hiker’s heaven

With a week in the Seychelles to follow, we did not linger on the coast, spending the bulk of our short time in Reunion exploring its interior. Unlike nearby Mauritius, which does not have a mountain worthy of the name, Reunion’s volcanic activity has left formidable scars that make the island a veritable hiker’s heaven. The interior is composed of three cirques – enormous, verdant, jagged hollows whose small settlements are enclosed by high mountain walls and rugged peaks.

Those who have the time and energy can hike from one cirque to the next, staying at gîtes (dorm-style mountain huts, which offer lodging and surprisingly good food) along the way. With only three days at our disposal, we headed to the Cilaos cirque, which promised higher peaks and deeper valleys than Salazie. Mafate, the other cirque, is only accessible by foot.

Not ones to make small plans, we set our sights on Piton de Neiges, a 3070m (just over 10,000 ft) extinct volcano that towers over the rest of the island. The mountain is aptly-named as its top is typically swathed in clouds by mid-morning, especially during the rainy season, whose tail end – we found out much to out chagrin – extended unexpectedly into our visit. Most people make Piton de Neiges a two-day hike, walking from either Cilaos or Salazie to a gîte perched beneath its summit and then waking up before dawn and ascending in the dark to greet the sunrise atop the peak.

As we did not have the luxury of an extra night, we aimed to do Piton de Neiges as a day-hike. We did not harbor illusions of having panoramic views of the island from the summit and were prepared to turn around if we found the cloud cover too thick. Fortunately, the weather smiled on us. Not only did it not rain, but we also enjoyed the most sunshine we would see during our time in Cilaos.

We hit the trail at 8am, going up a steep, well-groomed path that zig-zagged through the forest clinging to the base of the mountain. It felt a tad surreal to be hiking on a trail that had clearly been maintained by a park service. That the trail was well-kept did not make this hike an easy undertaking. We intended to climb from 1280m to 3070m, an elevation gain of nearly six thousand feet, so the ascent was anything but gradual. Three hours of stairmaster-like climbing brought us to a pass in the mountain. The gîte lay on a plateau on the other side while a rocky path ascended to the summit.

Remarkably, the whole mountain was clearly visible, the sun shining brightly overhead. However, as we paused to snack and take in the vista, clouds rolled in, the mist obscuring the peak from view in a matter of seconds. We pressed on when it cleared, D hiking ahead in a vain attempt to beat the clouds to the top. We enjoyed good views of the Cilaos cirque throughout our ascent, but at the summit we found ourselves above the clouds, their white fluff blanketing the other side of the island. Including our rest stops, we wound up spending nine hours on the trail, returning to our chamber d’hôte sore but determined to do another long hike the next day.

bird in the sky you know how I feel

Most of the lodging options for St-Leu, our first stop in Reunion, are apartments that are rented by the week. It’s easy to see why one might be tempted to linger there. From diving with dolphins and turtles to paragliding and surfing the famous Gauche de St-Leu, this town draws both adventure seekers and ocean lovers. In fact, “we could spend weeks here” became an oft-repeated refrain with us in virtually every place we visited in Reunion.

Instead of a week, we intended to stay only one night in St-Leu. There were two guesthouses listed in the guide we picked up at the airport tourism desk. We asked the owner of the ice cream shop where we had stopped to use his phone, but the woman who answered was unable to give us directions so she sent her husband for us to follow. The house, it turned out, was up in the hills above St-Leu, a half hour drive away. It was while following – or rather attempting to keep up with – Pascal that S got her first taste of Reunion’s curvy, hilly roads. With hairpin turns so frequent that they put San Francisco’s “crookedest street in the world” to shame, S was happy to be behind the wheel rather than riding shotgun. Concentrating on keeping the car on the road somehow helped lessen her motion sickness, which has come back with a vengeance from her childhood days.

