In the Know Traveler » Madagascar

Camera Talk: Madagascar

Sarit Reizin — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 21:16:18 +0000

Madagascar is a photographer’s paradise. Its creatures and colors are so otherworldly, even an experienced photographer might have a difficult time capturing it all with a click of their extra powerful and super sensitive apparatus. As an armature photographer, it pained me to visit such a magical place and be held back time after time by the impotence of my pathetic photographic equipment and my own lack of experience as a photographer. Beauty was all around, but I failed, at first, to capture it with my little point-n’-shoot, and it frustrated me to no end. I had a choice: leave the masterpieces to the artists, or become one myself. I chose the latter. Embracing “Experimentation is the key to innovation” and “Practice makes perfect” as my general rules, I set into the rain forest ready to hang upside-down, if necessary, to get the perfect shot. And what do you know, it worked!

The wonders of the digital age allowed me to fast track experiments that would otherwise take days, if not weeks, and I was able to learn from my mistakes right away, evaluating my work right there on the little screen, and adjusting the settings on my limited equipment enough to get my own masterpieces.

For more about Madagascar
For US Travel take a look at our new In The Know travel site

Born in Ukraine, raised in Israel, and acquiring her higher education in the US, Sarit Reizin is proud to call herself a citizen of the world. However, to stay worthy of the title, she felt a nomadic lifestyle was in order, and in November 2005 left the comforts of the first world with no desire of coming back any time soon. http://HopStopTravel.com

Baobab Alley

Sarit Reizin — Wed, 27 May 2009 19:33:48 +0000

Madagascar’s Baobab Alley is probably the most recognizable place in the whole country. Sadly, local children have been spoiled by tourists. The children have figured out a long time ago westerners want to take their picture but the kids are no longer interested to see their own image on the digital screen. Well, at least they are not faking it.

“Photo?” they come and ask as I photograph the baobabs. I take their picture, show it to them and they keep on walking. Instead they grab me by both hands, on each side, and walk with me singing a rather forced sounding “Frère Jacques” until we reach the end of the alley and a stand selling fruits of the baobab. There they stand in front of me in a line. I had three cookies remaining from today’s breakfast and I gave each child a cookie. One boy didn’t want to share and grabbed an extra cookie intended for a little girl. Adults intervened, and the boy reluctantly had to part with half of what he thought was his rightfully deserved bounty.

Taxi-Brousse Spécial

Sarit Reizin — Tue, 26 May 2009 23:58:45 +0000

Ah, the taxi-brousse, the punishment I must endure for being able to see Madagascar’s marvels on nobody’s but my own schedule and trying to absorb, though not suffocate in, the local culture all at the same time. I kid myself, of course, I am bound, if not imprisoned, by the schedule of the taxi-brousse. My time here is not infinite and I must move on when it obliges to peel its over-packed self off the bus terminal’s sticky asphalt and waddle for days to my next destination.

Crossing the Bridge

But then, there is the taxi-brousse spécial – a private car that will take you wherever you want for a price.

Eager to get to the next patch of Madagascar heaven, I left Aye-Aye Island early enough to catch a ride. There was no taxi-brousse going in my direction that day, but the owner of the island was nice enough to find me an alternative, a private extended-cab truck loaded with PVC pipes, bags of rice, a TV set, and countless boxes, which was going to where I needed to get. For the same price as the taxi-brousse the driver squeezed me in the back seat. I would have ridden in the back, on top of the rice bags (there was more leg room there), but as a respected vazah (white person) I couldn’t.

Luckily, I didn’t need to be confined to the narrow back seat for too long at a time. Numerous river crossings made me come out every few kilometers and engage in the mind boggling task of bridge repair. Tearing off a plank here, shoving it to reinforce a decking segment there, plugging up holes with palm leaves and sand. The truck prevailed every time, moldy boards giving off wet squeaks and nearly buckling under the truck’s weight. I crossed these bridges on my tiptoes.

It took us over fourteen hours to drive just 65km. My behind had just made its peace with the padded plank I had for a seat, and I thought we’ll be driving like this through the night, when the driver stopped in the middle of what looked like a ghost town. There were shacks and houses all around, but not a soul in sight. The driver explained this is where we all will be spending the night, chased everybody from the truck cabin and stretched out in his seat. Soon I could hear him snoring.

I was so tired. Every muscle ached. I found a concrete stoop, threw on it my mat and sleeping bag, generously smeared myself with bug repellent, and crawled in.

