African diaries, part 7: Chobe

Read the previous chapters of this story: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.

Back to Sepupa boat station, where out truck waited, we were quickly on board since we once again had a long travel day, over 300 km, including border crossing back to Namibia and Caprivi Strip which has an interesting history. My guess is that the road on Namibian side is better, or maybe there isn't even a road on Botswana side. The drive was uneventful, and we were at the camp by early afternoon. It was again on a high river bank, with a lovely view. At dinner we were told that there was possibly a leopard roaming in the camp. Much as I'd like to see a leopard, this wasn't encouraging. By this time I felt quite confident in my tent, but there was some distance to the facilities, and I didn't like the idea of confronting a leopard in the middle of the night. 

 

The next day was mostly travel day again, because, although Caprivi strip looks tiny on the map, it is 450 km. We crossed over to Botswana and drove through Chobe National Park, where we were not allowed to do any game drives (that is, loops on smaller roads) because it wasn't part of the trip; we just went straight through it and were at the camp by 3. We were staying at this camp for two nights, and the campsite was on the edge of a very posh lodge with a restaurant, swimming pool etc. We allowed ourselves the luxury of just sitting down in the bar, doing nothing apart from watching monkeys. There were also other animals walking around the premises.

 

 

In case you wonder, these are mongoose.

I remembered a colleague who, hearing about my itinerary, said: I grew up in Zambia, and we used to go to Chobe for holiday. I could now see why. It was a fancy resort, not just a camping site.

We had to get cash for the rest of our trip, and strangely, the lodge didn't have a cash machine so we had to walk to town, which was just around the corner. There was a long queue, apparently caused by it being pay day. The machine only allowed to withdraw 2,000 pula (I had no idea how much it was in any familiar currency), so I had to use two different cards. There seemed to be a significant charge for cash withdrawal, but there wasn't much we could do about it. We needed money for Victoria Falls, and Dumi said there was shortage of cash there. Zimbabwe uses multicurrency: South African rand, pula, US dollars, pounds, euro – but not Namibian dollars. I had given up on trying to understand.

Everybody was a bit down this day. Some were still recovering from stomach problems, but mostly we were all tired, physically and emotionally, overloaded with impressions. I was thinking that I didn't want to see another animal any time soon. But I was wrong.

In the morning we took an optional game drive in Chobe National Park, in a open vehicle.

 

It was disappointing. We saw some hippos, a couple of elephants and a group of giraffes quite close, but somehow it all felt anticlimactic. The best part was hot coffee with biscuits on a hill with a nice view. 

There were no activities between the game drive and lunch, and I decided to have massage. When we arrived the day before I saw an advert for spa and told myself it was just what I needed after a long time on the bus. There were several options, and I took the most exotic: maasai stick. It turned out to be a wooden thing with two balls attached on each end. It was used by maasai in Kenya to hit animals on the head. The masseuse didn't know who came up with the brilliant idea of using the stick for massage. It was like being massaged with a rolling pin. I felt revived.

I had very low expectations of the afternoon river cruise. I thought we would sit on a boat and admire the view, which was undeniably pretty, and it would be nice to have some fresh air for a change from being inside a bus. But right as I thought nothing could get any better, there was another highlight. The boat went slowly, stopping when there was something interesting to see, and there was something all the time. And the boat got very close. 

Tons of elephants, including a tiny baby, and two bulls who fought or pretended to fight. 

And now I know why elephants wave their trunks when they have ripped out grass: they shake off sand! I had seen them do it often, but had no idea. 

Zillions of buffalo. Antelopes. Various rare birds, including marabou. (Marabou is included in the list of seven ugliest animals in Africa – I don't know why, I think they are cute). Hippos. And at least forty giraffes, galloping down the slopes and then walking slowly along the shore. Even the guide took pictures, and when we told Dumi afterwards he said it was very unusual with such large herds. It was spectacular, ending with yet another glorious sunset. 

 

 We all agreed that it was the best possible conclusion to our wildlife adventures.

Because next day we were going to Victoria Falls. 

To be continued. 

African diaries, part 6: Okavango Delta

Read the previous chapters of this story: 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.

As I said before, the Okavango Delta was what made me interested in this trip in the first place, so I was excited when we started getting closer. From Etosha we had a 600km drive, first till Grootfontein where we replenished our supplies, then north to Rundu and further east into Caprivi Strip. But very soon after we left Etosha we crossed the Red Line, which is a sad page in Namibia's history. 