Our hosts Pascal and Marie were incredibly friendly, helpful, and easygoing. Reminiscent of S’s experience with couchsurfing, their chamber d’hote (something akin to a B&B) felt more like a home than a hotel. We ate dinner together with the owners, another pair of tourists, a boarder, and visiting friends. Homemade rum punch was served on the deck with mouth-watering hor d’oeuvres while a full meal and delicious desserts awaited us inside. Pascal is an avid paraglider, and when we expressed interest in going the next morning he not only helped make a reservation for us with a reputable company but also said he’d fly with us.

After another harrowing car ride up to 1500 meters, this time sharing the backseat of Pascal’s car with his chute, we tromped across a cow pasture and got ready to take flight. We unfurled our parachutes and waited for the right gust of wind. Paragliding, it turns out, is not an activity for the impatient. It took more than an hour for the wind to change directions and blow our way. But when it did D took off running, quite literally, with his tandem, Lolo, strapped behind him. Up, up, and away they sailed as S got ready to take flight.

Though it does not have the spine-tingling adrenalin rush of bungee jumping or skydiving, paragliding for the first time is a breathtaking experience. It also lasts quite a lot longer. It took us somewhere between half an hour and 45 minutes to descend from the mountaintop to the beach as we sailed high over the ravines around St-Leu before landing by the water’s edge. Our tandem pilots showed us how to steer and then busied themselves with taking pictures while we made lazy zig-zags in the air, soaking up the bird’s eye views of Reunion’s coastal towns and spotting sea turtles in the shimmering blue waters of the Indian Ocean.

As we approached the landing area, our pilots once again took control, treating us to a minute of stomach-dropping acrobatics before gently touching down. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a thousand pictures would not be enough to convey the incredibly liberating feeling of gliding, whirling, and twirling through the air on that bright, sunny morning. It is no wonder that so many superheroes are endowed with the power to fly.

ooh la la

We left Madagascar and an hour later touched down in France. Though the glory days of its colonial empire are a distant memory, France still controls a number of territories outside Europe, which have varying degrees of autonomy. As a department, Reunion is part of France in the same way that Scotland is part of the UK, and Guam is not part of the United States. It was only when we started looking for flights between Madagascar and the Seychelles that we realized a slice of France still exists in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Perhaps it’s a well-kept French secret. After spending a week on the island, we only met one other person who was not from France, and she was French Canadian.

After a year in Nairobi, it was disorienting to walk off the plane and find ourselves in the first world. Reunion’s airport cannot be mistaken for Charles de Gaul but it is irrefutably European and a far cry from Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, which resembles a bus station. Whereas Madagascar still had the unmistakable feel of a developing country, Reunion’s smoothly paved streets, precisely engineered highways, and polite drivers who would cede the passing lane to faster vehicles left no doubt that we were no longer in Africa, even if geographically we were closer to its shores than to any other continent. From the supermarkets to the quaint sleepy towns with little corner bakeries, we could not shake the feeling that a small part of southern France had been somehow transplanted to this island.

With only a week to explore Reunion and several must-see destinations scattered all over the island, we booked a rental car. However, as our plane from Nairobi to Madagascar was about to grace the tarmac, S gasped realizing that neither of us had brought our licenses. After a few moments of shock, we started strategizing and spent an hour or so at an Internet cafe on our way to Anjozorobe making Skype calls to several rental companies. Not only are automatic cars had to come by in Reunion (learning to drive stick remains on both of our to-do lists), but it was also clear we either needed a driver’s license or a police report saying it was stolen.

Luckily, S had faced a similar predicament before and remembered that Maine has an online license replacement system. For a nominal fee, Maine residents can not only order a replacement license, but also print out a temporary one. The AVIS rental agent in Reunion scrutinized the printout for a long time before finally telling us he could not accept it. “This license is not yet valid,” he clarified. S glanced at the dates, her crestfallen expression quickly giving way to a hopeful smile as she explained that in the US the first number in the date represents the month rather than the date, as it does in most of the rest of the world. That seemed to resolve the rental agent’s doubts and he handed us the keys to a small Peugot 207.

