The Cactus Trip Diaries

Monday 31 October – Around Auberge de La Table

Having seen the local flora and fauna in the Arboretum yesterday, today Christophe wanted to take us to St. Augustin and see Aloe descoignyi var augustina in nature. We left the comfort of the hard top and were back to bouncing along dirt tracks again, on a scenic coast track. We passed a sea-cucumber farm; nothing like a mass of greenhouses as found in het Westland in the Netherlands, but partitioned off sections of the bay in the Indian Ocean. Sea cucumbers are not plants but are marine animals with a leathery skin and an elongated body that are farmed here for export to China where they are sold for consumption. I was surprised to learn that there are some 1,700 different species!

The track went into the Protected Area of Tsinjoriake and before too long we stopped for pictures at the monument marking our passing of the Tropic of Capricorne.  Nadia waskeen to have her picture taken here as she was born under the star sign of Capricorne.

Tropic of Capricorne marker

A familiar sight, as we had posed with similar markers in Namibia, north of Antofagasta in Chile and in NW Argentina, as well as at the Tropic of Cancer marker in Baja California and on the Mexican mainland. Although each marker has the precise coordinates of the tropics written on them, Nature rarely cooperates rarely in accordance with human expectations. Planet Earth spins around the sun with an axial tilt of 23.4371 degrees which corresponds to the latitude of the Tropics – Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere and Capricorne here in the Southern Hemisphere. A graph showing the zonally averaged monthly precipitation on Earth shows that after the North and South Pole, the latitude of the Tropics are the two most arid regions on Earth, which is of course of interest to those interested in cacti and the other succulents that are adapted to life in extremely arid conditions. May be I should consider a presentation of ‘What I Saw at the Tropics’?  But the Earth’s spin around its axis has a wobble so that the exact position of the Tropic can vary by a few meters each year around the 23.4371 degrees mark.

Boy and dog

This boy, walking his dog, personifies the happy smiling character of the Malagasy people, waving and keen to inspect images that we had taken on our camera’s monitors. The exception was in the tourist hotspots where immediately begging hands would reach out and requests for bonbons (sweets) and cadeaux (presents) were made.

Christophe parked the car and pointed to a sandy footpath leading up a hill. ‘About one hour to the Aloes’ he announced. Should I wait by the car, in the nice cool breeze coming off the bay? Or struggle up the hill in the boiling heat? I reminded myself that I was here on a plant trip and decided to take just one camera and 1 litre of water (cold when we set off this morning, but around my body temperature as I carried it up hill.)  I must have acclimatised since that aborted hill on my first day in Madagascar that had shaken my confidence. This path was not as steep and at a steady speed we walked up the hill, with Christophe pointing out plants of interest.

Lizard

We paused for images of lizards that followed our progress, offering the opportunity to lookover our shoulders to note good progress up the hill. Once at the summit, the news came that we had to walk down the other side and up another hill to get to the small Euphorbia that was our other target plant, but again, already seen before ‘in captivity’ in the Arboretum.

Nadia was the first to spot another miniature Aloe, Aloe antandroi (Kew reports it as A. antandroy), a small grass aloe, related to Aloe isaloensis. Its leaves are narrow, dark bronze, 5 inches long, 0.25 inches wide (6 mm), edged by small soft thorns. The undersides of its leaves has white spots.

Aloe antandroi, very thin leaves, but its red flowers were the give away.

Not much farther, and still on the way down from our first hill, Nadia again was the first to spot clusters of Aloe descoignsii.

Aloe descoignsii

Just as in the Arboretum yesterday, I was a little disappointed seeing the smallest Aloe in habitat. Christophe assured me that after the rains started anytime soon (?) this plant would show off its leaves in all their glory. I had first become interested in this small Aloe when I saw it in the collection of John Bleck in Santa Barbara, Ca, who used it in creating his hybrid ‘Lizard Lips’ that is still popular in cultivation and often distributed amongst the hobby as a raffle prize in Branch raffles. I’m sure that is also among the parentage of the wonderful hybrids created by Kelly Griffin and Karen Zimmerman in California that aim to create plants with the best leaf patterns, surface textures and teeth along the leaves’ edges.

