Nosy Mangabe

By Frieda

Nosy Mangabe (Island of many Mangos) is around 500 hectar big and is half an hour by pirouge from Maroansetra. It is a National Park and two kind of lemurs plus a lot of reptiles can be sighted here. The big Masaola Peninsula is also close to Maroansetra but it is very very expensive to go there. We decided to go to Nosy Mangabe which was less above our budget. It was still expensive and therefore we tried to find other people to share the costs of boat and guide. We were lucky and met a very nice guy from  Switzerland who came with us.

We arranged a trip to the island where we could stay overnight, because it is best in the evening and morning to see the animals. The entry fee for the park is 45 000 Ariary per day but if you stay over night but not longer than 24hours you pay only one day. For the guide we payed 140 000 Ariary. The camping on a campground with showers, toilets and even roofed shelters was free because we did not have a tent but only hammocks. Otherwise it would have been 5000 for the both of us. Additionally we had to buy food for ourself and the guide. There is a clean river close to the camp and we have a good filter so we had enough drinking water and did not have to buy it in advance.

We took a pirouge to get to the island (90 000 Ar). Apperently the boat driver was very unhappy with this price. We arrived there at around 11. The pirouge stirred directly to the camp on an amazingly beautiful stretch of beach with rough sand and thick rainforest rising behind it on steep hills. This sight made our hearts beat faster und tickled our longing for adventure.

After we stored our stuff at the camp we started a trail around the island. In the first very easy part of the hike we sighted the amazing Leaftail Gecko. This small reptile is a specialist on camouflage. Because it is dayblind it sleeps during the day and is almost not distinguishable from the bark of the tree trunks where it hides. Nevertheless Daniel sighted one rather quickly. The animal amazed us very much and we felt like searching for easter eggs trying to find another one. And we actually found another one but this time the credits go to our guide ;).

After that, we climbed the jungle track up the hill to an old broken lighthouse. In the jungle it was extremly humid and we sweated like hell. Then the trail led us up and down the hills of the island making us sweat some more. One the descent from the summit we saw a group of White-Front Brown  Lemurs jumping around in the trees over our heads. We offered them some bananas and they came quite close. What  liked the most about this encounter was that the interest for each other seemed not one-sided but mutual. The lemurs came close to us because they wanted to watch us a bit J.

Close to the camp we passed on a mystical place between rocks with some tombs of an ancient royal family  of Madagascar who used to live on Nosy Mangabe back in their days. In Madagascar it is a tradition to visit the graves of decayed ancestors  every November to turn their bones in the tomb. So the descendants of this family of kings (some of them are still in politics) come to Nosy Mangabe to turn the bones of their forefathers and to wish for good luck for the next year.

Back at the camp we swam in the amazingly refreshing sea. Later we cooked dinner (therefore we bought some fish from some closeby fisherman camp) and went to bed early. In the hammock we lacked a mosquito net but luckily there were very little mosquitos so close to the sea and we did not get bitten. To the sound of the waves hitting the sea shore we slept well and deep.

In the morning i woke with the fist gleam of light at around 4:30 am. Soon after that i saw high up in the tree some lemurs jumping around. I stood up quickly and tried (very badly of course) to imitate their sounds and actually they came closer and again it felt as if they were as interested in watching me as I was in watching them. I woke up Daniel and got some bananas. After that the ice was broken and a group of 6 or 7 lemurs came very close to the ground. Some were braver than others and came as close as one meter to us. One female was especially brave. She was not even afraid to take banana pieces out of my hand. She even touched my hand with her fingers. I expected it to be a soft paw but it was exceptionally hard. It felt more like bare bones than like a paw J. We spent quite a while feeding them bananas and watching them from a very close distance until they got bored and huddeled away.

After breakfast we made another walk on the island to the Dutch Man’s Beach where the crew of a sunken ship stranded and they engraved their names in the rocks at the shore. One the way we saw some Black-and-White Lemurs but from a far distance. It was also almost impossible to stop moving because we were followed and sourrounded by huge clouds of mosquitos. I advise anyone who wants to go to the jungle to take a lot of insect repellent if possible even for the clothes because they even stung us trough our trousers. From the beach the boat picked us up and brought us back to Maroansetra.

The most amazing thing in Nosy Mangabe was, apart from beautiful beach and nature, the mutual interest of us and the lemurs which made it really fun to watch them J