I woke up together with the town. Sleepy women strolled back and forth with buckets full of water, their children gawking at me from behind their mother’s skirts. Stores were opening, and men stood in doorways brushing their teeth and spitting, in a very manly manner, onto their own doorsteps and passing chickens.

I was the town’s bum. The sleeping bag pulled over my head felt like a newspaper sheet, and the mat beneath me like a cardboard box. As fast as I could I gathered myself, had a breakfast of fried dough and coffee, and squeezed in to the back seat of out taxi-brousse spécial.

Half a day later I was at my destination. It will be 115km I’ll never forget.

Paying in Madagascar

Sarit Reizin — Mon, 25 May 2009 21:31:44 +0000

Madagascar is probably what most third-world countries used to be like before the millionth sunburned tourist demonstrated the locals what fat cash-cows first world travelers can be, thus ruining it for the rest of us who just want to see the world the way it is (or rather was). I’m fortunate enough to be here while the inhabitants of the big island are still innocent and unaware to the various milking options of the cash cow. I could wish with all my heart it wasn’t so, but there is no doubt in my mind the African preferred greeting of a vazah (white person) — “Give me money”, will find its way here as well.

So far the only ones to figure out a vazah will pay three times the price without even the slightest objection, are the ones to deal with the foreigners directly. Hotel owners and tour operators are the ones making the big bucks here, and as word gets around, anybody who has heard of vazah’s bottomless pockets latches on and demands their cut one way or another. My last taxi-brousse ride showed me what travelers venturing to Madagascar, with hopes of an authentic and independent journey, are most likely to get.

The procedure is more or less the same every time. As you arrive at the taxi-brousse station a mob of “helpers” directs you to one or another stall where a man with a moldy notebook sells tickets. He points to the fare chart and you wave it off letting the man know you haven’t just got off your international flight – you know the chart means squat. Five minutes of haggling, and you are still grossly overpaying, but at least you are within your own budget, and after all, you are more than happy to support the developing economy of this beautiful country, right? So what if they are going to stick you in the most uncomfortable seat and will not even bother covering your luggage with a tarp, you’ll gladly share your row for three with another seven for the next twenty hours and even get out and push the car out of the mud when needed – you are here for the experience!

“Chauffer… Um, chauffer? Arrêt! s’il vous plaît…” this is where I get off. Again, usually all you have to worry about at this stage is that nothing is forgotten behind as you emerge from the car struggling for fresh air free of chicken shit and sweat stink. Everything is here, now you can pay the driver and stretch, unless… Unless the driver doesn’t see you, all he sees are dollar signs…

I pulled out the 5,000 Ariary we agreed on before, and handed the money to the driver. I picked up the backpack and began walking to the Ankarana NP office. The driver followed. The amount was not enough he said. Apparently he felt he was entitled to 30,000. “You must be joking” I said, “a ride twice as long has cost me 10,000 just yesterday!” but the driver didn’t let go. When I simply turned away and dropped my bag in the park office, he grabbed it as collateral. A fight was about to break out, and a crowd gathered to watch. They munched on mangoes and waited for the show. The park manager, a gentle old man, knew some English and tried to help, but the driver and his assistant wouldn’t hear of it. Before I knew it, four pairs of hands were tearing up my backpack. They pulled, I pulled, I bit, everybody screamed, and then, as if by command, the driver and his assistant let go. It turned out the park manager paid the driver to go away and let go of his tourists. “Some people in Madagascar,” he said shaking, “see vazah and think ‘money’. It is a problem here, in Madagascar.” Of course, I have reimbursed the manager with the money he has bailed me out with.

All that being said, I really hope you haven’t returned your tickets and abandoned all hope of visiting the big island. It’s experiences like this that make a trip real – because they are. I’ve I had my expectations from my adventure, however, I also hoped to learn something I haven’t even thought of, and I have (even though I did resent this lesson at first). I suspected I’d leave Africa mesmerized by its wildlife and taken by the simple yet difficult life of its people, but somehow I never thought I’d be given a hard lesson about my own impact on the world. Like any experienced independent traveler might tell you – this might be the price of adventure, but it is sure worth it.

Sex and the Big Island, Madagascar

Sarit Reizin — Wed, 20 May 2009 01:52:18 +0000

Though Madagascar’s tropical forests and highlands belong to its lemurs and other natural treasures, the coasts are full of other primates: French men with the gorgeous Malagasy girls draped on them. The local bars belong to them as well, the restaurants too. It was pretty much impossible to dance in a club without gagging over a senior citizen groping a young girl inches away. One might look at it all as at a yet another devastating way in which the white man pollutes virgin international waters, but at second glance, if one manages to avert their eyes from the seemingly improper, it’s easy to see that it’s all only about survival.

