#158 - Kayaking Madagascar: Chasing the Mangoky Source to Sea with Oscar Scafidi

0:01 Welcome to Paddling the Blue. With each episode, we talk with guests from the Great Lakes and around the globe who are doing cool things related to sea kayaking. I'm your host, my name is John Chase, and let's get started paddling the blue. Welcome to today's episode of the Paddling the Blue podcast. Oscar Scafidi is a schoolteacher turned explorer specializing in Africa. And Oscar joins today's episode to share his experience paddling the Mangok River in Madagascar while setting a source to see Guinness World Record. And it turns out just getting to the river may have been the most significant part of the trip. Recording this one really reminded me that there are a lot of areas in the world that we haven't covered thoroughly. If you've got a potential guest with some experience in Africa, Asia, South America, or one of the other many areas of the world we've not talked about often, let me know.

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2:16 So tell us a little bit about you as an adventurer. So I have a pretty exclusive focus on Africa. Since 2006, I have lived, worked and traveled across 36 nations on the continent. And my focus appears to have become kayaking rivers from source to sea, specifically African rivers using a Klepper kayak. So those are German collapsible kayaks. So what was it that drew you to Africa? Originally, it was completely random. So I graduated from university in 2006. I spent over a year hunting for a job. For some reason, I thought I wanted to work in advertising. And I spent a year getting rejections. And so on a complete whim, on my university careers notice board, I saw a job being advertised for teaching English in Sudan.

3:04 And so I took that job. That was the first time I'd set foot outside Western Europe. And as soon as I arrived, I kind fell in love with the country and the continent, and the rest is history. How does teaching history turn you to a life of adventure in addition to teaching? Yeah. So when I was in Sudan, I did a year of living in Sudan, did a fair amount of exploring while I was there, although travel was somewhat restricted due to the various issues that were going on in that country at that time. But as soon as I got back, my friend and I decided I I decided I wanted to go back to Africa, but I couldn't work out the exact format as to how that was going to work. So my friend and I came up with this idea for an adventure. We bought a 1973, Land Rover Series 3, and we decided we were going to drive it all the way from London down through Europe, down through the West Coast of Africa, and to Liberia.

3:58 And so that took in 14 different countries along the way. And yeah, it was after that expedition that I was hooked and decided that I wanted that exploration to be a big part of my life. So how did you decide on that specific trip and that route? I'm not sure what the genesis of that was, to be honest. It's so long ago at this stage. Yeah, I think, to be honest, it might be my friend Mark who takes the blame for that. I think he might have been the driving force. Because I remember we were friends at university, and at university every summer, I would watch him go off to these wild and exotic places. And I was always really confused. He'd go off backpacking in Syria and all these other locations.

4:41 And I just thought that was a really strange way of spending your time. So I couldn't really empathize. Looking back on it, I slightly regret not joining him at that time. But anyway, after years of knowing him, he finally managed to persuade me to join him on one of these trips. And I'm very glad that I did because it showed me a whole other side of the world and a whole other side of travel that I've since made a huge part of my life. Absolutely. So since finding Sudan in 2006, that's led you to 35 other countries living and working in those countries. So in addition to the Land Rover expedition and then the paddling expedition that we'll talk about today and other peddling expeditions. What other kind of focuses have you pursued in terms of your adventure life?

5:23 I've done a couple of other large overland expeditions. So I remember in 2010, my brother and I bought an old 1980s Volkswagen panel van, and then we sort of very amateurishly converted it into a camper van, and then we drove it from London to Russia and back. So that was a whole summer's worth of adventure. And I remember part of that, we crossed from Georgia into Russia via the breakaway Republic of Abkhazia, which was quite exciting. But yeah, in 2016, that's when things really changed because that's the first time I went on a long distance kayaking expedition. And that was the expedition in Angola, along Angola's longest river, which is called the Kwanzaa River. Tell us a little bit about that trip.

6:09 So that was the brainchild of a friend of mine called Alfie Weston. So we both met in Angola. We were both working in Angola. I was teaching out in Angola and he was working in the corporate world. So he already owned a 1960s Klepper Arius II expedition kayak, but he just used it for sort of day trips on the Kwanzaa River. And he found out that he was going to be leaving Angola. So he decided as one last hurrah, he wanted to try and kayak the longest river in the country from source to sea, which is a quite a lofty ambition because that river is over a thousand kilometers long and it's never been done before. And it goes through some extremely remote areas in the country. So I think he realized that I was the only person who would be stupid enough to say yes to something like that.

6:54 So I signed up for that in mid 2015 and then we had nine months to get ready and then do the expedition. So a thousand kilometers first time it had been navigated source to sea. Absolutely. I mean, the whole expedition ended up being 1,300 kilometers because there was a fair amount of portage. It took us 33 days and we set a new Guinness world record. That's pretty cool. Now you set a Guinness world record on your most recent trip as well. Well, we attempted to set a Guinness world record. It is currently still with Guinness. It is a very slow and meticulous process getting Guinness to recognize a world record when it comes to these source-to-see descents.

7:34 So you have to gather a lot of information. There's a lot of back and forth when you get back. I suppose they're rightly quite skeptical of evidence they are presented. So I think after Angola, it took us a solid three and a half years to have the record recognized. And I imagine it's going to take a similar amount of time for this Madagascar expedition, which we completed in 2022. So what kind of process do you go through to request a Guinness record? So the process actually begins before you've even started the expedition. You have to reach out to Guinness, tell them what it is that you're doing, and then you agree in advance a portfolio of evidence that they will accept in order to recognize the trip. There's some of the obvious things, like you give GPS trails, but some of them are less obvious.