We searched in vain for the small Euphorbia that should have been found on the other side of the path. Christophe and John went on to search some more on the steep rock side opposite our hill, but John reported finding only a few small plants in this harsh environment.

We had over taken and been overtaken by a bus that seemed to be part of a Guinness World Record attempt at getting as many people as possible in and on the top and sides of a bus. We were unsure if, while we enjoyed lunch overlooking the bay, the bus had reached its terminal and changed its passengers for an even larger number or had just collected even more passengers for the World Record attempt. Amazing. How many UK traffic violations could the bus driver have received. Where is Health & Safety when it’s needed? Later I found a painting at one of the hotels that shows another attempt at the record. That painting too is being framed in Amesbury as I catch upon my notes.

The Health & Safety manager sits on the roof of the driver’s cab.

Sunday 30 October – Ifate to Toliara

Toliara turned out to be a large buzzing town. Christophe took us to the artisan market, on the beach, where we enjoyed picking up small stocking filler type souvenirs (mainly for myself) and negotiating with the store holders to arrive at a price where we both felt that we had made a fair deal. There were lots of larger, more expensive and perhaps less ethical items on offer, but these were just not practical until the end of the trip.

Christophe took us to an Italian restaurant for a pizza. The walls of the restaurant were covered in paintings by local artists. The price, in ariary seemed like a huge amount but quite reasonable in Euros and even better in Pounds Sterling. The folded copy of the Sun Newspaper had gone down in volume since our arrival, but was still enough to afford the purchase. We would return to town the next day when the banks would be open so that I could change more Euros. But how would I get the picture home? Simple, they would take it off the wooden frame and roll it into a tube for easy transport. The image below shows the picture before packing. Back in England, getting it put into a proper frame costs the same as the painting itself.

Ring-tailed lemur painting

The painting, still on the wall

We continued out of town and soon arrived at a turning sign posted to the chalet complex that would be our home for the next two nights at Auberge de La Table and the Arboretum d’Antsokay. Yes, back in comfort and with wifi in the bar / restaurant when the electricity is on. By now the discipline of daily blog postings had gone out of the window, so I made do with just a few brief messages to assure friends and family that all was great. Although the chalets were again very comfortable, many of the rooms where we stayed relied on solar energy and did not provide sockets in the rooms to enable camera batteries and laptops to be charged. After the car battery problems, now resolved, I had not even considered asking to use the car chargers that I had brought along. So daily priorities were to charge laptops, so that images held on the camera could be downloaded to the laptop, then to clear the memory cards in the camera before attempting to split the images into sensible ‘stops’. The accommodation complex and the arboretum was established around 1980 on the initiative of Swiss amateur botanist Hermann Petignat, whose son, Andry,  is a good friend of Christophe and Nadine. Christophe is acknowledged as a contributor to two books co-written by Andry: ‘Baobabs of the world’ (2012) and ‘Guide to the succulent plants of South-West Madagascar (2016) both with text in French and English. Both books were on offer in the souvenir shop which also provided one of few opportunities to use my credit cards,  so came back to the UK..

What is the point of staying in an Arboretum without taking the opportunity of a guided tour by Christophe. Again, there was clear and very useful labelling on the trees and shrubs that again would come in useful for plant IDs back home. It turned out to be quite a long walk and the best light had gone as we got back for a beer before dinner. ‘Do you want to go back for another walk?’ Christophe asked. No thanks, as I was checking my emails and had two cameras full of images to download before the power went off. I thought he had been joking but he and John joined the garden’s guide to take a look at a family of nocturnal lemurs that were due ‘to perform’.

Here is a selection of today’s images:

Operculicarya pachypus

Angie grows a Operculicarya pachypus in a pot in the living room. I’ve often wondered why. If it’s for the flowers – don’t bother! Tiny!

Terpsiphone mutata – Madagascar paradise flycatcher

Between all the stems, branches and twigs, it was nice to find this splash of colour! You won’t find this bird in Angie’s living room!

Arboretum d’Antsokay

This map of the Arboretum provides perhaps the best view of the huge number of things that we saw and photographed. Well worth a visit!

