Sunday, June 14 2019 Chimpanzee habituation, drive into Rwanda

This is written as I sit on the deck of my cabin watching several black & white colobus monkeys in the tree across from me. Up at 4:30, breakfast at 5, left with Male, my driver, at 5:40. (Horrible road most of the way.) Reached the national park about 6:30, signed in, met the guide and one other tourist, Chrsty (we later met 3 or 4 of the “Chimpanzee Trek”) groups. Set out hiking in the dawn light, lovely bird song, no sign of chimps for a couple of hours. Then while we were taking arrest and listen break I walked up the road a ways to pee, and heard noises from a tree a ways farther on. Called to the guide, who confirmed it; we walked on up, circled the tree, finally spotted 3 adults and a juvenile way up near the top. (I’m so proud of myself – usually I’m the last to see or hear an animal.) We watched for a half hour, took several photos (which I’m sure I will delete now). I thought, “well if all we see is chimps high in the trees, that will be a pretty successful day.” Then they started down to the ground. They lay down near us to rest; we watched them for a total of close to 2 hours, then the guide suggested we look for other groups so we set off. We ended up seeing several groups, I was able to record two segments of chimp cries, we watched one other group for close to an hour, about 10 meters distance. Probably walked 8 or 9 miles during the day. We encountered 4 or 5 groups of the other type, the “Chimp Trek,” which starts later, does less walking (the drive to where the animals were last spotted) and all have at least 6 people; one had 8. Chrysty remarked to me that she was really glad we were on this group and I heartily agreed. Same effect as seeing the animals in Botswana: I don’t know if I can watch chimps in a zoo again. When they are in their natural habitat, free to do anything, go anywhere, they are vastly more interesting. Our job was supposedly to help the animals get used to humans so they are less likely either to flee or fight – but most of the ones we encountered were pretty tame. Only a handful kept moving away from us when we would try to get an interesting picture (but even they didn’t exactly run away. Amble away is more like it.) I had traditional local cooking last night – mashed up boiled green banana, a kind of pasty concoction of , a peanut sauce that made the other dishes a bit less bland, and goat stew (tasty but very chewy). I can see why cuisine from this region has never made the big time. Right now I’m eating a jack fruit Male got for me at a roadside stand yesterday – it is also on the bland side (a squirt of lemon juice would work wonders for it. It is subtle, very slightly citrusy; one could learn to like it I think. June 18 first gorilla trek Background: Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park was established about 30 years ago. It was plagued by poaching for some time but that seems to have been brought under control. It is now home to over 400 mountain gorillas, in families of 8-16 usually (but one is smaller for reasons I will explain.) The terrain is very steep and densely forested; the occasional clearing is dense with shrubbery and cane 4-6 feet high, including nettles and at least a couple of thorn-bearing shrubs (why they recommend leather gloves). The park also host forest elephants, who tromp wide “trails” through the forest and clearings – the reason for armed guards (to frighten, not kill). Gorillas are vegetarian with the exception of occasional termites; they eat leaves, branches, and fruits, sometimes climbing clear to the top of fig trees for the ripening figs. When I was there the forest was lush with nettles and a kind of cane the animals love; they spent most of the time we were watching them stuffing food into their mouths as fast as possible, then napping or (the juveniles) playing. They are rarely aggressive toward humans or indeed to anything other than other gorillas: The males fight over status and over control over groups of females. Once a male becomes the dominant member of the group, its fur turns grey, which is why they are called silverbacks. They are usually considerably larger than the females. The second status male in a group is called a “blackback.” Gorillas are susceptible to human diseases: We were cautioned not to cough or sneeze in their direction, to urinate on the ground not on vegetation, and if we needed to defecate to allow the guide to dig a deep hole first. A tourist with even a serious cold would not be allowed to go on a trek at all. Other warnings: We were not to eat, drink, or smoke in the presence of the animals. Generally we were to maintain about 7 meters distance although, in practice, when the gorillas were completely engrossed in eating or napping we were allows as close as 3 meters. If a gorilla approached we were to back slowly away but definitely not run; if very close, we were simply to freeze and stand perfectly still. On my second trek one passed very close to me, ignoring me as if I were a stump or rock. It was both bizarre and thrilling. A permit to spend an hour with these marvelous beasts is quite expensive - $600 in Uganda, $1000 in Rwanda. 20% of this goes to the local community; this, plus the fees and tips for guides, porters, and other park staff helps maintain community support for the park and for preserving the animals. The rest goes to park maintenance and to general infrastructure. In my view the park was in quite good shape. We met at the park headquarters, where we watched some traditional dances from various tribes in Uganda, then Gad, one of the guides, talked to us about the history of the park and about the dos and don’ts of gorilla watching (mainly, don’t get too close, don’t come at all if you’re sick, don’t eat in front of them). I was assigned to his group, along with seven other pretty fit people (because this group was going to visit a gorilla family last spotted high up the mountain, probably requiring several hours of hiking). I was worried about the 8 person group size (but as it turned out it really wasn’t a problem.) Tourist groups are allowed just one hour with the gorilla family, in order to minimize stress on the animals. Gad talked us all into hiring porters, because it provides employment – hence support in the community for preservation. I didn’t really need one; my pack isn’t heavy, and when I’m carrying it I scarcely notice it. However, I was glad I hired him, because I was able to hand my trekking poles to him and not worry about them while I took pictures. So we drove for 40 minutes over the pretty ugly roads (think secondary forest service roads) up the mountain, climbing the side of a beautiful valley. Uganda is generally very beautiful – very green, lots of tea plantations as well as banana and other fruit. As we neared the turnoff, the trackers stopped Gad’s vehicle and talked a few minutes; we ended up going to a different trail than planned, because during the night the family assigned us had started moving down the mountain. We got out, milled around a bit, met our porters and handed them our packs, and started single file into the woods. In addition to the guide, 8 tourists and 7 porters there were two guards armed with rifles – the park has a large population of forest elephants, which are often aggressive; the guards carry rifles to fire into the air to frighten dangerous animals off. “Fit group” indeed: we encountered the first two members of the family less than 20 minutes out; I doubt we hiked even 2 miles total. The viewing itself is… almost literally breath-taking. We watched the first two grazing on leaves and stems for a while, then went farther down the hill toward where two females, the silverback, and two immature males were – along with two 2 year olds, equivalent to a human 4 or 5 year old. The location was far from ideal – a mixture of several bushes and very small trees, some black-berry like vines, etc. But some of the bushes are what the animals love to eat, so that’s where you’ll often find them. The guide and the two guards whacked and stomped paths in the direction of the gorillas, and as they grazed their way through the shrubbery they wallowed down paths. We were allowed to approach much closer to the animals than I thought: At times I was within 6 or 8 feet of one or two. They seemed to totally ignore us. At first they each picked a bush, sat down in front of it and ripped off leaves and canes, stuffing them in as fast as they could. That was interesting enough, but then one lay down on his back and started “eating in bed.” The babies ate for a while then started playing. One climbed a tree, ate for a while at the top, then began a slow fall to the ground: I was lucky and caught most of that on video. Unfortunately the file seems to be too big to e-mail, since it’s been rejected twice. Maybe when I’m back in the U.S. I also got a video of the two babies fighting, rolling back and forth on the ground like a couple of human first graders. The experience was all I hoped it would be, and the hour went much too quickly – the guide almost had to send the guards to round us up when it was time to go. Part of the reason is that the kids started getting very playful just as the hour was ending. As with the chimps the other day, this experience has probably on both nature shows and movies and seeing primates in a zoo. Nature shows and movies tend to pick up on idealized and exaggerated activities and behaviors, and the behavior I observed in the wild is so different from anything I’ve ever seen in a zoo that you could almost believe they are different species. Fortunately I have one more hour tomorrow morning. Second Gorilla Trek This trek started out with a more satisfying hike, probably a couple of miles. 1.5 hours, but we went pretty slow both ways. This time there were only four adults – three females and the silverback, plus 3 month old infant. Because there was only one group of animals, and because they had nestled down in a thick brambly area next to a large fallen log, there were only a couple of spots from which you could get a decent line of sight (and take pictures) at any one time; it changed a little as the animals moved, but they didn’t move much. As a result, the large group (8 tourists) was much more of a problem – for this small a gorilla family they really should have kept the group size down, maybe 4 people. Otherwise is pretty interesting; unlike yesterday, it was easy to get a really good view of the silverback, who was badly injured in a fight recently – lost some fingers, huge gash on neck and shoulder. He survived, but lost half his harem, and is so badly weakened that it would be easy for an aggressive younger male to finish him next time. He didn’t move much while we watched, and indeed acted weak and sick. The group size was mainly a problem for seeing the infant, who was down between mother and silverback from soon after we arrived until only a few minutes before our hour was up – at any one time there was only a very narrow line of sight to him. I did manage to get a few photos. Also interestingly, near the end a couple of the females came up right next to where 3 of us were standing, and crawled off into a cave-like gap in the undergrowth where they embraced each other and made crooning noises; guide said it was a kind of yearning for the silverback to recuperate and copulate with them again. Later both of them ended walking back through the three of us; had I cared (and dared) to I could easily have petted one as it walked by – totally ignoring us, as if we were stumps or something. I was really glad I went twice, since the two experiences were quite different. This whole part of the trip has been very satisfying. I feel that I understand what I’ve read about both chimps and gorillas much better than I did before. June 21 The drive over into Rwanda yesterday was lovely, although the haze in the air limited the view. Crossing the border into Rwanda is particularly interesting. I think they’re freaked out both by the ebola epidemic in the Congo and by the attendant refugee crisis. So Male stopped the truck 50 feet short of the double gates at the border, and instructed me to visit the immigration office on the Uganda side. There I had to submit my passport to 2 individuals, each of whom separately questioned me then stamped my visa. After that I walked the 50 feet to the gate, passed through, went to a UN health agency tent on the left, where a young woman dressed in scrubs sprayed my hands with disinfectant soap, directed me to rinse them, while a computer readout announced my temperature, then sprayed a Clorox-smelling substance on my hands, then directed me to the police unit next to her. The police woman asked me some questions, scrutinized my passport, and directed me across the street to their immigration office. More questions, more stamps on my passport, and wait for Male, who is busy filling out his own paperwork. Finally the gate opened, he drove through and parked next to the police station, where I was directed to put my luggage on a table and open it. The policewoman rifled through it a bit, then sent us (finally) along our way. This whole time one other tourist vehicle, 4 locals on bicycles, and one pedestrian passed through. Heavy traffic indeed. For the golden monkeys, we started at the national park HQ, where over 30 people met a guide… my heart sank. Fortunately another guide came up and they split the group – but there were still 17 in the group I was assigned to. As I feared, that was way too many, especially in the dense brush, some up to 10 feet high; we kept getting in each other’s way, much worse than the second gorilla trek, although after a half hour the guide and trackers managed to find enough smaller monkey clusters to divide us up into almost reasonable-size subgroups. Before that happened, though, I almost got into it with a couple from New Zealand. It also helped when some of the monkeys came down out of the dense foliage in the tree-tops closer to the ground. From the negative to the positive: The monkeys are beautiful, active, with interesting behaviors. A high point for me with my interest in grooming: I caught 2 or 3 videos of two females grooming each other on a branch 12 feet from me, maybe 8 feet above the ground. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the golden monkeys but I’m not sure I’d recommend going to quite such lengths to see them – a full day driving there, a full day for one hour with the monkeys and the drive to Kigale, and then a full day’s flight tomorrow to Zambia. To be fair, getting to Zambia from Uganda might have taken most of a day as well. However, aside from the huge tour group size, I’d recommend it to anyone who is planning to be in that part of Rwanda for other tours.   A few words about this area. It’s almost all mountains, most (aside from the national parks) covered with fields nearly to the top – incredibly steep fields of tea, beans, corn, sorghum, bananas, yams, and closer to the national park itself, potatoes. Small villages string out along the roads – the main roads well paved but most of the roads dirt / gravel, badly eroded and very rough. Buildings are mostly dilapidated; half the population is dirt poor. I saw several women employed sweeping eucalyptus leaves off the graveled road shoulder – I shudder to think what they are probably paid. Everywhere you see people pushing bicycles, piled precariously high with stacks of potatoes or onions, bunches of bananas, sawn planks (they saw the logs into planks where they are cut) and other loads. The bicycle freight people work all day long, load after load, for the brokers who buy from producers and sell to consumers. We saw many women with infants strapped to their backs working in the 20 degree slope fields or carrying what looked to be nearly 100 pound loads on their heads. Horridly hard work – but it’s (barely) a living. About 2/3 of the kids up to age 8 or 9 wave and call hello enthusiastically as we pass. I’ve seen only one beggar (an old drunk who hit Male up for drink money) but the slightest show of interest opens the door to being hustled to buy this, that, or the other. A positive note; several NGOs (I was particularly impressed with one named, I think, Rescue The Women – I will check it out when I get home and contribute something) are working on training women and children in money-earning skills, including weaving baskets and carving the wood statues, bowls, masks, and walking sticks tourists will buy. I have some pictures of one of the craft schools. Saturday, June 22 Beginning of a long day. Security at the Kigali airport is really tight – they check both cars and people driving in, then do a regular security check on the way to the gate. The security guy looked askance at my Kind bars (maybe he thought they were laced with drugs or something…) Anyway, this is a chance to catch up with sorting and deleting photos, and cutting a few really good ones down for e-mailing. The hotel did a poor job with my GF breakfast; in spite of a long discussion last night, it had pancakes, a muffin, coffee cake, and granola (which often has wheat in it, alas). There was a banana and very small container of yogurt; I gave the rest to Male, who hadn’t had breakfast yet. Glad I brought all those Kind bars! End of a long day – ended better than it began, with a night game drive: male lion, several hippos grazing, a mongoose, followed by an excellent dinner. A hippo is snorting right outside my door right now – we saw it grazing on the lawn as I was being escorted to my room (no walking outdoors alone at night!) They have internet here at Mfume Lodge, the main lodge, but I won’t have access again for a week. I’ll send this before breakfast tomorrow and that will be it until I’m on the way home.   Weaver birds There are several species of these birds in Africa, not all as beautiful as these. All of them have pretty songs, however. They weave hanging nests of whatever fibers are locally available, usually long grasses, like these. The opening is always at the bottom, to render it less vulnerable to predators. The birds build their nests in colonies, sometimes all hanging from branches of the same tree (in Namibia trees are sparse; I saw one single tree with hundreds of birds clustering around it. In Rwanda trees are more abundant; as you can see in the picture nests hang from branches of several trees as well as from palm fronds.) Statue made of bamboo strips in a park where they celebrate the mountain gorilla. One of the volcanos in the background.   Grooming This behavior is common to virtually all social primates and many other social species. Many primates live in large groups and have complex social relationships, both horizontal and hierarchical. Grooming plays an important part in managing these complex social structures. At a purely functional level, grooming consists of picking parasites off the other animal’s skin as well as removing burrs. But touch itself is very powerful in other animals, as it is in humans. Grooming tends to release endorphins (hormones that reduce tension and create a pleasant, relaxed feeling that is very pleasurable), so grooming helps both create and strengthen bonds of affiliation (friendship and mutual support). But grooming also helps manage hierarchies: When conflict breaks out within a group, the winner often grooms the loser, helping to reduce stress and animosity. Primates in species with complex hierarchical social structures often spend as much as 90% of their waking time when they are not eating grooming and being groomed; that’s how important it is. Note that touch is also a powerful force in human relationships – when nurses touch patients frequently, healing is faster and complications fewer; children who are not touched, held, hugged, etc. frequently by caregivers and others almost always develop psychological disorders. Anthropologist Robin Dunbar claims that human language may have developed at least in part as a way to supplement and extend grooming: In his research 65% of all conversation is about relationships (not about “getting the business done”). Language triples one’s ability to maintain social relationships: you can talk with and “give strokes” to three people at once, but usually only engage in affectionate touch with one at a time. So, according to Dunbar, language allowed humans to triple the size of our primary social contacts, from around 60 to nearly 200. (However, the chimpanzee groups in Bwindi National Park total about 120 each, organized in smaller family groups as small as 4-8 and as large as 20 or so.) I got videos of grooming among chimps (it was hard to get good footage because of the relatively dense foliage) as well as some excellent video of both baboons and golden monkeys grooming.