8:18 So you need a lot of witness statements, and those are things you need to collect as you go. So you need these signed forms that give contact details so that Guinness can then chase up the people who say they saw you in a certain place at a certain time, which is obviously a little bit complicated, especially when you are in remote areas and there's a language barrier. I can imagine that would be quite a challenge. Yeah. In some of those areas, there is no way to contact a person. Well, exactly. But yeah, you're also required to submit film evidence of all of your locations with sort of geo-verifiable locations in the background. So we had to provide, well, that was fine because we were already filming a documentary film.

9:04 So we were constantly pointing cameras at things, but you had to have footage for morning, midday and end of the day for every single day with something that could be geolocated in the frame. So they were very, very strict about you, you know, you claim you camped here that night, show us. So a GPS trail was not sufficient. Well, good luck on getting that. So you said that was 2022. So you're at the point of this recording three years into that process. I wish you the best with that. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, ultimately, we apply for these records because they help with the fundraising efforts of the expeditions. We know that we did it, so we don't necessarily need Guinness to tell us we did it.

9:48 But it does sort of inspire confidence in the expedition and help people to understand something about the level of difficulty and the uniqueness of it, which tends to promote more donations to the charity that we are raising money for with the expedition. We quite like that as a stamp that gets people's attention. So your most recent expedition that we're going to talk about today is Madagascar and the Mangok River. First, why Madagascar? Madagascar, I selected because that is a place that I used to live and work. So I taught at an international school in Madagascar between 2017 and 2019 in the capital, Antananarivo. And yeah, obviously I moved there in 2017, which was only one year after the Angola expedition.

10:33 And the minute I arrived, I had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to kayak the longest river on the island. I knew, well, from all the research I'd done, it didn't look like anyone had done it before. In fact, from all the research I'd done, it actually looked a little bit contested where the exact source of the Mangok River was. But anyway, work got in the way and then I left the country, which complicated things slightly, and then COVID got in the way. So it actually took us until 2022 to get this expedition up and running. So tell us a little bit about Madagascar. I mean, I think most people probably, the only image they have of Madagascar is the Disney movie. Yes, absolutely. So the first thing people think of is the cute lemurs bouncing around and maybe that annoying theme song that the film has.

11:17 But yeah, Madagascar, I knew very little about Madagascar when I moved out there in 2017, but it is a fascinating and unique place. So people talk about it as the eighth continent because it has so much unique flora and fauna. It's been isolated as an island for thousands of years. And so everything has just evolved in a very different direction. It looks completely different to nearby Mozambique, which is just across the my zombie channel. Part of that reason is because of that isolation as an island. But part of the reason is also because Madagascar was not settled from mainland Africa. Madagascar was actually settled from the east, from the other side of the Indian Ocean. So the people who live in Madagascar are related to the peoples of Indonesia, specifically in areas like Borneo.

12:05 So it's incredible to think that instead of just sailing across the Mozambique Channel, people sailed all the way across the Indian Ocean from Indonesia to settle the island. And you see that in the language, which is very similar to Indonesian languages. You see that in a lot of the technology in terms of the traditional fishing vessels, that sort of thing, and the musical instruments. And also you see it in the landscapes. It is a very rice-based, rice paddy-based agricultural economy. So when you're there, it's really, really surprising. You look out at some of the landscapes and you think you could be in somewhere like Indonesia or Vietnam. You don't think mainland Africa. So why was it settled from the east as opposed to being settled from Africa?

12:49 That I'm not so sure about. I know that the weather in the Mozambique Channel is a bit of a disaster. So getting across that channel, even though it's short, is a rather tricky enterprise. So it might be the fact that it was protected from mainland Africa by bad weather. And also the trade winds across the indian ocean will naturally blow you westwards in that direction and you can sort of skirt the coast going via india and then coming down the coast of africa but yeah i'm not really sure to be honest it's it's kind of mind-boggling that that's the way it happened so tell us uh what would somebody experience when going to madagascar. Most tourists go to Madagascar to see the unique flora and fauna.

13:32 So they would head out to some of the national parks. And as you've already mentioned, the most obvious one is the lemurs. So there are all sorts of cute, fluffy, and endemic lemurs to be found. Different sorts in different parts of the country. They're absolutely fantastic. So yeah, they're a big draw. But also you've got, you know, it's a 1,600 kilometer long island, and you've got a lot of different landscapes there there's a big spine of mountains down the middle you have massive indian ocean coastline so you've got all sorts of incredible wildlife in the ocean as well so people go and they like to go diving it's an excellent diving destination you can see whale sharks in certain areas in the north it's got some of the best surf in the indian ocean so i'm a surfer and i really enjoyed my two years there because i could always nip to either the east coast or the west coast and go surfing.

14:22 Yeah, it's got a lot to offer, but a lot of people don't really think of it as a potential holiday destination. Is there a big tourist trade there? There's a relatively big tourist trade, but a lot of the people who go are French, and it's quite contained to certain parts of the island. So there is an island to the north of Madagascar called Nosy Bay, and that has very, very developed tourism infrastructure. In fact, that has its own airport. So people can fly in and do package holidays or beach holidays without ever actually setting foot on mainland Madagascar. In other parts, it is less developed, I would say. So why the Mangok River? Well, I would never want to do an expedition like this in a country that I haven't lived in before.

15:06 So I always want to have a fair understanding of the geography and also the political climate and just the way the bureaucracy works. And so, yeah, having lived there for two years, I had an excellent network. I knew people on the ground. These are people that would be extremely useful in the event of a medical emergency, but also these are the people through whom you can gather data about who do I need permission from? How exactly can I find where the source is? How can I get there? All the resupply questions, those sorts of things. So it takes months and months and months to plan an expedition like this. And it would just be infinitely harder to try and do it in a country that you didn't already have a lot of experience in.

