25 hours, 41 minutes, and 3 seconds of taxi brousse riding...

all to see Ranomafana National Park. The trip was worth every second of it. Niall, our male accompaniment and protection, fell ill (we think to an amoebae) the morning we left, so Alice and I began an all-female adventure into the heart of Madagascar with backpacks and a travel guide book. We stayed in Tulear on Wednesday night and bought supplies before catching a taxi brousse on Thursday morning to Fianara, about 10 hours northeast of Tulear. Just before pulling out of the station, a woman came by selling small croissants, so we decided to buy two apiece for the road. After much discussion during the ride, we’re still unsure of what transpired between me and the croissant seller; somehow, we came away with an entire shopping bag of pastries and significantly lighter wallets. Such was our first of many interesting miscommunications during the trip, all of which entertaining to anyone who happened to be nearby.

There were at times up to 18 people in our 14-person, 14 year-old van, but I managed to hold onto my window seat to take in the stunning countryside for the duration of the trip. We travelled across the spiny dessert where octopus trees tilt toward the sun into a savannah-like landscape where giant baobab trees line the road into rolling green mountains marked with stair-stepped rice fields and finally to our destination, the tropical rain forest. All the towns were celebrating Independence Day on Thursday, so we drove through a number of school parades, zebu sacrifices, and evening bonfires. The road trip alone was stunning.

We settled into a small hostel in the actual village of Ranomafana, nestled into a narrow valley, before heading to the natural hot springs for which the village is named. (Ranomafana literally means “hot water.”) We relaxed for a few hours in and around the hot pool before deciding to hike the 7 kilometers uphill to the park entrance. We wanted to hire a guide and prepare for the following day’s hike. Halfway up the hill, since as we weren’t sure how late the park office stays open, we made a joint decision to flag down a ride...as long as they looked, well...trustworthy. Sorry, Mom and Dad. I know hitchhiking is bad. Fortunately for us, the next car that happened by was a woman driving solo. She stopped, and as it turns out, she is a British researcher employed by Patricia Wright, a famous American researcher from Duke University who established the national park in 1991. So, yeah. We got a sweet, informational, free ride to the park gate, where we hired an “English-speaking” guide named Roddy. I say “English-speaking” because he didn’t speak English, but he was knowledgeable about all the flora and fauna. We decided to go on a night hike since we were already at the park gate, and then to do a long hike the next day.

We succeed on our quest for lemurs! On the night hike, we saw 7 or 8 Brown Mouse Lemurs, which are one of the smallest species of lemurs. They’re actually really cute, like a mix between a mouse and a kitten. Alice caught one to take back to Australia with her. Just kidding. The woman who gave us a ride to the park would have come and killed us in our sleep. We also saw a Striped Civet on the prowl for lemurs. He was beautiful and came surprisingly close to us. Unlike the day hike, we saw quite a few other people in the park at night, one of which was a college-aged girl who was wearing a Florida Gators shirt. Fortunately, I happened to be sporting a Georgia Bulldogs shirt. We joined up to make an all-SEC team for the rest of the hike, but of course, we politely parted ways at the end of the night. The day hike was spectacular as well. We encountered one Golden Bamboo Lemur, which are rarely seen by hikers, two Red-Bellied Lemurs, two Sifakas, which are the second largest species of lemurs in existence, and one Sportive Lemur, which is another nocturnal species. He woke up from a nap to peak out and say “Salama.”

We also passed a set of moss-covered rectangular rocks hidden away from the trail that we asked Roddy about. He told us that they were century-old “memory stones.” For the tribe in the Ranomafana region, burying the bodies of family members below a marker is fady, which means forbidden, or taboo. Instead, families erect stones of all different sizes, each according to the size of the person who died. There is also a stone significantly larger than the others, about 10 feet high, that symbolizes the family’s ancestors. A one-time ceremony is performed over each memory stone in which a zebu, which is a Malagasy cow, is sacrificed, and its blood is poured over the new memory stone as an offering to the ancestors. The small plot of stones we encountered belonged to an important family from several generations past. After he explained the custom, I noticed quite a few memory stone plots on the way back to Fianara. After a picnic lunch beneath a towering waterfall, Roddy led the way out of the primary forest back through the secondary forest to the park entrance. We were disappointed to leave the lemurs behind.

We encountered two Malagasy guys who were on their way back to Fianara and who happened to have their own car, so we rode back to town in style with an entire backseat to ourselves. The driver’s name was Allen, and he was quite the chauffeur. He insisted on stopping in every town between Ranomafana and Fianara to show us around. In one of the smallest villages, we watched a group of men make rice farming tools from old railroad tracks.

Now we’re back in Ifaty, working hard in the water. I dove yesterday afternoon and today, after giving a presentation on the Mullidae, Nemipteridae, Pempheridae, and Pompacanthidae fish families. Tomorrow we’re training for the seagrass survey, which we’ll complete on Thursday and Friday, since the tides will remain extremely low. I’m glad to be back; the Indian Ocean waited patiently for our return. In we dive! Until next time...