Day 103: Nosy Be - Madagascar

 

Nosy Be (meaning "Big Island" in the local dialect) is a 110-square-mile island 5 miles off the northwestern coast of Madagascar. It's gone by many names over the years, originally being called Assada during the colonial 17th century and also Nosy Manitra - the scented island. You'll learn how that name came about in a bit. The island has volcanic origins, although everything has been dormant for at least 10,000 years. There are the remains of numerous crater lakes (10) scattered about the island, and the central peak of Mont Lokobe is 1500 feet in elevation.

Nosy Be is known as a tourist destination - both high-end and low-end. The rest of its economy is centered around rice and the Ylang-Ylang plantations. The Ylang Ylang tree has fragrant bright yellow flowers, which are harvested to serve as a base for perfume. It takes about 200 pounds of flowers, crushed and boiled, to make 4-5 pints of oil. Almost every major perfume company in the world uses its oil in its products. As well as the extremely fragrant smell, it helps to make the perfume "sticky" but not "oily" and stay on the skin.

As far as history, the French colonized the island in 1840, founding an outpost named Hell-Ville (from French Admiral de Hell). That town is still around, and you'll see a picture of the market nearby.  The 1848 abolition of slavery in the French colonies resulted in a revolt against the French by the local Sakalava people, who ran the island slave trade. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the island was governed by the French as an internal protectorate within the colony of Madagascar. The French used both military force and diplomacy to maintain their position on the island and eventually appointed a Gouverneur principal of the island.

One historical quirk is that during the Russo-Japanese War, Nosy Be became a
supply station for Russia's Second Pacific Squadron. The main fleet, led by Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky, reached Nosy Be on January 9, 1905, where it met a smaller detachment led by Admiral Dmitry von Fölkersam, which had arrived on December 28, 1904.[7] In December, they departed on March 17 to get absolutely crushed ten weeks later at the Battle of Tsushima.

Our day on Nosy Be was a set of "highlights." It really was anything but that. We witnessed a serious amount of poverty - noting that local currency and trading centered around clothing, vanilla (we bought some), and .. bags of cement. US Dollars and Euros are freely accepted at stores and markets. Although, strangely, they don't like 1 dollar bills. You get surrounded by people, including smaller kids, trying to convince you to exchange dollar bills for fives and tens. Apparently, the local banks don't like them and won't exchange them.

On a very hot and sweaty day, our highlights were seeing the Yland-Ylang trees. The flowers bloom year-round, even in the dry season, so there's a constant harvest. Highlight #2 was playing with a chameleon. The locals don't like them, as they reside in people's roofs and make a mess—but we tourists do. The one you see here was on a stick held by the local guide. He then came over and said hullo to me. He felt exactly as you'd expect from a lizard - dry and scaly. I use "he" as the males are far more colorful than the females. We saw a few female chameleons, and they can only do "earth tones." 

We stopped at a location close to the top of Mt. Lokobe and got a quite spectacular view of the bay and islands below. It's one of those sights that's way better to the human eye than a camera lens. 

Then we finished up at the Nosy Be Hotel on the local beach. This involved passing the round bubble houses. These were built of concrete so that when the sugar cane was burned, the roofs wouldn't catch fire. Incredibly hot inside one of those - considering it was 94F outside with a "feels like" of over 100F.

The hotel was reasonably modern and had some nice food and drink, with an interesting take on "pizza." Unfortunately, the beach was hot and dirty, and you had to run the gauntlet of local vendors and stray dogs to get to the water's edge. Where there was even more garbage floating on the surface. And that's why the hotel had a pool. Shame, as with some work, that beach could have been amazing.

Overall take on Nosy Be - we can check the box for Madagascar, but there will be no rush to go back, compared to the many other destinations we've visited so far. (Although mainland Madagascar is huge - it's the fourth largest island in the world and the 2nd largest island nation!)