The coast of Madagascar becomes lighter and lighter with interracial children. Men have their wives back home and their girlfriends here to vacation with. Some actually care about the girls and some pass them around like they were a carousel ride. I, for one, was very interested how exactly all these relationships worked and shamelessly asked every local English speaking vazah about it.

“…Yeah, Marco! You know, the guy with the short hands…” a blabbermouth dive shop owner eagerly told me. “His girl is that skinny chick – you’ve seen her. For a while there, she looked so sick! He was so worried… Heh, worried… He was shitting his pants! Hell! We were all shitting our pants!” He swallowed that last bit of the sentence and choked on it too realizing he was spilling a bit too much. “She ended up having… Eh… What do you call that? Um… Tuberculosis! Yeah… That’s what it was.” He said eventually and tried to change the subject, but I didn’t leave him much room to wiggle out of it. We spoke at length, and after layers of sex jokes and sarcasm have been peeled off, he said something that actually made a whole lot of sense: “…Call her a slut, and you’ll get slapped. ‘I am only trying to survive,’ she will say.”

Like everywhere, money is power. Local women have money, and local men are left on the sidelines to drive cabs and watch their women give birth to blond babies. I’d be surprised if there was no resentment. And I wasn’t surprised when a woman tourist ran up to me on the beach crying about a man robbing her of her purse with all of her money and documents.

Madagascar is a dream destination. It really is. However, one must never forget that this paradise we venture into is somebody’s home. Somebody’s island, the natives of which are just trying to survive. Madagascar is an adventure. Its treasures are special, unique, and worth fighting for. So it’s not surprising that we, as visitors, find ourselves having to fight for survival, a purse, or the right to be here and see it all as well.

Aye-Aye, Madagascar

Sarit Reizin — Sat, 16 May 2009 00:05:54 +0000

If Dracula ever had a pet lemur it would have been the aye-aye. Nocturnal, with long teeth and long bony fingers- its most prominent feature, this is one lemur one would be least likely to want to cuddle.

The creature is notoriously hard to see, to the point that some biologists questioned its existence. It is said aye-aye got its name when the Malagasies first saw the captured animal and not having seen one ever before cried “Aye-aye!” in awe. But I know different. If you stood hours on hours in the middle of the night under a tree trying to photograph a mother aye-aye teaching her baby to scrape out the inside of a coconut with one finger through a tiny hole, you’d know too that the name comes from a stabbing pain in the neck and shoulders, and it’s more like “Aye-yay-yay!”

Not taking any chances about not seeing this animal in the wild, I put my faith in a place called Aye-Aye Island, and it didn’t disappoint. Perhaps in the future, the owner of the island will advertise it as an authentic village setting with a great chance to see the rare creature, and then people like me would shy from it, or maybe even run in the other direction, because every “authentic village” I’ve been dragged to was nothing but a specially-made tourist trap. Aye-Aye Island however was just that – a tiny island with a few families busy with farming, fishing, and tending to the occasional guest who drop by for a few hours or stay for the night. The women and children brought me litchi, the men – a green tree boa. They wanted to accompany me every time I set into the jungle but sometimes I was just too unpredictable for them to follow. I found my own aye-ayes and chameleons anyway.

Vazah in Madagascar

Sarit Reizin — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:16:15 +0000

If you’ve got money you’ll travel Madagascar by plane getting a bird’s eye view of the rectangular patches of rice fields in all possible shades of green. If you wish to see what’s in between the protected areas and beaches that you most likely came here for, you’ll hire a jeep and maybe even ask your driver to slow down as you pass through a village, to take a quick picture of a local woman – her face painted with a special white, yellow, or orange cream to better the skin. But nothing will bring you closer to the real – not as cuddly as might seem from afar, but nevertheless real – Madagascar, as a two (three, four, five) day ride in a taxi-brousse (bush-taxi, Japanese minivan with seating for fourteen passengers, but generally squeezing in twenty or more).

Though in the last three years many Madagascar roads have been paved, locals still only seldom see a vazah – a white person, a stranger – crammed in with the rest of the Malagasies in a taxi-brousse. On one occasion, when a radiator blew in my taxi-brousse, I passed the time showing a few local children the pictures from my guidebook. I was so enthralled with watching their reaction to images of chameleons and lemurs, I barely noticed that the whole village we just passed gather to see what the vazah was showing. I looked up and found out that an amphitheater formed around me – smaller children in the front, giggling teenagers behind them, and in the back, as if supervising but really curious, the adults.