From the airport we headed to St-Leu, arriving there just before sunset. We stopped at an ice cream shop to sit down and pick a place to stay for the night. We had been missing our backpacking days, showing up in a town without a reservation and looking around before choosing our lodgings. In our travels throughout East Africa this has been impossible as each trip required reservations for everything from accommodations and vehicles to park fees and even meals. But for this one week, we made no bookings and had no plans.

Madagascar by the numbers

As we get ready to leave the land of lemurs, here’s a look back at our travels in Madagascar:

• 16 – days we traveled around the country, five of which we spent honeymooning in the private Anjajavy reserve.

• 3818 – pictures we took, many of which are blurry, out-of-focus attempts at capturing sifakas mid-jump.

• 1450 – kilometers of route nationale we traversed, including all 100km of RN3 from Tana to Anjozorobe and the entire RN7, which stretches for nearly 1,000km from Tana to Tulear and is the only well-paved road in the south of Madagascar. This does not include the off-roading we did to access many of the places we visited.

• 30 – we don’t have a precise count, but this represents our best estimate of how many times D spontaneously burst out with the chorus to “Karma Chameleon,” only half those times when we actually saw chameleons. The fact that the song was playing in the taxi during our ride to the airport might be to blame for this. In addition to lemurs, Madagascar is famed for its reptiles. We saw half a dozen different chameleon species, ranging from pinky-sized ones to others that measured two feet from head to tail.

• 14 – varieties of lemurs we saw. This represents only a fraction of the 100+ distinct taxa, but we did a lot better if one considers just the main archetypes. The five lemur families are broken down into fifteen genera, of which we saw eight, including all the diurnal ones. In the daytime, we found indris, sifakas (white-and-brown Coquerel’s, orange-and-white diademed, and black-and-white Milne-Edwards’), true lemurs (common brown and red-fronted brown), ruffed lemurs, ring-tails, bamboo lemurs, and the nocturnal woolly lemurs. At night, we saw sportive lemurs and the diminutive mouse lemurs (there are 18 different mouse lemurs that have been identified throughout Madagascar and how to tell these tiny, shy, and sprightly creatures apart is anyone’s guess; location is usually the best indicator and we’ve been told that we saw the grey, golden brown, and rufous varieties on our several night walks in various parts of the country).

• 9 – different animals we’ve consumed. For a while, it was a dead heat between this number and the one above, but our visit to Andasibe helped put some daylight between how many exotic animals we saw in the wild vs. on our plates. Excluding fish and various kinds of seafood, we’ve been served zebu, pork, lamb, chicken, duck, quail, rabbit, bat, and frog.

• 5 – flights we’ve taken thus far, including one on an 8-seater Cessna that is the largest plane in the MTA fleet, the private airline that flies to Anjajavy. On the way back, the 8-seater was unavailable, which left us stranded in paradise for a few extra hours before returning to Tana in a private, 2-seater Cessna 206 belonging to French filmmaker Charles Gassot after it had deposited the hotel’s creator on the tiny dirt airstrip of Anjajavy International Airport.

• 3 – National Parks: we visited Andasibe, Ranomafana, and Isalo. Our hike in Tsara was in the Andringitra Mountains but did not cross into the national park. The primary forest around Anjozorobe remains unprotected though it might someday become developed enough to merit national park status.

• 2 – time zones we’ve been in, though one of them was the somewhat dubious Anjajavy time invented by the hotel barely ten years ago.

• And the most important number: this was one perfect and very memorable way to start our anniversary-moon.

whale song

Located just three hours east of Tana, Andasibe is Madagascar’s most accessible national park. It is comprised of two distinct patches of rainforest – the smaller Perinet, which borders the main road, and the more rugged Mantadia, which can only be reached after an hour of jostling along a bumpy dirt track. We had been planning on making Andasibe the first stop on our tour of the country, but Vakona lodge where we hoped to stay was booked, so we started our travels in Anjozorobe, saving Andasibe for last. That the lodge was full was a worrying indicator of Andasibe’s popularity so we were pleasantly surprised when we found ourselves practically alone on our visit to the forest.