Africa 2019 South Luanga Zambia continued.

Chindeni Camp, Day 2 Today started out well, with about an hour watching a group of baboons that included several juveniles and one 3 day old infant. The distance was too great for very good video but I got some really nice stills. Here is one of two 3 month olds in a tree; below, the infant and his mother. [I just heard the sound of breaking branches – looked over and saw an elephant grazing on a tree behind the next cabin over.] After a while we started our morning walk – very different from yesterday afternoon, this morning we saw and watched several elephants (at a respectful distance), impala, kudu, and baboons. It is really nice to see them from the level of the ground. After lunch, we drove to a different place where I could try to video a baby; I did get a couple of nice stills. The videos are shaky – hard to video with my Canon, and it was too distant for the iPhone. But here is a still that I think is rather nice. After that we had the usual sundowner – this time with popcorn, far preferable to little sausages. As dark fell we drove back; a leopard crossed the road in front of us; we tried to find him again to follow him but he was hiding. We did see a porcupine, quills all extended and lovely in the headlamps, a spotted hyena, which we followed for a few minutes before it disappeared into the bush, and a civet and its only other family member, a Back in camp, the chef prepared a meal with two salads, a vegetable, and a rice / vegetable dish as well as baked chicken; much more satisfactory. For desert he did an apple crumble which, the hostess assured me, was definitely gluten free. It was actually a bit light on apple but pretty good anyway. Day 3 Today started out very poorly. Apparently the crumble was not gluten free; I spent 3 hours on the toilet, 1 to 4 a.m., finally got another hour’s sleep. As I was awake, I thought about the fact that I had been experiencing low level diarrhea and mild stomach cramps since arriving in Zambia: Because I had come down with a sinus cold, I had thought perhaps I might have one of the viruses that affect stomach as well as sinus. But this experience – 4 hours after a meal – is definitely gluten. I decided that somehow their gluten-free flour must be tainted, and that for the rest of the trip I might need to avoid all baked goods, supposedly gluten free or not. On the other hand it’s possible they prepare the regular cake first, and may even use the same implements for measuring the flour. I clearly need to invest even more energy into communicating about it. For the first time I slept past 5; when the staff member awakened me at 5:30 I felt weak, tired, spent. (In effect, no dinner and very little sleep.) Got up, dressed, staggered over to the eating area; a cup of coffee began the process of reviving me. The elephant was over on the other side of the eating area, providing entertainment. Breakfast – I avoided the toast, did chance the oatmeal with nuts, dried fruit, and some jam as well as a large plate of fruit; it, plus more coffee, revived me even more. We drove out a ways, parked, and walked. Saw several elephants at a respectful distance, these two warthogs posing for a picture, this puku and African duck, a couple of Cape buffalo, and a green-wing bee-eater (picture on the next page.) At our coffee break, I had a couple of Kind bars, which further revived me: actually the walk did as much as anything to restore my energy. We had lunch (again, plenty of salad, a delicious lentil dish, tropical fruit) – so they did listen to my complaint about the meat to greens ratio! We drove over the next camp, and now I am sitting on the deck of my cabin overlooking a water cabbage filled lagoon with its own private rhino. I feel completely recovered and the lack of stomach cramping confirms my suspicion about the contamination problem. After lunch we went for a long walk along the river, didn’t see much new, but had a good walk, which ended at a surprise – a setup for a BBQ “sundowner,” gin and tonic and little spits of beef and veggies, all while seated in 5 inch deep flo,wing water in this tributary to the main river, which is free of parasites and because so shallow also free of crocs. Nice little party, quite lovely sunset. In the rest of the drive, we saw another porcupine, had a really good view of a civet and two genets (the only other member of the civet family.) I also learned that farm-raised civets not only provide a substance used in perfume, they are also fed coffee beans, which pass through their digestive systems and dried to produce one of the world’s most expensive coffees. I don’t know what they call it, probably something like Civet Poop Expresso. Zambia Day 4 Wednesday I talked at length with the manager about the contamination issue, she reassured me, so I decided to give their baked goods a try. Without the GF toast, breakfast would be very skimpy: I don’t trust the oatmeal; there were boiled eggs and some apples and oranges (I can’t believe the scarcity of tropical fruit! Even bananas.) No apparent problems from that or the little cookies they made for the morning coffee break. We drove a while this morning, saw a hyena and her half-grown pups, took some good photos before they walked off into the deep grass. A bit later we started walking; I learned several interesting things, including about another species of termite (harvester) and some additional multi-use plants. We came to some giraffes, which approached us instead of fleeing; seeing them from ground level was interestingly different. I took more videos of them walking, and later when we saw an elephant in a marshy area eating, I took a video of that. It would pull up a hunk of grass, shake it and beat it against the ground to knock off most of the dirt, then eat it. We had a brunch picnic under some trees; they had a pizza oven setup for people to make their own pizzas; they provided two pre-formed gf shells for me (9 inches: I only needed one). There was also a pretty nice salad, lettuce, cucumber, and avocado. Others ate a little, but there was enough left that I had a 2nd plate which pretty well filled me up. Now I am sitting on the deck looking out at the water hole – Harry the Hippo is gone, probably in a different water hole, so my main entertainment is lacking, but I have seen several visits from impala, kudu, and puku. There’s also some nice birdsong. The evening drive was a little disappointing, although we did get a really good view of a couple of honey badgers – beautiful animals with a wide greyish stripe down the back. We also drove through a group of four male elephants who did not seem thrilled to have us so close, but none of them bellowed at us. And we saw a genet just sitting in an open area; I took several photos in the spotlight; I think one or two might be sharp enough (thanks to the brace Shad put on the vehicle) to crop down to be usable. Back in camp, Harry the hippo is back, I gather from the splashing and occasional snort from the pond. I think he’s munching on the water plants again. Day 5 Thursday Today started with a walk along the Kapamba river, after crossing at the ford. Shadrack spotted a couple of male lion tracks so we circled around through the bush to get ahead of them; decided they were between us and the truck so started back after the usual coffee break. However, we didn’t spot them, so Shad followed the tracks out onto the sandbar and discovered they had crossed the river. Driving back toward camp we came across two elephants feeding. One reared up on its hind legs just as we arrived, to reach some high branches, but was back on all fours before I could deploy the camera. I got several pictures of him stretching to reach, but he refused to rear up for me again. We returned to camp for lunch (this seems to be obligatory), after which we drove to the next camp, Zungalila. The situation faces the Kapamba river, separated by a field where some Puku and impalas are grazing. I’ll miss the pond right under my deck at Bilmungwe. After lunch I took a soaking bath in the huge brass tub on a corner of my deck; very luxurious. It gets quite hot for about an hour every afternoon, about two to three, then cools down. They are also fixated on afternoon tea here, British influence I suppose, but it kills a half hour that could be spent observing animals. After tea we drove over to the area where we’d seen the vultures, and found a dead hyena, half eaten by vultures and quite ripe after 28 hours . Shad said he thought the two male lions we tracked had killed something, some hyenas tried to steal it from them and this one got killed. I let him know I was a bit pissed that he didn’t follow the vulture sign yesterday, as I requested, and emphasized again that I don’t care about lunch and tea and all that. He said he was afraid the other guests would have their lunch held up, and I pointed out he could have called the lodge and told them to eat without us! He’s generally a pretty good guide but way too fixated on schedules – at the outset the manager of Mfuwe lodge told me we could do whatever I want, including timing of meals, but it hasn’t worked out that way; this is about the third potentially interesting activity sacrificed for the rigid British meal and afternoon rest schedule. My irritation was largely assuaged on the drive back to camp (after the also obligatory “sundowner,” cocktail hour in the wild) when we spotted a genet sitting on the far bank of the river, and watched it walking along, in plain sight, illuminated by Shad’s spotlight, for a minute or two. Later we briefly spotted a bush baby (a very small primate, nocturnal and hard to see) and then saw another, clinging to a small tree trunk. This one let us see him longer, as he descended the tree, went up another branch, and jumped several times (20 or more times his body length) to nearby trees. He was shaped somewhat like a monkey, but with a head and face more like a cat, with pointed ears and distinctive black markings, very pretty. He moved way too fast to get any pictures. Zambia 6&7, Friday, June 28 Today started out with a bit of a surprise when we rounded a corner and saw a hyena in the road ahead of us, walking toward us. Then we saw some other hyenas in the woods on either side, and a second hyena joined the one on the road. I got some nice pictures before they both went off into the thick brush. After driving around a bit we walked around the vulture / hyena kill area to see if we could see any other signs of that fight. Nice walk; I learned some more interesting stuff about the plants. After our morning tea break, driving back we saw a huge croc just getting into a waterhole – submerged by the time I deployed the camera, but I did get some shots of a couple of other biggies farther away, and one smaller croc facing us with its mouth wide open. I look forward to seeing how those came out. We also watched an elephant crossing the river, wondering how he was going to climb the high, vertical bank in front of him. I got a video of when he realized the problem, turned around, and headed back toward where he started. I also got a couple good shots of a violet-breasted roller, a beautiful bird with bright blue as well. When they fly they’re even prettier, with bright blue underwings. Today was not as rich in animal sightings, although of course we saw lots of elephants, baboons, and impala, as well as other antelope species including bushbuck and waterbuck, and a few kudu (not as plentiful here). Mama and others helping the baby elephant up the steep bank. Note small elephants are totally wet; they had to swim, using trunks as snorkels. The night drive was better: It started out with few sightings, but then we saw a line of elephants looking like it was ready to cross the river, with one very young baby. So Shad decided to have the “sundowner” there, while we watched them. They walked up the bank a couple hundred meters until across from a sandbar, and walked fairly quickly across. The baby and one of the juveniles had to swim part of the way (it was ¾ the way up the big male’s rump), with their trunks up above water like periscopes. In this section one of the elephants trumpeted; Shad said probably a crocodile bit it’s tail – he showed me another elephant earlier with just a stump of a tail, the rest having been bitten entirely off. On the far bank, the baby and two other juveniles struggled for ten minutes or so to get up the steep bank onto the sandbar; the baby had to be boosted by two adults’ trunks. Several of the elephants lay down on the sand to rest before they were willing to go on. Above: the genet in the spotlight. Below: White-tailed mongoose After drinks, after it grew dark we saw another leopard in the road in front of us for several minutes, then a genet who displayed himself for a while as he foraged, two African weasels, and a white-tailed mongoose who foraged in a nearly empty field for some time while I photographed him in the spotlight – probably the highlight of the entire evening. When we got back to camp a huge herd of Cape buffalo had moved in to the large meadow between the lodge and the river; all night you could hear them snuffling and grumbling. Peter and Barbara, a couple from Toronto, were the only other guests at this camp. They were nice enough, but Peter had an annoying way of talking, like texting with multiple exclamation points at the end of every sentence. I wondered if he had