 

 

Although we weren't asked to leave the bus and walk through a pool of disinfectant then (we were later), you could see the change in the landscape immediately. During our long drives from place to place, we saw few traces of human presence. Just vast expanses of desert, with the few exceptions that I have described. North of the Line, there were endless villages along the road, some looking quite poor, some better, but it was as if we entered a different world. Which was of course exactly what we did.

We saw signs for primary schools along the roads, few and far between. I asked Dumi whether there were any school buses, and the moment I asked I realised what a stupid question it was. Of course there were no school buses. Haven't I heard and read reports from my colleagues' and students' field work in Africa? Dumi said children sometimes had to walk ten kilometres one way to school. Sounds terrible, but on the other hand they did go to school. I may be naive and old-fashioned, but I believe in education. The children we saw along the roads were walking to or from school, rather than herding cattle, like we saw in Madagascar. Namibian adult literacy rate is 80%.

Apart from villages there wasn't much to see, so I slept a bit. We reached the camp at 3.30 which felt a blessing. The camp was on a high river bank, with a great view. On the other side of the river was Angola. 

There was an optional boat trip, about which Dumi said contemptuously: ”You will see absolutely nothing”. But some people went anyway, and they were allowed to alight in Angola for three minutes and take a picture of themselves with a piece of paper that said: ”Illegally in Angola”. In retrospect, I should have done it – just my thing. Instead we went to the bar and had beer (Anton) and juice (Kory and me) and watched another glorious sunset. Because of the river, the landscape was almost rainforest, and the frogs were singing, and there were lots of birds.

In the morning we drove south to Botswana border. We would cross Nabimia-Botswana borders three times in three days, each time painlessly, but I have a traumatic relationship with border crossing. This will be a deviation, but I must explain. Growing up behind the Iron Curtain and then travelling between Sweden and Russia, being searched at the Finnish border each time, nervous that something was wrong. Feeling humiliated travelling by car to France when I had to get transit visas for every country we passed (the Germans were particularly nasty). Feeling humiliated at JFK because, in my US visa stamp, they had crossed out the standard “multiple indefinite” and written ONE ENTRY. It got less stressful when I got a Swedish passport, and since then I have crossed from USA to Mexico and back, from USA to Canada and back (on one occasion I crossed twice, going to Niagara Falls first in the morning and then at night), and I even crossed from Germany to Austria before it joined EU. You get used to it. Having now lived in the UK for nine years, I am more used, once again, to passport control, wherever I travel, but it somehow feels different when it is an actual border, overland. It is all wired somewhere in my brain: border crossing = danger. And now I have all these stamps in my brand new passport. For Zimbabwe, we had to pay for the visa. Dumi looked at me with some anxiety, until I explained that although I live in the UK, I have a Swedish passport. Zimbabwean visa costs almost twice as much for UK nationals.

Back to the first Namibia-Botswana crossing: apart from two forms to fill, it was very straightforward, and we walked across the no-man's-land from one checkpoint to the next. Then we had another hour's drive, and we were now in Botswana time zone, losing an hour. I couldn't figure out whether it made me more hungry or less. Lunch was by the river and boat station at Sepupa. We were leaving our truck there, taking only daypacks and water canisters, and going by boat to an island right in the middle of the Delta. (Well, not really, rather on the edge of the Delta, where the Panhandle opens into the Pan).

We also met our new guide who introduced himself as Frog. I thought it was funny, but people have all kinds of names that have funny connotations in other languages. However, it turned out that Frog was his artist name. He said his real name was unpronounceable for Europeans (it had about fifteen different clicks in it), but he had chosen Frog to reflect his character. Later in the camp, we were all asked to choose animal names that he could remember, because our names were unpronounceable for him. Fair enough.

Anyway, Frog was our Botswana guide, and he was taking us into the Delta. Before we started, he asked us to sign a liability disclaimer. One of us wondered what exactly the implication was. Answer: “If I tell you not to jump into the river, and you jump into the river and get eaten by a crocodile, it's your responsibility”. Later, on the island, he told us that the password into nature was “respect”. Password, you know, he said, what you need to get into your computer. Password into nature is respect.

Our supplies and cooking equipment went in one boat, and we all went in another. This is me, in my silly hat, on the right.

