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I’m not a sunrise-hike kind of person, but I have to admit this was a spectacular sight to behold in Andringitra National Park. Vanessa Paolella photo
When I decided to apply for Peace Corps Madagascar, I did so in part because of the island’s famous biodiversity.
Roughly 90% of all plant and animal species here are endemic to Madagascar, meaning they’re found nowhere else on Earth. Lemurs are the most well known of these species, but the list also includes a variety of chameleons, baobabs, orchids, palm trees and birds, to name just a few.
I didn’t expect my time in Madagascar to look like the nature documentaries I watched with my father before leaving the U.S. I knew much of the island had been deforested, with as much as 80% or more of the original forests gone.
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Madagascar’s famous baobab trees in Morondava. Courtesy of Jamie Mustful
Even so, I was shocked at how little wildlife I saw in my first few months here. Dogs, chickens and cows were omnipresent, but beyond a few lizards and tenrecs – a group of small nocturnal mammals that can resemble anything from shrews to hedgehogs – there was little here that caught my eye as uniquely Madagascar.
Even the forests near the training center in Mantasoa and the few scattered stands I saw elsewhere in the highlands were largely made up of invasive pines and eucalyptus trees.
Living here in Madagascar has made me realize just how good I had it growing up in the Poconos of northeastern Pennsylvania. Our wildlife may not be worthy of a nature documentary, but native trees and wildlife are abundant no matter where you go. Even in Lewiston, I was once lucky enough to spot a moose wandering through Thorncrag Nature Sanctuary.
In contrast, the environment here in the highlands of Madagascar is extremely degraded. As beautiful as the landscape is, it makes me sad to think about how much here has been lost.
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A ravine in Isalo National Park. Courtesy of Jamie Mustful
But two weeks ago, a few volunteers and I traveled south of Ambalavao to visit Andringitra National Park. For the first time since coming here last September, I found myself completely surrounded by nature, with no roads or villages in sight. It was absolutely stunning.
There are 19 national parks throughout the island that protect a wide variety of Madagascar’s unique environments: rainforests, coastal ecosystems, tropical forests, dry forests, alpine plateaus and spiny forests, an arid ecosystem found only in Madagascar.
Because of its diverse of ecosystems, as well as its high number of small-scale geomorphic landscape features and the “island effect,” there has been a ton of hyper-localized speciation in Madagascar over the millenniums, with some species only found in tiny, remote places. Even today, scientists continue to discover (and rediscover) new species, largely in Madagascar’s national parks and reserves.
Of all the places in Madagascar, Andringitra is one of the most ecologically diverse. It boasts rainforest to the east, featuring the southern section of the largest remaining rainforest in the county. The center of the park is a gorgeous alpine grassland filled with orchids during the rainy season. And there’s a dry forest to the west.
We saw little of the forests during our visit. Instead, we chose to hike to the top of Peak Boby, the second tallest mountain in Madagascar.
The two-day trip took us through the aforementioned grasslands (minus the orchids, as rainy season hasn’t yet arrived). The enchanting expanse of brown, tan and red hues almost seemed to me as if they had been painted by thin streaks of watercolors.
The streams snaking through the landscape here were marvelously clear, the cleanest I’ve seen here in Madagascar. When our water bottles ran dry, we filled them with water from these streams, added a few drops of chlorine, and drank it without problem.
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Our camp spot for the night was, gloriously, in the middle of the park with no other humans to be seen. We cooked in one of the shelters, but the other volunteers and I spent the night in tents. Vanessa Paolella photo
But perhaps the most striking thing to us volunteers was the scarcity of people in the park. While there, we came across just two other groups of people. It felt to us like we had the entire place all to ourselves.
When you compare the number of visitors to Andringitra to, say, Maine’s Acadia National Park, the difference is quite clear. Andringitra had about 2,000 visitors total last year compared to Acadia’s 3.9 million.
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A lemur in Andasibe National Park. Courtesy of Jamie Mustful
Even the U.S.’s least-visited national park, Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve in northern Alaska, gets more visitors. In 2022, more than 9,000 people entered the park.
But Andringitra isn’t unique in this regard. In total, Madagascar’s national parks and reserves had just 115,457 recorded visitors in 2022, down from the pre-COVID-19 visitorship of 230,000 in 2019.
For anyone looking to visit some of the most unique ecosystems in the world without the hassle of crowds, Madagascar is the perfect place. Just be prepared to travel on some of the worst roads in the world and forgo hot showers most nights.
After our first day of hiking in Andringitra, we made camp at the base of the mountain with help from two local guides and three porters who accompanied us on the trip. Our dinner that night was nothing like the backcountry fare I’m used to; thanks to the help of the porters, we had pots, pans, plates, utensils and kindling. They cooked a small feast of rice, beans, vegetable soup and salad for us all to enjoy.
It all felt a bit posh to me. But I’ll never complain about eating good food and giving folks here an opportunity to make some money.
The next morning, we rose just after 3 a.m., drank some hot water, and began our trek up to Peak Boby with the help of our flashlights. While clouds blocked much of the view from the top of the mountain, we were treated to a wonderful sunrise as we climbed above the grassland plateau.
Already, I’m making plans to go back. To say I fell hard for the park and the villages surrounding it would be an understatement; more than anything, I want to explore the forests I saw while driving in.
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Fellow volunteers, from right, Joe, Anna, me, and Jamie in front of the Andringitra National Park sign. To the far left is our friend and one of our two guides, Momo. Vanessa Paolella photo
Lucky for me, the park is within a day’s walk (currently there is no regular public transportation to the park, and a private ride is well out of my budget).
Visiting the national park was the first time I truly felt surrounded by Madagascar’s unique plants and animals. It’s given me hope knowing that while Madagascar’s wildlife may be degraded, it’s not yet destroyed.
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Thanks to the help of three porters, we ate very well while we were out hiking in Andringitra National Park. Here, our porters and guides were preparing eggs, rice and toast for breakfast. Vanessa Paolella photo
A reader asked:
Which questions do Malagasy people ask you most often? — Anonymous
Questions reveal a lot about what is important to people culturally. In the U.S., we often ask people about where they’re from, where they went to school and what they do for work. Here, I’m most often asked whether I’m married, whether I have any children, how many siblings I have, and the names of my mom, dad and older brother. Folks also love to ask how many days it took me to get to Madagascar from the U.S. (24 hours) and how much the fare was (over $3,000 for my last-minute, one-way ticket, courtesy of Peace Corps). The question I ask folks most, of course, is “Can you repeat that?”
Have a question? Send it to van.paolella@gmail.com or by snail mail to the Sun Journal at 64 Lisbon St., Suite 201, Lewiston, ME 04240.
On a personal note:
I recently began teaching at my local middle and high schools. I teach two hours of English at the middle school each week, and 12 hours of nutrition and farming at the high school. It’s been an adjustment learning how to teach classes with as many as 90 students. But it helps that I’m not an official teacher, and the stakes are low. It has been quite the experience, however, teaching in Malagasy (and using only a chalkboard!)
If you’d like to contribute to reforestation efforts in my region of Madagascar, take a look at Feedback Madagascar. They do a fantastic job of addressing deforestation holistically.
Vanessa Paolella is a Peace Corps volunteer in Madagascar, a former award-winning staff writer for the Sun Journal and a Bates College graduate. The views expressed in this column are hers alone and do not reflect the views of the U.S. government, the Peace Corps, or the Madagascar government.
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Andringitra National Park is one of the most biologically diverse places in Madagascar with several different ecosystems. We spent our two days hiking in the alpine grassland. Vanessa Paolella photo
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