Madagascar vol.3

The first week of the trip was quite hectic, more Japanese style of moving to different places every day. The part of the trip was coordinated by a hotel in Morondova, called Chez Maggie. The tour was organized for two of us and accompanied by a guide/driver.

After taking a hour-long flight (on time, impressive!) from Tana to Morondova and having lunch at the hotel, we drove along the famous baobab avenue and through a very dry landscape to reach the Tsyngy National Park for over eight hours.

On the first night, we made a stop at a small village on the way. It is a very simple hotel with no hot water, no door to the bathroom/toilet (just a curtain), just like a hotel where I would normally stay during field missions for work. We had no expectation for dinner at a such place. As we were tying to place an order for dinner, my boyfriend whispered to my ears “maybe we shouldn’t eat meat or seafood here…” There were no vegetarian options and we ordered an appetizer and main dishes. We call this kind of experience in Japanese “fooled by fox”. A waitress brought a beautifully served five-star hotel level dishes! We had crab salad with mayonnaise, fish with coconut flavored rice, a huge fresh water prawn called Gambo followed by chocolate crape. It was delicious and we were totally positively surprised. How would we expect such a wonderful meal in a guesthouse in a middle of dusty village!?

We got up at 4 the following morning (I never get up this early even for my work.. holiday is a hard work) to reach the park, which was supposed to be the highlight of this trip. We arrived in the park office and an official guide was assigned to us. I saw the guide grabbing what it appeared to be a safety harness. I was hoping that this was not meant for us. This is UNESCO World Heritage site, and it is basically a forest of black pointy rocks (pinnacles). I could also describe it as looking like what I would imagine as a kind of torture device in hell. On the contrary, it is a sacred place for the locals where their ancestors lived. We followed our guide through a forest and it suddenly opened up to a mount of rocks. Some rocks look hostile with very pointy tips like a blade. We walked through narrow passages between rocks, taking

ladders down the cracks of rocks. I started to break into cold sweat. I am afraid of height and I hate ladders! (ladders often featured in my nightmares) It got worse when we finally had to climb up the rocks. We attach two carabineers of the harness to metal wires pre-installed on rocks for safety. I was really scared but there was no turning back!

I realized that I again had no idea what I signed up for.. If I had done more research about the place, I may have not done it (remember my experience of white water rafting in Zambezi and wild Great Wall in China, which equally had the potential to kill me). The worst part was when I had to cross a shaky suspension bridge over these pinnacles, which should have been at least fifty meters off the ground. I was almost in tears and really had to calm down myself and just to focus ahead and never to look down!

The view from the observation point at the top was great. It was just at the midday when the sun was strong, so we couldn't stay for a long time. The view was worth confronting my fear of heights.

We saw some lemurs, mongoose and birds on the way back. There were some rocks with fossils which reminded us the the ancient history when this was in the ocean. We unfortunately missed out on some geological and cultural explanations, as it was all in French.