Photo: Susanne Trudsø

These three hours going on a boat through the Delta are among the happiest of my entire life. This was what I had come for. Sure, we saw come crocs and a few hippos and masses of interesting birds. 

 But the boat ride itself, through tributaries that meandered this way and that so eventually you lost all sense of direction; waterways that narrowed and opened again. I know I have dreamed it many times, exactly like this. I enjoyed every second. I think many of my fellow travellers were bored. 

Photo: Susanne Trudsø

Finally we went into narrow channels where the boat hardly passed through, with tall papyrus plants on both sides. And then we were on an island, called Pepere (meaning “papyrus”), that you will not find on Google maps, as far away from everything as you can imagine. 

Have I mentioned that I have a particular love of islands? I have even written an academic paper on the subject. 

There were permanent tents in this camp and real beds with linen, which felt nice for a change. There were two local women who cleaned the tents. They were not invited to share dinner with us, but had to wash up, which made me feel bad. I asked Frog where they lived, and he said in a village eight hours away by boat. He himself also lived far away and only went home twice a month in tourist season.

After dinner we had a briefing. We were not allowed to walk around on the island (except between the tent and the toilet) because at night hippos, elephants and crocodiles came ashore. This wasn't a joke: we saw fresh footprints in the morning. If we did see a hippo or elephant we should not flash our torches at them because they would attack. “Respect” is the password. I wondered whether the animals knew it. There were also baboons who had learned to open tent zippers, so we were advised not to have food in tents.

All night, cicadas were singing.

We had late breakfast next morning, 6.45, and started at 7.10 which must be some secret local time. First a short walk across the island where we took mokoro, which is more like a punt than a canoe, maneuvered by long poles. Two people per boat, and a poler, who was friendly but not very talkative. There wasn't much need for talk because the scenery was amazing. 

Through a narrow channel of papyrus to the next island, where there were supposedly lions, leopards, buffalo, elephants and other animals. Strict orders: keep as close together as possible in single file (walking elephant paths), do as you are told. Indeed, within five minutes there was an elephant and no fence or anything between it and us. Frog told us to freeze. I had a short moment of contemplating death by elephant – probably very painful. It moved around us slowly, but didn't come closer. I cannot say how long we stayed there, motionless: maybe five minutes, maybe ten. Then it went away, and we could move on. I asked Frog later what he would have done if the elephant had attacked us, and he wouldn't say. Some people admitted having panic during the elephant encounter and said they hadn't quite enjoyed it.

We saw no other animals, but Frog showed us fresh footprints and fresh elephant dung. This was a different feeling from viewing animals from the safety of a car or bus. He also showed us some carcasses of buffalo and warthog, which the lions had killed only a week before. Completely clean of meat. I am not sure I would like to witness a kill.

We took the mokoro again, for a longer trip, and saw a lot of hippos in a lagoon. Hippos can hold their breath for seven minutes, so it's a bit like whale-watching: you see it go down, count seven minutes, and then out they come, not always where you expect. But because there we so many of them, we saw several at any given moment. We kept a respectful distance. 

Then we came back to our island and the camp and had lunch. Six people had upset stomach. I know it's common on such trips, but it felt awful, and I was mortally scared to get it too (I had a very mild round later). We had a couple of hours to rest, which was what we all needed. Then we gathered again – those of us who were ok – and Frog talked to us about the Delta, its animals and its people, and also its future, if Namibia builds a canal higher up the river to supply water for its own agriculture. Suddenly it all got into a larger context. 90% of water in the Delta evaporates. Maybe it makes sense to try and use it before it evaporates. But who knows how it may affect the ecology.

Then Frog took us on a short walk on our island. We saw two warthogs, but mostly Frog told us about trees and plants and their medicinal uses (particularly for upset stomach). Suddenly we were by a gigantic baobab. We must have seen it all along without realising it was a baobab, hidden behind other vegetation, because it was right by the camp (me for scale). 

 

Then we went out in a boat to watch the sunset over the lagoon (those crazy Europeans and their sunsets!). 

Next morning was another blissful boat ride through the Delta. It was very early and freezing cold, but I enjoyed the ride too much to mind the cold.

I had this strange idea. What if the whole experience was a simulation? A huge, well-designed augmented-reality game. So if we were to go on the same trip another day, there would be the same elephant encounter (and maybe you need a special bonus to see the lion kill), and the same hippos going down and up again in the same places. While the real animals have been dead since long time ago. This would make a good story, but I won't write it. It may be true, but we will never know.

