January 25th-26th: Andasibe and the Vohimana forest

Gorgeous Medinilla (Princess flower family Melastomataceae) flower. This beautiful flower is rare, and Rocky had never seen it bloom before. We had this in our room and it bloomed for us in the morning when I snapped this shot. The plants are just as incredible as fungi. ENJOY!

January 25th:

Once we were back on the road, I became excited again. I was looking forward to heading to the east coast, though this time I insisted on sitting in the front seat. Our team had one modification: Paul the CAFF/CORE representative was replaced with an herbarium employee, her name is Tahina. She is very expressive, AHing and OHing at the slightest stimulation, I found it very entertaining. This trip was much shorter, only three hours to get to our destination of Andasibe. The forest there are similar to RMP in that they are humid forests, but with different vegetation, hence maybe some different Marasmius. The trip went by quickly, and soon enough we were searching for our new Dada Paul in a town near Andasibe. Rocky told us about a man here like Dada Paul. His name is Sabotsy and his level of respect and knowledge of the local vegetation was unmatched in this area. We tracked him down by asking a neighboring village if they’d seen him just as he zoomed past on a motor scooter. We caught up with him, and conducted the official introductions. Sabotsy was so different from Dada Paul, he was way more energetic, and it seemed like he was half here and half everywhere else. Sabotsy was also the chief of the village, so he has a lot of responsibility, and a lot to worry about.

Office of the forest service, and fun hut.

When we finished in the village we drove to our hotel in Andasibe. We all grouped up together in one bungalow for the five of us. It was cozy and nice. We went to bed early that night knowing full well tomorrow would be a different story.

View of the Andasibe National Park from our bungalow

January 26th:

Indri (photo by Zafison Boto)

The jungle outside of our window was full of frogs, cicadas, and Indri (the largest of all lemurs) that howl like orcas in the wee hours of the morning. It is truly a symphony of sounds, music to my ears, except when the cicadas get too close and too loud, they are deafening. We gathered ourselves up and we ate a nice big breakfast. Soon we headed back to the village where Sabotsy lived. We completed some paperwork at the little office in town and headed out to the forest. The road was insane! The incredible Toyota Land Cruiser owned the terrain like it was eating it for breakfast. We drove through rivers, up steep gravel, and over hillsides before we got to a break in the road. A place that had been eroded by heavy rains. We parked the car and left it with Sabotsy’s son who was hired to stand guard while we were gone. There have been a few safety issue since we have been here, some thieves and robbers about, but Rocky has been on top of it, and has made sure we don’t head anywhere that is rumored to have safety issues.

The road is cut in half!

We hiked up the quartz filled road toward the Vohimana forest. It was heavily mist raining, not enough rain to want to wear rain gear, but enough to get completely soaked. I couldn’t help but wish my glasses had wipers. We walked up a hill until the tree cover became thick. The jungle was upon us again. We soon found Marasmius. This time the vegetation was much different. “This is an unfriendly forest!” I kept shouting from the brush. As I pushed back trees, vines, and shrubs I was getting torn up by numerous spines and spikes that adorned the flora of this habitat. Little by little we continued to find some very cool fungus, including some amazing Cordyceps! The day went smoothly and soon enough, Rocky called it at around 4:00pm when safety becomes a concern in these forests. This is a newly protected area, but people still come to cut down trees for wood, and they are very keen to do it in secret. We did not want to cross paths with them. We meandered back to the car, picking up some quartz souvenirs on the road. We hike back up the road, and through the river that cuts it, and found the car and the guard safe and sound.

The team from left to right Danny, Sabosty's son aka guard man, Sabosty in the car next to Rocky, Tahina and of course Emile on the far right. All ready for our big day in the field.

As we were driving back, Sabotsy’s son told us about a patch of mushrooms near a small village on the way back. We jumped out of the car, crossed a little river, and walked past what smelled like a massive pile of zebu poop. A man was thigh deep in it scooping some of it into a bucket. Although she was speaking in Malagasy, Tahina asked what this man was doing and why he was doing it, she had the same look on her face that I did. A bit gross, but hey I guess it’s fertilizer. Just past this zebu poop pool was a pile of corn husks and stalks from the harvest in November, and growing out of this mound was dozens of big, beautiful, Volvariella (pink spored Agarics). Some of the locals eat them, though we were not feeling adventurous enough to do that ourselves, it was nice knowing this cycle of decomposing, growing and eating was happening. It’s a lovely cycle!

We dropped off Sabotsy and his son, and drove back to Andasibe where he had dinner. This town is situated on a major road that goes from Tana to the east. Most of the vehicles on this narrow two-lane road were huge trucks, some with beer, some with mountains of green bananas from the south, some with bags of grass/hay for livestock. These ten-wheeled  trucks are considered monsters by the locals. Different trucks have different names, but all the names represent some sort of terrifying creature. As we ate dinner by the road, the sounds of them driving at top speed down this winding mountain road, at night, made us a little on edge...maybe a lot on edge! More on this deadly road later.

We made it back to hotel and got straight to work, we know how much time we need to process all of our specimen, and so we were diligent, moving at a steady pace until we were done. Sleep feels so good.