August 9, 2007
Nosy Sainte Marie and Nosy Nato, nosy being the Malagasy word for 'island', are extraordinarily popular with vacationing Europeans. From July to September you can see humpback whales up from the Antarctic to give birth to their young because the calves don't initially have enough blubber to survive the frigid waters of home. In fact, from the beach at Atafana where we're camped, we've seen lots of whales. Not always clearly mind you, but we've seen countless sprays of water from blowholes as though there's an enormous creature just under the water's surface puffing on an outsized pipe. And tail slaps with their corresponding splashes of water. And four times, about a football field away, 8 enormous and stately creatures puffing and slowly arcing out of the water, letting it run off their great, slick, black backs before showing off the mottled white underside of their tails.
In addition to the novelty and excitement of whale watching, the two islands boast more traditional features of a tropical paradise. Nato is only 8 kms in circumference and it's possible to walk the entire distance on endless sandy beaches with the Indian ocean lapping at your feet. The land shelf around the island extends under the water for quite a ways so its a safe and pleasant swimming ground. Additionally, on the eastern side of the island, there are some small rocky outcroppings jutting out of the water near the shore, providing a safe haven for electric-blue tetra fish, mottled rock-red starfish, innumerable tiny hermit crabs and other tropical life we've only seen in aquariums.
Sainte Marie's coast provides more variety, since it's much larger than Nato: 50 kms long and 7 kms wide at it's widest point. It also provides more inland variation. Almost all of Nato is a sort of green jungle of overgrown coconut palms, mangoes and mangroves. Sainte Marie has all of that, but also has two different rain forest types--tall and short--and a drier forest as well. On our hike across the island we sampled fresh coconut juice, sugarcane wine and ate our fill of just-knocked-down coconut meat. We're missing mango season by two months, but there are bananas falling off their trees, jack fruit, bread fruit and papayas, most of them just waiting to be plucked and split open. Vanilla, cinnamon and lemongrass are all grown here, providing rich, gorgeous smells whenever you walk past. As for activities you can hike, kayak, deep sea fish, watch whales, swim or sit and stare at the ocean, trying to decipher the tides. Paradisaical really. Except one thing: rain.
As an enormous joke on the part of the weather gods, July and August are also the rainy season for the islands. For the country as a whole this is winter and in most areas winter means its dry. But Mad has several regions, each with their own weather pattern. And the pattern for the northeast, including the islands, is cyclones from January through March, rain and slate-grey clouds in July and August and sunny and dry the rest of the year.
It has rained several times every day we've been here. It's poured every night. The clothes we were wearing when we landed at the airport were soaked through about 20 minutes after we arrived and it took fully four days and a lucky few hours of sun to dry them. David's hat has officially breached the mold barrier and we've taken to washing already wet clothes with no hope of drying them just to restart the mildew clock. When it's not raining it's indescribably humid. Even in the tent, where we're quite waterproof, it's still clammy. And the sky is an almost unrelenting grey cover of clouds. Every afternoon for about 30 minutes the clouds will thin and we'll be teased by the possibility of the blue sky reaching the sun, but it rarely happens.
So go ahead and be jealous of our tropical living, but rest assured it's not paradise. At least not quite.