I also kept remembering Ray Bradbury's short story “The Veldt” - the landscape and the whole atmosphere was inviting.

After the first full day in the Delta, when I had seen what I had come to see, I felt that I must come back and stay longer to see more. Then it felt that I had seen all there is to see. Or else I was so overwhelmed by all impressions that I could not take in any more. I would have liked to see lions and leopards, but apart from that – more papyrus, more water, more hippos, more of the same? As with deserts, mountains and other experiences: after a first taste, you may return to study it closer, but you may not. Anyway, we had no other choice than to move on.

To be continued

African diaries, part 5: Animals galore (in Etosha national park)

Read the previous chapters of this story: 1, 2, 3 and 4.

The day we left Spitzkoppe was probably the hardest and the most boring of the whole trip. I was in the front seat to the right, but there was really, really, really nothing to see. We were to cover 530 km, which is a long distance even on a German motorway, and we were on unpaved roads, and the estimate travel time was nine hours.

I am full of admiration for Dumi, our guide and driver. I just cannot imagine how he managed it. Driving a busload of fussy European tourists for nine hours on unpaved Namibian roads… But to be fair, we weren't fussy. We were patient and disciplined, and when we were given a ten-minute comfort stops – boys to the left, girls to the right – we were back in the bus in ten minutes; and when were we given thirty minutes in a supermarket to get our water and whatever else people wanted, we were back in thirty minutes. We all knew that the drive would take nine hours and were prepared. One of us got motion sick, and although I know it's a horrible thought, I was glad it wasn't me. I had been worried about motion sickness because I get it every now and then, on a scale that few people have witnessed, still less experienced. It's not just throwing up; if it hits me, I am knocked our for days (yes, I have been tested for all kinds of diseases, and nothing was found, so it's just my bad luck). I wear patches for flying, but they make me tired, sleepy, thirsty and disoriented, so I didn't want to wear them during the trip, taking terrible risks. My empathy with the poor motion-sick companion was total, while I was also glad it wasn't me, because a young motion-sick person evokes pity, a old motion-sick lady evokes disgust. Sorry, I couldn't help it. I sat through the day imagining myself motion-sick and wishing I had never come to Africa; so this day was particularly strenuous.

However, the last 100 km before we got to Etosha national park was a good paved road, and by the time we entered the park we were all excited, anticipating to see lots of animals, maybe even a rhino if we had luck. And what did we see less than a minute into the park, at the first waterhole? A rhino!

We only had time for a very short loop, but we saw giraffes, zebras, impala, kudu and jackals, so it was a good ending of a difficult day. And the best was still ahead.

We reached the camp site Okakeujo exactly at sunset, and Dumi kindly allowed us to run to the waterhole without setting up camp first. It is an artificial waterhole into which water is pumped. The horizon was still yellow-orange, and by the water there was a group of elephants, with another one approaching, and they greeted each other politely. There were two small ones. And a herd of giraffes. You could almost not see them in the twilight, but they were reflected in the water, moving slowly and graciously, and I could have watched them forever. 

 

 When Anton took this picture he said I would make it my cover photo on Facebook. Maybe he was joking, but I have.

Because I had just followed the group and had no idea how to get back to our camp lot, I had to go back when others went back. After dinner we went there again. The waterhole is floodlit, and it's magic. First, there was nothing, and then there was a rhino, moving slowly and freezing every now and then. It left, and another came and left, and another… and another. I believe they were several because they were of different size. 

 

This picture shows a smaller one. Imagine one almost twice as big, two huge horns, closer and in perfect profile, white against the dark, its reflection in the water. No picture, but I will never forget it.

I asked Dumi whether we could run quickly to the waterhole before we left in the morning, and there were no animals there, as if there had never been any. Maybe we had dreamed them? 

We drove in loops in the park, mentally adding animals to our catalogue:

      tons of antelopes

      zillions of zebras (and mind, it's zEbra, not zEEbra!)

      giraffes, one with a tiny baby

      kudu

      wildebeest, aka gnu (I think gnu is a better name)

      red hartebeest

      another rhino

      jackals

      secretary birds

      kori bustard (with whom Kory naturally felt particular affinity)

      ostriches

      something that some people thought maybe possibly was a leopard, but the rest of us didn't believe them

      and finally, at the very end of the day, three elephants very close by the roadside.

