Betsileo Houses and Rice Paddies
Preparing Rice Fields
From Ambositra we continued south, heading for Ranomafana National Park to see more eastern rainforest flora and fauna.
As we headed South, Lova explained how the entire family helps with growing rice. Older men spade up the sod, then young boys drive Zebu around the paddy to break up clods. Women transplant new rice from the nursery to the big paddy. We could often see all stages going on at once.
This was the region of the Betsilio people; their houses usually have no windows on the East side, as the cold winds come from the East during the rainy seasonr. The West side usually overlooks rice fields and has windows so they can keep an eye on them.
Throughout Madagascar we saw people along the side of the road breaking up stones. They are gravel and stone block entrepreneurs; one of many hard ways to make a living. Road repair and other building crews will come by and bargain for the best / least expensive gravel.
We came upon a place where a rice paddy was being torn apart by people mining for something; like most mines, it was a real environmental mess.
There is only one road in many places, and even if it is a major national highway like this one (the RN 7), it is shared with pedestrians, zebu carts, hand pulled-carts, rickshaws, and cattle. Traffic is slow, and passing is a real challenge.
We came to a place where there were a few Eucalyptus trees by the side of the road. While non-native, they show the contrast between the forest which once covered this landscape and the current grass dominated one. The native trees, however, take much longer to reach a height like that.
Then we came to a town with the craziest sight of all — waterbirds nesting in pine trees. With all the native forests in the surrounding area gone, the herons and egrets had resorted to nesting in a grove of pine and other trees in town.
In the last three years the forests near Ranomafana have been cut to make charcoal; huge sacks were for sale everywhere. With an exploding population and no other fuel, it's not surprising few forests are left.
We learned from Lova that the people around Ranomafana are a mix of the Merina and Betsilio; they ran from the war between the two tribes.
We made it to the park and Lova obtained our permits and arranged for a guided night walk and a bird guide the following morning. The Namoroma River runs beside the road here, and it has an impressive waterfall. Unfortunately, it's difficult to get a really good view of it from the road. We found a cool frog in the foliage by the falls, and some pretty flowers. We continued on to town and checked into our hotel, Chez Gaspard, where we found some big Golden Orb Web spiders. Then we headed to the Ranomafana Arboretum, where we hoped to see a lot of native plants and maybe some creatures living in them.
The Arboretum had a wide variety of palm trees, as well as native hardwoods and baobabs. The Rosewood Tree, Dalbergia normandii , is one of many indigenous trees in peril. Most of the mature trees have been cut, the wood sent to China to make furniture. The baobabs it had were young; With only a few leaves at the tips of its branches, it's easy to see how grazing zebu could kill a small tree. A baobab has to make it to at least 7 years before the leaves are out of reach; it's hard to get even a single year with all the burning done to stimulate grass growth.
One interesting tree was Polycardia laberalis, whose flowers and fruits grow from the middle of its leaves. Another great find was the Toilet Paper tree.
Our guide found several frogs and chameleons amongst the trees and shrubs.
Dona found a Zana Dandy (Borocera cajani) caterpillar. We learned later it is the native silkworm which inhabits Tapia (Uapaca bojeri) trees.
After checking into our hotel, Chez Gaspard, we headed out for a night walk with our guide, Roddy. We found quite a few chameleons and frogs and a big Madagascar Ground Boa which we moved out of the road.
The next morning we got an early start looking for birds on one of the few trails in Ranomafana which is not steep and difficult walking. One of the reasons we did not spend more time in the park was the difficulty of most of the trails. We had two guides, Roddy, the same guide as the night before, and Jay. Jay seemed to be a better bird guide, but did not speak English. Unfortunately, about an hour into our walk we were overtaken by another party, ostensibly birders, who were pretty noisy and traveling much faster than we were. We turned around and tried another branch of the trail, but by then it was getting past prime morning birding time.
Back at our hotel, we found a colorful day gecko.
We left Ranomafana heading for Ambalavao; we wanted to see paper-making there, and have an early morning start at the Anja Community Reserve.