This being our last opportunity to experience Madagascar’s unique wildlife, we signed up for one more night walk upon our arrival at Vakona. Unfortunately, there was not much to be seen and our guide seemed to give up on pointing out the beady, reflective eyes of the mouse lemurs because they were so far away. It started drizzling, and after photographing a few giant moths and phosphorescent butterflies, we were happy to return to the lodge.

We had been hoping to visit both Perinet and Mantadia, but time was not on our side. Flights from Anjajavy, which only arrive and depart three mornings a week, are subject to change. The 8-seater that had deposited us in paradise was not available, and the four seats on the smaller plane that arrived in its stead went to two British couples with insanely short connections to their international flights home. We only had our rendezvous with Roland, and possibly some lemurs, so we wound up waiting for another plane to take us back to Tana. Our disappointment quickly dissipated, however, when we learned that Mantadia was not accessible on account of the damage caused by a cyclone that hit Madagascar in February.

Andasibe is home to the indri indri, the largest of the extant lemur species, whose whale-like moaning can be heard outside the park. The Malagasy call the indris babakoto, which our guide book translated as “Father of Koto,” referencing the legend of a young boy named Koto, who was stung by bees while climbing a tree; when he fell, an indri caught him and carried him home on his back. The authoritative “Lemurs of Madagascar” field guide has a more probable explanation, noting that in addition to “Father of Koto,” the term translates to “old man,” “ancestor,” or “father,” and is used to show respect. The field guide also explained that indri is a corruption of the Malagasy word iry, which means “there.” French naturalist Pierre Sonnerat was looking for lemurs and when his guide cried, “iry, iry!” he took the word to be the animal’s name.

We heard the indris as we entered the park and headed in their direction. Before we could get too far, however, we took a detour to admire a pair of diademed sifakas that another guide had spotted calmly munching on leaves and berries a few feet from the main trail. Of the lemurs we’ve seen, these sifakas are without a doubt the prettiest, with intense orange and grey fur that stands up on end as if charged with static electricity.

We lingered a while with the sifakas, but the indris were calling, the forest resonating with their cries, so we followed our guide as he left the trail and led the way down a slippery slope deep into the brush. Unlike the indris we had seen in Anjozorobe, which were almost entirely black, the three indris we encountered this time had much lighter white-and-black coloring (due to the fact that the foliage is less dense in Andasibe). All was relatively quiet until the trio felt the need to lay claim to their territory and let out their foghorn-like wails, which evoked visions of beached whales crying out for help. After this territorial display, they hopped off into the thicket and we returned to the trail in search of more lemurs.

We had been hoping to find bamboo lemurs, but try as he might – and it looked like he was sweating his socks off – our guide could not find them. He did, however, come upon a family of four diademed sifakas that had come down to the ground from their tree perches. Unless we moved too much, they were not alarmed by our proximity and proceeded to wrastle with each other while we snapped pictures from a few feet away. First to enter and last to leave, we made the most of our half day in Perinet.

Part of the appeal of staying at Vakona Lodge, so we had heard and read, was easy access to its “private reserve,” where we planned to spend the afternoon of our last day in Madagascar. This, it turned out, was a reserve in name only. The lemurs, taken from the wild and unable to swim, are trapped on a man-made island, and the fact that there are no cages did not detract from the impression that we had gone from the wild to a petting zoo.

A black-and-white ruffed lemur was waiting for our canoe to dock, happy to jump on our shoulders for a piece of banana proffered by our “guide.” Before we had walked another dozen feet, we found ourselves swarmed by a troupe of brown lemurs, the most squirrel-like of the species we encountered.

