EC-Rider Travels

By the morning we had arrived in Toamasina, Madagascar’s main port and second largest city, to be greeted by some wonderful pink ladies dancing for us.

It was a tricky decision today as we wanted to do both excursions, but in the end we all decided to go to the Ivolonia Zoological park to see the lemurs. Smiley Rod was our guide and Randy our driver! We drove out through this ‘city’ of more than 750,000 rickshaws, a few tuktuks and very few cars, initially along fairly good roads and then on to a very poor dirt road – leading to their prime tourist attraction.

The poverty was unbelievable, the worst I think I have seen on all my travels. Rows of wooden, palm or tin-roofed shacks either housing small shops or homes with almost nothing in either. Children breaking rocks, men and women diving for sand in the river and carts pulled by man-power, not even animals. 80% of Malagasy are farmers and only 20% have an office/industrial job. Animism is the main belief although Catholicism is also practiced by a few, alongside.

Madagascar has so many natural resources: graphite, chromite, coal, bauxite, salt quartz, tar, sands, semiprecious stones, mica, vanilla, fish and hydropower and yet is one of the world’s poorest countries. Rod explained, very matter of factly, that this was due to an unregulated economy with many untapped natural resources, no capital markets, a weak judicial system, poorly enforced contracts and needless to say, rampant government corruption.

Being Sunday, there were children everywhere, playing in the road with sticks and tyres or anything else they could find. School is compulsory from six, but with no buses some children have to walk several hours to get there. However, they looked well fed and do at least grow wonderful fruit and vegetables and there is plenty of fish. There was no question, we were as much a curiosity to the Malagasy as they were to us.

Although only about 20km away, it took a good hour and a half to get to the Ivoloina Zoological Parc, a 282 hectare conservation area. The majority of the animals in the park have been rescued from illegal ownership or export with most in cages as they cannot be reintroduced into the wild. We saw several different kinds of lemurs and tortoises, all endemic to different parts of Madagascar and very sweet. We also saw some wonderful chameleons and a curious little skink.

We then walked to a lovely waterfall and returned to some more dancing and rather delicious fruit-juice plus the opportunity to try the local rum – we didn’t feel the need to buy a bottle! But there were a few other retail opportunities which needless to say I succumbed to!

We were back at the boat in time for a late lunch, as the MS Island Sky left Toamasina setting sail for Nosy Mangabe, 165 nautical miles north. During the afternoon we were assigned our snorkels and fins and given our mandatory snorkel briefing – I can’t wait! The on-board photographer, Sue Forbes, also offered a short phone-photography course – such a great idea, and I picked up some really useful tips. The education on this trip really is fantastic.

The day ended with a recap and briefing, from Guy about Madagascar’s rather cute national dog, the Coton de Tulear, before Pierre tried to persuade us that leeches are as ‘sweet’ and what to do if we should fall victim to one – leave them till they are full up and they will fall off. Nice!