Still August 2007
So pleased to meet up with some friends. Of course until they met with us
they hadn’t had any problems whatsoever with their travel, but with us things
were not going to plan once again.
The 4x4 we had booked was not available, but neither was any other mode of
transport. Desperate to get to the Park this time we managed to persuade a
normal driver with a large-ish vehicle to take us to the park (and of course
paid over the rates for it). All the organization had nulled our 6am start
and we still couldn’t leave till 10:30am cutting the day short and
restricting the walks in the park. Very bumpy 1.5hour ride in. Managed to
persuade the less than keen walkers with us to go a little further than they
wanted, until we were all running to the highest point we could get to
before time ran out. The guide was a good sport, we saw the beautiful
waterfalls, the fantastic rock outcrops and scaled the mountain, and made it
back to base with a lot of manic running (no falling) just before nightfall.
Not quite the long circular route I had dreamed of for days, but was fun and
manageable none the less.
Chilled out with friends in the evening, sorry to be heading in different
directions the following day.
Pizza for breakfast always a good thing! Especially as the taxi-brousse
took 4 hours to leave. I filled the time with phone conversations, mainly
about work unfortunately, whilst others were playing pool with the locals,
golf balls and sticks on a warped board! A few trips around town before we
even left to find petrol, apparently everyone was waiting for the tank
filling truck to arrive! Then again to find that at the military check point
we were overloaded and had to return to drop people off and try again.
Arrived into Ranohira at night, got a great dinner at the fancy restaurant,
set-menu. Carrot soup (hmm), zebu steak (always good), banana flambé
(rubbish). But hey, two out of three not bad!
Guide and Park fee arrangements to be made all over again, and despite the
guide prices being very clearly labelled they all rip you off, in as much as
if you don’t agree to pay their rates you don’t have a guide and you can’t
enter the park! With only a day to play with, though we had hoped to do an
overnight camping trip (but were given wrong info!), we decided to just pay
up and go. Car to the Canyons, 1 hour bumpy ride, but fantastic following
the ridge all the way to the park, knowing that we would be walking the
length and more to return. Saw a few lemurs at the entrance to the canyon,
unfortunately did not have loads of time to wander around the canyon and the
river as had no way of climbing to the top from the interior. Long hard
climb to the top of the ridge, but rewarded with fantastic views of the
meadows within and then the ridge on the other side of the valley. Lots of
little baobab trees and beautiful views to be seen on the 3 hour walk to the
waterfall. More of a cascade really and enclosed within a meandering cutout,
but pretty as it was well hidden within the forest.
Now normal experience for us: the guide decided that he wanted more money for
us to see the blue and black pools, which should have been on our original
route. A bit of deliberation and we decided to just pay up and enjoy. It was
only about 10mins out and back and the waterfalls were pretty, but the walk
to the falls was stunning and definitely worth it. At this point we started
to see all the other tourists mulling around. It had been just us with nature
for the best part of the day, but we were now on the tourist loop.
Ring-tailed lemurs were seen walking up the path towards us and brown lemurs
were hanging around the camp that we passed through so definitely got the
lemur quota in, and decided that we must have been the only people to have
bad weather in Ranamafana as no one else seemed to bother about them.
Another long stretch of the walk to reach the final goal, the piscine
naturelle. Though not in the sun and being very nippy, we opted to take a
dip and freshen up. We were fully aware that there would be no water and
shower where we were staying and were very happy to wash the dust of the day
off.
So great to find a tourist bus at the end of the park ready to leave and
prepared to take us back to the village. Definitely a 5km walk at the end of
the day that we could do without, and a fantastic day was had. Another
massive zebu steak meal and some local song and dance troop for
entertainment. Sleeping well.
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