Madagascar's beauty draws avid photographers
Madagascar, several hundred miles off Africa's southeast coast, is a fascinating and ruggedly beautiful country.
It is the fourth largest island in the world, behind Greenland, New Guinea and Borneo. It also is one of the 10 poorest countries in the world. Nevertheless, accommodations are comfortable, clean and affordable. The cuisine consists largely of combinations of rice with fish, chicken, beans or pork. Residents are friendly and eager please the 250,000 tourists who visit each year.
Madagascar once was a colony of France, so French is the predominant language, but English is widely spoken. Cellphone service is good, and satellite-TV dishes are everywhere. Our party was able to use phones and laptops in most locations.
Because of its isolation, Madagascar is a trove of biodiversity: 90 percent of its wildlife and 80 percent of its plant life are found nowhere else on Earth. My photo tour visited many parts of this spectacular country, highlighted by these locations:
- Morondava has Baobab Alley and beautiful beaches. Baobabs resemble gigantic palm trees. Local people use the bark for roof shingles.
- Kirindy is where we enjoyed a rare sighting of the predatory, catlike fossa and learned about Madagascar's reforestation projects.
- Tsingy has remarkable limestone formations that resemble serrated knives. The area is rarely visited by tourists because of its remote location and punishing dirt-road access (eight hours each way), combined with challenging treks to reach the viewpoints.
- Berenty is home to the spiny forest, sifaka and ring-tailed lemurs, radiated tortoises and chameleons. The vegetation is especially interesting here because almost all species have spines. The sifakas are fun to watch as they jump across roads and soar from tree to tree.
- Masoala Peninsula has geckos, mouse lemurs and spectacular tomato frogs. Boat rides through this lush area are as enjoyable as the challenge of spotting the well-camouflaged chameleons and poisonous frogs.
- Tana, the capital, is replete with crowds, robberies and muggings. It is a city of many hills and features mostly French architecture that reminds one a little of New Orleans' French Quarter, but with a decayed twist. Visiting Tana is unavoidable because it is the hub for the famously unreliable Air Madagascar.
- Lemur Island is home to several species of habituated lemurs and the rain forest where indri lemurs live. It is not hard to see the indries, but they stay high up in the trees, precluding good photographs or appreciation for their size and athleticism. Think of them as the middle linebackers of the lemur world — big, brawny and very fast, with exceptional jumping ability. They are as big as pandas and almost as rare.
- La Mandraka Estate offers spectacular opportunities to photograph geckos, chameleons, colored mantilla frogs, insects and snakes. The colors of the reptiles are stunningly brilliant — red frogs, bright green or yellow geckos and chameleons. It is a highlight made all the more fun because of the attentive guides at the estate, owned by a biologist who exports exotic animals.
Madagascar is a must-see for the experienced traveler or photographer.
The writer lives in Phoenix.
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