taken a class on how to be load everything he says with intense, enthusiastic, positive emotion – he came off almost sanctimoniously cheerful. Barbara seemed to have a kind of dry sense of humor; Peter may have been semi-consciously compensating. Our interaction got a very poor start when I told them, in answer to his question, that I teach Communication and he exclaimed – oh, public relations?!!! I said no, and he came back with effusive praise for Marshall McLuhan (a Toronto-based ‘60s/70s media guru, lots of clever wordplay and absolutely no supporting evidence). I was once taken with McLuhan until I began to realize how empty it all was, just amusing word-play with no evidentiary grounding. Anyway, I just responded “he’s a gasbag,” which did nothing for amiable relations. Of course I regretted being so blunt, but Peter’s effusiveness left no room for a more measured and considered response. I haven’t mentioned the potato plant – in the damper air of morning and evening, it gives off a distinct scent of cooking potatoes. Also, the “go away” bird, with its distinctive “go ‘way” call. Saturday June 29 This was the best day yet. I got up early as usual, and while I was drinking my coffee the server pointed out a lion, which I would never have seen in the dim twilight on my own, maybe ten meters from the buffalo. I watched as the buffalo moved toward the lion and the lion moved toward them: abruptly the closes buffalo charged the lion, who retreated back to a respectful distance, then stood there for some time just eyeing the buffalo before walking around the herd and into the brush. Yesterday I had another talk with Shad about my priorities, and how I did not want the drive back to Mfuwe to be a direct drive there, and did not want to waste an hour and a half having their extended leisurely lunch, or stop the morning drive after lunch. I guess I should have been more forceful about it earlier (I thought I had expressed myself pretty clearly, but evidently not clearly enough!) He asked the camp chef to prepare box lunches for us, and in the actuality we stopped for 20 or 30 minute lunch break, didn’t arrive at Mfuwe Lodge until about 1:30 – then went out again at 3:40, exactly what I had expected every day to be like. African fish eagle – strong resemblance to American bald eagle [At Mfuwe lodge the manager asked my experience and expressed my frustration about it – actually my only point of frustration or disappointment with the experience. She kept saying “99% of people don’t want that” and couldn’t quite get that I wasn’t talking about 99% of people. I frankly doubt her statistics, although I’m sure that more people want to lounge around a good part of the day with a couple of 3 hour game viewings. ] I don’t clearly recall the order of all that we saw – virtually nothing until we had drive some ways from the lodge, because we had to drive through a kapani forest, trees the elephants decimate, with little forage for other species. We found and watched a troup of baboons for a while; one of the babies was white (a recessive gene I think) and very cute; I wouldn’t have minded watching him more but Shad heard alarm calls and wanted to check to see if there was a leopard. There wasn’t, but a bit later we came across a family of four lions; mom, a nearly full-grown male and female, and a smaller, younger male, all resting in the shade while we photographed them. During the day I managed to get a very nice photo of an African hawk eagle in the air, and another photo of an African fish eagle (previous page) also in the air, then a picture of a bee eater hovering above the river while the breeze carried insects to his hungry mouth. (That was while we were eating lunch at a shady spot on a high bank above the river.) There were several hippos in the water, two of whom I took pictures of while climbing out onto the bank. (It was a cool morning and many animals were just soaking up sun, warming themselves.) The picture above shows one of the hippos with a baby crocodile just this side of it. I’ve really enjoyed their almost constant chorus of grunts and chuckles. After lunch we spotted a lioness, nursing a single cub in the shade. While we watched she moved out into the sun, cub following her: She looked in really bad shape, thin, poor coat, decided limp. When I inspected her through binoculars I could see a festering wound on one paw, Shad said probably from hyenas driving her away from a kill. She didn’t look in much shape to kill anything again, and her cub suckled so intently, without playing at all, that it looked like her milk was inadequate. She’ll likely die, and if another lioness doesn’t intervene, the cub as well. Seeing them threw a bit of a pall on an otherwise wonderful day. Thinking about the elephant who had so tenuously started across the river, I asked Shad about quicksand. They don’t have it in the rivers, but Shad drove up onto a plateau, stopped the car, and led me to some quicksand pools in the center of a somewhat arid plane. There were several, each 6-8 feet in diameter. They are apparently the top of volcanic pipes, with springs rising up and evaporating, leaving a dry crust of 3 to 8 inches. We stood on the edge of one of the thicker ones and bounced; you could feel it bounce under you – a very queasy feeling. Another one had a large stick lying on it; Shad picked it up and, with very little effort, drove it through the thin crust into the soupy mud below, which quickly swallowed it up. There were animal tracks all around; very likely many many dead animals sinking gradually down most of the pipes. When we reached Mfuwe lodge a huge busload of tourists were unloading – what a zoo, then and at afternoon tea. This is the end of shoulder season, beginning of high season; people from China and all over Europe as well as the U.S. and Canada. Tea was a zoo. They had made a nice lemon poppyseed cake, and a smaller GF version, already cut (with what knife I can only guess.) One of the staff served a piece of the regular cake, while I went around to get a plate and fork; when she started to serve a piece of GF with the same serving implement (covered with sticky crumbs from the non-GF cake) I cried “don’t touch that!” I explained about contamination and served myself with the fork. There was such a horde of people around the table by then I just grabbed a couple pieces of fruit and headed off to a remote table. I had mild gluten symptoms later that evening and when I awoke; I think probably she had already cut the non-GF cake first then cut the GF cake with the same knife. The GF cake, however, was quite good. After tea, Shadrack quickly drove off away from the lodge, which was a very good decision. Among other interesting sights we spotted a lone hyena with a limp; through binoculars we could see it had injuries on two paws – and what appeared to be mange all up it’s throat and lower face. Like the lioness yesterday, the hyena looked to be in very poor condition, unfit for hunting and very likely hungry. We saw a couple of other (healthy) hyenas later, and another genet, which sat still for a long inspection and photo session. Sunday, June 30 – departure day I awoke with mild diarrhea – worrisome at the beginning of a 40 hour plane trip – but it cleared up before time to get on the first plane. At breakfast I noticed the server turning over regular toast then using the same tongs to serve GF French toast to me, more evidence of the casualness that probably caused my digestive issues. If I ever do return here I will avoid large resorts like Mfuwe Lodge – it is much easier to train up a smaller staff with fewer guests. I bought a small bag in the gift shop to carry computer, book, and earphones so I can put the other carry-on in the luggage bin and leave it there. Shad and I set out for a short (not even 2 hour) ride, which was nonetheless very satisfactory. Right out of the gate we saw two wild dogs, just beginning a hunt. Shad says they’re rarely sighted; he’s had guests who’ve come to Africa 20 times and never seen one, so apparently I’ve been very lucky. Then we saw a leopard who sat for photographs for a while before getting up and disappearing into the bush. We also saw a purple-crested turaco, then a second joined it. (above) Lovely green breasts, orange markings on the eyes; they did not turn their backs so I could not see the colorful back, but they did sit in plain view, which Shad says is unusual; he hears their call a lot but rarely even gets a glimpse of one, since they like dense foliage (and blend in well). So the day started out very well indeed. No sightings on the way to the airport, but we stopped at a native handcraft store where I picked up a couple of thing. But on the flight back to Lusaka we stopped at a little dirt airstrip (Zeki); while landing crossed the Zambezi River, and I saw several pods of hippos in the water and on land next to the river, as well as some elephants. Shadrack. Shadrack and me at the river picnic. We mostly got along very well. Shadrack has a skewed sense of humor similar to mine; we joked about all the elephants that bellowed at us, about my forgetting one thing and his forgetting another, many small funny things. He is very knowledgeable, imparts knowledge in suitably small bites so I never felt overwhelmed; has a good sense of the animals, so I ended up (partly because of his tracking skill, partly through luck) seeing everything I wanted to see and being able to watch several animals for several minutes or in some cases an hour or more. My main frustration was his insistence on adhering to the breakfast / morning tea / 11 am brunch / 4 hour rest / afternoon tea schedule. The managers all told me I didn’t have to stick to schedule; could set my own schedule, but until the last day he simply refused to do it – more concerned about the kitchen staff, I felt, than about me. A second minor annoyance was failure to explain some decisions, like abandoning the chase for the wild dogs the last day; when he pointed out they had gone into dense brush plus all the vehicles chasing them, I fully agreed. But mostly, I fairly quickly learned to trust and rely on his judgment, and enjoyed the time with him. Shadrack’s brother Mishack manages the last camp where I stayed; they look much alike, although vocal intonation and expressions differ quite a bit. I don’t know if there’s a third brother, Abednigo, or not. Coda: getting home The Kenya Air flight to Nairobi was delayed an hour and a half – enough that they closed the gate on the KLM flight just as we were landing, at 12:05. There ensued a comedy of waiting lines: one to get approval for a voucher for a hotel stay, one to get through passport control, another waiting for the actual voucher, and finally (at 2 am), one for an actual room key. I finally got to bed at 2:20, with the bus back to the airport expected at 5. 2 hours of very solid sleep and a hot shower later, I was sitting on the bus waiting for other stranded passengers (at least 30, some for my flight, some for a flight to Paris). Then the bus stopped at three other hotels, eating up more time. A mile or two short of the airport, there was a police check; we all had to get off the bus and go through a security screen, then find our bus again in the melee of busses and cars. I write this sitting in the waiting room for my rebooked flight to Amsterdam, on Kenya Airlines (a “partner” of KLM and Delta – a system that works rather poorly at best). Kenya Airlines does not have comfort plus seating, so I’ll have to hassle KLM to get that money refunded – and I’ll have to spend 7 hours in a cramped coach seat. I finally talked the cabin crew into allowing me to occupy a bulkhead seat with wonderful legroom – they said I’d have to pay for it in Amsterdam, but no-one met me at the gate. My hunch is that the staff in Amsterdam saw that I had paid for it already – so I won’t have to hassle KLM about it. The flight to Minneapolis was fairly good. I had also paid for a bulkhead seat there; they seated me in a center seat in the no leg-room section; I complained about it, and managed to get moved to an aisle seat, still no leg-room but at least not jammed between two people. I will have to hassle Delta about the $109 I paid for leg-room I didn’t get. [It turned out not to be a hassle; the agent regularly agreed to refund it. Delta is back in my good graces. Not KLM.] My seat-mate was a nice young woman; we chatted the last two hours into Minneapolis. She was a ballet dancer in high school, now applying for medical school. Showed me some videos of her dancing a couple of studio pieces; she was very good, danced the sugar plum fairy in Nutcracker, but already plagued by arthritis in her toes, reluctantly gave it up. The flight to Portland, still no leg-room, aisle seat in a row of 3, fortunately the center seat was empty so I was able to stretch out in that direction a bit. Dead tired, I was actually hallucinating the last hour into Portland (would see some shape out of the corner of my eye, think it was something else; other perceptual oddities). Slept well in spite of severe leg-cramps from sitting for 70 hours straight – very glad to be home. I managed to get a slightly blurred picture of a baboon in mid-jump and a better one of an impala in mid-jump. The exaggerated jump, like the practice of “stotting” (vertical stiff-legged jumps) may be a way to demonstrated to any watching predators that this impala would not be easy to catch.