I was very happy that we got to see elephants so close, because I had seen them like that in South Africa and was eager for Kory and Anton to have this experience.

Dumi would stop whenever we saw anything interesting, and Tabiza gave us fascinating facts about animals. When he couldn't answer a question, he stealthily consulted a book. 

We had lunch at Halali camp, midway through the park. While Tabiza prepared the meal, we were again allowed to go to the waterhole, which was a natural one, with a viewing platform high above it. There wasn't much activity in the middle of the day, but when I went there again after lunch, I saw a group of elephants leaving, so I guess if you stayed long enough you would see a lot. But we had to move on.

In the afternoon we drove out to Etosha pan that I thought was horrible and Anton thought was the highlight of the day. It is a neverending dry surface of salt, possibly as dead as a place can be. 

 

Everybody was fascinated, but I just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. This picture is supposed to show me dying of thirst, but we didn't stage it very well. 

For the night, we stayed at yet another camp, Namutoni, on the eastern side of the park. Its waterhole was nothing like Okakeujo the day before, and strangely, I felt completely fed up with animals and also very tired. The next morning we drove a final short loop in the park and saw hyenas and a dik-dik, the smallest antelope in Africa, ridiculously small, like a toy. Then we had another long day on the road. 

To be continued. 

Masagascar diaries, part 7: Looking for lemurs

Read the previous posts: part one, two, three, four, five and six.

But what about wildlife? you may be wondering by now. Where is this wonderful unique flora and fauna, biodiversity, endemic species, the famous lemurs?

Well, we saw as much as you can expect to see on a trip of this scope, if you read the trip description carefully. We visited three national parks, Ranomafana, Andringitra and Isalo. Only in Andringitra we stayed sort of inside the park, but we did not sleep in tents, which I don't regret. There were ringtails all over the camp, half-tame. In Ranomafana we stayed in a lodge close enough to the park to have a sense of being in a rainforest, and it was the only night when we saw the magnificent Southern sky. In Isalo we stayed in a fancy-ish hotel in a village far away from the park and only went into the park for a couple of hours. In total we have not been in the nature for more than perhaps twenty hours out of ten days. But they were mostly good hours, and the walks made me happy.

The road from Antsirabe to Ranomafana National Park was winding up and down mountains (I was glad I sat in the front seat that day), and by the afternoon the views began to be magnificent. The road itself got worse, but our driver Guy was imaginative, carefully avoiding potholes. All in all, we covered 240 km that day. As we entered the park and started the descent into a gorge, all of a sudden the familiar green walls of the rainforest appeared on both sides, a river along the road developing into cascades. It was as if we had gone through a portal into an alternative world. 

 

That night, we soaked ourselves in insect repellent, and it was the first time ever I slept in a mosquito tent. 

Outside, the rainforest was full of those wonderful rainforest noises I remembered from Brazil: crickets, frogs, birds. The smells, the touch of humid fog. We were promised a full-day walk with a picnic lunch the next day. I was full of anticipation since we had finally come to where I had longed to be. The previous two long and strenuous days were merely travel days, and from now on it would be nature all the way.

In the morning we met our local guide, Nono, and then we went into the park, with our backpacks, bottles of water, binoculars and cameras.

I had been worrying that I wouldn't be fit enough for the walk, but I was, and I was glad I had done all those endless step-ups at the gym, because we climbed up and down, bumping into other groups looking for lemurs. Nono stopped every now and then to tell us something, but perhaps mostly to let us catch breath. There was also a young boy who was an “animal spotter”, a scout sent in advance. Presumably, the guides had mobile phones to communicate, because all groups conflated in the same spots. I was still naïve and thought we were in genuine wilderness, even though it was a park, but it eventually became clear that everywhere the park rangers and guides fed lemurs at certain locations for tourists' benefit. But, who cares, we did see the locally famous Golden bamboo lemur, two black-and-white Milne-Edwards sifakas high in a tree, two awahi who are nocturnal and therefore obediently slept, and several Greater Bamboo lemurs who came down to the ground so I could almost touch them. 

 I could have stayed there forever, but we were rushed further, walking up and down for a while without seeing anything else. Then we were led back to the entrance, and the picnic lunch was a ham sandwich we ate standing by the van. We were then taken to another park where we were promised an abundance of birds, and right by the entrance we saw a group of Red-Bellied lemurs.

