The Jungle Hot Waters

My fellow Fulbrighters and I went on a 9-day long journey to a few new places in Madagascar for our Easter break. Madagascar is a big island. Honestly it often doesn’t feel like we’re on an island because the width of this place is nearly 300 miles whereas from north to south is extends to about 1,000 miles. And that’s with a straight line. To get anywhere, however, we have to use the primitive “highway” system that consists of a few national routes of varying degrees of feasible passing. In fact, we had to add an additional 200 miles to our journey because the national highway we would have taken is currently impassible, and has been for a while.

Anyways, our Easter vacation began with an 11-hour drive to a town in the jungles of central Madagascar called Ranomafahana (pronounced ranomafan’) which translates to hot waters. Ranomafahana is home to CVB, a famous biological research station founded by the esteem Patricia Wright. It houses dozens of researchers from around the globe and employs plenty of local technicians and guides. It’s no more than two football fields away from Ranomafahana National Park, which is probably the most visited and famous park in the country. Another Fulbrighter is completing her grant there. We were able to get a tour of the station and meet up with her. She’s currently racing against the clock with her research trying to collect the data from her sonic devices which have been, hopefully, capturing lemur calls in the deeper parts of the jungle that haven’t been fully documented yet.

Ranomafahana sits in the middle of a deep valley surrounded by mountains covered in thick jungles. The biodiversity there is unlike any other in the country, and the park boasts several species of lemurs and other animals only found there. In its hay-day, Ranomafahana used to welcome hundreds of tourists. However, that number has dwindled because of Covid and other things going on in the country. We were the only tourists there, and when speaking with our guide, he told us that he’s only gone out to the national park with tourists 10 times since the start of the pandemic. He’s actually started his own little plantation to support his family and is currently working with other professional guides in starting a school/training program for local people to become certified guides themselves.

The local economy is built around the tourist industry. Thus, with the lack of incoming vazaha, times are a bit tough, and the locals have resorted to primally subsistence farming, much like the rest of the country.

That aside, we spent two days touring around the jungle with our guide who spoke near flawless English, which was impressive considering he only learned it by being around the researchers and working, at one point, for the research station. We saw all sorts of lemurs and birds. Thankfully the weather was cool because winter has come to the southern hemisphere. That being said, it was still in the high 70s and low 80s.

The jungle is an interesting place. There were not many bugs because of winter. But there are still little jungle leeches that kind of look like gross inch worms. We picked a few off and they tend to get in one’s boots. We went on several lengthy tours of the jungle and captured plenty of photos.

I have learned that most things are safe in Madagascar. There is no real predator bigger than the extremely rare fossa (the very same from the Dream Works movie) which are just a little bigger than housecats. There are also crocodiles, but those only stay in rivers and are closer to the coast, never up in the mountains. This makes the jungle pretty safe other than mosquitos that carry malaria and, even more dangerous on a daily basis, the plants.

It seems that every plant has some kind of spike to protect it from who the hell knows what. Even the bamboo has safe spots (green) and dangerous spots (black) where it grows tiny little needles that stick into your sink and sting. Thankfully I didn’t stumble upon this knowledge through experience, but my friend Drew did when a loose hand touched the black part of the bamboo shoot and thousands of little black needles penetrated the skin. Our guide used his short course hair to rub them out. We were much more aware after that and soon discovered other plants with spikes and needles, thankfully through observation and not direct contact.

It is very humid in the jungle, but the lower temperatures made up for it. We’d just walk around on the paths, sometimes going off when we saw lemurs or other interesting things. We would listen to birdcalls and try to see a few of the rarer ones, which we did. Our guide could imitate the birdcalls perfect, something he picked up when he used to slingshot birds as a boy. He needed to know which call to lure them in. If you respond to a mating call when it’s not mating season or with the wrong gender bird, the bird will know you’re a fake. It was all very fascinating. Our guide was very accommodating and gave us a full encyclopedia worth of knowledge about the jungle, the animals, the research done at the station, the village, and some other things I like to ask our Malagasy friends concerning the country as a whole, education, economics, and more.

The village itself is very small. We did go to a local women’s co-op where they use looms to weave silk scarfs. Armed with more Malagasy, we were able to chat with them a bit and learned how they obtained the skills and that it takes three days to make just one scarf. The kids were interested in watching us but too nervous to speak with the foreigners who spoke a broken and awkward version of their language.

There are “hot springs” there as the name of the town implies. But really its just a large hot pool, nothing like the intricate ones you see in overpriced Nordic countries. It was still nice to enjoy our last morning in the hot water before driving 5 hours back north to spend the night in Anstirabe, a town about 120 miles south of the capital and about 320 miles from our next stop of Morondava. We even stopped in Ambostra, the wood carving capital of the country, where we bought some of the local woodwork and basketry.

As always, know that you are in my prayers each morning. All I ask is that you do the same for me.

May God be praised.