Zambia: South Luangwa National Park

First day started out well (after a night of good sleep, interrupted intermittently by Hippo snorts and grunts). Pleasant slightly cool morning, chef made good GF muffins and French Toast for me, plus a dish of fruit made a nice breakfast. In a moving car I needed a jacket, but when it stopped I was too warm. We started out watching some of the multitude of hippos in this river, most back in the water as the sun came up; also saw Cape buffalo and a couple of leopards – they’re much more common here than in Botswana. Waterbuck are also plentiful; this is a particularly nice one close enough for a good photo, near a small waterhole with several of these colorful storks and a juvenile crocodile, maybe 6 feet long. A herd of elephants were parading toward a waterhole so we drove there and took a number of nice photos and a couple videos of the elephants drinking. We had a bit of excitement a little later; came across this mama elephant and her half-grown calf, along with another couple of elephants and these impala. Shadrack (my guide / driver) decided that we should take a closer look at the cow and calf, so he drove on to the road behind them, drove up to the point where we had a good view and stopped the vehicle. Mama elephant did not appreciate our presence that close to her baby; she gave a loud trumpet and charged. Leonard (the park service guard with us) raised his gun (to shoot in the air to scare her off, not to shoot the elephant) but she stopped less than 10 feet from the car, swayed, flapped her ears at us, and glowered for a minute or two then turned and ambled on away from us. My heart rate picked up a bit, and I didn’t get a picture (or a recording of her trumpet) – too busy scooting to the far side of the vehicle. We saw one more new animal, a local variety of giraffe, shorter neck and legs than the ones in Botswana, and darker color (Shadrack says that’s a sign of age.) The morning concluded with a brunch picnic in the shade of some trees next to the river. Apparently they get a lot of British clients, since brunch was “Full English Breakfast” – I would have far preferred something lighter focused around fruit and cheese rather than beans and fried mushrooms! Both for lunch and for dinner, they had 3 meats, 3 starches (all with plenty for seconds) and one each of vegetable and salad (with not enough for more than a small serving). Now I am sitting on my deck listening to birds and watching a kingfisher (I think) catch and eat minnows. This is winter in Zambia; nights get cold enough to need a jacket, days only a little hot, for a couple of hours in the afternoon. On my deck, In the evening we went for an informative walk, then drove to an open area by a river with a number of hippos in it and elephants on the far bank for a “sundowner: -- gin and tonic, with some sausages. (I am really getting overdosed on meat – spoke to the hostess about it; she promised to talk to the chef.) After the cocktail hour, we drove through a lovely sunset meadow; I took a few pictures, one of which nicely captures the mood. Golden light, impala and yellow baboons feeding in the meadow. As it was approaching dark, we spotted a leopard, stopped to watch it. It was obviously eying a herd of impala a few hundred meters across the meadow. The light wasn’t good enough for pictures, but with the help of Aubrey’s (the spotter) spotlight, I got these pictures of the leopard stretching and setting off back into the woods. Shadrack was confident the leopard was going to circle around through the woods and try to get one of the impala, so we circled around for a bit, trying to get in front of him; found him again, watched him stalk the impalas, drove out to the herd to be in position to watch the attack if he attempted it (by now it was totally dark). The impala only glanced at us and were all looking intently in the direction of the leopard. After another half hour or so Shadrack decided there was not going to be any action that night, and we went back to camp, where I changed into clean clothes for dinner. Again three meats, all bbq, chicken, think pork chops, and beef steaks, some small thin-walled half squashes (about 1 or 1.5 tablespoon of flesh in each), a cornmeal dish eaten by the natives, and a skimpy bowl of cole slaw, about enough for a large tablespoonful apiece. Instead of taking all the meat up when it was done, they waited to serve it directly from the grill so the pork steak in particular was overcooked and dry. (I only had that and the chicken.) For dessert they served everybody but me what looked like either cheesecake or some kind of custard pie; they set a small green apple on a plate in front of me. It pissed me off and I almost got up and left it there and went back to my room but I didn’t want to spoil the evening for the others, so I cut it up and ate it without comment. I did speak to the hostess this morning; today’s lunch was a vast improvement, cold ham & pineapple, a nice cucumber and avocado dish, oven fry potatoes, rice, and a large salad (at last!) We’ll see what happens at dinner.

Luangwa days

Impalas, nervous, start at slinking leopard scent. What will happen next? A spotted beauty, the genet stops in the light, returns to the dark. Baboons groom and play, an impala strolls by, reflected in morning still pond. Elephant dips her trunk, snorts and splashes, hippos grunt, birds warble and scold. Hyena, two pups. She eyes us warily, then slinks into tall grass. Waterhole drying, wading birds hover, probe, seek: feasting on trapped fish. Prints in sand, two lions. We circle around, no prints: we know where they are. Didn’t find them: track them to the river. We had a very nice walk. Monkey fruit tree, bark strychnine-laced, ripe fruit good. Caution is advised. Fish eagles soar, white head and tail backlit by sun: haiku in the sky. Crickets greet the dawn with bird cries and hippo grunts – how still the morning!