Saturday 29 October – around Ifaty

I forgot to mention THE event of yesterday – after what seemed to be an eternity of bouncing along rough roads – yes, we had been warned! – we hit new, smooth asphalt. No potholes (yet) so I guess that this stretch had been opened very recently. Why? as apart from a few carts drawn by zebu, and two mopeds we saw no traffic until we got to the bustling part through the town of Ifaty. We were some 15 km from the town of Toliara (or Tulear or Toliary depending on your age, religion or preference).

Christophe and Nadia needed to get to the town to take the lottery element out of starting the car and to get the puncture fixed. The activities organised by the Bamboo Club included a guided tour of the local botanic garden, the Foret de Baobabs and so John and I found ourselves in a zebu drawn ox-cart, fitted with a mattress for our European rears, for the short ride to the ‘Foret de Baobabs’ botanic garden with two guides to educate us. They spoke good English and did a great job, leading us through a maze of tracks and showing us all sort of plants, mainly of medicinal use, but also those of interest to a Cactus & Succulent plant lovers audience. A great help for when I get round to putting names to some of the pictures taken in nature during the trip.

One of our guides would run off to gather or spot some wild life that can not be guaranteed to be rooted to a particular spot, while the other guide explained the medical uses of some of the plants. When I told him of some of the pills that are part of my daily breakfast routine, he was very knowledgeable – he was studying medicine at University, looking at all aspects of the subject.

We saw a large weaverbird’s nest in one of the baobabs,

Weaverbird’s nest among baobab fruits

a trail in the soft sand that led to a snake of the constrictor group,

Constrictor type snake

at least three different species of lizard,

Three-eyed lizard – Chalarodon madagascariensis

nearly stepped on a very well camouflaged nightjar (bird), asked why there was no obvious regeneration of the baobabs, only century old giants showing signs of old age and much more. Our guide showed us three twigs, some 30 cm ( 1 ft) tall and told us how these had been grown from seed sown 20 years ago! He thought that growth could be faster if the plants received more water and nutrition in cultivation, but it certainly put the plant’s reputation as a slow grower into context! We saw a fish eagle couple at their nest high in the top of a baobab. Our ‘spotter’ guide brought us three scorpions that he had found hidden underneath old rotting branches. Two were of the same species, with the female carrying the formidable sting.

Scorpion #1

All three scorpions

All of a sudden there was an unexpected rush as a lizard which must have been curious to see what was going on, rushed in, believing that the scorpions were his lunch. Our guide used a stick to knock the female scorpion with sting from John’s boot, before it could cause him any harm. No body was hurt and the lizard left hungry.

In addition to the lizards, our spotter also managed to find a chameleon:

Chameleon sp

It took a while before we were able to ID these enormous ‘mealy bug’ type insects, you need to read on to find the answer on future pages:

‘gigantic mealy bugs’? read on for the answer.

Our outing was complete when our spotter reported having found a group of lemurs in the trees ahead. Lemur taxonomy is controversial and I use the term to cover all Malagasy primates Unlike the plants in this garden, the Lemurs did not come with ID tags. They stayed in the trees and were difficult to catch on camera as twigs and branches distracted the automatic focussing. What ever their name, they always look cute.

Lemur sp

Back at the Bamboo Club, Christophe and Nadia had returned and reported that the alternator had been replaced with a new one so that we could stop pretending to be religious by saying a prayer before Christophe would try to start the car.

Friday 28 October – Salary to Ifaty

The Hotel laundry goes to work

I believe that the original plan had been to stay two nights at Salary, so I was glad that there was an opportunity to move on a day early to the much more comfortable accommodation at the Bamboo Club on the beach at Ifaty. I introduced the staff to my own variation of the French drink, Pastis, mixing it with a bottle of Sprite into a refreshing long drink. Some French guests looked on in disbelief as I first added an ice cube and then the Sprite to the neat Pastis. Disgraceful. Members of a German coach party seemed to like the idea and were seen to order some themselves.

