Mission Possible by Ash Dykes

Author:Ash Dykes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Eye Books
Published: 2017-09-06T14:37:15+00:00

PHOTO ALBUM

Part Three:

TRAVERSING

MADAGASCAR

My route across Madagascar

7: Cap Sainte Marie: Another desert, and news of civil unrest

I stood at Cap Sainte Marie, the southernmost tip of Madagascar where the Indian Ocean meets the Mozambique Channel. The wind was blowing off the ocean, a cool, salty breeze. I was about to set off on another journey that had never been completed before: to walk the entire length of Madagascar…some 1,600 miles, over five months. My goal was to take on the eight highest mountain summits, as well as the densest jungles, through the heart of the fourth largest island in the world.

It was in Mongolia in 2014 that I began thinking about where I would head to next; it helped to motivate me and keep pushing me forward. The people I met along the way there were so hospitable that I thought I’d like to traverse a country where I would constantly come across locals and could get to know the people, understand their way of life and see how they survive in extreme and often remote locations. Madagascar in 2015 had a population of around 24 million, over 20 million higher than Mongolia in a country a third of the latter’s size, so I’d be engaging with people much more regularly. With 80 per cent of its plant life and wildlife found nowhere else on earth, I knew that this would be a very different experience. I found a logistics manager, Gilles Gautier, founder of Madamax, who’d spent over 30 years leading teams from the likes of National Geographic around Madagascar. He told me about the mountain ridge lying east of the centre and running almost the entire length of the island.

“It’s asking to be walked,” he said, adding that there was no evidence to suggest that anybody had ever walked the island through the interior following the plateau. This got me excited. It was the desire to explore an unfamiliar land that drove me, as well as the need to push myself. There would be sections in the interior with no tracks whatsoever, according to Gilles, where I’d just have to thrash through the jungle.

I’d done a reconnaissance trip to see the kind of thing I’d be up against. Hacking through the jungle was hard. You couldn’t move too fast and you had to be aware, on the lookout for snakes and spiders. There would be sections with no-one around. “Malagasy don’t go to the big mountains,” said Gilles. “They’d freeze to death!” I’d seen that it would be difficult to find a good route up the peaks; some were like sheer pyramids of rock. It wouldn’t be walking, it would be scrambling with hands and feet.

Back at home, I’d been training three hours every day, in my back garden and garage; Muay Thai on a bag; a tractor tyre which I flipped and beat with a sledge hammer to build up my inner core, and a lot of body weight exercises, as I believe this builds everything – strength, flexibility, agility, balance, coordination, speed and power.

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