Costa Rica 2017

Comments – CR Trip Turtle project – interesting and educational; one day was sufficient. Delfines was comfortable, except that there is no place to walk or do much of anything (heavy traffic on the paved road; the lane too muddy for walking after about ¼ mile). Managers very nice, food basic but good. I would not stay there again except maybe as a stop on the way to somewhere else. El Remanso – very well run place, friendly competent staff, comfortable room with a good view, excellent tour guides. Two full days was enough, though – not much to do. We had the impression it was right next to the national park, but it isn’t, and after you’ve taken a couple of tours and walked the handful of trails, that’s it. Crystal Ballena – pretentious architecture, badly over-priced restaurant. Chintzy box breakfast – LaJean did not eat the bread; I had to take the flour tortilla back to get something I could eat. Room very comfortable with a lovely view. Otherwise, more glitz than substance. The drive to Sierpe for the two tours, 50 minutes each way, was too much. There is a hotel at Sierpe which would have made much more sense – we could have started the tour 2 hours earlier, reached the national park earlier for better conditions, and probably saved a lot of money on the hotel. The tour of Corcovado was great, but would have been much better with an earlier start. Excellent guide, nice tour of some of the waterways in the wetlands. Cano Island was a disappointment – mainly, I think, because of the recent heavy rain, but also there were about 50 tourists snorkelling in a very small place. It would probably be better in the dry season when the water is clearer. The boat trip back was good because we got to watch some spider monkeys for a half hour. La Cusinga was excellent – comfortable, a more reasonably priced restaurant. However, it was extremely difficult to find in the dark – small sign, impossible to see with headlights from on-coming traffic; I ended up going way past it on the way back from the night walk. Villa Blanca – comfortable but overpriced. Also more glitz than substance. They advertise as a wedding site, and the price / quality ration shows it. Meals good, but both chicken and fish overcooked and dry. Waiter screwed up LaJean’s order the second night – but the manager didn’t charge for it so that was okay. Not much to do. The tour was a disappointment – few birds, no mammals, but some interesting new information about plants. Not much to do, and a horrible road served as a barrier to go elsewhere. I would not go back here, and would not recommend it. Tours: The animal and bird tours at El Remanso were both great. Corcovado National Park great – would have been better if we’d stayed at Sierpe and got a much earlier start. Dave would have enjoyed camping in the park for a late afternoon and early morning tour (some people had done that – tents still up when we arrived), but LaJean would not have wanted to camp out. The Private mangrove hike in Hacienda Baru was good (although the guide seemed unenthusiastic compared to the others, he was very knowledgeable). The twilight part of the “twilight tour” was interesting, but when night fell I wish I’d said “enough” – that was the only time mosquitoes were a problem, and there really wasn’t much to see after it got completely dark – a couple of spiders, a tarantula, one frog. I enjoyed night hikes in the Peruvian Amazon and even more in Madagascar, but I wouldn’t do another one in Costa Rica. Getting around: A nightmare, and the main reason we won’t even consider going back. There are few road signs and the ones there are aren’t very helpful. Google Maps works intermittently, and the instructions were unhelpful. It ended up taking over 6 hours to drive from Uvita to Villa Blanca, because we ended up going all the way to San Jose, then ended up going all the way to San Luis. (We missed the Villa Blanca sign, mainly because the one at the turn is a different color and design than all the others.) Traffic is ghastly. The Costa Ricans we met were all charming and gracious – except when behind the wheel of a car when they become brutally aggressive. We were almost run off the road several times; came within inches of fender-benders a half dozen times. There is no place to pull over to look at the map and figure out where we needed to turn. No route number signs, no signs to San Ramon. Signs are a problem everywhere; small signs for hotels (non-reflective paint), very few road signs; the desk clerk at Villa Blanca did not give adequate instructions – everyone seems to assume that you know where you are going already. Many parts of the trip were wonderful, but the horrible drive to San Ramon, and the almost equally horrible drive back to the airport (no instructions on how to find the rental car return; when we called the agency the instructions we got were still incomplete and we ended up driving halfway downtown because if you miss a turn you’re screwed) – the last 3 days more or less spoiled the entire trip. We were shocked at prices – Crystal Balleno and Villa Blanca restaurant prices were as high as some of the best restaurants in Portland, higher relative to quality – and I know their labor costs are no where near as high. We drove to another restaurant in Uvita that was more reasonably priced – but still about what we’d pay in Portland for a similar priced meal. Golfo Dolce – Turtle project Nice day today, warm & humid, occasional showers. We went on a turtle tagging expedition with LAST (Latin American Sea Turtles) – a marine biologist and two RAs. The Golfo Dulce (named for the fresh water that pours in from rivers all around) is a long narrow inlet, mostly stagnant, but the sea turtles enter the gulf to feed on very short sea grass along the shallow margins. The project was to catch, measure, weigh, and tag sea turtles. The day started with laying out a net (specially built with large mesh to minimize by-catch) about 100 meters off shore. Then we and the two RAs were put ashore; the biologist and boat driver went back out to watch the net and wait. The turtle is pulled aboard and placed on a large plastic mat, padded around the perimeter, with straps to restrain the turtle. We all gather next to the boat and four people grab handles to carry the animal onto the beach where is gently laid down on a couple of old bike tires, to keep it up from the hard sand. Two people measure while one records and two others hold the flippers (to keep the measuring crew from being swatted.) First the top shell is measured, front to back then across the widest part. (Three of every measurement are taken, for accuracy.) Then the turtle is turned over. If it’s not large, it is “pancaked” – two people grab the front flipper at the shoulder, next to the shell and lift it; a third person at the tail end swings the tail under. If it is large, one person sits beside it and it is lifted up to lean against that person’s lap while one person holds the flippers and two measure. The bottom carapace is also measure front to tail and side to side. Then the tail is measured, first from the edge of the carapace to the tip then from the cloaca to the tip. (That helps determine sex.) Then the turtle is turned back onto its belly. If it does not already have a tag (like cattle ear tags) on its front flipper, one is put on – it’s like an ear piercing, and obviously a bit of pain. Finally, if it does not have a radio transmitter chip, one is implanted with a long needle – another bit of pain. Then four people pick it up again and carry it knee deep or more into the surf, and release it. One bit of a bummer – walking up the beach between turtle sessions, I found a dead baby turtle (33 cm. long) lying in a grove of mangroves. It had obviously just died – no smell, and the biologist reported, no rigor mortis, and when she took a tissue sample the blood was still liquid. She measured it on the spot, then bagged it up and took it back to do an autopsy on it. We stayed and watched – very interesting. It was completely healthy; good tissue color and texture, no parasites, no obvious explanation for why it died. At the end of the day we pulled the net up and, halfway through that operation, found our third turtle, a very healthy green turtle, which we took back with us to measure. It was a pretty interesting day; we were both glad we went along for the ride.

Hiking in Switzerland

Hiking in Switzerland
The plane from Madagascar to Paris flew almost directly over the route I will be hiking; looking down I noticed the high passes still seemed to have quite a bit of snow on them Alpine Hikers told me most of the passes are clear enough for safe passage, but one might be impassible – however, with two weeks before I reach it they thought it might clear.
The trip from Berlin to the first stop, Schwarzwaldalp hotel, was uneventful – beautiful scenery, a very slow bus up the mountain that cost an astounding 27 Swiss Franks for a 40 minute ride. The road from Meiringen is very steep and very narrow – like a Forest Service road with good pavement; whenever two vehicles meet one has to pull almost completely off the road and stop; sometimes one has to back up a ways to come to a suitably wide spot. The drop-off is steep enough to be rather scary for much of the journey. Schwarzwaldenalp is set in a virtual pasture, a green meadow that leads up to a modest but steep and rocky hill. It has the qualities of a rustic ski cabin – my room is so small it was very challenging to sort out my belongings and separate what goes in the suitcase with the transfer driver and what I carry in my backpack. Dinner was quite good, and ended with a lovely fruit salad topped with sorbet made from black currents – definitely something I want to repeat.
Slept well – there is a small but very steep and noisy stream not far from my window – that and the sound of cow bells were lovely. Cow bells accompanied me all the way up to the pass and along the high path, across two gondola paths to a clear mountain lake, then down to Grindle… At first the sky was quite cloudy – but as I neared the top of the pass enough of the clouds cleared that I had gorgeous views of several famous mountains including Eiger and Jungfrau. They played hide and seek behind the clouds most of the day; otherwise it was a lovely walk, wildflowers everywhere, warm enough that I finally unzipped the legs of my hiking pants to turn them into shorts.

Thursday, July 7
My room in Grindelwald was very nice – had a balcony with a good view of one of the mountains.
Today dawned warm and sunny – great day for a hike. At the advice of Alpinhikers I took a train up to Alpiglen – 2000 feet above the valley floor – to start the hike there. The train is narrow gauge, driven by a cogwheel that engages a center ratchet rail. It was packed with tourists – not one of whom got off with me at Alpiglen. Also at the advice of Alpinehikers I took the Eiger Trail – it switch-backs steeply up at least 1500 feet, then continues to climb slightly less steeply toward the base of the Eiger Face, which it parallels for a mile or so, just beneath where it gets vertical. Spectacular views – although from that bottom perspective it doesn’t look nearly as high as it actually is.
Following the directions, and not realizing until too late that an alternate trail provides a potential shortcut, I walked down to the pass, Klein Scheidegg, where my way to the recommended alternate trail (across the railroad tracks and down) was blocked by several hundred tourists queueing up to pay $50 or so to ride up to the restaurant on a shoulder of Jungfrau – tour guides were guarding the only passage through the fence, and I had to shoulder my way to the front and pretend I was part of a group from India to get through the gate and cross the tracks. That having been accomplished, it was a very nice hike through woods and meadows, with many spectacular mountain views along the way. It ended with a steep descent, over 1500 feet, to the level of Wengen, which is a small tourist village perched on the edge of a glacial valley, about 1600 feet up from the valley floor. (That descent is how I will start my day tomorrow.)