My chalet had two double and one single bed, all to myself and there were huge ceiling fans to cool me down until the electricity went off after I had fallen asleep. There were three dead cockroaches underneath the beds, but that was the only negative. A huge plus was that while there was electricity, there was wifi in the bar that entertained us with a great range of Rock and Soul music. What a contrast. Obviously I have become a spoilt brat, but hey, I can live with such accusations!  Finally an opportunity to catch up with some 200 emails – mostly adverts and Facebook messages, but also a couple of bookings for talks in 2017.

Looking forward to tomorrow’s zebu cart ride to the local botanic garden!

Friday 28 October 2016 – news flash from Ifaty

We’re back in civilisation for a day or two, which means in the rather comfortable Club Bamboo (http://www.bamboo-club.com/)

There was a small cheer as we hit tarmac for the first time in over a week, from memory.

This is just a quick update for friends and family who might have become worried about the long silence. We’re still having a good time, still very hot & sweaty and amazed at some of the things that we’ve seen that I’ll try to cover in more detail by updating the diaries once I get home.

We know that we’ve hit civilisation when the price of a bottle of cola doubled in price – but still very affordable compared to the UK.

I see that there 184 emails waiting for my attention, so more later, time permitting!

Cheers

John & Paul

in The Bar of Club Bamboo

Thursday 27 October – Andavadoaka to Salary

Again, the track bounced through the dry forest with plenty of Baobabs alongside between the shrubbery or standing on burning or still smouldering fields. Plenty of signs of ground clearing but little evidence of re-using the land for agriculture.

Our itinerary says of Salary: ‘an authentic Malagasy hotel, perched at the top of a dune with a magnificent beach at its feet. Possibility of making an exploration in the forest of mikéas.’  My memories of the day are limited to arriving mid afternoon at the village. Images taken reveal another drive through the dry spiny forest with baobabs along the side of the track. The internet helps with ‘Salary is a true gem with probably the nicest totally wild beach of the whole country. It takes about 4 hours to get here from Tulear on a 4×4‘. We were now just over half way our 28 day tour and I was happy to treat it as a place to relax, i.e. have a nap in the single huts and a trip to the shared outside toilet and shower facilities. Angie usually takes care of bringing or packing torches, but this time these were missing, so I had got used to using my laptop screen as a torch as I ventured out for my midnight bladder call. Here, it really was pitch dark, with a cloud cover keeping out any light from stars and the moon. I had walked the route to the toilet during daylight but had forgotten to remember the high second step onto the soft sand near where the car was parked. The resulting tumble gave me plenty of opportunity to search the sky for moon and stars, until I had managed to find and switch on my laptop again. Note to self: MUST pack a torch and batteries for Mexico!

The small settlement was authentic Malagasy witch chicken, ducks and a turkey, apparently unaware that Christmas was approaching were running around between the young children of the village, not bothered by cats and dogs lazing in the heat. John went for a swim but found the sea warmer than his bath water back in England and observed that any cooling effect had been undone by the time that he had reached the top of the chalet  at the top of the sand dune again. Had we been the typical sea, sun & sand holiday makers, the place would have been ideal. As it was, the rest day was very much appreciated and Christophe and I had a go at putting names to some of the more obscure (for me) plants that I had photographed. I decided to use the caption facility in the metadata displayed on my ACDSEE image browser / editor but was disappointed to find later, after I had backed up the image files to the plug in hard drive that I had brought along that much of the data entered had not been saved or had got lost in transferring the files. Unlike my MS database where the data entered is automatically saved as the cursor is moved to the next field, this is not the case for the ACDSEE metadata input screen where the data entered for each field has to be saved by pressing the return key. Lesson learned!

Despite the somewhat primitive accommodation, they had laid on a great dinner, of grilled fish, sautéed potatoes and a variety of vegetables, washed down with bottles of THB (Three Horse Brewery) pilsner beer

Authentic Malagasy village at Salary

Wednesday 26 October – Around CoCo Beach, Andavadoaka

Although I have described all (most) of our accommodation as very comfortable, with John and I enjoying our own individual en-suite facilities, the main difference with other hot places that I had visited when it was hot was the lack of air-conditioning. It made me realise how elsewhere we would lower our core temperature in air-conditioned environments before venturing out into the heat to photograph our plants. Although our chalets here, on Coco Beach were right on the beach, with at times a nice cooling breeze making doors slam, this morning there was no breeze when Christophe suggested taking a walk to some different caudiciform plants. It was a level path, taking about 60 minutes each way. Let’s give it a go – it was always possible to abort the walk if things got too hot.