15:46 So tell us about the Mangak river specifically length and what you would experience there. So the Mangok River is not that explored, at least in its upper stretches. So we had to do a fair amount of research just to establish where the source of it was. So there's lots of different ways you can define the source of a river. Is it the tributary that contributes the most water into the main river year-round? Is it the tributary that starts and flows year-round furthest away from the mouth, et cetera, et cetera. For the Angola expedition in 2016, it's very easy to find the source of the Kwanzaa. There's a GPS location on Wikipedia. It is marked with a signpost.

16:32 It's there. There's no question. For the Madagascar trip, not so simple at all. So there was zero information online as to which of the main tributaries was the source. And we had to do a lot of research in the end we dug around in a 1990s french hydrological report of the island and there was some tangential reference to the source being one of the tributaries which is called the matziatra river and talking about the source of that river being, relative its location was given relative to a mountain so it didn't have a gps location at all but that was the best we were going to get and we asked countless people and no one could tell us any more than that.

17:16 So starting the expedition, we were really heading into the unknown because we weren't even sure exactly where we needed to get to, to start. And it took us days and days and days of trekking through the jungle just to get to the start point. So that was an unusual part of the preparations for the expedition because normally you at least know where the start line is. You had quite a, quite a, quite an expedition just to begin the expedition. Yeah, that's right. We had a solid four days of four by four travel, followed by Kamaz truck travel, followed by hiking with all of our gear through increasingly dense jungle just to get to the start point, which was a little bit disheartening because by the time you arrive, you're already wet, you're tired, you're hungry, and then you have to turn around and start trekking, carrying the Klepper on your back.

18:01 So yeah, that was an unusual part of it. What was less unusual was it took, yeah, I think it took about six to nine months of preparation. So part of that is physical. Try and do as much exercise as possible, get your body in shape and ready for the stress you're about to put it through. Interestingly, the vast majority of our physical prep wasn't actually kayaking. It was actually on our feet, which ended up being excellent preparation because we did far more portage than we were hoping to do on that expedition. So it's good that we had a lot of gym sessions. It's good that we had a lot of hiking with weight. And the rest of it was bureaucracy and planning, you know, who do we need permits from? Who's going to help us? We had an on the ground company called Remote River Expeditions, who helped us out with the actual logistics on the ground.

18:47 And then yeah, it was gathering all the stuff together and getting it to Madagascar because my expedition partner, Ben and I were actually based in Tunisia in North Africa while planning all of this. So it was quite the logistics effort just to get all the gear together and get it flown all the way from North Africa to Madagascar to get the expedition started. So it's definitely beneficial having a partner like Remote Rivers being able to help out with that on the ground work. Absolutely. So my conversation with Gary, who is the owner of Remote River Expeditions, it actually started in 2017. So I emailed him the minute I arrived in Madagascar to say, look, this is what I'm interested in doing. Would you be able to help? I reached out to a number of different adventure tour agencies and companies that said they had done kayaking in various parts of Madagascar.

19:33 And I got a solid no from everyone except for remote river expeditions. So I have a whole folder full of rejections. Understandably, companies that generally deal with tourists are not going to want the negative publicity associated with two idiots injuring themselves or worse on the river. So they all said it can't be done or we're not comfortable supporting you on something like that, which is fair enough. But gary was very positive so he he thought it sounded amazing he has a long background in. First descents and kayaking and that kind of thing in the u.s so he was fully on board and so what started was a sort of an almost five-year email chain where we went back and forth talking about how would it work how would it look where would we start how would you support and in the end they were there to help us when we actually did it in 2022 okay and uh and despite all that support it was still a challenge to be able to find the, uh, the, the source.

20:30 Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So on the lower stretches, they're much more accessible. People actually go and do kayaking day trips, those kinds of things, but that's the last sort of 200 kilometers or so. But the river itself is 700 kilometers plus. If you go to the source of the Masi Archer and that's very, very unexplored because that's up in the, up in the mountains, basically there's, there's very little reason for any tourists to go up there. And so 700 kilometers, how many days did the trip take you? So in total, the expedition took us 28 days, but that is factoring in the four days it took us to get to the source in the first place. So if we're talking about the actual source to see bit, it was actually 23 or 24 days.

21:14 Okay. So tell us the lead up, that four days of just getting to the source, what'd you experience there? So the source is near a rather large Malagasy city called Fianaranzoa. And that city is actually quite accessible. You just drive south down the spine of the country from the capital Antanan River on one of the main roads. So you kind of wind your way through the mountains as you head southwards. Once you get to Fianna Dansoa, things got a little bit more complicated because the source is to the southeast and that's out in the countryside, out in the hills. So we had to jump in a four by four with all of our gear, with our main guide, who's called Max. We basically started driving towards this mountain that I had a GPS location for.

21:56 And as we went, we just kept asking local people, where's the horse and at first it was kind of obvious because we're following quite a large flowing matziata river so you just drive along it the wrong way. And eventually, it narrows down and it narrows down all rice paddies on both sides of it. We found another local guy called Yandri, who said that he lived near the source and agreed that he would take us there. And so eventually, it got so muddy and bad that the 4x4 got stuck, we had to give up on that. Luckily for us, a massive Russian Kamaz truck plied that route, so we were able to hop on the Kamaz truck with some of the locals. That took us as far as it could go, and then after that, couldn't go any further.

22:38 We had to hop out and that's when we actually had to start carrying our gear towards the source and that was tricky because the local guys that we're speaking to didn't really understand what it was that we were trying to do it's quite hard to explain to them why it was that we wanted to get to the source carrying all this heavy gear so we took a rather circuitous route basically we just followed the river which is not the most efficient way of getting there because it's very windy so we're going up and down through the forest eventually it turns into jungle gets very very hilly very wet and yeah eventually we met someone who lived in a village on the actual source and then he was able to lead us to that village and we four days later we were at what we what we believed to be the source based on the french hydrological report okay so these trucks that are breaking down on you.

