Sometimes, things do go right when the ‘wrong’ people travel

‘Why do the wrong people travel/When the right people stay back home?” So wrote Noël Coward in Sail Away and the same question crossed my mind during my 30 or so years of tour leading, particularly in Madagascar.

I’m not thinking of the irritating arguers and complainers; they just want their money’s worth. It’s the ones that would be classed as, well, unusual in any environment, but in Madagascar in the 1980s, when tourism was in its infancy and “the developing world” a polite euphemism, they represented a considerable challenge.

I remember Martha, released from a care home in Florida, wandering through the thief-infested market in Antananarivo in a state of bewilderment with her handbag hanging open, and screaming, “Get these monkeys off me!” when a lemur jumped on her shoulder in Berenty Reserve, hoping for a banana.

Then there was the couple who formed two-thirds of my first tour-leading trip to Madagascar in 1982. Whereas I could hardly contain my own excitement, they revealed that they were only there to add another country to their Century Club list, and they suffered such withdrawal symptoms for the Hilton Hotel I had to take them back a day early from Andasibe. They were more interested in telling me how Mr Hilton taught his staff to fold napkins than in watching the indri.

Maria, a wealthy young woman from New York, knew she should have stayed at home. On arrival she told me she didn’t want to sleep alone in this strange country, so I agreed to share her room. The first night I was woken in the small hours by weeping. Reluctantly, I asked what was wrong. “I had my tarot cards read before I came here and the lady predicted a long journey followed by a death. And I’ve made the long journey so now – sob – my parents are going to die.”

I said I’d arrange for her to phone her parents the next day.

“But they live in Colombia!”

I don’t suppose the telephone operator had ever connected Antananarivo with Medellin before, but eventually Maria spoke to her surprised and healthy parents. But to her, this only meant that they would die tomorrow, so she must return home immediately.

I booked a flight and packed her off in a taxi for the airport. An hour later she returned with a new set of tears. “I’ve realised that if I fly back now, that will be the long journey, so my parents will die after I get home!”

She resigned herself to enjoying the trip, though with a disrupting propensity to seek out village astrologers for more guidance about her future, and insisting on sunbathing topless, to the surprise and delight of the local fishermen.

Then there was June. She was so overweight that she had difficulty getting on and off the tour bus or walking more than a short distance, and exhibited an intriguing variety of tics and grunts. On our three-day drive to the south of the island she remained on the bus during excursions, and refused to join the group for meals, preferring to work her way through the boxes of chocolates she’d brought with her.

June was not a happy traveller and there was nothing I could do, except promise her a lemur experience in Berenty. As Martha had discovered, in those days the ringtails were used to being fed by tourists and generally a troop was hanging around the reception area waiting for the next tour group. Not when we arrived, however. I knew we’d soon find them in the forest, but the walk was too far for June. She was furious.

We left her in a deckchair outside her bungalow, sulkily tucking into a new box of chocolates. In the forest a parade of lemurs filed past, babies on their backs, and I felt sad for June. On our return, however, an extraordinary sight greeted us: June wreathed in smiles and covered in lemurs. “These are my buddies,” she said, grunting vigorously. Then I understood. To a ring-tailed lemur, a grunt means, “Hello, I’m your friend,” and June’s grunts, so inappropriate for human communication, had drawn the lemurs to her.

After that, June was transformed. She stopped complaining, became interested in Madagascar’s conservation problems and made a large donation to a lemur project. She returned to Washington in a state of elation that lasted months.

Noël Coward’s song begins: “Travel, they say, improves the mind/ An irritating platitude/ Which frankly, entre nous/ Is far from true…”

In June’s case, he was wrong.

Some of the names in this article have been changed

Hilary Bradt is the founder of Bradt Guides (bradtguides.com)