Day 13 – 20.10.2026 – Zombitse and Ranohira

The next day we had a long trip to Isalo, the whole day, but luckily, Fina along with our new bus driver Dama and porter Tiki, were knowledgeable and knew interesting things we could stop to see along the way, so it felt more of a trip day than a day on the road. Sometime after the middle of the trip, Fina asked whether we want to visit another national park that’s on our way, called Zombitse. He said it would not be anything other than the usual suspects – lemurs we’ve seen and chameleons so in his head, we were going to skip it. When I paid for everything for all excursions to Fina a few days before in Manja, I had not given him money for it because he thought we wouldn’t stop there.

But people wanted to see things, so we went on. It turned out to be the best decision! I asked the local park guide if there are any owls and he led us to see them and guess what – it was one of my top spotting wishes on my bucket list – the white-browed owl. OMG! This was such a blast for me. I was so excited. Even a little too much and I may have checked on my Cornell app what sounds they make which agitated the male who flew off and started calling for whoever he thought “I (my phone)” was. Poor bird, I felt quite guilty for it, I know this is a bad thing to do and did it anyway. Shame on me for this.

[Bird sound placeholder]

I couldn’t shake it out of my head for the next hour. But anyway. Besides that we saw the sooo cute Petter’s sportive lemur (2 different ones). They are called sportive, because when they are threatened, they stay on their hind legs and hold their front paws in sort of a “boxing” position. They eat only leaves, which don’t give them much energy and keep them very slow overall. But they are active throughout the year. We also saw there for the first time, the Oustalet’s chameleon, which is the biggest chameleon in Madagascar and we saw a Giant Coua at the entrance and also the Malagasy Hoopoe. Overall this park was well worth it and I am super happy we stopped by, even though that ultimately meant we won’t catch the sunset through the so-called Isalo “Window”, which is a rock that forms sort of a window through which the setting sun looks beautiful.

But I think that the park was way more interesting than that rock. Before reaching Isalo, however, there was one more stop – a village, where they mine gemstones. We stopped at a place where they showed us a tiny purple sapphire that costs 2000 USD. They showed us also other raw gemstones they discovered. The sapphire was also raw. Finally, we reached our Isalo Glamping hotel, which was one of our best hotels so far. Unfortunately, as the sun was setting on our way, we stopped to take photos of the sunset at which point, I suddenly felt insanely weak and dizzy and I started shaking and trembling and felt almost like fainting. This was so sudden, idk what happened, but I sat down and didn’t even go out for a photo, only waited until the people are out of my way and took a snap from the bus window and then dropped the camera on the seat and tried to recuperate.

People were waiting for me to get out, giving me way, then joking with me for not taking photos until they realized I was actually feeling bad. I decided that night to not have dinner. That didn’t help my condition, but also the way I felt made me paranoid about the bad malaria test I had in Manja and I thought it may have been a false negative because of the dirt and the very little blood he drew, so my paranoia started again. I measured my temperature many times, I didn’t have anything above 36.6 and one time 36.9. I felt like I had a temperature, I was hot and weak. I felt quite like shit. I made a mistake by telling my father, but he could also see me, but this made him worried, of course.

He stopped talking which is a sign he’s thinking and worrying about me. Advised me to not go on the trek the next day and take some rest.

Day 14 – 21.10.2026 – Isalo

.. but I wanted to go, it was a forest with lemurs and then a trek through the canyon with gorgeous views. Not everyone did it, but some did and one of the men decided that this was enough sun for him so he skipped the afternoon trek. And I did the opposite – I slept so badly that night that I decided to pass on the first part despite my great desire to go – my body felt so bad and so weak, I knew I’d just faint there. Thought I’d ask Fina to bring me for another malaria test in the nearby town Ranohira and then I’d stay at the hotel, recover and see how I feel and if I feel good, I’d go for the Piscine Naturel trek in the afternoon.