Saturday, July 9. My knee was not happy with that steep descent, so I decided to take the train down to Lauterbrunnen and walk from there. I also bought a knee brace, and dosed myself liberally with motrin. All that worked – my knee actually felt better when I reached Obersteinberg. They day was somewhat cloudy, but quite pleasant for the walk. For the first couple of hours the peace and bird-song was disrupted every half hour by helicopter racket, but as I entered the upper part of the valley that faded, leaving only bird song and cow-bells. The valley is a typical U-shaped glacial valley, close to 2000 feet deep, with sheer walls and frequent waterfalls, many of which would dwarf Multnomah Falls.
Eventually I headed up the very steep – but well-maintained – trail to the top of the canyon, where the pastures are merely steep, not vertical. (I feel certain Heidi did not suffer from acrophobia!) As soon as I broke out of the forest I found myself sitting in a meadow with a spectacular view of one of the Tschinglehorn, beyond the end of the valley. It was a lovely, idyllic place to have lunch and rest my feet. After a half hour, I continued on – the trail still had close to 500 feet to climb to get to the level of the family farm / mountain inns that line up along the top of the canyon. Steep-sloped (if they had snow on them I wouldn’t ski down them) lovely meadows with cows and sheep, frequent barns… Finally my trail joined the main trail, shortly before hotel Tschingelhorn, where several hikers were enjoying drinks and lunch on a lovely terrace. Unfortunately, lunch tends to be sandwich and pizza, and I can’t drink the beer, which is what I really want. Another 45 minutes through meadows (some almost level, although 20-100 meters back the meadow slopes steeply uphill toward a spine of sheer rock 800 feet above the trail.) I finally came to Obersteinberg, a rustic, mostly stone two story farmhouse/hotel that dates to the beginning of the 20th century and boasts a fantastic view.
I had an apfelsaft – carbonated apple juice, closest thing to a beer I could think of, checked in, the walked back along the trail a ways to a semi-secluded little meadow on the edge of the steep drop-off, where I napped for a while, then did some pushups and stretches and wandered back. Eventually I realized that the trail continues on along a more or less level stretch toward the end of the valley so I followed it for 35 minutes, past the end of the glacial valley, a box-canyon actually that ends abruptly in a wall of 1000 foot cliffs. Another half hour would have taken me to a small glacial lake at the foot of a glacier, but I had waited too late, and my knee didn’t want to climb the final 150 feet or so.
Dinner was rather odd. The innkeeper assigned tables – instead of putting me in one of the empty seats next to a window (I guess she thought the couples seated at all the window tables would not want an intruder) she stuck me with a family of four women and two young boys. She served a salad of simple lettuce leaves – good but plain – then brought the main course; rice and a kind of meat stew for everyone else, a plate full of crisp but somewhat oily hash browns for me, with one fried egg and two very thin tomato slices on top. I asked her if I would have any meat and she explained that the sauce had flour in it so I couldn’t eat it. It apparently never occurred to her to hold back a half pound of the meat and just fry it in a frying pan. No dessert, fruit, or anything.
Breakfast was downright skimpy – bread for everyone else, three rounds of puffed-oat cakes with jam for me, one small piece of cheese apiece for everyone – about an inch by two inches by a quarter inch. That was supposed to sustain us through 10-12 mile hikes. Fortunately I carried lots of snack food! I have mixed feelings about Obersteinberg. It is a neat, historic old inn, in a spectacular location, easy to find solitude and absolute quiet (except for songbirds and cow bells). However, the innkeeper made absolutely no attempt to accommodate my dietary needs – cooking my portion of meat without sauce could not have been that great a challenge.
The day broke clear and beautiful today, so I took the high route, up to the foot of the huge rocks that line the ridge. It was rather vertiginous – a somewhat narrow trail cut into the side of a hill so steep it would qualify as a cliff if it did not have grass and flowers growing out of it – don’t dare turn an ankle or stumble, because it wasn’t self-evident that you’d be able to stop from rolling or sliding down and over the cliffs below. The view is spectacular, but I didn’t look at it until, a mile and a half along, I came to a place where the slope eased off and the risk of a fall slighter. Then I came to a trail that leads up a very steep slope to an almost level flower-strewn meadow, 700 foot climb but stunning both for the mountain scenery and for the flowers. I sat there for a half hour, ate the one fruit-nut bar I’d carried up, then slowly ambled back down to where I’d left my pack, sitting down to enjoy and photograph the flowers in several spots along the way.
The rest of the trail wound along through meadows and finally ended a wooded area, where it turns steeply down – and becomes gravelly and treacherous. Fortunately it is not so steep that you can’t take really short steps, which reduces the strain on knees and other joints. Still, nearly an hour later, I was glad to be off it and back on a (relentlessly) sloping upward gravel road that leads to Murren. Along the way I saw farmers out in the steep meadow, recently cut, where they were turning the hay by pitchfork (much too steep for any farm machinery, I think). I also saw several meadows filled with triangular structures about six feet high, a post sunk in the ground with two other posts bracing it – these are placed there to slow the movement of snow down the slippery grassy slope and reduce avalanche risk. I had wondered about avalanche – I can’t see how snow could ever not slide down those slopes, and apparently they get 7-10 feet a year.

Sunday July 10
This second day in Murren was scheduled to be a take it easy, rest up day – a nice hike on the bench above Murren laid out. Beautiful weather; I started out at a nice stroll, stopping to take pictures even though the sun was still on the wrong side of most of the mountains. Around 11 I came to a junction with a trail that led rather steeply up toward a ridge; I didn’t know if I wanted to work hard enough to go clear up but decided to see. I headed up, and after thirty minutes, about halfway to the ridge, came to a level grassy meadow, containing the bottom of a ski lift. I decided that was high enough for a take it easy day, so took off my shoes, put sun block on my feet, and spent a very nice hour and a half – ate some snacks, did some stretching exercises, took a half nap (head propped up so I could see the mountains across the canyon – principally, Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau. A few other people exerted enough effort to get to that idyllic place, but we spaced ourselves out enough for a feeling of true solitude.
Other highlights of the day: coming upon a herd of cows all jingling their bells; a symphony of bells with Eiger in the background. Lots of lovely flowers. Loitering long enough to get a photo of Eiger with at least some sun on the north face (not visible from Murren). Low-lights: a biting bee-like insect (it left huge patches of blood) forcing me to zip my long pant legs back on and spray with bug repellant. Coming across a youngish woman who had fainted in the trail – several people were with her, shading her from the sun while the medics arrived by helicopter – and I assume took her away. Someone said heat – although it was not a particularly hot day. But if she’s not used to high altitude and has not been drinking enough water (and eating enough salt), dehydration is certainly a possibility. I haven’t heard if she was all right. Otherwise it was a lovely, peaceful day – and I’m optimistic about the weather for tomorrow.


Tuesday, July 12
My luck held just a little longer – yesterday dawned clear, warm, and lovely. I was able to get breakfast at a quarter to seven and head up the road before 8. The trail climbs steadily until it reaches the end of the ridge, where it goes up what seems to be about 800 feet of switchbacks – then it runs almost horizontally for a mile or two, across a steep meadow to Rotstuck Hut, a café and guesthouse located almost at the end of the canyon, at the foot of the Sefinenfurke pass (sort of like the Last Homely House). The predicted clouds had not yet begun to form, but I still wanted to get up over the pass as early as possible, so I went on ahead. Along the way, at one of the many fence crossings I overtook a couple of young me (Germans or Swiss, I’m not sure) who paused, I think studying their map, while I walked on ahead. I also passed an older man, who didn’t appear too happy about the sudden steepening of the trail. I never saw him again – I don’t know if he gave up or if he eventually made it over the pass. By now the trail was quite steep again, winding among boulders until it came up to a shoulder with a good view of the pass itself. Still no clouds, so I stopped here to take off shoes and socks and let my feet have a rest while I had some water and a fruit-nut bar. Just as I was leaving the rest stop the two young Germans caught up with me – I think they also stopped there for a rest, because when I looked back a couple of turns later I didn’t see them. I came to a turn of the trail from which it was possible to see the entire pass and the trail leading up to it – it was obvious that a large snowfield still lay just below the pass, fairly steep and at least 100-150 meters in length. But I knew several hikers had successfully negotiated it so I pressed on.
When I reached the snowfield it was as steep as it looked – over 40%, steep enough that a person who slipped would likely slide all the way to the bottom – and possibly crash into the rocks at the bottom. On the other hand, the snow was soft on top – soft enough to dig in at least 3 inches with a good hard kick, and there were still depressions from previous hikers to kick into. Looking behind, I noticed the two young Germans had reached the bend from which the snow-field was visible. Apparently they were waiting to see if I made it before coming any farther.
I climbed up almost to where somebody had strung a rope from the pass; the snow got steeper, and a little harder, but with a firm kick I could still get a pretty adequate toe-hold, so I proceeded to climb up to the rope, which I used for a while – I’m not sure how much it helped, though. Another 20 meters and I came to a section of rock the rope crossed, but it was pretty crumbly – looked like disintegrating shale, not good footing at all. So I stayed on the snow, and worked my way around the crumbly rock to an area that appeared to be part of a switchback on the (mostly buried by snow) trail. I pulled myself up onto it, and the footing seemed pretty solid, so I walked the remaining 20 or 30 meters to the pass. The young men were still watching from the curve in the trail. I sat down to rest and take a few pictures – thought about stopping for an early lunch but it was not even 10 – 3 hours after I left the inn. I did have another fruit-nut bar and take some pictures, including a picture looking back down the snow-field, with Eiger, Moengh, and Jungfrau in the background. Another hiker came up from the other side and we chatted a while, then both went our respective ways.
I was delighted to see the Swiss had built a long, very sturdy staircase up over the steepest and trickiest part – so I descended maybe 200 feet on a long, long series of stairs. Getting down through that crap would not have been fun.
The first part after the staircase section was still quite steep, not steep enough to be seriously dangerous but I still wouldn’t want to slide. Finally I came out of that broken rock to a reasonable meadow – not really flat, but flat enough that I could sit and take my shoes off to give my feet another rest – I also found a spot near enough to thistle-free that I could do a little badly-needed stretching.
The rest of the climb down from the pass was the normal Swiss hiking experience – a very steep descent through lovely (but almost vertical) meadows, with cowbells and bird-song. Although one weather site had been adamant that there would be a thunderstorm at 12:30, clouds didn’t even begin to form until I reached the Inn. After checking in and having an Apfelsaft (carbonated apple juice, almost as good as a cold beer would have been) I took a walk down to see the Wildwasserweg – an incredible place where the glacial melt (thick grey soup) has carved a narrow canyon through the limestone, so that a series of waterfalls are in a long sinuous crevasse / cave – very impressive. I took a few photos which I will upload to my photo-blog.
Finally, about dinner time it started to rain. then, about bed-time it started really storming. Because the weather stayed nice for so long, I had begun to entertain the hope that the forecast stormy spell might dissipate, but it was not to be. It stormed all night long, and I awoke this morning to dense fog and light rain. The rain stopped long enough that, along with an American couple who were also staying there, I got a nice walk down the Wildwasserweg to a village about 6 miles farther down the valley, where we caught a bus to the train station and a train to Kandersteg.
The weather forecast still calls for at least two more days of heavy rains, thunderstorm, and fog – as I sit in my hotel room in Kandersteg I can not even see the hill a quarter mile away. So I decided my hike over the Sefinenfurke pass would have to be the premature end of my Swiss adventure. The forecast for Amsterdam between now and my flight home is sunny and mid-70s; a lot more appealing than thunderstorms, heavy rain, highs around 40 and possible snow flurries.
I was disappointed to miss the last three days of the planned hike, particularly the Hohturli pass (9000 feet – not even to be considered in this weather). But it was a great adventure, a great series of hikes.