While his friends were looking for scraps of banana, this little guy fell in love with D’s hat, spending a good ten minutes licking it and chewing on the strap before D finally shrugged him off.

We also saw grey bamboo lemurs, the smallest of the diurnal lemurs, who were too shy to battle the brown lemurs for our affection. The experience of having lemurs jumping on our shoulders, while novel, left us feeling dirty in more than one sense. Although we were able to see two species we had not been able to encounter in the wild, the visit compared poorly with the sense of awe and discovery we felt when coming upon lemurs after an arduous hike through the woods.

Bamboo lemurs are so tiny; no wonder we had such a hard time finding them in the forest!

accidental birding

With nearly 300 bird species, half of them endemic to the island, Madagascar is one of Africa’s premier birding destinations. We, however, are not birders and passed up Anjajavy’s bird walks for a chance to sleep in. Our interest in ornithology is solely photographic. We won’t forgo sleep for a chance to add a new bird to our collection, as a committed ornithologist would, but if we encounter one with distinctive plumage, we’ll photograph it.

Madagascar bulbul; the bulbuls in Kenya have a ball of yellow feathers at the bottom of their undersides.

On this score, S found Madagascar’s avian specimens somewhat disappointing. She had been expecting extravagant colors, like the ones birds flaunt in the Galapagos and was surprised at their largely pedestrian plumage.

The Madagascar kingfisher is one definite exception to the above.

Although we mostly eschewed birding on this trip, it was impossible to completely ignore Madagascar’s winged denizens, particularly because some of the island’s endemic species made such bizarre sounds that they commanded our attention even when we were otherwise occupied. Two birds in particular were guilty of this offense – flocks of sickle-billed vangas, which sounded like a warren of female cats in heat, and the magpie robin, which made a sound that evoked visions of malfunctioning electrical appliances whose circuitry had been fried by water.

Fish eagles in Kenya have much lighter plumage.

We also saw the endangered Madagascar fish eagle, couas, crested drongos, paradise flycatchers, grey-headed lovebirds, red fodys, the spectacular Madagascar crested ibis, as well as Madagascar varieties of birds found elsewhere, such as bulbuls, bee-eaters, hoopoes, wagtails, cuckoos, egrets, kingfishers, buzzards, and harrier-hawks.

Red fody; the Malagasy pronounce their O’s the way we’d say the O’s in “food” so until we looked it up we thought this bird was called the “red foodie.”

The most notable birds we came across were a pair of collared nightjars, which our Andasibe guide found nesting under a bush while he was looking for bamboo lemurs. The bird book we borrowed listed these birds as so uncommon that their song has never been heard. We spent a solid half hour comparing the nightjars in our photos to the ones in the bird book before satisfying ourselves that we had indeed seen the rare collared nightjars, as our guide had insisted, and not their more common Madagascar cousins.

In addition to a few centimeters in size, the main difference between the rare collared nightjars and the more common Madagascar ones is a band of brown plumage at the back of the neck. A glimpse of it can be seen in this photo; the band is clearer in another picture we took, but the lighting in it was not as good.

Despite S’s oft-proclaimed aversion to birding, which owes largely to the need to wake up early, she purchased D a comprehensive East Africa bird guide. It hasn’t yet made ornithology any more appealing a hobby, but it’s definitely helped us identify the birds that we do occasionally photograph. Previously, our photos would include titles along the lines of “tiny yellow bird” or “pretty red bird.” Being able to accurately name our photos is a definite improvement.

Hoopoes are unmistakable; the ones in Madagascar are lighter and quite a bit more orange than the ones we’ve seen flitting around East Africa.

just can’t get enough

Lemur spotting is effortless in Anjajavy as small families of Coquerel’s sifakas and large troupes of brown lemurs cross and re-cross the hotel property multiple times a day. Neither species seemed perturbed in the slightest by our presence, peering down at us with as much curiosity as we exhibited.

