Swinging lemurs of rustic paradise
NOSY KOMBA, MADAGASCAR: Search for Nosy Komba on the map and it is hard
to find, unless you have a very large map of the Indian Ocean. It is a
small island belonging to Madagascar, which itself lies off the east coast
of Africa. It is close to another island known as Nosy Be.
Nosy Be, pronounced Nosey Bay, means Great Island and it is regarded
as a great place for a holiday by the world's trendsetting travellers.
Blessed with an almost perfect climate (sunshine with brief showers), fertile
and prosperous, with sugar, pepper and vanilla grown for export, and the
heady scent of ylang-ylang blossoms giving it the tourist brochure name
of "Perfumed Isle," it has become both popular and notorious.
Notorious because its port, from where boats ferry visitors to Nosy
Komba, is called Hell-Ville. Some say the name aptly describes the place
due to its corruption by the dregs of tourism, although it is actually
named after a French mariner, Admiral de Hell. The island has attracted
strangers for centuries. In 1649, a British colonel recorded his view:
"I do believe, by God's blessing, that not any part of the world is
more advantageous for a plantation, being every way as well for pleasure
as well as profit."
Today people visit Nosy Be on their way to Nosy Komba not for profit
but for the pleasure of getting close to funny furry animals called lemurs.
Nosy Komba actually means "Lemur Island". Since the only way
to get there is by sea, it has become a popular destination for Indian
ocean cruise liners. But it doesn't have a harbour or even a jetty so landing
has to be by small boat onto the beach.
Black lemurs have lived at Nosy Komba unmolested for centuries and the
islanders believe it is unlucky to harm them. In fact, the lemurs have
brought them luck - and prosperity - because their habit of wandering freely
around the village, as though tame, has drawn visitors in their thousands.
They pound after the lemurs, offering them bananas, and egging them on
to pounce on their shoulders and girdle their necks like a live fox-fur
boa.
The lemurs, like the loris of Asia, are prosimians, creatures that have
evolved, like humans, from the ancestral primate. With monkey-like characteristics,
they retain the foxy face of their insectivorous forebears, the long nose
needed for a highly developed sense of smell. An academic wrote of them:
"One needn't be a scientist to look at a lemur's hand... and feel
the thrill of recognition across a gap of 60 million years."
Visitors who scramble ashore on the beach of Nosy Komba find themselves
at the edge of a forest-fringed village whose inhabitants have the shy
beauty and charm typical of the Malagasy, the people of Madagascar.
To meet the lemurs, visitors are invited to stroll along a path leading
past the souvenir stalls and through the huts and gardens of the villagers
to a compound optimistically known as a park. Here visitors are expected
to pay an entrance fee to explore a fenced off part of the forest, where
they hope to entice lemurs to pose for a photograph. The lemurs, however,
do not confine themselves to the compound and swing happily over the fence
to stare back at the tourists. Most are gentle, idly curious creatures
but some can get testy and have been known to bite visitors who tease them.
The people of Nosy Komba are of Afro-Indonesian origin, divided into
18 tribes. Those of Nosy Komba are mostly of the small Antakarana tribe
of fisherfolk and pastoralists. They retain strong Islamic influences.
While Christianity is the dominant organised religion, the majority of
the Malagasy people prefer their own unique form of ancestor worship. This
entails occasionally digging up the bones of dead relatives to clothe them
in a new shroud and dance with them around the village.
 Half
of Madagascar's population of 12 million are under the age of 15 and that
is obvious from the number of children idly watching tourists as they traipse
around Nosy Komba. Some half-heartedly try to sell fruit or lacework but
it's easy to see the children don't really care much for tourists or commerce.
They would much rather enjoy their rustic, tropical paradise, and the company
of the amiable lemurs.
Travel Notes: The only way to get to Nosy Komba is by sea, either by
cruise ship or ferry from Nosy Be. There is an airport at Nosy Be which
can be reached from the international airport at Antananarivo, the capital
of Madagascar. You can fly there from Colombo via Dubai and Nairobi, or
from Paris.
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