As we climbed along the sometimes paved, sometimes cobbled but mostly dirt road toward Andringitra the scenery became more and more beautiful: the terraced rice padis below us in the valleys, their owners' houses perched above them; the treeless hills above, bereft of all vegetation for many years. Eventually we reached the entrance ot the park, signed ourselves in and set off.
It took a good hour to reach the actual boundary of the park, but once we had crossed it, the change in scenery was quite dramatic - forested hillsides surouded us, it felt much cooler, and there were two huge cascades that confronted us at the first hill top. Said to have aided a previous royal couple conceive a child, one cascade was the male and the other the female, the King and Queen bathing in their respective waterfalls in order to bring about a miracle. They could have just had sex. It's not rocket science, boys and girls.
We made our way past a gushing river beofre scaling the first hillside through beautiful forest, huffing and puffing our way up to the first plateau to where the vegetation had a very alpine feel to it. It had suddenly become quite cold and after donning scarves and jumpers we continued our way through the Tasmanian-esque 'tundra', picking delicious red berries as we went. Another ascent - past grazing zebu who, under the Park's community agreement, are allowed to exist inside the boundary - took us up to a moon-like plateau of huge, white lichen-covered boulders, which we skipped and scrambled over as dusk approached. A lone falcon sat perched atop the red-hued rocks tinged by the setting sun and watched us quietly as we passed. What we hadn't anticipated as we continued downward toward the brilliant red clouds was a night walk - and a long one! Almost two hours later after traipsing the rocky descent by torch light, we reached our riverside campsite, disappointed we hadn't been able to see it and the approach to it at all! But walking during the night is a very different expereience, the sounds of the environment were more prounounced and we walked under a ceiling of beautiful stars. It also meant that the next day we awoke, after a delicious dinner that included zebu kebabs and chocolate bananas (yum!) and some stories by the fire with Gege and Freddie, we were pleasantly surprised to see that we were still on quite a high plateau, even though we had descended for some time and there was a river nearby.
It had been a cold night, so our next morning's start was a slow one. But like our reptilian friends, once we got going in the sun, life was good. We headed off across the rocky terrain, again on the descent and past the other boundary of the Park. We left Freddie behind and Gege then led us down into the valley; we were now surrounded by grassland, bare hills and sheer granite cliffs, the bright green padis laid out below us like mosaics. We passed htrough a small villae beofre reaching our resting place for the second night - Mara Camp - a permanently staffed camp, well set up, with a great shared dining area. We felt a bit spoiled to arrive to our tents already set up and a hot lunch all ready for us!
After gorging ourselves on cassava and pork, it was more trekking for yours truly up the nearest mountain - Pic Chameleon, so named because the protruding rocks on the top of the mountain did resemble quite a realistic little critter. We first descended into forest - a rare signt in Madagascar and the Tsanaroa massiv, still only present in pockets such as this - and watched some maki catta (ring-tailed lemurs) playing in the trees before the rather steep ascent to the Pic.
Picking guava and spotting zebu on our way up the grassy hillside, we followed small rivers and irrigation challens dug out by the locals to feed their rice padis, and ascended the grassy hillside to hte Pic. The higher I climbed the more amazed I was that there were still zebu higher than us - right up to the base of the cliffs. The view from the top of Pic Chameleon was pretty special; all around us were huge granite mountains, including Pic Boby, Madagascar's second highest peak; the green rice padis stretching off into the distance gave the bare hills a greener tinge than they desrved, having been cleared of all their trees. On the few monutains that did still have some vegetation rose a beautiful haze that made everything glow in the afternoon sun.
On the way back down, hastily picking our way through the rocks, I took a plunge into the piscine near the camp to the amusement of Gege, who I couldn't convince to jump in with me - he's smart and only goes in when the weather is hot! I was only able to stay in the water for about ten minutes it was so cold, and the disappearing sun didn't help either. But it was nice and refreshing.
We spent the evening chatting to a couple of American & Canadian researchers studying the behavious of maki catta in both Tranaroa and Anja reserves, and learned quite a bit about their habits. They knew a lot more than the guides at Anja! they were both great company and a welcome addition to our normally-two-person conversations; and along with Emille, a student from Tana who was also assisting them, we shared an interesting meal of scrambled egg and pasta - which I now know goes very well together!
The next day's 10km hike back to the village was beautiful in the warm morning sun, and we would catch a typically crowded taxi brousse to Ambalavao. And while they didn't quite pack them in like last time, they certainly came a close second! So we arrived back in Ambalavao late morning, hoping to grab some of our favourite yoghurt or share some lunch with our lovely guide, Gege; but we were quickly shunted onto the next available taxi brousse as our friens at JB Trekking were aware that we wanted to get to Fianarantsoato take the Fianar - Cote Est (FCE) train the next day. And so we set off to Fianar, only 60km away, which meant a welcome change to our usual mode of travel - looooong journeys on overcrowded taxi-brousses!
Our first impressions of Fianarantsoa weren't fantastic - the city is a sprawling beast, blanketing the many hils on which it is built; it has shades of Tana, but is nowhere near as beautuifl despite its winding alleys, old colonial buildings, cobbled streets and numerous stairs. The city seemed dirtier and with a more visible poor/begar element, more hassle from touts and the buildings shabbier. It also has a strange layout with not rela city centre, and all the facilities are located in a random scattered manner around town. Still, you could get what you needed in Fianar, without the crowded, oversized urban mass that is Tana.
I do still however much prefer its bigger brother by a long way and was glad that we only spent one night here, before heading off on our next advneture - a 9 hour train ride to the east coast town of Makassar, on the FCE train. Toot toot!
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