Whereas the sifakas are monogamous, brown lemurs travel in large packs because they do not have a rigid family structure. The females go into heat for ten days every four months and our visit coincided with their mating period.

On our night walk through the forest, we also saw dozens of mouse lemurs, their eyes reflecting the beam of the flashlight as they darted around in the thicket. The forest resounded with the calls of the nocturnal sportive lemurs, but these cat-like creatures typically hang out high in the treetops and it was only at the end of our two-hour walk that we found one low enough to photograph.

In the late afternoons, the hotel staff would set up for tea time in the “oasis” garden, which seemed a particularly popular spot with the diurnal species. While S sipped her tea and enjoyed the tranquility of the oasis, D found it hard to sit still, constantly rushing off to try to capture the perfect shot of a sifaka mid-jump.

is it just us, or does this sifaka look like he has been watching too many Michael Jackson videos?

the baobab of love

We’ve been close several times before, but this time we are certain that we’ve found paradise. Set on a private beach ensconced in an undisturbed strand of deciduous dry forest teeming with exotic wildlife, Anjajavy offers the exclusivity of a private nature reserve blended with the tranquility of a luxurious beach resort. To underscore its distinctiveness, Anjajavy operates in its own time zone – one hour ahead of the rest of the country, despite its location on Madagascar’s western shore.

In addition to the typical water sports, boat trips, and beach activities that are the standard fare of most island honeymoon destinations, Anjajavy entices with excursions that take advantage of its unique habitat. You can go birding if sleeping in is not your thing or simply relax by the pool with a book in hand, enjoying the gourmet food and personalized service that reflect the hotel’s unpretentious comfort. For the more adventurous, there are also night walks through the forest and a variety of hikes that allow guests to explore Anjajavy’s flora and fauna. Contrary to the song, heaven, it turns out, is a place where quite a lot happens.

Our favorite walk was “de crique en crique,” a pleasant stroll through the forest that led to a series of private beaches.

The five days we spent in Anjajavy did not seem nearly enough, but more adventures beckoned and we reluctantly packed our bags for the return trip to Tana. Before leaving, we were asked to pick out a tree to be planted in our name during the rainy season. All honeymooning couples who stay at Anjajavy leave this lasting symbol of their love, thereby also helping protect the primary forest that makes Anjajavy such a special place. We chose a baobab, the gentle giant of Madagascar, which owes its strength to its tender core. Baobabs live for over a thousand years, their soft wood suitable neither for building nor burning, and it warms our hearts to know that this small symbol of our love will remain part of the Anjajavy reserve long after the last traces of our lives fade from the world’s memory.

drive-by tourism

Planning our trip somewhat last minute, we decided to use a tour company – one that came highly recommended by friends who had recently visited Madagascar. We also consulted a few guide books and, seeing that there were no national parks south of Tana until Ranomafana, attempted to convince our booking agent to let us drive from Anjozorobe to Ranomafana in one day. After taking two full days to cover this distance, we now appreciate why she was reluctant to accede to what we thought was a reasonable request, but what in reality was quite a ludicrous notion.

Not only did we greatly underestimate the distances we would need to cover on this deceivingly large island, but we were also overly optimistic regarding the speed with which we would be traveling. It’s not that the roads are bad – far from it. In fact, the paved road running south from Tana is in excellent condition, especially compared to Kenya’s roads, which seem to crumble and disintegrate within a few years of construction. It’s just that there doesn’t seem to be a single stretch of straight road in the entire country.

Spending four to seven hours in the car on most days might not sound enticing, but we have honestly been on the edge of our seats, taking in the jaw-dropping views that opened up around every curve of the road as it snaked through the mountains. Driving across the country is truly the only way to appreciate the diversity of Madagascar. The scenery is as varied as it is striking, with lush rolling hills, meandering rivers, and a patchwork of different-colored rice paddies nestled beneath hamlets that clustered on the hillsides. Taking in the pastiche of yellows and greens formed by the terraced rice paddies, S asserted that the countryside’s beauty rivals that of any other country she has visited.