23:30 Do you just go until it breaks down and then you leave it? I mean... Well, we had a driver and Max with us who is our chief guide. So basically we just left them. We said, okay, you guys, you guys just turn it around and head back and we'll, we'll keep going from here. I mean, we had to be, we had to be fully independent anyway. So part of the requirements of Guinness are that we had to carry the Klepper kayak at all times. So we either had to be paddling it or carrying it. So all of our gear was set up in a way that we were able to put it on our backs, even though it was very heavy. So it was inconvenient, but it wasn't entirely unexpected or difficult to deal with. Okay.

24:10 And then in terms of the guides that you'd mentioned, so Max and Yandri, how do you find them? So Max actually came through remote river expeditions. So he was our man on the ground. So we knew well in advance that we were going to be meeting Max. In fact, we had a logistics planning meeting with Max in Antananariv, the capital. And he took a rather skeptical look at our clepper and decided that maybe we needed to avoid some of the more serious rapids on the river, which was a very good call. Yandri, we just met along the road. So we kept stopping in villages and asking, does anyone live further up river? And he just said, I do, and hopped in basically. So we found him while we were driving. And in terms of your gear, so you're carrying the Klepper. And what it seemed to me is that you were fairly light in terms of gear for considering the length of the trip. But tell us about the gear that you brought with you.

25:00 Well, it certainly didn't feel light while we were carrying it. But yeah, I suppose you're right. We were pretty ruthless when it came to planning. Every gram that went on our backs had to be meticulously accounted for and justified. So we had a thanks to klepper we had an actual brand new klepper so for the angola expedition we had a 1960s klepper that alfie owned but for this expedition klepper actually gave us a brand new arius 2 expedition 545 which was fantastic and it's bright red which is very amusing so everyone could see us coming a mile off but that in itself weighed 36 kilos without any of the peripheral bits like the foot pedals and the rudder and that sort of thing.

25:44 So I'd say probably with those extra bits that came in at about 40 kgs that we had to split between us. And then you have to stack all your other stuff on top of that on your back. So we had relatively heavy rucksacks, but yeah, we tried to keep it as light as possible. So we carried enough food for, to keep us alive for about four or five days at a time. That was the plan. We didn't have to carry too much water because we're by a river the whole time and we can just drink out the river. So we had various water filtration systems. Water2Go very kindly gave us water filtration bottles. They're a company in the UK. I think as a backup system, we had LifeStraws, who are another filtration system. And then as a tertiary backup, we had disgusting chlorine tablets, which we tried to avoid using wherever possible.

26:28 Beyond that, it was just carrying medical gear, film gear, and our camping gear. Okay. So now in terms of total kit, about what kind of weight would you say you're dealing with? Hard to tell because it really varied depending on how much food we had on our backs. But I'd say at a minimum 25-ish kilos per person. So yeah. And then we arranged resupplies. So every week or so we could meet Max by the side of the river and we could resupply in terms of food. Okay. Now, so he would, and then how did you plan those resupplies? Did you tell him what you wanted or was he just sourcing whatever he could locally that, No, we brought all of our food with us. Oh, you did.

27:13 Okay. He wasn't sourcing anything because we had to, again, be very careful about weight. So we used dehydrated, freeze-dried mountaineering rations, which we got from a company called Base Camp Foods in the UK. So they're ultra high calorie. I think each one was over a thousand calories. And they're just the most efficient thing to carry. So if Max had been sourcing food locally, it would have been way too heavy because it just would have been whatever people are eating in the area. And it also wouldn't have been calorie dense enough. So we're burning through a lot of calories every day. So even when we're eating these massive, massive meals, we're still hungry at the end of the day because of all the, all the exertion. Yeah. Now tell us about gruel.

27:54 Gruel, yeah. So gruel became a key feature of the expedition. So for breakfast every day, we tried to cook up oats, which we had with us and we had powdered milk and we had sugar and we added protein powder to it as well. Now, over the course of the expedition, this evolved into quite the construction, which we sort of called Gruul 2.0, Gruul 3.0, Gruul 4.0, as the expedition went on. And basically, anything we could lay our hands on as we were kayaking ended up being thrown into the Gruul pot in the mornings. So on very rare occasions where we were near settlements, if we could get something like chocolate, I think the finest version of Gruul was the one where we found some M&Ms.

28:37 So we could throw peanut M&Ms into the gruel. But yeah, we were just cooking up huge, huge pots of porridge essentially and then trying to add as many additional calories to it as possible to fuel us over the course of the day. All right. Taste really doesn't matter at that point. It's just getting calories in the body. Absolutely. We're just so hungry in the mornings. And it was also quite cold sometimes. So it was nice to have something hot to get you going before you had to jump on the river. Now, that's an interesting thought. I guess I wouldn't have thought of it being cold there. But what kind of temperature ranges did you deal with? Well, up at the source, we were quite high up, I believe. I think we're at about 1500 meters, something like that above sea level. So that was relatively cold. I remember being cold at night.

29:19 So I had a three season sleeping bag, which was quite nice. So that kept me toasty warm, but I would say at the source, maybe it got down, maybe it got down into single digits in the night, but then we lost a lot of elevation quite quickly as we're going along. And as soon as we got down, onto the Mangok proper, we were very, very low down because there were no rapids or waterfalls for the last 200 kilometers or so. And that was actually very, very hot. So that was proper tropical temperatures by that stage. So it was an interesting variation over the course of the month-long expedition. So once you found the source and you start heading out on the river, tell us what you experienced along the way there.

