Baobab Forest

It was time to face the music and get up to my 2:30 am alarm. It was painful, but I was confident I would get a sleep upon my arrival to Toliara. We gathered at 3 am with our bags and headed to the airport. This was much smoother than my previous experience, and so, I went through the best type of airport experience, a boring one. When we arrived, it was still early, and so we headed to a cafe for a free breakfast. This was my first time to easily introduce myself to everyone effectively, as I wasn't half asleep and everyone was together. My group seemed really nice, though they were quite a bit older than I had hoped. My experience in my last tour did not reflect well on travelling with older people. They loved to complain, always seemed to be in a bad mood, and just generally brought down the vibe. I was hoping this wouldn't be the case this time, but I won't know just yet. After about an hour drive we arrived at our really nice resort. It had beautiful walkways with nice plants, flowers, and bushes. I am starting to understand where all the tour costs are going. It is a very needed and nice change from the last month of camping. We had a few hours to chill before we began our first optional activity, and you can guess how I spent it. Slept for as long as I could. Although I only woke up more tired than when I went to sleep. That was OK, i powered through to see the famous madagascan baobab trees. Although they are all through East Africa, they are very prominent here. The tour was interesting and informative with a very knowledgeable guide. He walked us through pointing out the different animals, artefacts, and plants, as well as any natural remedies that the indigenous population could extract from the plants. Toward the end, we got to the oldest baobab tree on this site, over 1,300 years old. They determine the aged based on its circumference, with every century generally adding an additional meter. Therefore, making the 1,300 year old tree 13 metres in circumference. Though this may not be universally true as he then showed us what looked to be nothing more than a twig in the ground and informed us that this baobab tree was 60 years old. Photo 16. The speed in which they grow is scary slow, and they tend to grow wider rather than taller once they achieve a certain height. The wildlife generally consisted of birds, but we did stumble upon some cool lizards and even a snake blending in with a stick along the ground, waiting for its next pray. We had been told that big Boa Constrictors are present but generally quite nocturnal. Unfortunately, no lemurs sighted today. That was about it for the day. It was very enjoyable to walk through this type of landscape. It was very sandy, with little in terms of greenery, yet it still was very full of bushes and trees. Even though it is the short wet season, a lot of the plants are still not able to produce leaves or flowers. But it made the landscape very interesting and quite different from anything else I had seen. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it may be one of the last experiences we get on the West Coast of the island as in a couple of days we head East. The East is much more forested than the West, so the landscape may change significantly.Read more