The highlands south of Antsirabe are home to the Betsileo, who don vibrant oranges, hot pinks, and neon yellows and greens, and who are regarded as Madagascar’s biggest rice eaters, quite a distinction in this rice-loving land. Driving further south, the scenery changed dramatically, the rice paddies of the brightly-clad Betsileo, one of Madagascar’s eighteen tribes, giving way to the stark prairies and sheer rock formations of the Great South.

The many hours we spent in the car also passed quickly thanks to our conversations with our driver. Roland has proven to be as knowledgeable as he is garrulous and good-humored, explaining many aspects of Malagasy history and culture, and even drifting occasionally into politics. Though he declared himself averse to political discussions, he could not hold back from expressing disdain for the current president, a 35 year-old former radio DJ who led a coup in 2009 against the elected president after the latter closed his radio station. According to Roland, the piles of trash we saw in some of the bigger cities were a hallmark of the new presidency, the funds designated for this and other public services being redirected for other, unknown purposes.

As we get ready to dive into the honeymoon part of the trip and spend a week at a private nature resort on the coast, we are happy that we took the time to tour the country. We did after all come to see more than just the lemurs.

the wild wild west

The last stop on our tour was Isalo National Park, a 120km stretch of sandstone massif that held out the promise of idyllic waterfalls, cool swimming holes, and cloistered canyons. The park is also home to more than 80 bird species and three different kinds of lemurs, making it a popular tourist destination. In fact, according to Roland, Isalo receives more foreign visitors than any other park in Madagascar.

Even so, we found Isalo to be distinctly underwhelming. To make the canyons accessible, steps have been chiseled into the rocks and cement poured in between some of the stones to form walkways, robbing the park of much of its charm. Although the trails are clearly signposted – there were even distance markers every 50 meters – visitors to Isalo are required to have a guide. Ours was one of the few English-speaking guides available, but his English was barely intelligible and his tendency to light up a cigarette whenever we stopped somewhere for more than a few minutes further detracted from the visit. We did see lemurs at the campsite where we had lunch, but they were the same ring-tails we had seen the previous day in greater numbers in Tsaranoro. In short, Isalo was pretty and we enjoyed our dip in the icy waters of its swimming holes, but it was also far from unique and paled in comparisons to other canyons we’ve visited.

The area’s other big draw is the luxury hotels that have been erected to capitalize on the influx of foreign tourists. The one where we stayed – Le Jardin du Roy – more than lived up to its majestic name. The villas, nestled between the jagged rock outcrops of the Isalo massif, were painstakingly constructed out of small fragments of shale that fit together in a puzzle-perfect way with larger rocks. From the gourmet food to the spa, this was our first opportunity to pamper ourselves and we did not pass it up. Rather than return to the national park for another half-day of hiking, as planned on our itinerary, we decided to sleep in and enjoy the stark beauty of “the Colorado of Madagascar” poolside before departing for Tulear.

The allusion to the Wild West of the United States is more than just a passing reference to the stunning scenery of this area. A mere 10km after Isalo, we passed through a town that sprang up virtually overnight in the final months of 1998. Lavishly embellished mansions abutted ramshackle wooden huts clustered around a tiny river that snaked its way through the otherwise barren plains. Sapphires were discovered in the nearby hills, setting off a craze reminiscent of the Gold Rush era and instantaneously transforming this previously quiet corner of Fianarantsoa Province. While it is the Malagasy who mine and wash the stones, it is mostly foreigners who reap the benefits. The government lacks the resources to nationalize or even regulate the mining business. Most of the operations are owned by shady Thai and Sri Lankan businessmen while the only Malagasies who seem to benefit are the ones who provide security to the foreign investors.

Tulear, a beach town on Madagascar’s south-western shore, marks the end of the first leg of our journey. From here, we will fly back to Tana while Roland takes two or three days to retrace the route we’ve traveled.