Published in AA Traveller magazine

Singing with Indris

Madagascar is a place of strange magic. It has an ancient air, with sublime natural beauty, peculiar creatures and a people with broad smiles and complex beliefs. Madagascar is unique and almost outlandish. It could be another planet.

Story: Keri Harvey

As the early morning sun needles through the tree canopy, it exposes a verdant tangle of primeval creepers and tree ferns. It's quiet and cool as we walk in single file, through this other-worldly forest in central Madagascar. The cracking of dry leaves underfoot is the only sound, until the silence is broken by a high-pitched shrill; something like whale-song but also reminiscent of a siren. We stop dead and listen.

"That's him," says our young Malagasy guide, Rivo, who knows the forest intimately. "That's the indri calling." As we listen, the strange call bounces across the treetops of the forest. "I think we are quite close now. Just keep walking and look up." Like stargazers in a trance, we continue silently, faces skywards. For most of their lives the treetops are home to the indris, which only come down to earth to top up their mineral levels by eating soil.

Indris are the biggest of all lemurs. Standing a metre tall, with strong back legs and stubby tails, they have the appearance of startled teddy bears and jump from tree to tree as if they have springs in their legs. They launch themselves backwards, execute a mid-air turn, and then land facing forwards on the next tree - up to 10 metres away. All the time the quizzical creatures keep a watchful eye on their human admirers down below, and sing their haunting whale-song to tell other troops of their whereabouts. There's a whole other world happening in the treetops of Perinet, now called Andasibe National Park.

This montane forest reserve is home to nine of Madagascar's 51 species of lemur - including the eerie-looking aye-aye. This extra -terrestrial-looking animal has a long skinny middle finger for picking out insects from tree bark. Locals are terrified of the spooky little creature and associate its presence with death.

"We love our lemurs and try to look after them well," says Rivo. "They are part of fady, so that also helps to protect them." Fady is loosely translated as 'taboo' and is a complicated belief system intended to respect the ancestors. Specific fady vary through different families and communities, but the practice as an act of respect to the ancestors is constant. And although it is fady to kill or eat a lemur, 16 species have already gone extinct.

It is also fady to hold a funeral on a Tuesday, sing while you are eating or hand an egg directly to a person - it must first be put on the ground. A fady is not intended to restrict the freedom of the Malagasy, but rather to improve their quality of life. Though a peculiar belief to the western mind, the system of fady is quite possibly the reason why lemurs still exist, and haven't all been caught for the pot by the poverty-stricken Malagasy.

The boa constrictors, neon-coloured frogs and bizarre array of chameleons don't enjoy this protection and their numbers are dwindling. Still, Madagascar has 70 different species of chameleons, from the short-horned chameleon at about 3cm long to the giant Parson's chameleon at two foot long and weighing in at a hefty 2kg. The world masters of disguise are leaf geckos, which can only be spotted on a tree-trunk when they blink, and are just one of 270 unusual reptiles on Madagascar. There are also 300 species of frog, mostly brightly coloured, and some 1 000 species of orchid. The diversity of life on Madagascar reads like a healthy bank balance, with over 200 000 combined species - of which 150 000 occur nowhere else on earth. Madagascar could easily be classified a whole new world.

As we painstakingly traverse the potholed road to Berenty Private Reserve in the south, Rivo has a surprise for us. "If you thought the indris were cool, just wait till you see sifakas. They will leave you without any words at all." And he was right. The following morning, we were gob-smacked at what we saw before us. There in the red dust were three sifakas dancing, as if in elementary ballet school. They sidestepped along in unintended unison, starring fixedly ahead, and then jumped in a single movement to grab a tree-trunk and feed on tamarind leaves. This was what we had seen in wildlife documentaries and never thought we'd see for real: the dancing sifakas of Madagascar, comic characters of outdoor theatre.

Though nothing can compare with the cuddly-toy appearance and quirky character of the sifakas, Ring-tailed Lemurs are a close second. These stripy-tailed cat-monkeys have an arrogant swagger, like characters in a John Wayne movie. They move around in troops with their tails held high, swaying like reeds in the wind. While they miaaw like cats, they're are as mischievous as monkeys. Personality is certainly not lacking.

An entirely new assortment of lemurs live in the bizarre spiny forest, which resembles a cactus garden of spires stretching to touch the sky. Lemurs love the juicy leaves that they pick out between devilish thorns. Walking in the spiny forest at night will yield an array of nocturnal lemurs, feeding and ferreting amongst the spines, and the surrounding cactus spires give the surreal impression of a science-fiction movie set.

"Morondava is quite different. There are no lemurs there, so you can relax nicely on the beach," says Rivo, as we bid him a hurried farewell in Antananarivo and head west for the coast. But this time Rivo is wrong. Sure there are no lemurs, but he forgot to mentioned the baobabs. Six of the world's eight species are endemic to Madagascar; three of these are in Morondava. There are umbrella-shaped ones, dark barked, tall stemmed ones and flat-topped ones. Some reach over 30m tall and stand as natural skyscrapers on the landscape. While botanists are in awe, baobabs play an important part of daily life for locals. Baobab fruit is eaten, the bark is used for roofing, the fibre for rope and the seeds for oil. The majestic trees also provide a home for the ancestors and carry deep spiritual significance for the Malagasy.

Though possibly far-fetched to the western mind, it is the ancestors that have preserved the natural beauty and magnificent creatures of Madagascar. You may be amused by the beliefs, but you will be transfixed by the friendliness and beaming smiles of the locals. They will make you feel quite welcome on their weird and wonderful island. And you will very quickly forget that you are really just passing through.