Nosy Be

Nosy Be Tour

26 September

Everyone knows that Alex the lion, Marty the zebra, Melman the giraffe, and Gloria the hippopotamus tried to colonise mainland Madagascar in 2005. They failed, of course, principally because the country is ill-suited to large game. And as a result of their ill-fated adventure, penguins had to rescue them after commandeering a ship. It’s a long story and best learned by watching the film documentary.

Here, the lemurs are the kings of the hills, top of the trees, and the number one attraction, especially in Lemuria Land. And we, together with the crew of Aventure, set off to find them.

Our tour of Nosy Be island started at the dinghy dock where Florent, one of the two guys looking after the parked dinghies here, caught our line and helped our gang of five clamber ashore. As we walked up the ramp, jostling arms and elbows against the tide of tourists walking down the ramp, Florent moved our dinghy away from the chaos and clamour of tour and cargo boats swarming the tiny dock. If he hadn’t, I’m sure we would have returned to something that looked less like a dinghy and more like a battered lilo. 

We met up with Jimmy on the dock. He introduced us to our guide, Jean Louis, and our two tuk-tuk drivers, who would be our companions and chauffeurs for the day on our tour of Nosy Be Island. 

After bumping, speeding, and swerving our way past the busy dock traffic and the twisty roads and hills toward the east of the island, we arrived at Lemuria Land to see, as the name suggests, tortoises, turtles, chameleons, crocodiles, and snakes. And, of course, lemurs. 

Lemuria Land – Tortoises and Reptiles

Lemuria Land sits on 8 hectares of an old ylang-ylang distillery. The land also doubled as a rum distillery when sugar cane covered much of Nosy Be. The island no longer produces rum, but some enterprising rum enthusiast recognised that sugar cane planted with vanilla, ylang-ylang and pepper trees on Nosy Be gave it a naturally unique flavour profile. Nosy Be now ships its modest sugarcane harvest to the main island, where Dzama turns it into rum.

Back on Lemuria Land, we met the tortoises. The one in the photo below is a radiated tortoise (not as in blasted with uranium), unique to Madagascar. The name comes from the lines radiating from the yellow spots on each plate.

Bonaparte was also present, one of the older tortoises of Lemuria Land. Recollections vary, and no one on Earth has been alive long enough to recall that far back, but he hatched somewhere between 1846 and 1906. The keepers are sure he weighs a whopping 200 kilos. What is also certain is that he was shot at some point before arriving at the park. Our guide suggested that it was accidental, but I’m not so sure.

The patriarch of the tortoise world in the park is Napoleon. The keepers reckon he’s 214 years old and weighs over 300kg. However, the photo suggests that he has recently lost weight.

There is a history of thievery in the park, so the keepers lock the smaller tortoises up at night and bring them out by day. The big ones stay out, for logistical reasons.

Some 98% of reptiles in Madagascar are endemic, so there’s a fair chance of seeing something here you won’t see anywhere else.

Here’s the Madagascar Giant Day Gecko. Unusually for geckos, and as the name suggests, they’re only active during the day.

Perhaps not endemic, but definitely nasty, is the Nile Crocodile. This snappy little fella snaps quicker than a bad-tempered teenager. Our guide illustrated that by putting his shoe (sans foot) near it.

And back to the endemic species: the Madagascar Giant Hognose Snake. This one is harmless. They also have a couple of boas, but they are behind glass and are only allowed out at night. Fortunately.

The comedic-looking chameleon below is the Short-Horned Chameleon – another endemic species.

Here’s a Madagascar Collared Iguana

And below are two Henkel’s Leaf-Tailed Geckos – one on top of the other. They take a bit of finding, but they are on the Snake Plant leaf on the left.

Lemuria Land – Lemurs

And here are the stars of the show. The handsome-looking lemur below is the Coquerel’s sifaka. They move in an unusual way. Because they can’t walk on all fours, they hop around sideways. 

This is a bit of a visual feast, so I won’t bang on about each one. But I will say it was a wonderful thing to get so close to these beautiful, gentle animals. Even if they were only after our bananas.

And the rest of the island

We continued our tour up towards Mont Passot, stopping along the way for photo breaks.

We arrived back at the docks with sun-baked faces and tuk-tuk-rattled bodies after an early dinner at a local pizzaria. Jean Louis had packed in more than we could have managed on our own in a week. And our drivers had forced their little machines up hills that should have been impossible for anything with three wheels.

And there, bobbing in near isolation in the harbour, was our dinghy –  still intact. Florent had kept his word, and his presence. He was still there looking after our floating little car.