Travel Log of Danae Voormeij
Arachnophobia, Dabolava, Central Madagascar, 2005

I have one day in Antsirabe, so hereby a chance for an email. All is well, weather is definitely warming up, which is great. I am planning a canoe trip in two weeks from Miandrivazo to Morondav, which lies on the west coast. The river ride is three days, two nights and I will tent on the beaches. I have rented a private dug out canoe with two pole men to transport me downstream (I’ve requested handsome young men with a full set of teeth hehehe). I am thrilled about this trip, and should see gorgeous Cretaceous rock cliffs with fossils, jungles with lemurs and chameleons, flying foxes, crocodiles and waterfalls. Then I will rent a jeep and drive down to Morondav, on the way see the famous avenue with the largest baobab species in Madagascar and then spend two nights in Morondav on the coast, eat seafood and lie on the beach. There should be email access in Morondav, although I might get a chance to email again before I go on this trip. Chances are great that I will get stuck on a fossil location on the first day and sacrifice my beach time to search for these treasures ;) Last week I took two of our local geologists on a sedimentary fieldtrip (Sunday) to practice strike and dip measurements and of course, to look for fossils. We found a place with large red crossbedded sandstones and a paleo-mangrove forest weathered out of the stone. (see picture right top of silicified wood) it took us 4 and a half hours just to get there, but well worth the trip.

I am feeling healthy, a bit tired, slightly tanned and overall happy, although I find myself thinking about Victoria and all of you more and more, which means it is almost time to come home for a visit. I was losing weight at an exponential rate until the cook discovered that I really like the deep fried battered snacks the locals make, sort of like a beignet, with either fruit or vegetable inside…way too good ;))) I still eat zebu meat twice a day and drink home-made vanilla rum that has a bottle of rum 1/3^rd filled with vanilla beans, outta this world good and three horse beer, it’s a large bottle of lager with a picture of three horse heads on it, although I haven’t seen any horses here…

I am getting slightly tired of taking pictures of myself (never!), but here is one anyways J Also a photo of some local miners building a fire down a shaft and a milling rock with ages of use. Termite mounds are seen on almost all hilltops around here, but I haven’t seen any termites, yet. The mounds are rock hard and it sucks when I hit one with the truck as I am driving through the tall grass.

With weather warming up and rain showers becoming more frequent (we’ve had 3 already), and as such, the animals are starting to come out…. I’ve seen the biggest spider of my life, a huntsmen spider on my fold up chair at breakfast, we set it free in the bushes (starting to feel vulnerable in my little house under the banana trees), praying mantids, walking sticks, snakes (all are non-venomous), lizards with spiky tails and all kinds of birds, beecatchers that look like large hummingbirds, metallic green with long thin feather coming out of the centre of the fanned tail, very curious creatures, when I am working in a trench they will fly over very close to see where I have gone. Other birds have funky curls over the beak towards their forehead, others are bright orange with a crown-like Mohawk on their heads.

But where there is a ying, there is a yang, too much beauty, too much happiness, something’s gotta give…here it goes: So I have this beautiful picture book of animals and creatures in Madagascar that I brought from Canada. In it I found a photo of the huntsmen spider, all excited I brought out the book, at night (!), to show the crew. “look” I said, “here’s the spider from this morning” and they looked. But Danae always has to go overboard, can’t stop at a simple pleasure and as I flip the page to the famous Nephila Madagascariensis (note the word ‘scary’ in the Latin name) spider (the size of my hand and in the book described as forming enormous webs that stretch across telegraph wires with fibres so strong that Queen Elizabeth had shoes made out of them, and that they live in huge colonies and are a sight that “set arachnophobes atremble”, and are an “unmissable feature of many Malagasy towns” and was once described by an Australian adventurer as a “damn impressive spider”) I show them the picture and smile when I ask confidently “have you ever seen this one?” they all answer: “Yes, many!!”  “But”, I ask quietly, “I haven’t seen any here?..” they look at each other, talk in Malagasy and say “the season is coming soon!” and then one of them says “ We eat them!” and they all nod heads, “yes yes, very good!”  …as I am about the pass out, my world of blissful happiness collapsing around me, my curiosity surpasses my fear and I ask how they are prepared…..Deep fried Nephila spiders are a delicacy in Madagascar!!! I’m not talking about bushmen in the Amazonian rainforest struggling for survival, but people with shoes in restaurants fry and serve spiders!

For several nights I lay in my bed, mosquitoe net tied tightly around the bedframe, thinking about this situation..I have come to learn that February to July is the Nephila season, they die in the cold winter nights of August, it appears I had good timing coming to this country…but already I see mini Nephilas floating in on the air towards my camp…what an ordeal, I have eaten the bananas but will I eat a spider?? “There is nothing to fear but fear itself”, will I have to eat my fear in order to conquer it? I feel like I am stuck in a Goya nightmare…

For now, I will enjoy all that this amazing country has to offer and walk dapper through the tall grass and mango groves, for now, and I will have to face my fear when the time comes.

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