Parc National de Marojejy

 Paradise found in Madagascar

Silky sifaka

We traveled to Madagascar in the hopes of seeing many creatures that may (or probably will) go extinct in our lifetimes. Silky sifakas are one of the world's 25 most endangered primates and I was on a bit of a mission to see one of these beauties. These striking white lemurs are only found in a few tiny rainforested national parks in Madagascar and we decided to devote a portion of our time in Parc National de Marojejy in search of silky sifakas as well as all the other amazing wildlife that can be found in wet tropical rainforests.

A flight from Tana to Sambava is all you need to take in many of the reasons why the silky sifaka is so endangered. Clear cuts and slash and burn agriculture (note all the fires in the photo below) dominate the view as you fly over this country. We try not to judge these people, however, as our own country has not exactly excelled at setting proper examples when it comes to conservation versus consumption. Madagascar is a young country experiencing what many developing nations go through - a demographic transition - where population growth is excessive and survival means cutting into natural resources. Feed your kids or save the rainforest? Well, this type of choice does not always have to be made and Marojejy is proof; I'll get into this concept further in this post.

 Flying over northeastern Madagascar toward Sambava (on the Indian Ocean). 

Sambava is not really developed for tourists because the town is off the beaten track and already relatively "rich" due to a globally popular bean. Sambava is located in the major vanilla growing region of Madagascar and you can see the effects of this valuable crop in the town because of the street lights and a paved road! Wow! It was a gorgeous little town located right on the Indian Ocean and we managed to find a dark, damp little bungalow on the beach for our time there.

Upon our arrival in Sambava we took some time to figure out how to get to the national park from town and setting plans for leaving Sambava (upon our return from Marojejy) to head west toward Nosy Be, our final destination in Madagascar. Once our plans were set, we wandered off to find a local grocery store to stock up on food for our three day trek into Marojejy.

Shopping for food is always a treat in unfamiliar countries and wandering around a town that  happens to smell like vanilla is a dream come true! Jay took this photo of me standing on a bridge and my smile is big because the whole darn town smelled like vanilla. How lovely is that? Once we found the grocery store we bought what we could find for hiking food - some nasty "granola" bars, crackers and Laughing Cow cheese, rum (essentials right?), and chocolate. Before we left the USA we knew we would be headed to Marojejy so we had packed some homemade dehydrated chili and oatmeal. In the end we regretted this decision because we wanted to eat like the locals (rice and beans) but needed to offload our chili weight. Damn. On the other hand, the locals were quite intrigued by the chili. Our evening in Sambava was quite boring as we spent the majority of our time loading up a small bag with our essentials for the next few days in the park and packing our larger bag to leave in storage at the damp hotel. We were so excited!!!

Parc National de Marojejy is a piece of cake to spot from a satellite image because it is an ecological island in a sea of developed and populated land. It is a wonder that the rare silky sifakas even manage to hold on....but there are some dashes of hope. Notice the thin green line along the center left side of this image - a corridor of rainforest leading to another protected area. Habitat corridors are a key component to linking protected habitats together; our country and other developed countries would benefit from creating more habitat corridors. But the forest you are looking at in this image is almost all this endangered primate has left. I don't want to mislead and make any readers think that habitat loss is the only problem these primates are facing - silkys are hunted for food, illegal logging disturbs protected areas, small populations deal with loss of genetic diversity (populations are isolated and this satellite image shows why), invasive species are likely an issue, and of course, climate change always rears its ugly head in many different forms that stress animals and their food sources.

