It is December 2024 as I write this post in Madagascar. When I retired from teaching in 2018 I was determined to travel around the world. The first destination was Madagascar which I wrote about then. The trip was exotic, as well as affordable and educational. Many of us from the group that took the first tour encouraged Devin Edmonds (now a PhD student at the University of Illinois in the process of writing his dissertation) and Michael Wallitis (a business owner with experience in running trips for small groups of intrepid travelers) to design a tour with the focus on a different region of Madagascar. Round two happened in 2022 (when the country reopened to tourism after the covid pandemic), this time focusing on Eastern Madagascar; with mostly the same people and the same strong emphasis on critters and photography of the rare and unusual. I wrote about that trip too. This is round three: Rainforest Adventure Tours Northern Madagascar. Including Devin, Michael and myself, there are seven veterans of all three trips and three first timers on this adventure. I will only mention the names of those three joining us for the first time. First, the youngest member of the group, Grace, is the daughter of one of our travel veterans. She is a graduate student at Florida Institute of Technology studying to get her Master’s in Conservation Technology. Second, Alyssa, a nurse from Wichita, who was excellent at spotting the little critters that most of us were interested in photographing. Last but not least, Lonny, a veterinarian who also lives most of the time in Kansas and is partners with Alyssa in a ten pin bowling alley business, Lonny is one of the best photographers on the trip. This is fortunate for me because I am struggling on this adventure with my new camera (which I bought a couple of weeks ago to fulfill my last New Year’s resolution of 2024) and he has promised to share a few of his best shots for me to use. Lonny is only five years younger than me. He is very bright, likes to think big and is no stranger to adventure travel. I am sure there won’t be a boring moment on this journey. All three new members were perfect additions to our group.
Madagascar is not an easy country to travel in because by some metrics it ranks among the top ten poorest countries in the world. While I won’t debate the validity of the metrics, for me Madagascar ranks very high in interesting wildlife and friendly people. My experience has been wonderful on the last two trips, and I am hoping for this adventure to be just as successful. No one can see it all in one trip. I may not see enough in three to declare I have been there and done that, with no intentions on coming back. Maybe a fourth trip to Madagascar will be in my future. I can say with certainty that it helps to have people who know the lay of the land and do their research in advance. This trip would not have a chance at success without Devin’s experience. This year he and Michael have added a local guide named Jacques, who will be another valuable asset to the tour.
This trip started at the end of the whale shark season in this part of the Indian Ocean. Our group met after flying to an island on the northwest coast of Madagascar called Nosy Be. Last April, I suggested we (at least those of us who were able to get there ahead of the scheduled itinerary) give swimming with whale sharks a try. Michael arranged the tour, along with a visit to a smaller island off the coast of Nosy Be called Nosy Ambariovato, more commonly known as Nosy Komba, which I understand in Malagasy means “Island of Lemurs.” It was an unexpected treat added after we arrived for the day following the majority of the group’s arrival. It included snorkeling at the small island and marine reserve called Nosy Tanikely. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize this was included in the tour and I didn’t come prepared to take underwater photographs. But on the following day, as you can see from the photo above we were successful at seeing at least one whale shark (some in our group may have seen as many as three). It was a thrill! If the trip had ended there for me, it would have been a success. If you read my post from earlier this year where my granddaughter got to see two whale sharks at he the Georgia Aquarium, you know she wishes she was here to see these guys in the wild with Popops.
For more of the story and to see more photos from the days before Devin arrived click here.