30:01 So once we found the source, finding the source was a complete pain, as we have discussed. In fact, trekking to it, especially carrying the kayak, I think our speed bottomed out at 600 meters per hour by the end, because we were bashing our way through jungle. And the way we split the kayak, I had the larger sections on my back, whereas Ben had the heavier overall chunk of the kayak. So I was about 2.4 meters tall, perhaps 2.6 meters tall with this big bit of wood sticking out my back. And you can imagine how slow going that is trying to go through jungle with a huge plank of wood sticking up and bashing into all of the overhanging foliage.

30:45 So yeah the first the first day or so was was that it was slow moving through jungle and then we got out into the clearings again and then it was hiking with the kayak once we actually managed to get to a section of river which was wide enough to put the kayak together things were actually quite pleasant put the kayak together the river it was pretty obvious where it was going and it was flowing quite nicely and we were just surrounded by agricultural settlements so we weren't actually very alone because we were on the outskirts of Fianna Danzawa. It's quite a populated area. So we were just paddling along and we had lots of people shouting support and being very interested. So they stood in their rice paddies wondering why it was that these two foreigners were paddling along next to them.

31:28 So yeah, we got to see some beautiful landscapes and it was also really easy to camp because every night you just kind of pull over wherever you wanted and you had a, you had a field that you could camp in and start a fire. Now, you were quite the celebrities along the way, as you mentioned. Yes. So we were in an area that doesn't really get any tourists. So I think in a lot of cases, we were some of the first foreigners that people had seen and everyone was really supportive. I mean, there was a bit of a language barrier. So in Madagascar, it's a former French colony. So some people speak French, but not many. And the local language is Malagasy, of which there are various variations around the island my malagasy is appalling so most communication took place in either broken malagasy french or sign language but yeah people were very very interested we'd get sort of a lot of laughter as we came around the corner and people saw this bright five and a half meter long red kayak going along we got a lot of people giving us directions because especially going through the rice paddies it wasn't immediately obvious where you needed to go at some times and we wanted to be careful not to damage people's rice paddies and agricultural setups.

32:35 So yeah, people thought it's fantastic. A couple of nights they would come and offer to sort us out with firewood. Everyone was super fascinated watching us put up the tents. They're also super fascinated with the Klepper itself. I think the Klepper was the biggest celebrity of the trip. The river itself, wide river, narrow river, what are we dealing with? It's very varied, the river itself So on the Matsui Archer, we had different sections So the initial days lulled us into a bit of a false sense of security Because we ended up on a relatively wide, fast-flowing river Which was quite nice When I say relatively wide, maybe a few hundred meters across. However, that initial section of the Masi Archer is the one that loses a lot of elevation quickly.

33:18 So we faced a lot of obstacles in terms of rapids, gorges, and waterfalls. And these were all obstacles that we needed to portage around because the Klepper is not the most maneuverable of craft. So it's not really designed for serious rapids and especially not so when it is laden down with gear. So it was quite heavy. So, we did a fair amount of portage to avoid certain sections on the upper matsyatra. And that still allows you to qualify for the... For the Guinness record. Yeah, interestingly, Guinness don't have any sort of ratio when it comes to portage. So I'm pretty sure we could have portaged the entire river and it would still be the record, which is lucky because the ratio ended up being pretty ridiculous.

34:06 I think when we were planning the expedition, we thought absolute worst case scenario, we're going to have to do maybe 90 or 100 kilometers of portage across the whole thing. We ended up having to do 200, maybe even closer to 220, 250 kilometers of portage across a 750 kilometer total, which is a pretty mad ratio simply because our route had to change a number of times as we're going along. I'm very glad that Max was there. He made a lot of these suggested changes and they were all for the best and they all made the trip much safer. I remember one particular section Max suggested we avoid. He said, yeah, that section's called Crocodile Canyon.

34:46 I don't want you guys paddling through that. So we quickly agreed with him on that one. Now, so he was with you the entire trip? He was, but he checked in and out. So he wasn't there on a day-to-day basis. So he got us as close to the source as he could get us in a four by four. He dropped us off. We then agreed to meet him sort of four or five days later. And then it was the same every time. So we'd meet him, have a discussion, resupply, and then we'd agree where the next meeting point was. So yeah, we had a Garmin inReach GPS communicator. So we had a way of contacting him at all times. And yeah, he was just an absolute magician when it came to reappearing by the side of the river in some very, very remote places. I'm very impressed with Max's ability to bounce around a very difficult landscape and get to where he needed to be on time. Yeah.

35:36 So what did you find to be the biggest challenge of the trip? I would say just overall the lack of information. So when it came to plotting out the rapids and waterfalls and other obstacles, we were poring over Google Earth because that's the only source of satellite photography we could find. And a lot of that satellite photography was taken in the 1980s and 90s. And you can imagine on any river, it's going to change course over 30 or 40 years. So a lot of that information was completely out of date and especially there's a big delta at the end of the river and deltas change very very quickly so it was almost meaningless trying to navigate a route using photography that was that out of date and just because nobody goes up there there was very little other information to come by as i said we found this hydrological report from the 90s that was useful but we really were going into the unknown in in a way that made me slightly uncomfortable in terms of our route so we're very lucky to have max on the ground But even even some of those sections were completely new to Max.

36:40 So I think the biggest challenge was working out what we were doing and where we were going on the fly as we went. What would you say was your most, I guess, sketchiest moment on the trip? We had a couple of sketchy moments, but I would say a mountain crossing that we did west of Iqalamavun was probably the most difficult and dangerous, simply because it was so unexpected. So this was our longest section of portage that we needed to do. And I think as the crow flies, it was over 100 kilometers through an extremely remote mountain range. We found some local guides, Rodia Razozian Ramami and a guy called me.