Marojejy is mostly unique in Madagascar because it involves the local community with the park. We read in our guidebook that the Malagasy national park system returns 50% of admission fees to the communities located near the national parks. In other words, the book leads you to think that the parks benefit the communities - but in conversations we had with guides in parks outside of Marojejy (such as the Tsingy) we learned that this is clearly not the case. Not surprisingly, it sounds like the "fees" go into the pockets of national or town officials and never end up benefiting the community that lost access to natural resources when the parks were formed. Marojejy seems to function the way it should - the guides, porters, cooks, and sifaka trackers all live right in the local communities (in contrast, our guide in the Tsingy did not live permanently in the local community). Even the women from the village benefit from Marojejy by working for a women's cooperative that cleans the canvas-walled bungalows travelers stay in at the park. Sure, the guides also farm the local rice fields, but they have also clearly gained a ton of respect for the value of an intact park. So did we decide to do this hike on our own with no help? Hell no. We tried to hire every guide we could so our money would go into the pockets of the locals as an investment in the future of the park. In the photo above you can actually see our cook and our porter with the mountains of Marojejy in the background. Great men and women, great village, and unbelievable park.

In case you were curious if the park boundary was as obvious on land as it is in a satellite image - here is the clear line on the mountainside. We walked for about a mile through luscious rice paddies before entering into the park near the line in this photo.

Entering the park was like entering an oasis of everything wild - nothing could make me more happy. Within minutes our guide, Jean-Louis pointed out these rockin' flatid leaf bugs. Both the funky white punk rock star and the peachy-winged oval are the same species, just at different phases in their life cycle. The punk star is a nymph and the peachy-winged oval is the adult. Although this photo doesn't show it - these bugs aggregate and there were tons of these beauties on the tree in this spot. What a treat.

Birders flock (pun intended) to Marojejy and this bird, the helmet vanga, is one species that everyone hopes to see. The helmet vanga is only found in the northeastern area of Madagascar and it was a real treat to see. And no, they are not related to toucans.

Eastern lesser bamboo lemur

I've received a number of questions and overheard several comments from folks who think that lemurs/sifakas are monkeys. Get that idea out of your head right now because it is wrong. Humans, lemurs, monkeys, gorillas, chimpanzees, gibbons, orangutans, etc. are all primates. And while humans and chimpanzees share about 99% of genes, monkeys and lemurs share less genes! My point is that humans and chimps are more closely related than monkeys and lemurs! Thus, you are right that these lemur fluffballs look like monkeys, but many of the similarities stop there. Lemurs evolved independently on the island of Madagascar and deserve to be called lemurs just for that awesome reason. A sifaka, in case you are wondering, is a lemur species that is mostly white in color.

Our first day in the park was spent hiking slowly uphill to Camp 1 which is located in lowland rainforest and surrounded by bamboo (invasive as well as native). This meant we were sleeping in these bungalows with bamboo lemurs munching overhead on their meals. Sweet!

Once we settled into the camp, we set off with Jean-Louis to check out the rainforest surrounding a waterfall. This turned out to be one of the most magical moments in my life. I can't really explain why - perhaps it was the sweet little songbird bobbing along the rocks, maybe it was the symphony of the rainforest sounds or the mist off the waterfall and the steamy air. Whatever it was, Jay and I sat there silently and just stared at this incredible landscape.

We headed out early the next morning, stopping at a viewpoint to check out the waterfall we fell in love with the night before.

Small tree. 

We hiked up and up and up.....not really a difficult hike but with the heat of the day added on top of the moderate elevation gain, we were sweating fools. Suddenly the forest opened up to this view and stopped us in our tracks (but it didn't stop our gasping for air). We had reached Camp 2 in the transition zone of lowland to montane rainforest and the spot you come to to find the stunning silky sifakas. We didn't travel all the way to Madagascar to risk not finding the silkys - so we took some advice we received from an acquaintance with experience traveling in Madagascar and hired a local tracker to find the silkys prior to our arrival at Camp 2. Nestor, our tracker, found them before we slogged up the mountain and immediately took us to the silkys once we showed up. Lemurs don't necessarily hang out near trails, so we crashed, slipped, and fumbled down the steep hillsides, picking up leeches along the way, until we stopped and looked up....and this is what we saw.

Silky sifakas - a white lemur - snoozing in the tree paying no attention to us whatsoever. Nestor and Jean-Louis spoke quietly to each other in Malagasy while Jay and I settled into the forest floor with our binoculars and just watched the fun unfold with the troop of silkys overhead. They snoozed for a while, played for a while, one marked a tree (i.e. it peed on the tree), and another munched on fruit and leaves.

