Nosy Komba, Madagascar
The next stop was Nosy Komba. This was going to be a treat as well as I’d heard that lemurs are so tame that you can feed them bananas. However, bananas had to be ‘rationed’ so that they’d still be hungry for when the next set of tourists would come ashore. Drat... but fair enough. Lemurs are actually really crazy for bananas (very much like monkey – shows it’s in their genes !).
Nosy Komba was a very interesting island. The main trade is to sell you table cloth with beautiful patterns of fish, turtles, shells.... but not having any decent table, this was wasted on me. They also sold lots of little packs of vanilla pods (well, not so little, about 30 pods) for just 10,000 MA = £3.50 equivalent, when I’m sure it’s pretty much £2 per pod in a good supermarket here. Madagascar is one of the biggest exporters of vanilla so you could find it everywhere.
The first stop though was in a restaurant overlooking the beach. It was nothing spectacular but the food was good. I never once got sick. Sylvie did have a dodgy stomach once but that was it. I reckon my malaria tablets (doxycycline) do the trick because it has some properties in there to stop such nuisance as well.
We then went for a walk through the village and headed for the spot where the lemurs tend to come down from the trees and wait for the tourists. The guys in charge of the ‘semi-tame’ lemur split the tourists in two, take them down different paths and then they give you bananas and instruct you to really hold onto them tight because they are very fast and will grab them and take them back to their tree. So, if you want your photo taken you need to hold onto them and then they’ll eat them there & then, from your hand. OK, I can do that. Sounded easy in therory.
So, the guy calls them, with what sounded like a ‘mackee, mackee, mackee’ sound (I didn’t even ask if it meant anything in Malagasy since I figured the lemur wouldn’t know the meaning either !). But they obviously learn to associate the sound with ‘bananas to go’ and do come down. So, as soon as you have one in hand, they come and jump on your shoulders or on your head... Sylvie had one on each shoulder AND one on her head. The most I ever managed was two ! So I lost at that game. The lemurs were very beautiful but completely different from Pepette. The female were light brown with white fluffy ears and the males had a very black and shiny coat. Beautiful creatures really. Lovely yellow eyes. Unusual for the females to be prettier, usually the blokes get the nicest colours to ‘seduce’ as they tend to beg whilst the girls get to ‘pick & choose’. In the lemur world, the females rule anyway (for once !). The only thing they really don’t like is for anyone to touch their long tail. I suspect that some kids some day really gave them a hard time and so it stayed in their memory bank and was passed from generation to generation. But if you don’t go near their tail, they are really tame and ever so soft.
It’s a good thing they are protected by law because I can quite imagine that some women with bad tastes would love fur coats made of lemurs. One is not allowed to eat their meat either, though the same rule supersedes all rules: “sauf en cas de force majeure”... ‘except in a critical situation... where it’s then permitted’. Since 98% of people live under the bread-line, it means that 98% could be exempt from abiding to this law... but from what my guide said, people seem to be sensible enough to realise that the lemurs are a huge attraction for tourists and that they are, therefore, worth a lot more alive than dead.
We walked some more through the village, admiring their beautiful art and paintings. If I had had the space, I’d have bought plenty because I really loved the colours, but I had to make do with taking photos just to remember them. Thankfully, the artists didn’t object.
It then took us about 35 mins to get back to Nosy Be (another bumpy boat ride) and we got to our hotel pretty early, at around 5pm. I thought ‘great, now I can get on the internet and email some more’ but Tuesday was the ONLY day when the internet cafe was closed all day.
We went back to Chez Teresa for dinner (they have the most beautiful rhum made with fresh lemon, or chocolate). They are so friendly in there that we talked with owners till 10.30pm (in between their serving other customers as it was always packed with their regular customers).
The next stop was Nosy Komba. This was going to be a treat as well as I’d heard that lemurs are so tame that you can feed them bananas. However, bananas had to be ‘rationed’ so that they’d still be hungry for when the next set of tourists would come ashore. Drat... but fair enough. Lemurs are actually really crazy for bananas (very much like monkey – shows it’s in their genes !).
Nosy Komba was a very interesting island. The main trade is to sell you table cloth with beautiful patterns of fish, turtles, shells.... but not having any decent table, this was wasted on me. They also sold lots of little packs of vanilla pods (well, not so little, about 30 pods) for just 10,000 MA = £3.50 equivalent, when I’m sure it’s pretty much £2 per pod in a good supermarket here. Madagascar is one of the biggest exporters of vanilla so you could find it everywhere.
The first stop though was in a restaurant overlooking the beach. It was nothing spectacular but the food was good. I never once got sick. Sylvie did have a dodgy stomach once but that was it. I reckon my malaria tablets (doxycycline) do the trick because it has some properties in there to stop such nuisance as well.
We then went for a walk through the village and headed for the spot where the lemurs tend to come down from the trees and wait for the tourists. The guys in charge of the ‘semi-tame’ lemur split the tourists in two, take them down different paths and then they give you bananas and instruct you to really hold onto them tight because they are very fast and will grab them and take them back to their tree. So, if you want your photo taken you need to hold onto them and then they’ll eat them there & then, from your hand. OK, I can do that. Sounded easy in therory.
So, the guy calls them, with what sounded like a ‘mackee, mackee, mackee’ sound (I didn’t even ask if it meant anything in Malagasy since I figured the lemur wouldn’t know the meaning either !). But they obviously learn to associate the sound with ‘bananas to go’ and do come down. So, as soon as you have one in hand, they come and jump on your shoulders or on your head... Sylvie had one on each shoulder AND one on her head. The most I ever managed was two ! So I lost at that game. The lemurs were very beautiful but completely different from Pepette. The female were light brown with white fluffy ears and the males had a very black and shiny coat. Beautiful creatures really. Lovely yellow eyes. Unusual for the females to be prettier, usually the blokes get the nicest colours to ‘seduce’ as they tend to beg whilst the girls get to ‘pick & choose’. In the lemur world, the females rule anyway (for once !). The only thing they really don’t like is for anyone to touch their long tail. I suspect that some kids some day really gave them a hard time and so it stayed in their memory bank and was passed from generation to generation. But if you don’t go near their tail, they are really tame and ever so soft.
It’s a good thing they are protected by law because I can quite imagine that some women with bad tastes would love fur coats made of lemurs. One is not allowed to eat their meat either, though the same rule supersedes all rules: “sauf en cas de force majeure”... ‘except in a critical situation... where it’s then permitted’. Since 98% of people live under the bread-line, it means that 98% could be exempt from abiding to this law... but from what my guide said, people seem to be sensible enough to realise that the lemurs are a huge attraction for tourists and that they are, therefore, worth a lot more alive than dead.
We walked some more through the village, admiring their beautiful art and paintings. If I had had the space, I’d have bought plenty because I really loved the colours, but I had to make do with taking photos just to remember them. Thankfully, the artists didn’t object.
It then took us about 35 mins to get back to Nosy Be (another bumpy boat ride) and we got to our hotel pretty early, at around 5pm. I thought ‘great, now I can get on the internet and email some more’ but Tuesday was the ONLY day when the internet cafe was closed all day.
We went back to Chez Teresa for dinner (they have the most beautiful rhum made with fresh lemon, or chocolate). They are so friendly in there that we talked with owners till 10.30pm (in between their serving other customers as it was always packed with their regular customers).
posted by Sylvie at 10:05 PM
<< Home