The rest of the walk was an anticlimax, and our birdwatcher Lynn was particularly disappointed because we didn't see one single bird! We saw some insects and a tiny frog, but there was nothing of Attenborough-photoshopped diversity of hundreds of species per square meter. The walk was almost flat. I did feel tired a bit – after all, we had been out for six hours – and proud of myself. Mami had mentioned hot springs, which sounded enticing, but it turned out to be a regular swimming pool full of local kids, so I skipped it.

The next day we drove to Andringitra National Park, on a road that I could not in my worst dreams imagine was possible to drive on, and I have seen enough of poor roads.

It took us two hours to drive perhaps thirty kilometres. I wasn't scared, but I wondered whether we would get there at all. The scenery was fabulous: high granite mountains raising all around us.

When we arrived in Camp Catta, the first thing we saw was a group of ringtailed lemurs, which cheered us all up. 

We agreed in the evening that we would go on a medium-difficult walk the next day, 5-6 hours with picnic lunch, which I was looking forward to, although with some anxiety. I don't know whether it was a miscommunication or whether Mami had decided that some of us were not fit for medium-difficult, but the walk was a total disappointment. The local guide didn't speak much English, so he didn't tell us anything of interest. We saw more ringtails basking in the sun, Attenborough-wise; the dry forest was beautiful; and after half an hour we came to a natural pool. We had been told to bring swimsuits, but I was the only one to jump in, much to the amusement of local children who tried – not aggressively – to sell us beadwork. When I was changing back into my clothes, the kids came closer, and I had to ask the guide to tell them to go away, which they dutifully did. 

After that, the walk was dull, eventually leading to a half-finished hotel where we had our sandwiches and were entertained by a young woman playing drums and singing. It was one o'clock when we got back to the camp, and Anton was really angry because he had aimed at climbing the rock, which apparently was part of the medium-difficult walk. He and Mark and Cathy decided to do it on their own, which, remarkably, was allowed, and I asked Mami whether there was another walk. There was one (extra charge to the guide), to a waterfall, 5 km one way, on the horrible road we had come, in the heat of the day. It turned out, I hadn't missed much by not going on that walk, because we saw the so called waterfall next day and it was dried up.

This left me the option of climbing the rock, but I knew I couldn't keep pace with the young people. Mami said it was safe for me to go, and I started with Anton and the rest, but after two hundred metres I took it very, very slowly, stopping and sitting down every fifty steps. The view was stunning, and the light was changing all the time. It was cloudy and not too hot. There were fantastic flowers and plants on the way, but I hadn't brought my phone/camera because Anton was our designated photographer, and I hadn't thought about it. But I have vivid memories of this climb, and looking back, it was one of the few highlights of the whole trip. Anton said afterwards that he was impressed by how high I had climbed, and I would have climbed higher still and possibly even caught up with them drinking beer by the rock face. What happened next was my own fault.

I was taking a pause, sitting on a rock and enjoying the view, when a young man, almost a boy, came hurrying up the path. With my traumatic memories of Armenia forty years ago, I was sure he would either rape or rob me, and the climb immediately lost its attraction. He walked past me with an indifferent “Bonjour”, but I knew I had to get down as soon as possible. Anton and the rest were nowhere in sight. The boy went up a bit and stopped, then followed me down which made my blood freeze. I didn't believe he would kill me so close to the camp, but the other options were bad enough. Thinking back, it was my sick imagination. Maybe Mami had sent him to check on me, or he went up on his own, to offer help in case I needed it. I am sure he was the nicest young man. But the situation brought back the traumatic memories, and I didn't enjoy it any more. Luckily, my memory is selective, and I will remember the joy and not the terror. I am just irritated at myself, that such a trifle made me stop halfway. 

The final nature experience was in Isalo (pronounced EE-sha-loo), which took us another day to travel to. I had reconciled with the idea of Madagascar being a huge country with poor roads and inevitable long journeys from place to place. In the morning we climbed a mountain, enjoying fantastic views, but I couldn't help thinking that I had seen incredible mountainscapes in Australia and Arizona, and wasn't I really spoiled by having travelled so much. 

Closer up, we saw stick insects and a couple of birds.