Madagascar

Madagascar
The day started with a 4 a.m. wakeup and a 6:55 flight to Diego Suarez. There we were greeted by our guide for the next 3+ days, who guided us past the customary airport pandemonium. We drove for close to three hours on a government route, most of which was full of potholes, some big enough to hide a VW beetle. We passed hundreds of small shacks, and passed through two different towns having their weekly market day / fair; streets jammed with people selling, buying, and just seeing their friends. All very colorful. Many of the shacks have vendor stalls in front, offering fruit, soft drinks, and green coconuts. We stopped at one and bought a coconut each – they shave it down to the nut, cut the end off so you can drink the mildly sweet juice. Then they whack it in half and cut a thin slice of the husk that you use to scoop out the thin layer of coconut flesh, still gelatinous inside the shell. It is quite a treat on a hot day. Here in the north of the country it is much warmer than in the central highlands – it felt like it must have reached close to 90 during the day.
We arrived at the resort area in time for lunch – a stir-fried vegetable dish, skewers of zebu, rice, and coconut chicken (like Thai curry but with very little spice). Then we picked up a spotter and headed for the Ankarana national park for animal and rock formation viewing. At the very entrance to the park we encountered a family of crowned lemurs feeding on a couple of fruit trees (African dates). We took some photos then walked on through a really nice tropical forest. Along the walk we saw three other species of lemur, tufted brown lemur, the closely related Sanford’s brown lemur, and the sportive lemur, a nocturnal animal who hides during the day – sometimes, fortunately, in view of our camera lenses. Some were pretty high in the trees and hard to see, but we were able to get quite close to others. One sportive lemur was hiding in a hole in the tree trunk, with only his head showing, but another clung, only partially hidden, in a half-hollowed spot about ten meters up the tree.
We also did some hiking through the limestone formation that forms a huge part of the park, called Tsingy – a sea of grey rock formations with sharp tops and weird formations that resulted from sulfuric acid rain after a volcano eruption about a million years ago.
The resort where we are staying is comfortable, a double and a single bed consisting of foam mattresses on a platform, nice and firm. It was quite warm but with the help of a fan we managed to sleep pretty well. Dinner was unexciting to say the least – I had rather stale tuna and Eric had unexceptional curried chicken. Wine was $11 for a pitcher that may have contained 2/3 liter, very poor quality and very expensive after the great wines we had in SA.
The second morning we went for a longer walk in the same area, but went further, to a hanging bridge across a canyon in the limestone formations that led to a nice overlook across an expanse of the rock. We saw more lemurs as well as a small pale snake and two gekkos, one green and one very dark, almost black. In the tsingy field we saw a couple of species of euphorbia, also poisonous. According to the guide lemurs can also eat the euphorbia as well as another plant that produces cyanide – researchers have not yet determined how they neutralize the poison or whether it protects them from parasites.
After lunch and a rest through the heat of the day we went to a different part of the park, where we watched a family of half tame lemurs at the edge of a big campground (unoccupied now but probably heavily occupied later in the season). Then we walked through the rain forest to a huge pit where we descended about 135 steps to the entrance to a fascinating limestone cave – lots of bats of three sizes, then deeper in the cave some lovely stalactites, stalagmites, and columns.
Dinner was quite a bit better the second night – shrimp in a nice oil and garlic sauce with rice, a tomato salad, and a fruit salad for dessert. By the end of the second day I had 269 pictures of lemurs – obviously some weeding will be required. They are lovely animals – in their behavior they remind me somewhat of a cross between a house cat and a small monkey. Lemurs are abundant in Ankarana National Park – the only real threat is criminals who sneak in to harvest hardwoods, and pressure to open the park to prospecting for sapphires, which have been found nearby. However, several NGOs are active in promoting alternative ways for local people to make a living without further incursions into the park.

On Thursday we drove to another park, in the rainforest atop a mountain overlooking Diego Garcia and the bay. It was considerably cooler up there, and quite muddy from several hours of rain in the morning. We walked through parts of the park Thursday afternoon and again Friday morning. In addition to several species of Gekko and Chameleon, all unique to this island, and some frog species unique to this island, we also saw a family of tufted brown lemurs in a large tree next to a picnic area, where they were feasting on the new tender leaves and flowers of the tree. They were so intent on their feeding that we were able to get quite close to them and took some nice pictures. The chameleons we saw included a representative of the smallest species in the world, a tiny fellow about an inch long. I have a picture of Eric holding it.
We stayed in a B&B, The Litchee Tree, that was a strange combination of elegance and Spartan bad design. It occupies an early 20th century French mansion with a sweeping view of the bay. Our room was large, with a large double bed and a single bed, all very cozy. The electricity was on only from 5:30 p.m. until 10:30, and there was not a single plug in the room for recharging camera or cell phone batteries. The bathroom had a lovely pottery sink - and no place to put soap in the shower. The owner ranted so much about tourists wanting wifi that Eric didn’t even ask about it. Dinner was quite good – a simple but elegant frittata followed by a delicious fruit salad. However, the wine list was on the ultra-high side; the cheapest bottle in the rack was over $35.00 (we had become used to excellent wines in South Africa for $5-6.) Very odd place; I don’t know I could recommend it.
Finally on Friday we drove back to Diego Garcia where we had a great lunch in a posh hotel – both of us dressed in our muddy hiking clothes. A great crab salad, different from what I expected – potato and other vegetables instead of lettuce, followed by squid strips sautéed and served with some mixed sautéed vegetables. All very good. Then we were taken to the airport for the flight back to Tana.

A word about the countryside. I have already written about the terrible roads. People live along the roads in small villages and a couple of larger towns, mostly in quite small unpainted shacks. All along the road are little stands, often just a table with a makeshift roof of boards or palm leaves. Some sell soft drinks, some sell fruit – maybe two or three kinds, or just green coconuts which they chop off for you to drink the juice. Many sell bottles of lemons or other food pickled in lemon juice. In the towns, these little stands line the streets, with different wares – cloth, rope laid out in long lines for inspection, meat, various garden produce, live chickens, light hardware. We drove through on a market day when two of the larger villages were filled with people, most of them dressed in their finest clothing. Some of the young women were wearing jeans and t-shirts, but some were wearing lovely African print skirts. Our guide, Simon, explained that these are mostly married women, who are expected to dress more elegantly and traditionally. On special days they choose skirts with sayings that match the mood of the day – happy sayings for a wedding or festival, somber sayings for a funeral. Everywhere you see women, and some men, carrying surprisingly large and heavy loads on their heads. The women in particular, almost all the women of any age, seem to have a well-developed sense of style and elegance in their dress and carriage.
In Diego Garcia, you see many men on foot pulling rickshaws and rickshaw-like wagons loaded with freight. You see oxcarts everywhere – more in the countryside, but some in the city as well. You also see groups of peoples sitting more or less idly in front of shops and houses everywhere, city and country – the unemployment rate is quite high, and most people get by with a series of brief jobs, and by selling whatever they can to each other. Our guide talked quite freely – if discreetly – about the corruption which is a drag on the entire society. It is apparent that the owners of vehicles who use the roads for commerce would save enough money on repairs to pay for fixing and paving the roads – but Simon says that they would be unlikely to find anyone they could trust to give the money to, so everyone evades whatever taxes there are.

It rained most of the way to the highlands, eased off once we arrived at the resort, then rained again. The highway is much better maintained than the one we drove on in the north – this highway connects the capital with the major seaport, on the other side of the island, so more money is spent on maintenance.
We had lunch on the veranda between bouts of rain – fairly good shrimp salad and a meat dish.
We checked in to the hotel then walked around the local village, which was quite interesting in itself. It was built about a hundred years ago, initially by soldiers from one of the colonial wars, then became a railroad town. The houses are of wood, mostly unpainted and small, though there are still some houses from the colonial era. Streets are muddy and lined with small stalls, like the highways. As we entered the main part of town we saw a man with a table, on which squares were numbered 1-6; he was shaking a cup with three die in it; children who looked as young as five or six were placing bets on the squares. Shops sold raw meat, whole chickens, vegetables, fruit, dry goods of various sorts – all hanging or lined up on small tables; most shops were perhaps ten feet wide.
The highlight of the day was the night walk, before dinner, that lasted 6-8. We picked up a national park guide, John, who is very good at finding animals of all sorts – three species of tree frog, two of chameleon, and two lemurs. The rain stopped and the sky briefly cleared; we walked along the paved road, which was good considering the weather. At the very end he found a mouse lemur in a tree only a few meters from the road.
Wooly lemur: A whole family in a tree, most half obscured by branches. One near the top completely visible, but inactive – feeding on leaves, not moving much. Another lower down on a large branch we could see better. Fairly large (the largest of the nocturnal species), and definitely wooly, white stripe on the legs makes them more visible. Erect posture; unlike other lemurs we’ve seen they don’t go upside down – we saw the lower one climb down the branch; she climbed down tail first, like a human would, rather than head first like the other lemurs.
Goodman’s mouse lemur: the one we saw close at hand was stocky, short neck, large head with dark markings and pointed ears which, along with the huge eyes, made it look rather like an owl. Larger than a mouse, actually – more the size of a small squirrel, maybe 4-5 inches long. It sat for a remarkably long time while the guides shined bright flashlights into its eyes and we all admired it, then scurried off into the dark forest.
Frogs: White-lipped tree frog, actually with an entire white underbelly – a bit smaller than our familiar leopard frogs. A leaf-green tree frog a bit larger than a 25 cent coin, which flattened itself to the thickness of a coin as we inspected it, and a brown tree frog with a gold belly. Remarkably, John saw the small green tree frog from across the road – we had to get a few feet away from it to see it, even with him pointing it out.
Chameleons: two very small chameleons, one almost white.
We finished the walk with a half hour left before dinner, so detoured for a stroll through the village and a stop in a village night-club – a shed with thatch roof and concrete floor with a local band playing through a bank of about six oversize speakers – most of the people inside were men and boys, from maybe 6 or 8 into late 20s, a few young women but not nearly as many as men. Outside the door was a makeshift merry-go-round filled with kids having a great time – sitting on benches that look like park benches, fastened to a round wood platform suspended from a pole in the middle that was sunk into the ground.