I amazed myself at some of the plants that I photographed – certainly not the huge photogenic plants seen elsewhere. May be Wiebe Bosma, my Asclepiad expert friend in the Netherlands can confirm names. First, Christophe became quite excited about what looked tome to be bunch of dead sticks that he explained was an Asclepiad although I wrote down (and then lost) the name given. Christophe is guiding some more Brits around Madagascar as I write these catch-up entries, so is unable to help until his return.

Asclepiad sp ?

I should explain that the greenish coloured stems had been covered by rocks when this plant had been discovered by Christophe and was covered over again once the images were taken.

Plant #2 for Wiebe was found by Nadia.

Asclepiad sp ?

Shame that we were perhaps a day too early for the bud on the right of the picture to open. Good luck Wiebe!

Lizard sp.

This lizard is also waiting for an ID. It is one of many that crossed our camera lenses.

Cyphostema elephantopus

Next we found Christophe wipe away a tear as he found the decaying remains of an old friend, a Cyphostema elephantopus. He is pictured on page 114 of the ‘Guide to the succulents plants of SW Madagascar’ by Andry Petignat with this plant in happier days. It serves as a reminder to us as we like to visit ‘old friends’, such as Smiler, in the Atacama Desert, that one day we may find that when re-visit our friends that they may be in declining health, or worse. Fortunately Christophe and Nadia knew of some more plants of this species growing near by, but sadly, these plants too looked as if they had passed their best-by date. They seemed to be of similar age. Had they simply reached the end of their natural life span or was there a common reason for their decline, such as an increasingly dry (or wet?) climate?

At the foot of one of the Cyphostema I was happy to find an Orchid that looks to be the same species that grows on Angie’s windowsill in Wiltshire. Now if only she could remember where she had acquired that plant ….

Oeceoclades spathulifera

There are a number of similar and closely related species but the differences between them are in the flower and here, none were found. It was difficult to get a good picture of the orchid as it prefers to grow in the shade underneath shrubs.

Once again, the car battery failed to turn over the starter motor and we were stuck until Christophe had tracked down the muscular owner of the property where we had parked, to help us to push start the car back into life.

There was a cooling breeze when we returned to our chalets and we could download our images and scribble down rough notes once the electricity came on, late afternoon.

Tuesday 25 October 2016 – Morebo to Andavadoaka

The Cactus Trip Diaries focus of course on members of the Family Cactaceae, although as true C&S freaks, we also take an interest in some of ‘the other succulents’. The presence of Opuntia species on Madagascar is well known. We had been seeing a range of Opuntia along the road, most densely around settlements and villages where, despite the spines, they served as food for cattle and goats, but also, for human consumption. So what is the species that dominates? It reminded me of Opuntia dilleni, that we had seen on Cuba. A brief search on the internet suggests that it might be O. monacantha. But it will take some time to resolve the ID, as I fight against time to finish the Diaries before we leave for Cologne in a few weeks time. Both have spread widely outside their ‘natural’ distribution area, although, after many years during which some cacti have been exported to arid areas as cattle fodder, the true origins of the invaders may be difficult, if not impossible, to determine. Their invasive nature is not in question. We only saw one specimen of Cylindropuntia tunicata and that was in a botanic garden. Let’s hope that it remains there, carefully locked up when the gardens close at 5 p.m.

The cactus patch outside the village of Morebo

Opuntia monacantha? or O. dillenii?

At the next stop, Ipomea bolusiana provided a colourful ground cover plant. Below the ground is a large turnip-like caudex which is often displayed above the soil in cultivation.

Ipomea bolusiana

And of course there were plenty of Baobabs in the dry forest on the edge of a Mangrove forest as we speeded and bounced along a bumpy sand track towards Andavadoaka, our home for the next two nights.

We started to see a few baobabs again. The flat arrangement of branches at the top suggest Adansonia grandidieri, but the trees are much more stunted than those that we had seen in and around the Avenue de Baobabs. The conditions here are much drier, and probably have been so for the last 600 years plus, the age of these plants.