37:25 They all agreed to take us they were from that area however even they hadn't been across that mountain range before because there's absolutely no reason to go up there if you're a local so there's very little water up there which means there's not going to be much agriculture there's no point taking your cattle your zebu up there because there's not much grazing to be had and generally it's just an empty wilderness so we had to get ourselves from this point to the mangok proper. It was the last big obstacle before we got there. And we had to drag all of our gear with us. So looking on the map, I think we're quite naive going into it. We thought, oh, we're just going to smash out 30 kilometers a day of westward progress and we'll be done in.

38:05 Three days, which, which looking back on it makes me laugh because it ended up taking nine, nine and a half days. And it was very, very difficult going. So, you know, we've got a lot of weight on our backs. We are climbing some very steep mountains heading up and down and up and down. There is no real pathway because no one's up there. So we're sort of looking at the contour lines on our maps. It was an interesting kind of lost because we knew exactly where we were in terms of our GPS location, because we had the satellite communicator with us. But knowing where you are is not the same as knowing where you need to go. So we did a lot of winding hiking. We took a lot of detours because we had to find water. And I have to say a big thank you to our guides because we absolutely would have run out of water had it not been for them.

38:53 They were incredible at looking at the topography and the landscape and identifying areas where they thought there would be groundwater. We had no idea. So yeah, that was very, very tough. I remember on one day, we took this winding route to get around this mountain. And I remember looking at the GPS location at the end of the day, I think we'd hiked nearly 35 kilometers and we were further east than when we'd started because we'd gone in a big sort of dog leg, which was very, very disheartening. And it wasn't the case that we'd gone the wrong way. That was absolutely the only way that we could go. We had to go that way, but we had actually moved further away from our target than when we started the day. So yeah, it was deeply frustrating. We nearly ran out of water on multiple occasions.

39:36 We almost ran out of food. And it was just very, very tough to be carrying that much weight on that kind of elevation for that long. How about the moment of greatest joy? I'd say the moment of greatest joy was actually closely connected to that. It was when we got to the westernmost extent of those mountains and we saw the Mangok River itself for the first time. And we saw it at sunset. So it was absolutely beautiful. And we could just see that there were no more mountains in front of us. There was now just sort of flood plain. And we just saw a big, wide, flat river with no rapids, no waterfalls, no obstructions, fast flowing. And we could see little plumes of smoke all the way down the river, which were villages starting cooking their dinner for the evening.

40:22 And that was just such a relief to have got to that point because we knew we were safe. We knew we weren't going to run out of water. And we knew from that point onwards, we weren't going to face any more large portage sections. We weren't going to face any more rapids, no more waterfalls, those kinds of things. So that was a a huge, huge relief to get to the actual Mangok. Yeah, it sounds it. How about what surprised you along the way? I think probably the remoteness of the middle sections. So I don't know why I always make this mistake, but I always assume when I'm doing a trip like this, that the river is going to be inhabited all the way along its course. I made the same assumption in Angola in 2016, and I was very wrong for Angola as well.

41:04 But yeah, in a lot of cases, communities do not actually choose to live by the river. I think there's a number of reasons for that. The biggest one is malaria. So by the river is the most mosquito-y location possible. So it's not actually the most sensible place to put your village necessarily, even if you do rely on the river for fishing and for watering your crops. So yeah, we assume that we would not be very isolated, but in reality, Ben and I spent a fair few days quite alone without seeing a single other human being, which I found quite surprising. Now, of those villages, are those villages connected and accessible by vehicle, or are they all just remote villages?

41:46 It really depends where on the river we are talking about. So, interestingly, in terms of remoteness, the very source of the Matsui Archa River is extremely remote, and we had to go up into the jungle to go and find that. But very quickly, the river became quite inhabited and quite busy because it's next to the settlement of Fianaransoa. The most remote sections of the river, which don't have any road access, were actually the middle sections of the Maziatra, which was quite surprising. And then as we moved along towards the final sections, there was easier road access. So it really depended where on the river you were in terms of accessibility. Okay. And then when you said the villages aren't always on the river, maybe how far off?

42:31 They'd maybe be set like a few kilometers back. Okay. So they It wouldn't be immediately obvious to you as you're paddling along or visible. So they're still using the river. They're still accessing the river, just not living on it for malaria purposes or whatnot. Yeah. So we would see signs of habitation. So we'd see people's dugouts sort of parked up. We would see manioc and cassava fields next to the river, but we just wouldn't see the actual huts themselves every single time. Okay. So tell us, other than guides, tell us about some of the people experiences along the way. Well, we met a lot of security forces. So we had a lot of interactions with security forces. So we were traveling through one of the most remote sections of the country.

43:15 And in the past, they've had a bit of an issue with banditry. So the bandits in that part of the country are called Dahalo, which is a derogatory term. I'm not sure they would appreciate being called Dahalo necessarily. And basically, there's a lot of cattle rustling that happens. So all of the wealth within those communities is stored in the zebu, so in the cattle. So if you're going to rob someone, what you do is you take their cattle. So in these remote areas, the Dahalo go around and they steal cattle from various communities, and they are heavily armed. And yeah, it's difficult for the security forces to deal with them because it's a very remote area, very mountainous, easy for them to hide.

43:55 So because we were passing through this area, I think the security forces were a little bit concerned for our safety. So on a lot of occasions, we had to check in at police stations. They kind of wanted to know where we were going to be, that kind of thing. And they'd sort of radio ahead to make sure we actually arrived where we said we were going. And I've got to say, for the entirety of the expedition, we had nothing but positive interactions with the security forces. They're all absolutely fantastic. Didn't matter whether it's the local police, where it's the gendarme, where it's the actual military themselves. They all thought the expedition was great. They were all very supportive. No one told us we couldn't keep going, which is always fantastic. That was one concern was what do we do if a particular military post just tells us we can't keep going west? That would have been a huge problem.