Then we went down the gorge to another natural pool, and this time everybody went swimming, and there were many other groups and too much noise. Anton was furious that we hadn't taken a more challenging circuit. Indeed, we didn't have to go back to our hotel for lunch but could have walked on. On the afternoon walk we saw two chameleons and a group of red-froned brown lemurs, apparently also half-tame. Dancing sifakas had been promised, but, as Mami said, “they had gone”. They should have glued them to the trees.

The highlight was a gorgeous waterfall, a tough climb where half of our group gave up, but I climbed on slowly, and it was worth it. I think it was my favourite walk.

After that, noisy crowds by the Fenetre, pushing to get the best snapshot of the sunset through the famous rock formation, felt pointless. The moment the sun was down they immediately dispersed. I was the last to leave and could have stayed longer. But the whole day was somewhat of a rush, and it was our last active day. 

On the way to Toliara we were supposed to see spiny forest, but for some reason we missed it. We saw some baobabs. They weren't impressive.

Ironically, most of the nature we saw was in two small parks, Arboretum outside Toliara and Lemur Park 20 km outside Tana. Neither was part of our tour. The Arboretum guide was excellent, and we finally had a chance to touch, smell, look carefully, stay as much as we wished. We saw more birds, insects, lizards than during our whole trip. They had 900 species there. (Homerton College gardens have 800). The most interesting was an octopus plant, which is not a cactus. Lemurs somehow manage to jump on them. 

To the Lemur Park we went on our extra day in Tana. There was a reason we stayed an extra day, although I don't remember; possibly, the airfare was more reasonable. We hired a car and driver for the whole day for a ridiculous price (the driver had a BA in English, but driving tourists was more lucrative). The park is private and has nine species of lemur, including the wonderful dancing sifakas. We saw them dance, and we heard them scream.

Common brown lemur

Crowned sifaka                   Coquerel's Sifaka

 The park was done with tact and taste; the lemurs were fed and taken care of, but could move around as they wished, and animals don't go away from their feeding spots.

This sums up our wildlife experience in Madagascar. Maybe I had chosen a wrong trip after all. Maybe we should have gone to just one place and stayed there and seen what there was to see. But this is what we have seen, and I will cherish it.

This is my favourite, White and black ruffed lemur. I like this individual in particular; I feel he is my soulmate.

To be concluded.

ABC blog: H

To see previous entries, click A  B  C  D  E  F  G

H is for hippo. You didn't expect it, did you? Every now and then I write about unexpected subjects, like bridges, working-class novels, esoterism, or cats. Cats are probably not entirely unexpected. But hippos are. I wrote an essay on hippos in children's literature for a festschrift, and such publications do not normally get widely known (there are some famous exceptions). Writing for a festschrift is a bit like writing a column: it can be light in tone and not overloaded with footnotes, and you have fun in a way you cannot afford in a peer-reviewed article in a high-profile journal.

I chose to write about hippos because the festschrift target has a famous collection of these, to which I had contributed. When someone you know collects frogs or egg-cups or shoes, it makes your occasional visits to hideous souvenir shops worth while.

As I started I only remembered one hippo quote: “Hippopotamuses can sometimes be very conspicuous”. I'll give you a prize if you recognise it. I hadn't read the book in thirty years, but I remembered the quote. Then I spent some time on amazon and ordered all hippo books I could find.

A lot has been written about animals in children's books and the range of functions they can have. They can appear in a nature story and perhaps be endowed with some consciousness, to make the story work. At the other end of the spectrum, there are fully anthropomorphic animals, wearing clothes and living in houses. Sometimes pigs have fried bacon for breakfast.

The most interesting stories are in between, when the animal is humanised, but retains it animal traits. For me, the question is always: is the animal form justified? Could it be a human being? Could it be a different animal? Animal disguise does amazing things. Animals can co-habit in most bizarre combinations, and gatekeepers don't ban these books as violating family values. With animals, you can circumvent age, race, gender – all those issues that children's literature grapples with. Yet you cannot have a hippo in a story without making allowances for their – conspicuousness. It is easier with a mouse or a bunny. Hippos are clumsy. Their cuteness factor is low. They are the most dangerous animals in the world, in case you didn't know.

H is of course also for heterology, heteronormativity, heterotopia, heterovocalisation and a whole bunch of hetero-s which I have already dealt with elsewhere in this blog or will deal with soon. As well as hypodiegesis, hyponarrative and other hippo-hypo-s.

H is also for Harry Potter, but I have promised myself that I will never write another word on the subject.