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Photgraphs and text: Dilip D'Souza

Theogene, I noticed suddenly, was no longer with us. He had been trotting along behind me all day, munching on sugarcane from time to time. But now, our procession of three had been reduced to two. Theophile, in front, showed no alarm or even surprise at Theogene's quiet vanishing act.

"Ou est Theogene?" (where is Theogene?), I asked Theophile in my best broken French. His laconic reply remains etched in my mind: "Un peu de double-vay-say." "A little W C." Theogene, if I may be euphemistic, was busy in the bushes. How he communicated his intention to do so to Theophile without my knowledge, I have no idea.

Since I had asked, Theophile seemed to realize that perhaps we shouldn't get too far ahead while Theogene was otherwise occupied. So we flopped down on the trail for a breather, pulling off our backpacks gratefully. That's when Theophile turned to me thoughtfully and said: "You could hardly be further from your family, from those you love, than here, right now."

I thought about it. "Here" was on a steep hillside, surrounded by enormous trees, a valley yawning verdantly to our right. "Now" was two-and-a-half days into our five-day, 150 km hike across the Masoala Peninsula on Madagascar's northeast coast.

Masoala has no roads, just a few trails like the one we were on, linking several tiny villages. Maroantsetra, the town we were heading for, was two days in front of us. Antananarivo, or Tana, the capital, was another four days travel by bus, boat and train from there. And my family was at least an ocean away.

Phones, you ask? Masoala had none of those 20th century marvels either. Not that they would have helped, because Madagascar was going through a widespread uprising against dictator Didier Ratsiraka. To help cripple his government, phone lines had been cut. And I do mean cut: all over the country, I had seen toppled telephone poles and wires dangling from them. Tana was the only place in the country with working phones.

Theophile was certainly right. Days later I realized again how right when I called home from Tana. At possibly the very time Theophile and I were sitting on the trail waiting for Theogene, my sister had been getting married.

Theogene, with a distinctly relieved look on his face, came bounding up some minutes later, whistling an Elton John tune. As he reached us, without missing a step, he leaped onto a tree next to the trail. Before I could get over my surprise, he was high in its branches, cutting down an enormous jack fruit. I dislike jack fruit pretty intensely. That day, though, nothing could have tasted better. I gorged myself silly on the sweet, sticky flesh of the fruit.

I had met Theophile a few days earlier in Sambava, up the coast from the peninsula. Business in the small travel agency he worked in was more or less nil "a cause de la greve" ("because of the strike"), a phrase I heard more times than I can count in Madagascar. Cheerful nevertheless, he offered to guide me across Masoala, starting that very afternoon.

It was a curious impulse that brought me to Masoala. Not animals or exotic plants. I came here purely because I wanted to prove to myself that I could do this five-day hike. I regularly pooh-poohed this kind of impulse in others.

But Madagascar found me being drawn almost involuntarily to the difficult -- for me -- over the easy, the hard knocks over the cushy travelling. I still don't know why. But as a result, I had a far better appreciation of the country. It was as if I was throwing my whole relatively comfortable life till then up against the challenge of the hike across Masoala.

We got into a bus to take us to the beginning of the trail. It promptly spent the next three hours roaming up and down Sambava's one main road, looking for passengers. Not for the first time, I learned my lesson about transport in Madagascar: scheduled times mean nothing.

Theophile befriended a passenger in the bus from a village some hours along the trail: Theogene. Theogene was returning from town with some supplies. I looked at them -- tooth brushes, a notebook, some pens. What I might have run down to the corner paanwalla for, Theogene had spent three days on foot and bus getting. And he was still several hours walk from home. It took my breath away.

More so when Theophile told me he had asked Theogene to join us, so that he (Theophile) would have company on the way back. As simply as that, Theogene had agreed to at least another week's worth of walking.

As soon as Theogene had decided to join us, he shot off down the trail at twice our speed. I found out why when we trudged into his village late that afternoon. He had made us lunch: scrambled eggs and steaming heaps of rice with a thin gravy of small green leaves boiled in water. It was a wonderful meal, not least because it came of Theogene's simple affection.

That first day ended in tiny Marofinaritra, some eight km down the trail from Theogene's village. The challenge this name presented to my tongue was matched by another challenge later that evening. The village headman, curious and friendly, gave us clean sheets and a room to sleep in, no charge, and sat down to chat.

His animated Malagasy conversation with Theophile, I knew, was about me. His frequent smiling glances at me, and the regularity with which I heard the word "vazaha" -- foreigner -- told me so. Then they mentioned Ampokafo, the village we planned to reach the next day. The headman immediately began shaking his head, looking at me in pity. Somehow, without understanding a word they were saying, I knew exactly what they were talking about. Reaching Ampokafo in a day, he told Theophile, was barely possible for a Malagasy. A "vazaha"? No way.

I knew something right then as if I had been born with it. Whatever it cost me, I was going to get to Ampokafo the next day.

Courtesy Sanctuary Features

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