It seemed to take no time at all to take close to 100 images as I wandered about these giants and apart from the three of us (Nadia stayed out of the sun, in the car) not another tourist or for that matter, anybody else, around. A great experience. We did not have a GPS with us on this trip, but I’m sure that I must be able to find this group of trees on Google Earth, once the Diaries are up to date.

Resembling Dr Who’s Daleks, Adansonia grandidieri have been waiting here to be photographed for some 600 years

Monday 24 October – Manja to Moredo

Manja had not been my favourite stop over. It rained just before our arrival and we were the last car to squeeze into the car park compound. I thought about the challenge of getting out with a flat battery in the morning. The accommodation was a long way from the very comfortable accommodation from previous nights. Yes, John and I each had our private suite with bathroom and toilet but we were warned that the electricity could go off any moment. There was a huge cockroach on the bedroom wall and I tried to whack it with my trainer, still soaked from yesterday’s boat ride. The wall appeared to consist of reed that moved as the cockroach got my size 11, which did not seem to have any affect. The camp consisted of rows of chalets, each separated by paper thin walls, so you could enjoy the sound of farting coach parties all round. It reminded me of the scenes of a Vietnamese war film that I had seen in the seventies. Still, my Martini Sleeper reputation – ‘Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere’ is still in tact as I turned on to my good ear and shut the world outside of my mosquito net out of my mind. No sooner had I made myself comfortable or the power was cut. Around 3 a.m.my bladder demanded emptying so I switched on my laptop and by the light of the screen found my way past the giant cockroach and once back in the safety of the mosquito net was soon off to sleep again.

The car answered our prayers and fired up at first request. I was glad to leave Manja behind.

We had to cross another river and while waiting, were able to observe at least three cars from previous crossings, stuck in the soft sand on the opposite shore. Soft wet sand was again the problem and the more that the cars tried to get out, each with its crowd of passengers, advisors and helpers, the more the sand became disturbed. Christophe and I watched another car leave the ferry, made a brave attempt at full speed, but then slowed down to rubber-neck at the first car, stuck to over its axels in the sand and it too joined the victims. One of the locals on the ferry confirmed our opinion to stick the car in 4×4 mode, get into 2nd gear and keep a steady speed – not slowing down. Do you know the best path through? Of course, for 5,000 ariary (less than £1.25) he would take us through. Done! And he was as good as his word, as we passed the stranded vehicles who would probably struggle for a few more hours to get out.

The other highlight of the day was a visit to what is alleged to be the oldest Baobab tree in Madagascar. We found a fony baobab (Adansonia rubrostipa) called La grand-mère (the Grandmother) that researchers found consists of three perfectly fused stems of different ages. The radiocarbon date of the oldest sample was found to be 1136 ± 16 BP.  The study also revealed that the trees are mostly hollow. (see Searching for the Oldest Baobab of Madagascar: Radiocarbon Investigation of Large Adansonia rubrostipa Trees by Adrian Patrut, Karl F. von Reden, Pascal Danthu, Jean-Michel Leong Pock-Tsy, Roxana T. Patrut, Daniel A. Lowy).

But how big is it? We took turns to have our pictures taken for scale, but we felt tiny and insignificant. Most of the village had followed us out, after we had paid the fee to access the tree, so I asked Nadia to ask the lady who seemed to be ‘in charge’, to ask all the kids to hold hands to try to get all round the tree. They managed to get only half way! They had negotiated a participation fee of 10,000 ariary for their posing! Better than bonbons!

La grand-mère, the oldest biggest baobab in Madagascar

It has a height of 7.47 m and a circumference at breast height (cbh) of 9.67 m. Too big for my collection!
I asked Christophe about the apparent lack of seedling plants. He explained that there was no simple answer, as seedlings are very hard to ID. More later. There were certainly plenty of fruits with plenty of seed.

I remember many conversations around camp fires in the Chilean Atacama Desert about the possible age of the huge clumps of Copiapoa. Memories of conclusions are usually coloured by the quantities of red wine consumed at such discussions.