Eventually Nestor and Jean-Louis realized that I wasn't getting any great photographs - so when the sifakas made some moves to come closer to the forest floor we headed off to follow them. Generally, I try to follow a rule most photographers never would follow....I look first, enjoy, then take photos. Well, forget that rule. I really wanted a great shot of these rare creatures - and this was the best I got. Not great, not bad either..... at least it captured the moment. Too bad it didn't capture the sound - this guy (gal?) was making a cute little grunting noise. And no matter what, these fluffballs really captured my heart. Maybe I should study lemurs instead of clams and crustaceans? I feel very privileged to be able to say that we spent well over an hour with these beauties before they moved on, leaving us to the leeches and the lush forest.

To learn more about silky sifakas check out this great video that covers some of the research an American scientist has been doing in the park: http://vimeo.com/5894853

Our bungalow at Camp 2 - not a bad view eh?

We took about two hours to eat and relax before heading off into the forest again. We hiked up higher into the montane forest in search of super small chameleons (most are members of the genus called Brookesia) and other lemur species.

Our first tiny chameleon was this sweetie - the snub-nosed chameleon. Jean-Louis told us this was almost an adult, so it won't get much bigger than what you are seeing in this image. How awesome is it that this species has a bright blue nose?

Jean-Louis also found a Brookesia! Whoopeeee! David Attenborough turned me onto small chameleons and I was really hoping to see them. We never saw the smallest of all the species, called the pygmy chameleon, but who cares? This individual was the size of my pointer finger and seeing it made my day! Remember that chameleon eyes are separately mobile; this photo shows one eye looking at me while the other eye is checking something else out.

Stick bug! YES!

Marojejy chameleon - found in this park and nowhere else in the world

Many travelers come to Madagascar with a list of critters they are hoping to see. I tried not to do this, mostly failed, and really couldn't help myself when it came to silky sifakas and leaf-tailed geckos. Except, I never expected to actually see a leaf-tailed gecko as they are known to be extremely camouflaged and difficult to spot. Lucky for us, Jean-Louis was amazing. He found everything and then some! We searched for leaf-tail geckos at night in Camp 2 and didn't find one (but we did find mouse lemur!) but Jean-Louis wasn't discouraged and searched again in the morning until he found this gecko right by our bungalow! What luck!

Gorgeous canopy

Some of the plants get quite large here!

Our hike back down the following day was fantastic. My favorite parts were stopping for a dip in a waterhole and spotting another lemur species called the white-fronted brown lemur. The most entertaining part, however, must have been when we passed a group of women heading up to clean the bungalows. They were balancing blankets and sheets on their heads while walking up the somewhat steep slope without breaking a sweat. Meanwhile, we were headed downhill, carrying light day packs on our backs (not heads!), and dripping in sweat. Wow! Those women are awesome.

Three days wasn't enough in this park, but damn it, I'd have to quit my awesome job in order to get longer vacations. So we are happy to take what we can get and my gosh, we got a LOT in those three days. This panther chameleon was hanging out near the park border and he made everything seem just grand even though we were leaving paradise.

Back at the park headquarters, we met up with some of the crew that worked in the park with us - Jean-Louis, Jay, Nestor, and our cook (sadly, we never got his name).

I'll leave you with one story - our cook really didn't have much to do because all the food we brought just required boiled water. He seemed baffled by the fact that he just had to boil water for us and even more baffled by the fact that we were not eating rice. Malagasy people eat, breathe, and sleep rice. In fact, they don't believe you have eaten unless you have had rice. So we would eat our food and suddenly the cook would appear with a bowl of rice for us to stuff into our stomachs as well. I think he felt like we were starving without that rice. We were happy to oblige.

Next up - insane "road" trip and the island of Nosy Be...underwater and above.

More photos here, scroll to the bottom: https://picasaweb.google.com/111221596171793333099/Madagascar2013?authkey=Gv1sRgCLq91drp6pOjyAE&noredirect=1