The next morning we were off in good time, heading south. But we didn't get too far right away, as the first thing we had to do was get across the river. That involved a ferry ride.
Most of the ferries are basically two big metal canoes with a platform on top, so a type of catamaran. They had to be shallow draft because the river is not very deep; but they still had to support the weight of the cars. Each hull had its own engine, a small gas engine hooked up to a flywheel and some belts going back to a gearbox that had a shaft going down to a propeller. The gas tank was a plastic jug, elevated so the carbureator was gravity fed.
Cars were driven onto the ferry over moveable ramps, similar to what people in the United States use to get off-road vehicles and snow-machines into a pickup truck or onto a trailer, only longer and heavier, being made of steel instead of aluminum. As each car was loaded, two guys moved the ramps to the next slot by hand. Once loaded, the cars were "secured" by placing rocks in front of / behind the wheels. No tie-down straps. The ferries were all different, constructed from materials at hand and adapted to what the owner/operator could get his hands on.
The ferry in the picture below has its ramps dragging in the water for some reason. It also appears to have a much beefier engine, but it also looks to be made of whatever was available to the builder.
The boats are light enough and the current is slow enough that a few people can move them, so they don't waste time and fuel repositioning them when necessary. They just hook up a few guys together and haul.
On this first river crossing, we weren't going far — just across the river. With a good vehicle, we didn't even need to get clear to the bank. We drove off into the water and up on the other shore.
We drove on rutted dirt roads for several hours until we came to the town of Belo sur Tsiribehina, a town on the banks of the Tsiribihina River. Belo is famous for it's Mad Zebu Restaurant, whose chef used to work in a 3-star Michelin restaurant in France. The food was ok; nice presentation, as you would expect. Sid and I had a shrimp ceviche-like appetizer. Dona and I had a shrimp main course, with big shrimp from the Manambolo River. Maybe some of the people we saw setting traps a few days before had caught them.
Lova told us one of the Madagascar origin stories. The west of Madagascar was burning up. God asked all the forest animals to try to put it out. God said he would make whoever could put it out the king. The Lemurs tried, and all got burned and failed. The Fossa tried to smother it, and failed. Birds tried to blow it out by flapping their wings, and failed. Finally the bats smothered it with their wings; in the end they were badly burned and exhausted. The Drongo (trickster/slackard) saw it was out, rolled in the ashes to get all dirty, and went to God and said he had put it out. So God made him king and gave him a crown (his crest). The bats recovered and went to God and said they had actually put it out, that Drongo had lied. But God said "That's too bad, I already made him king." So now the bats sleep hanging from their feet, head down in the trees, with their butts facing the sky and God.
After lunch, we had to catch another ferry, this time across the Tsiribihina River. The Tsiribihina ferry does not go straight across the river to the other side, but has to go upstream a kilometer or so, so it is a much longer ride. There was a fair amount of river traffic, with ferries coming and going. It looked like every one was different. Ours held three cars, was made of two pontoon canoes made of flattened corrugated tin rivited and welded together, with one engine at the stern of each pontoon. It took 30-40 minutes to slog our way upstream.
As on the Manambolo ferries, the fuel tanks were plastic jugs suspended above the engine. They were crank started, and the operator did a fast dance when he cranked, the engine caught, and he then had to adjust the fuel mixture. Once under way, I was surprised to see one of the operators with his bare feet casually resting within inches of the big spinning flywheel.
The ferry landing was steep with a rutted track. The first vehicle to unload either had no 4WD or it didn't work or the driver didn't know how to engage it. They couldn't make it up the bank and got stuck.
South of Belo, the deforestation was devastating. We passed huge expanses of former forest where the only trees left were old baobabs, widely spaced. Lova said when he had last been there three years before, it was all forest. All the trees had been cut and the land burned. We finally found forest only when we turned off for the short road to Kirindy National Park. Madagascar just has too many people, too many zebu, and too much fire. The country seems too far gone, spiraling out of control downward.
When we got to Kirindy we were delighted, as no sooner had we gotten out of the vehicle than we saw a Giant Coua. Our cabins had showers, although there was almost no water pressure. My beard was still reddish-brown afterwards, but that's probably more a comment on my personal hygiene habits than the shower...
My diary says "Only ripstop pants. Knee ripped from sticking sweat, crummy material."
We were delighted with the number of birds about the compound; some were new species for us, while others had become old friends.
The baobabs and other trees were starting to leaf out and bloom, so there was a bit more color in the forest.
We had night walks booked every evening. Our first night was a bonanza.
The next morning we had a great bird "walk"; we spent most of it sitting quietly beside a pond. Back at camp there was a Fosa hanging around. The Malagasy spell it "Fosa," pronounced "foos" while in English it is "Fossa."
We were happy to be in an actual forest, although the devastated countryside was not far away. However, the heat was oppressive. After one mid-morning walk Dona needed a ride back to camp. A shower barely helped to cool us off; we were still exhausted. We wondered if we might have Covid. We had all been triple vaccinated, and should have been reasonably well protected. We hoped any symptoms would be mild if we did get it. We had no tests, so no way to tell, and even if we did, what would we do?
We tried to be careful about where we put our hiking snacks, but one night a mouse lemur or forest rat or ... something got into my stash of dried cherries. I thought my pack was closed up...