So we did that – Fina came with me to Ranohira in the morning, or more like I went there by bus with the group. From there, Fina came with me, the tickets were bought and the guides went with the bus and the group forward, while Fina and I went to the local hospital. There, they said that they have to send me to the clinic as there was no doctor there right now to check me out. So we went to a clinic where the doctor hadn’t arrived but I only wanted a test. But the only person who had a key to the office where they kept the tests, was not there, so Fina went to the pharmacy to buy tests (I asked him to get me 2) and then some of the nurses did the test.

It was negative which was amazing. I have an extra test now in case I need to check again. But while waiting for Fina, I sat among the local people waiting for the doctor. One young girl was there with her mom and aunt. She was studying English and came to me to speak. She has no dad to provide for them, so they are not doing great financially. She asked if I could help her with her English studies which cost 20000 Ariary per month, this is about 4 euro, a bit more. Ofc I did, I gave her the amount for 5 months and she was very happy. I did ask her for her Facebook though, I’d love to keep in touch with her. Her name is Floridah.

After we left the clinic, I went to the hotel with a car and stayed there and luckily, I felt much better after a few hours and went to the Piscine Naturel. This is a beautiful area, where you walk with the majestic mountain rocks all around you. I couldn’t stop taking photos, it’s about 3km in each direction and so after 3km you arrive at a beautiful little paradise, a natural pool where you can swim, surrounded by palms. It was a bit cold in the water but super refreshing after the walk under the hot sun. There was a huge group of students who were walking after us so shortly after we went into the water, they entered too so I went out. They were super noisy and started jumping in the water, it killed the joy of the swim.

So I put on my clothes and left after some of the slower people from the group, but I was basically walking alone and when I climbed back into the gorge out of the pool area, there were makis (ringtail lemurs) on the rocks right in front of me, it was amazing to see them there in this environment. We did see them at the beginning of the trek but they were super far away. But now they were so close and I was alone, so nobody was scared of them, I took photos and then got closer and they stayed until a moment when they just decided to go away. It was a suuuper cool experience how they were just sitting and staring right at me. Also I saw the Pachypodium rosulatum (elephant’s foot) plant, this plant is so bizarre.

I really wanted to see it in the wild. At the hotel, they had several of them, but it doesn’t compare with seeing it grow in the wild on a rock. So cool! I loved it, and I took 2-3 fallen flowers for a herbarium later when I would work on my scrapbook about Madagascar. I have been collecting flowers from all over where I found something cool. I tried to find seeds from the pachypodium but couldn’t, sadly. Anyway, Isalo for me was one of the best and most scenic places we visited. During the walk I was talking to the guide who was from the Bara tribe.

Bara people have interesting traditions when it comes to burials of their family members. They live in the highlands of south-central Madagascar, they are of African descent and because they live in the highlands this means a lot of rocks and mountains around. So when somebody passes away, they put them in a cave in the rocks which becomes their temporary tomb. After five or more years, they practice exhumation of the body’s remains and bones, sacrifice a zebu cow and sort of celebrate the life of their ancestor who passed away. But to decide on the date of the exhumation, they go to a shaman who tells them which date it is. When the day comes, the whole village goes there so they know basically which tomb belongs to which family.

They rewrap the bones and body in new clothes and bring them high up in the rocks. The capital of Bara people is Ihosi. And when a boy likes a girl and wants to marry her, previously he had to steal a zebu to prove he is courageous. But stealing a zebu can get you killed and it is nowadays illegal and considered a crime, so instead of stealing, they buy a zebu nowadays. But it is quite expensive for them (1.8mil) so they have to save to buy it. Also a man can be polygamous but the woman cannot, it is very bad if a woman cheats. It was very interesting to learn about the Bara people especially from someone who is from that tribe. He also stayed a little bit behind with me because I was not there in the morning and he tried to show me a few of the animals and plants that he showed the rest of the group in the morning.