44:40 But no, they were great. They thought it was absolutely fantastic. So we had a lot of very positive interactions in police stations, camping, even getting route suggestions sometimes when it wasn't immediately obvious where we needed to go. And apart from that, it was just meeting the people who live by the side of the river. And what did they think when they saw you? I think confusion is probably the main emotion in most people's heads when they saw us. We tried to explain where we had come from and where we were going, but that would always be met with disbelief. So obviously at the beginning of the expedition, when we said we're going all the way to the Mozambique channel, people would just shake their heads and say, no, that's too far. That's too far away.

45:25 And then the further into it we got when we said, oh, we've come all away from the source over by Fianna. And so again, people would just shake their heads and be like, no, can't be possible. That's too far away. So yeah, they were, they're very confused, but yeah, they were, they were still very positive. They're very supportive. I think the, the, my favorite experience when it came to those sorts of interactions was people watching us either assemble or disassemble the Klepper because they, they love the kayak. They, that was a piece of technology they thought was absolutely fantastic. And they found it really fascinating watching it actually break down and be put away into our hiking bags or come out of our hiking bags and become this bright red five and a half meter watercraft.

46:10 I think there was sort of, we had big crowds whenever we were doing that. Yeah, I bet. I think I saw in one of the videos, they were transporting the boat in a cart and villagers were riding in the kayak while it was in the cart. Yeah, that's right. So this is right towards the end of the exhibition. I think this is in a place called Ambiki. So we stopped for the evening and Max came to meet us. And this was actually a large settlement, which was very, very unusual. So for security reasons, we didn't want to leave the kayak, just kind of board up by the side of the river. So we took it into town with us instead of kayaking it. Sorry. Instead of carrying it, we just found a guy with a Zebu car and stuck it on the back of the car.

46:51 So he, he was sat in the kayak on the back of his, Zebu drawn card going into town, which everyone thought was absolutely fantastic. It was a good visual that I managed to film for the documentary. That's pretty cool. You mentioned an abundant wildlife in the country. Tell us about some of the wildlife experiences. Absolutely. That was one of the highlights of the trip, I think. So first off, lemurs. We saw lemurs quite frequently and almost immediately. So on the hike to the source, Ben was very excited. He saw a pair of brown lemurs that are pretty common across the island, bouncing through the trees. So that kind of raised morale as we were trying to hack our way through the forest.

47:31 And then also as we were paddling along, we saw lots of different types of lemurs. We saw the beautiful bright white sifaka, a type of lemur that are very famous for bouncing sideways when they're on the ground, look like they're sort of dancing. There's a lot of bird life by the river and paddling is probably the best way of seeing that bird life because you can sneak up on it more effectively. So fish, eagles, all that kind of thing. Some really, really big and beautiful birds. We had flamingos along the way as well. In terms of slightly more scary wildlife, there are crocodiles along the course of the river. So they were one of the things we need to be very cautious of. However, rather sadly, because a lot of the communities on the river are quite poor, they do actually hunt the crocodiles.

48:16 So the vast majority of the crocodiles that we saw were quite small. They were juveniles. Anything big had already been scooped up and cooked. So I think we only saw across the whole expedition, we probably only saw two or three crocodiles that were large enough to be a safety concern for us. But we still had to be very, very cautious. So we tried not to end up in the water at any stage. We were very careful by the riverbanks and when we were camping, we took all sorts of anti-crocodile precautions. Beyond that, we saw all sorts of reptiles. So we saw chameleons, fantastic, beautiful chameleons as we were trekking along. But one of the good things about Madagascar is there's not that many dangerous animals.

48:59 So there are no poisonous snakes or spiders or anything like that. So that was always good. while we're camping. They don't have hippos, which is absolutely fantastic. I think there used to be pygmy hippos on the island, but they went extinct a long time ago. So on the Angola expedition in 2016, hippos were a massive headache for us because they are very aggressive and territorial. They were far bigger safety concern than crocodiles. So it's very nice on this expedition in Madagascar to not have to worry about that. But we also had bull sharks or Zambezi sharks, and they are a safety concern. So especially in the last sort of 100 kilometers, we had to be very, very careful. We actually saw one swim straight past us with its fin as we're paddling along.

49:42 So I think they're the only shark that can swim in both salt and freshwater. So they tend to go up deltas, up rivers hunting. So we had to be very, very careful of them. Yeah, I think that's about it, really. Unfortunately, we didn't manage to get much of this wildlife on film as we were going. Although we did get some of the lemurs, so they made it into the documentary film. All right. And I hear there was a leeches to lemur ratio. Yes, that's correct. So we got leeches multiple times at the beginning of the expedition because we're in the jungle and very wet the whole time. So that was a bit disgusting. Ben was keeping track of how many times we both got leeches. And speaking of exotic wildlife, actually, unfortunately for Ben, Ben also managed to contract bilharzia or shisto.

50:27 So he managed to get himself a case of parasitic snails, which was a bit disgusting and had a pretty negative impact on his health for a solid three days at the beginning of the trip yeah that sounds horrible, yeah it wasn't it wasn't great i feel bad for him well leeches are something that for me just personally really freaks me out so i don't know if i would be in on that one. Yeah, they're kind of disgusting. Yeah. You mentioned a charity earlier. Were you supporting a charity along the way? Yes, that's correct. So we were supporting a charity called Our Kids, Our Future Madagascar. So that's an NGO completely locally run.

51:07 And very simply, it helps to get children back into school. So unfortunately, a lot of children miss out on a primary education in Madagascar because their families do not have the money to pay for the very limited school supplies that are required in order to enroll for a year. So education is actually free at the primary level provided by the state, but still you need to get a few things together like a notebook and pencil and that sort of thing. And sadly, that proves to be a barrier to entry for some children because their families simply do not have the money to get this stuff. So the charity, very simply, it goes to communities and it finds kids that have dropped out of primary school because their families haven't been able to pay the fees and they pay the fees for them.

