Discovering Kianjavato - Hilary Bradt

It may seem odd that one of the highlights of my recent trip to Madagascar with Natural World Safaris was the arrival of our guide, Harry, to a dark mountain top, waving a piece of paper. But our afternoon at Kianjavato, open only to Natural World Safari tours, was extraordinary from beginning to end.

First, our visit to the Field Station, where we met a couple of bubbly volunteers, and learned of their work monitoring and helping to extend the range of the very rare Greater Bamboo Lemur, along with the Black-and-White Ruffed Lemur and the Aye Aye. The lemurs are radio-collared, so they can be tracked, but for these three endangered species to survive they need habitat, so reforestation is one of the most important activities of Kianjavato. Using the knowledge that seeds that have passed through a lemur germinate best, local people collect lemur poo and plant the seeds in nurseries, thus automatically selecting the fruits that lemurs (mainly the black-and-white ruffed) like best, and giving them the best start in life. 

One of the Kianjavato guides had assured us that we could see Aye Ayes ‘very near the road’. Now I know how difficult it is to see Aye Ayes. In fact in my 30 plus visits to Madagascar I’ve never seen an Aye Aye that was truly wild. We also wanted to see the Greater Bamboo Lemur while it was still light, and the seed-dispersing Black-and-White Ruffed Lemur. Success with both, after an easy walk along a path that wound through an old coffee plantation. 

The Aye Ayes proved more elusive, despite the strong beeps coming from their radio collars. We started up a steep hill, slithering in the mud (this was, after all, rain forest) and hanging onto vines and tree trunks to haul ourselves up in the encroaching darkness. Aye Ayes are nocturnal so our only chance of seeing them was to stay after dark. I remembered that I hadn’t charged my headtorch so my only illumination was a cheap hand torch with fading batteries. We climbed and climbed, and slithered, until the radio man said that the Aye Ayes were overhead and probably just starting to wake up. We were all standing on a 45 degree slope, propping ourselves up on trees as best we could, and following torch beams into the canopy. We saw nothing. It was dark and eventually we would have to make our way down that hillside. That was when Harry arrived waving his piece of paper. It was the menu, and never has the diversion of choosing what we wanted for dinner so he could phone it back to the restaurant been more pleasurable.