Sunday morning we got up to rain. We had a scheduled walk in Montavidia National Park. We drove about 10 km, over an hour, to the park gate, then another 5 km, another hour, into the park itself, over a road that resembled Hunt Road, where I grew up, in the early 50s before it was covered with adequate gravel, after a heavy spring snow melt and two weeks of rain. John, the park guide, commented that forests and roads don’t go together – if a good road is built, people quickly cut down and steal the valuable trees (including Rosewood and several other species of valuable hardwood) and the forest disappears.
We had barely entered the park when John spotted some bamboo lemurs at the roadside. Madagascar has an indigenous species of bamboo that grows very tall and bends over in an arc, almost touching the ground, with small clusters of leaves every couple or three feet. The bamboo lemurs disappeared pretty quickly – Eric managed to get a couple of shots first, using my waterproof camera. It was a good sign.
Halfway to the parking place, John spotted a golden sefaca lemur – second largest on the island. It stayed around while I took several photos of it, with Eric holding an umbrella over me and my camera, then made a spectacular leap, or rather drop, down to a lower branch, followed by a lateral leap to another branch where it disappeared. As the name suggests, it is a brownish gold on top, a paler color, almost grey, underneath. It looked big enough to weigh 80 pounds but Elperon, our guide said it weighs about ten kilos. The difference suggests a pretty thick fur.
We reached the muddly parking area and began our walk, in a light rain that intermittently increased to heavy, then decreased to a near stop, then started again all day long. We walked up a long rather slippery hill – I was glad I’d brought the trekking poles, one for me and one for Eric. The parks people have done a good job with stone stairs on the steeper parts, but the tree roots were wet and slippery, and the clay soil slippery in places. We stopped after about ten minutes to watch a family of common brown lemurs in a tree – we tried a few photos but they were pretty far away with the sky behind them – I mostly just watched them through my binoculars until they dropped down beneath the level of intervening brush. We climbed on up to a viewing platform where we took a few pictures while John went out looking for lemurs. Elperon told us most tourists would not make it that far – they took us up to the viewing platform only after seeing that we took the slippery steep trail in stride. He later told me he and John had discussed me (in Malagasy of course) and wondered at the fact that I am still an active vigorous hiker at my age. (I encountered that kind of preconception throughout the trip.)
We rambled around in the mud and rain for another hour or more, as the rain slowly soaked through my rain jacket, without seeing anything more of note. When I realized my shirt was feeling a little damp I put the iPhone into a ziplock and the Canon into a larger plastic bag to keep them from being damaged. Eventually John decided we weren’t going to see any more so led us back to the road, about a km from the car. He commented “we may see something on the way back to the car.” He was right. About halfway there he spotted a small group of red-bellied lemurs, which are quite rare (Elperon said he hadn’t seen any of them for over a year.) Eric and I both took several photos as the lemurs moved from one tree to another – unfortunately no photos of their spectacular jumps from tree to tree.
Back at the car we took our sack lunches to a shelter near the car and ate them. We had encountered several other tourist groups, most of whom hadn’t seen any lemurs, although the group who shared the shelter with us had seen a ring-tailed lemur, which we have yet to see. The rain increased, so we picked our way through the mud back to the car to drive back to the lodge and try to get some of our clothes dry. John said we would drive slowly because we might see something along the way – and once again he was prescient. On the way back we saw another bamboo lemur on one of the curved bamboo stalks. This one sat still while Eric and I took a dozen or more photos, then jumped down to a lower branch where it sat for another five minutes while we took more. John said this was a good thing about the rain – they tend to be more still when it’s cool and rainy; without the rain we might not have seen any at all.

The night walk was even better than yesterday. The rain eased off, and finally stopped when the walk was about over. This time we walked along a forest trail; began by spotting three of the four chameleons active in this area, a very small one, the stumptail chameleon, named for its unusually short tail, a larger green one, Parsons chameleon, a juvenile of a species that as adults is the largest in this area, a whitish one that turned brown as we watched it called the elephant ear chameleon because of its large ears that lay back along it’s neck, and one called the Satan chameleon because of its horn-like points. We caught a brief glimpse of a mouse lemur before it descended rapidly from its tree and disappeared, then watched two wooly lemurs for five or ten minutes. Finally, near the end of the walk, a virtual miracle: a mouse lemur crouched on a small branch maybe 5 feet from the trail, looking at us with its huge eyes while we took dozens of photos, a few of which actually turned out. It has a very cute face, small mouse-like ears. After a while it moved to a lower branch, stared at us for another minute or so, then disappeared into the brush. As we returned to the parking lot the clouds cleared and stars came out – a perfect evening.

Our last full day here was brilliant – but also made us feel that we had timed our visit pretty well. The clouds cleared somewhat, and it rained only a little during the morning, not at all during the afternoon. On the morning walk we spotted a group of brown lemurs fairly high in the trees – ended up barging off through the bush to get a somewhat clear shot – I only got a few worth keeping; Eric managed to get a few more. Then we spotted a couple of golden sefaca lemurs high in one tree. I got several good shots, looking upward so all I got was butt and tail, with a couple of shots with a head, looking over its shoulder. About then several more groups showed up and we were surrounded with over a dozen people of various nationalities, most with no sense of being silent etc. – getting into position for a better shot through the trees was almost impossible. The guides suggested we move on and leave the sefacas to the crowd. Along the way my hat got knocked off my head by a low branch – I picked it up and put it in a pocket but it dropped out again and I thought I’d lost it.
We walked through the woods – lovely in the morning light, for another hour or so, hearing the calls of the indra all around us – the guide said they are territorial calls; they sound somewhat like whale songs although shorter; they carry for a mile or more. After a while John left us to go out scouting through the brush; he came back and led us along a faint trail through thick brush, up one very steep, muddy incline and down another – very difficult walking on sometimes slippery clay; we were very glad of the trekking poles. I was also glad of my previous hiking experience, which helped me find footing on the difficult terrain.
We finally came to a spot from which we could see two indras. As we watched them we realized one had a young baby with her – we could occasionally see the face of the baby as it peeked out from under the mother’s arm – Eric managed to get a couple of very good shots of the baby – I only got one because at just about that time my lens got fogged up inside the outer cover, which can’t be removed. Fortunately, the fog cleared away after about a half hour.
The lemurs decided to move off – it is a marvel to watch them leap sideways 15 or 20 meters to another tree, then a second, then a third, almost effortlessly. When they had gone the guide led us down another even steeper and more slippery trail into a ravine, and up the other side to a point where we could see three of the lemurs. We watched them for a half hour, taking some recordings of their calls, before clambering back up the hill to a better trail and walking back to the trail.
After lunch we drove to one of the other resorts that has a private reserve called Lemur Island – a fair-sized patch of forest surrounded by a rather narrow canal (shallow moat, perhaps) wide enough to keep the lemurs on the “island.” We got into a small plastic canoe, which a guide paddled across the water into a slip, where we got out. While he went back to the guide a welcoming committee of common brown lemurs approached, walking along the handrail beside a walkway above the rather moist ground. When the guide appeared (with a sack of cut up banana pieces) the lemurs swarmed all over us (literally), climbing on shoulders and outstretched hands, looking for their reward – a small piece of banana. After a bit some other tourists showed up, and our guide led us to another boat landing, where we boarded another plastic canoe to be ferried across to yet another island, where we could also see golden sefaca lemurs in the trees, and black and white tufted lemurs, also in the trees, as well as the rather shy bamboo lemurs (about the size of a house cat) and hordes of common brown lemurs. We stayed there, close to the landing, while they came to us. The golden sefacas did not actually clamber onto us like the black and whites and the common browns, but they did come down close enough to pose with us.
The bamboo lemurs are odd – they do not like to be touched, and seem somewhat fearful about coming too close, but they clearly want to be part of it – even when there are no bananas to be begged (and they don’t seem nearly as enthusiastic about the fruit as the common browns – they prefer to munch on bamboo leaves and grass, but they stayed fairly near, within a couple or three meters. The golden browns are more enthusiastic; several climbed up and perched on us; one adopted Eric and perched on his shoulder for almost the entire time we were there, an hour and a half or more, playing with his hair and his beard, sometimes with his hat, and at one point his glasses (he took them off and handed them to me.) Another one climbed up on me and sat contentedly on my shoulder, occasionally licking my shirt (by now, after three days in the rain forest, probably quite nutritious). From time to time he would lick my hands and nibble on my fingers in the way a pet cat often does – at first it made me a bit nervous (their teeth are sharp) but the bites were very gentle and restrained, again like a pet cat or dog. At one point a couple of black and whites joined the fun, climbing up onto our shoulders for a photo-op. In the background, the larger lemurs, especially the black and whites and the golden sefacas, would occasionally do a round of jumps, from one tree to another four or five times in a row.
The experience was sublime – a nice rounding out of the Madagascar experience. First we saw the lemurs and various lizard species in their natural habitat, natural behavior, sometimes quite distant and occasionally close enough for a really good look. Then we had the extended play and photo session with the half-tamed lemurs on lemur island. It was very nice – even nicer because the rain had stopped and we could enjoy it more or less dry.
The next morning we had planned another walk but Eric discovered his flight was that day – a day earlier than he had originally thought – so we had to leave for the drive back to Tana (Antananariba) right after breakfast.

Overall assessment: We were both very glad we decided to include Madagascar in our itinerary. It is a beautiful island, with wonderful people. Contrary to my preconceptions, it is as much or more Asian than African – the first settlers came from Indonesia, and half the current residents are of Asian descent. The culture is also a blend of the two. The situation faced by the lemurs and many other animal species unique to Madagascar is not as dire as I had been led to expect, although they are certainly under pressure, especially from logging and mining. The guides we encountered are very committed to preservation, and they happily speak of the many NGOs involved in the work.
Poverty is, as we expected, widespread. The forest areas are characterized by very traditional farming – ox-drive plows or human labor to till the soil; very little evidence of any labor saving machinery anywhere. In the cities as well as the countryside, unassisted human labor seems to predominate – everywhere you see the human-pulled carts, often loaded with hundreds of pounds of freight (and occasionally with another person riding on back along with the freight.) In populated areas, every bridge and every stretch of river or creek that can be easily accessed is the site of women doing their wash in the river, and usually spreading it out to dry on riverside rocks or grass. Women and a few men are seen everywhere carrying loads, often what appear to be quite heavy loads, on their heads. The main means of transportation is walking, sometimes four or five miles to the nearest market town, carrying goods to sell in to town, carrying purchased goods back, usually on the head or back, or sometimes in a person-drawn or occasionally ox-drawn cart. The houses in the countryside in the warmer north are flimsy shacks of thin boards with thatch roofs; in the cooler central highlands they may be made of compacted and dried mud or concrete, even though wood is the more traditional building material. Aside from the main highway, paved and kept up because of its role as a connector to the seaport, the roads are pot-holed dirt roads, some showing signs of having once been paved; streets of the small villages are mud.
The experience of seeing these remarkable animals in their natural habitat is incomparable, as it was in Africa.
It appears that we arrived just before the opening of high season – the last two days we found many of the forest trails crowded, and Elperon tells us that for the truly high season, late September through October when more animals are out and the weather is dry and warm, you need to book accommodations a year or more in advance. That may be a good thing for preservation – the more people depending on eco-tourism, the more support there is for preserving the wild basis, but inevitably the nature of the experience will change. We felt very lucky to be able to observe the animals in their natural habitat and generally enjoy the rain forest as a place of quiet and solitude.
Here even more than in the rest of Africa, avoiding gluten was a problem – compounded, perhaps, by the fact that Eric has a mild allergy to lactose, which seemed to confuse the issue. Very few people understand these issues; they often overgeneralize, assuming I can’t eat dairy products, or eggs, or rice, or even French fried potatoes. My French pronunciation is not good (I have never mastered either the nasality required for most French words or the particular rhythm and musicality of the language) and comprehension is made even worse by waiters’ inability even to conceive of someone wanting a meal sans ble’. Eric, who does much better at least approximating the nasal intonation, could sometimes achieve at least a limited comprehension – at least of the language, but not reliably of the underlying need. I never felt entirely confident that what I was eating was entirely free of a bit of flour.