For example, he turned some of the stones and showed me a scorpion so he looked for it for a few minutes until he found one to show me also because we were slowing down and we were last like I was always during this trip because I take a million pictures, but this allowed me to observe a bit more and have a little bit of a relaxing walk and take the time to actually enjoy it instead of just running with the rest of the group. He also showed me the cocoon of the silkworm which they used to produce silk, the production of which we saw later in the factory during the trip. He also showed me the pachypodium plant. And he found a giant walking stick bug.

I have never seen such a giant stick bug. It was great to see. I was really glad to have been feeling OK in the afternoon so I could see all of this, especially the scenery. Isalo was really one of the highlights for me. These rocks and the beauty everywhere were just immense. I couldn’t stop staring at it and taking pictures. Every step of the way people are mocking me that I’m always lost, but I really need the time for myself to enjoy it sort of put some of the scenery into the back of my head to stay in my long-term memory. This is also a reason why I write this whole text or blog or whatever it is called because I want to remember the little moments during my trip.

Every day we would leave at around 7:30 which meant we had to be ready with our luggage closed and out of the door at the latest at 7 o’clock so that the porters could bring it to the bus and then our porter would put them on top of the bus and cover it with tarp to secure them. In Isalo my baobab seedling had started to wither a little bit and it was losing some of its leaves and I think it was from the shock so of course I was keeping my plant with me in my backpack all the time and I was very careful with it, but it is used to certain conditions, so the moving up and down the country into heat and then cold and then heat and then cold didn’t really help a lot so it was starting to lose some of its leaves, but I would keep it outside every time I get a chance where we stay somewhere for two nights.

And in Isalo that was the case. I initially mentioned that there we had a glamping experience and it was pretty cool because the house was actually a giant tent which of course you don’t really remove at all ever so it becomes like a soft cover room if you will and then the bathroom is actually a little house built from bricks so it’s a normal building with an outdoor shower and an indoor shower and it was pretty cool to be honest. I really liked it. I’ve never been to this kind of glamping experience, which means luxury camping basically. But one night there were so many mosquitoes in the bathroom because I had opened the windows before in the morning and when we went for the afternoon trek, I forgot to close them so then I think I spent half an hour sitting in the bathroom, killing mosquitoes and I think I killed at least 20 and there were more so our usual routine when we had no mosquito net over the bed like there we didn’t, was to smear my whole body with DEET and that actually helped prevent bites.

The last day I was walking around the pool and I saw a butterfly in the water. Such a beautiful creature. I felt really sad because it seemed to have drowned. It was not moving so I thought maybe I will just take it out and you know put it in a little box and take it with me since it was already dead, so I took it out and I went to the restaurant to ask for some napkins, and I gently put it in one of the napkins and with another one gently put on top without pressing much just to soak the excess water so then it dried up a little bit and I just held it in my hand and stayed in the sun a little bit so it can dry and I was trying to figure out what box I could use when I felt a little tiny little movement on my finger from its feet and then I thought maybe it’s still alive so I went inside the reception area and just stayed with the butterfly left it on a piece of paper in peace and kind of blew on it a little bit to help it dry.

And it started moving a little bit more so then I just put it on one of the plants that I love, the pachypodium and left it there in sort of partial shade and then 15-20 minutes later I went back and it was not there anymore so it did survive. I was super happy for it, and also, I saved one more which was tangled in spiderweb in between two wood planks on the floor. I just took it out of the crevice there and it just started trying to fly, but it couldn’t because it was  tangled. So I started running after it because it went directly for the pool, and I managed to grab it by the spiderweb basically on the feet and move it down close to where I left the other butterfly and very gently removed the spiderweb from its feet and let it go, and it managed to fly off.

People thought I was crazy. I’m sure about it, but I was so happy to be able to save these gorgeous butterflies and I’m sure not many people actually do anything to help them but every time there was a pool I was getting a stick and just taking bugs out or if I was swimming, I would just take them out. I felt so bad for the poor creatures.