We stay at a small encampment, Chez Arol — meters from the beach, at the edge of the forest — where small cabins (and extremely basic no-frills communal showers) prove an idyllic and impossibly serene location. Night closes in early and this, together with rationed electricity and frighteningly early starts for the forest treks, means that you submit to the forces of nature — bedding down early, rising at dawn, trekking, reading, sleeping. Even drinking seems almost impure in these surroundings. There is little better than retiring to the cabin's porch after supper and reading before darkness falls, surrounded for kilometers by rainforest and the distant rumble of the Indian Ocean.
Chez Arol tries to integrate into the local village — a tiny settlement of huts on the edge of the forest. The men fish the seas and farm vegetables for food to sell to Chez Arol. The money in turn is used by the villagers to buy much-needed medicines, the rest of their worldly needs taken care of by the ocean and the minuscule farms around the huts. They farm and fish enough to live, and the rest of their money (pooled by the entire village) is spent on clothes or medicines. This is as basic an existence as I've ever seen, and it's humbling in the extreme to see a community with little or nothing beyond what they feed their bodies with each day.
As we leave Masoala by boat to head back to Maroantsetra, we are gripped by one of the most invigorating and spontaneous events of the holiday. It should have been a routine journey — but that was without a violent tropical storm. It visits our little six-seater boat without warning and within minutes we are being tossed about and sprayed with massive waves. The boat doesn't quite rise vertically in the water, but it gets close. There is much dramatic squealing as waves of water hit the deck and we cling for dear life to the rails.
Once the initial fear subsides it is magnificent and exhilarating fun. Much like Madagascar, in fact.
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