The pictures in the book soon became old news when I pulled out the camera. From my days on the Rio Napo – a tributary of the Amazon, I knew children will be entertained by their own photographs much more than those of lemurs or monkeys. I didn’t think the adults will get a kick out of it as well, but women opened their eyes wide and stepped back a bit clasping their hands to their mouths, startled at first, but then also amused. Men tried to remain unfazed, as it is appropriate for adults of their age and stature in the community, but smiles spread across their faces when they saw themselves, their wives or children frozen in some funny expression on the little screen surrounded by silver buttons.

The Chameleon in Action, Madagascar

Sarit Reizin — Wed, 13 May 2009 17:54:05 +0000

Everybody comes to Madagascar for the lemurs. Cute and fluffy, they give acrobatic performances most mornings, unless it rains, and even include in their newborn that cling tightly across their middle like little furry corsets. I, too, look up and click away afraid to miss a moment of the gymnastic cuteness, but secretly I only count the seconds till the buggers leave and give the stage to the chameleons.

Now, there’s a colorful true actor in character and costume. One that evokes emotion with only a mere sway of a hand – his face frozen in such a nonchalant expression that it’s clear he is a natural and doesn’t even need to try the least bit to have the crowd in stitches.

His act is, first of all, a magic act – poof! Here he is, materialized out of nowhere. It sits calmly on a tree branch looking to the front and to the back simultaneously. Its facial expression is priceless – blasé and concentrated at the same time. Three toes on one side of the branch, two on the other, he too is a skilled gymnast – get too close and with odd, robot like, grace he flips upside down, unwinds his coiled tail and concludes by swinging athletically through vines and twigs off stage.

And what about their vibrant colors! Because of their ability to change their tint they are still feared by many here in Madagascar. As I go through the day’s pictures in a local eatery, I hear a terrified shriek behind my back – a waitress saw a chameleon on my computer screen. These superstitions, though, are what ultimately protect the animal – the locals believe hurting a chameleon will bring unspeakable misfortune to the doer. Nevertheless, things change with the development of tourism – those who wish to earn their living as nature guides must suppress their fear of these multicolored wizards, and traffic in Madagascar now only slows down and not comes to a complete halt, like before, when a chameleon crosses the road.

The Cartoon Country, Madagascar

Sarit Reizin — Tue, 12 May 2009 17:51:15 +0000

Having arrived to Antanarivo late at night, I figured it was useless to go find a place to spend the night only to get up at the break of dawn to pile up into a dusty taxi-brousse and drive endlessly to our first destination. Instead, I’ve decided to sleep in the airport terminal, but not before getting online and finding out my credit card had been charged for a flight to India I never took.

“Hello, American Express? I have a fraudulent charge on my card… Yes, cancel it… I am in Madagascar… Madagascar… Ma-da-gas-car… Like in the cartoon… It’s a country… Yes, really! Yes, it’s a real country! I swear! Do you have a world map?… In Africa… Ok, ok, I’ll be in Johannesburg in a month, so you can send it to me there… Johannesburg? It’s in South Africa… No, South Africa is a country too… No, Africa is not a country, it is a continent…”

Madagascar – the stuff of fairy tales for sure. A fantasy few dare to imagine, let alone consider as actuality.

Ah, Madagascar

Sarit Reizin — Mon, 11 May 2009 17:46:51 +0000

Ah, Madagascar. When I mention places I visit, I am often met with question marks or that sucking sound accompanied by a tense wrinkled spot between the eyebrows. But Madagascar always gets an “Ah.” An “Ah” and a dazed dreamy smile only the purest of fantasies get.

People think Madagascar is magic, and in many ways it is. In the right spot, it’s a colorful heaven –- dancing lemurs with big curious eyes jumping high in the branches, and skulking chameleons catching due drops on the swirls of their tails at night.

My flight to Madagascar was also magic – even though it didn’t seem like it first. In fact, I should be thankful I had a flight at all. When I came to the appropriately nicknamed Air Mad (Air Madagascar) to check in, it turned out they knew nothing of my booking. To make things worse, it was only an hour before the flight, so the tickets were a few hundred dollars more expensive. But after protracted arguments with the manager, I was finally on my way to the island that might just as well have been a tiny continent of its own – a country whose unspoiled forests, both tropical and dry, are famous for the quirkiest wildlife one could ever hope to see on this planet – Ah, Madagascar.