat in Premium on Virgin into Boston made me want to fly this way whenever possible.
The world is an amazing place and every time I return from a trip, I feel such reverence for the natural world and such disdain for those who want to pave it in the name of modernization or turn it into a theme park under the guise of tourism.
Here’s to all the heroes I met on this trip: those who are promoting sustainable tourism and working hard to save the natural treasures; to the ones doing small acts each day to reduce plastic and educate youth and reform outdated practices and bring wonder and joy to those who come to visit.
As if spending a week spotting whale sharks wasn’t enough!
Another aspect of the first half of the itinerary was to experience some of the other flora and fauna in and around Nosy Be. So one morning we set off to see Nosy Tanikely, a marine reserve with a lovely, preserved reef. We snorkeled there for a bit before heading farther out to look for more whale sharks.
Back at Sakatia, afternoons were for napping or swimming with giant green sea turtles in the sea grasses by the lodge. Alternately, there was a lot of nothing to do if one was so inclined. In hindsight, I’m meshing together days here and calling out highlights because I stopped trying to keep track of sightings and particulars as the days melted into one under the hot sun. There was the afternoon I was sitting on the porch of my bungalow when two chickens very deliberately climbed the steps to have some water from my foot pail. There were brilliant sunsets overlooking the little sacred forest. There were early morning walks in the mangroves at low tide.
On another morning, we were up and out early to get to a remote island called Nosy Iranja, a 3-hour boat ride out into the waters of the Mozambique Channel. We spotted fewer whale sharks as we entered the deeper (and choppier) water, but as we travelled, a pod of spinner dolphins joined us to play in the boat’s wake. And as we approached Iranja, we watched as a humpback whale family (mom, brand new calf, and dad) slowly cruised through the water, making their way out to sea (and apparently towards Antarctica); the baby getting used to its giant fins, slapping and playing in the water as they swam.
As if the magic of the sea creatures wasn’t sublime enough, we approached the beach where we were to spend the night in beachside “tents”. Pictures cannot do the setting justice, but close your eyes and imagine the whitest sand beach you can conjure, the warm turquoise waters painted in a rainbow of blues. We walked through a small village, up to the phare (lighthouse) at the top of the island, then down the other side to watch the sunset by a spit where at low tide one could walk across to yet another teeny island to hide away from the world. The mojito on the beach felt like an indulgent cherry on top.
Our last day was spent on dry land, taking a walk through the paths in Parc National de Lokobe. Lokobe occupies most of the southern tip of Nosy Be and is home to 72 species of amphibians and reptiles, 48 species of birds, and even 2 species of lemurs that are considered microendemic to Nosy Be: the Nosy Be sportive lemur (you can see them in the photos below), and the Nosy Be mouse lemur.
After a (frankly, unexpectedly hard) paddle out to the entrance via local wooden canoe called a pirogue, we entered the park to find more flora and fauna. Here, we saw a tree boa and other snakes, a variety of chameleons, and lemurs – including the very little and very adorable mouse lemur, who we saw curled up and sleeping in some palm fronds. Plied with a local lunch and plenty of fresh, ripe, mangoes (and jackfruit!), the group unanimously determined the outing (as well as the sea tow back to where we started) a roaring success.
Did you miss Part I of this adventure? Click here. Next stop: the mainland!
Last summer, I signed up to volunteer at the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge. Each year, the endangered piping plover comes back to the shores of the Atlantic to nest and breed. Currently, it’s thought that there are only roughly 8,000 remaining. In. The. World. So it’s significant that nearly 25% of those come back to my home state to nest.
Papa piping plover, checking me out as he forages for lunch
Parker River each year runs a Plover Warden program to help protect their nesting grounds. Largely, we are the hall monitors of the beach, reminding beachgoers (despite the GINORMOUS signs) that the beach is closed. The 6-mile stretch of pristine beach with its protected dunes is perfect nesting grounds, hence the beach is closed from the beginning of April each year through early August (even through greenhead season!), or when the last of the fledglings go. Only 1 of 4 eggs make it from nest to flight. In short, it’s our job to help them get there.
My first encounter on my first day last year included a pair of entitled locals and their dog who were indignant that they were not allowed to walk down the pristine beach.But you can’t even see the nests, local Karen said. Ken piped in and asked when the wardens’ hours were. Hand on my walkie-talkie, I persuaded them to cooperate, and they finally relented. It is Federal land after all. Nor are dogs allowed.
The guy with the drone was nicer, but still confused as to why endangered birds, whose primary predators come from the sky, would feel ruffled by an ominous robotic sky creature humming around and spying on them from the blue.
This year’s encounters have been more tame. In my official volunteer t-shirt and fluorescent hat, I’ve been able to ward off most would-be violators just by being a tad obvious, and most people I’ve encountered are genuinely curious – some even passionate – about the birds. Not so much the obnoxious college kids camped out in pop-up tents just beyond the (again GINORMOUS) signs, feigning ignorance when nabbed by the plover police, “we thought nobody was checking.”
So far, we have about 33 nesting pairs, with 16 or so active nests after some storms and predators took out a swath of nests. This weekend, the refuge noted that some hatchlings have emerged. Over the next weeks we’ll expect the little fuzzits to begin scooting around the beach. This little guy is from one of last year’s broods that, sadly, didn’t make it after a spate of coyote binges.
So if you encounter a sign, a volunteer, or even just a plover… please tread lightly, as nests are camouflaged and the little ones need as much help as possible. No kites, no dogs, no bikes, no feet… just for a few more weeks to give these guys a fighting chance at fledging!
Zoom in… can you spot the plover sitting on its nest in this photo?
Watch this space. I’m hoping to get some plover-ific pics as the little ones emerge.
Tropical ramblings on a Friday before a long weekend…
I woke up early this morn, half-dreaming of a place with palm trees and teeming reefs, half-real, half-fading in my morning haze.
I walked by the water a little later, the sea a bit less ultramarine here, contemplating the green-ness of late May, seeming late this year; I listened to the mockingbirds and blue jays and the distant knocking of woodpeckers. I made tea from ingredients I’ve collected from faraway spice markets.
I’m working from home today, listening to Zulu music between meetings while my dog’s snoring keeps time with the beat.
It’s a weird and wonderful world out there, all these places whispering their invitations to go exploring. Today, I’m collecting that feeling and brewing it, like a magic tea of sorts, to glean inspiration and motivation.