51:52 So it's an extremely efficient way of getting children back into school. I'm a teacher by training. I really believe that every child deserves a good education. And I just like the concept because it's so efficient. I could not believe how cheap it is to get a kid back into school. So yeah, all the donations go directly to that. All right. Now, how could someone make a connection with that organization? So they have a pretty active Facebook page. So if you just look up Our Kids, Our Future Madagascar, or we actually have a link to them on our website. So we have an official website for the expedition, kayakthemangoki.com. And on there, you can just donate if you want to. So over the course of the expedition, we raised over 5,000 US dollars for that charity, but we are still raising money for them now.

52:34 And I've actually written a book about the expedition and I'm donating 25% of the proceeds to Our Kids, Our Future Madagascar as well. So hopefully we can keep getting kids back in school over the lifespan of this story. Yeah. Tell us about the book and where you can find that. So the book has only just come out a few weeks ago, in fact. So it's taken a fair old while considering the trip finished in 2022. So yeah, I've released the book and a documentary film. So if people are interested in watching the film, they can just go onto YouTube, just type in Kayak the Mangoki and it'll come up. So it's on my YouTube channel, which is Scafidi Travels. And if they're interested in buying the book, then it's available as a Kindle version, which you can buy on Amazon.

53:15 It's also available as a paperback. And again, that can be found on Amazon, or you can find it on our website, kayakthemangokki.com. Okay. Now that pronunciation, Mangokki. Yeah. So it turns out that we were pronouncing the name of the river wrong for the entirety of the expedition, unfortunately. So we have a whole month's worth of documentary footage of us on the river saying Mangokki, as if that's how you say it. And then after we'd finished the expedition, we were told that actually no you pronounce it mangok so you don't pronounce the y at the end so i have to apologize to all the malagasy people listening for getting the name of the river slightly wrong so yeah it is it is supposed to be mangok but it's now kind of ingrained in my mind that i just say mangoki because that's what we said all the way through the expedition all right one other question about the educational system now because that that that's fascinating to me does the educational system in madagascar reach into all those smaller villages messages.

54:13 To a certain extent, yes. It's actually quite impressive how the penetration rates work in terms of those isolated communities. So yeah, at the primary level, most kids have access to some form of education. I mean, the facilities aren't going to be particularly fancy in places like where we were at the source. But yes, there's been a big focus from the Malagasy government over the past few years to make sure that people do have access to education at the state level. And also they've done a lot of work to make sure that they have realigned their calendar year to make sure it doesn't clash with important periods of time where kids might be pulled out of school otherwise. For example, rice harvest season.

54:54 So they used to have a problem a few years ago where they just kind of mimicked the French school calendar year and that didn't work very well because kids were getting pulled out of school because they had to help their family with the rice harvest. So now they've changed that so that the rice harvest tends to happen during holiday periods, which is a really good idea. Okay. And from a donation standpoint, how much would it take to keep a child in school for the year? A few dollars, really. That's all it takes. It's absolutely incredible. So it really is a very, very efficient way of helping someone out. Every little bit makes a big difference. Absolutely. Good. So if folks want to learn about our kids, our future, if they want to find the film, if they want to find the book, what's the website again that they would go to?

55:38 Kayakthemangoki.com. Okay. Excellent. We'll make sure we put links to that in the show notes so folks can reach out and find that information from there. And would they also be able to connect with you on that website? Absolutely. There's a contact form on there, or people can connect with me direct via my YouTube channel, which is Scafidi Travels. That's where the documentary film is housed. Super. Well, again, we'll make sure we put links in the show notes so folks can make that connection. So, Oscar, thank you very much. This has been fantastic hearing from you and learning about your trip down in Madagascar, and I appreciate that. One final question that I have for you. Oscar, who else would you like to hear as a future guest on Paddling the Blue? I would say Ed Stafford. He's a British explorer.

56:19 He walked the Amazon River back in 2008. I think that's his claim to fame. But since then, he's gone on and done a lot of things. But he has done some, he's done a lot of river-based stuff and he's done some kayaking-based stuff. So I think that might be a good enough link for your podcast there. So yeah, Ed Stafford. Super. All right. Well, I'll connect with you offline and we'll see if we can get in touch with Ed and get him on the show. So again, Oscar, thank you very much for sharing your trip down the Mangak or the Mangaki River, whichever one you choose to pronounce it as. And it's been great hearing about that trip. And I wish you the best. What's next? Well, Ben and I actually have another expedition in mind already. So we are hoping to kayak the Kapuas River, which is the longest river in Indonesia.

57:03 That's on the island of Borneo. The plan had originally been to do that this year. So we're going to do it in June, July this year, but as always, life gets in the way. So perhaps we will be kayaking the Kapuas either in June, July, 2026 or June, July, 2027. We'll have to see. All right. Well, we'll look forward to following along with that trip as well. So thank you again. I appreciate the opportunity. It's been great talking to you. Thank you very much, John. You're welcome. If you want to be a stronger and more efficient paddler, Power to the Paddle is packed with fitness guidance and complete descriptions, along with photos of more than 50 exercises to improve your abilities and enjoy your time on the water. The concept and exercises in this book have helped me become a better paddler, and they can make a difference for you too.

57:49 The exercises in the book can help you reduce tension in your shoulders and low back, Use the power of your torso to create leverage and use less energy with each stroke. Use force generated from your lower body to make your paddling strokes more efficient. Have the endurance to handle long days in the boat. Drive through the toughest waves or white water. Protect your body against common paddling injuries. And while you're at it, you might even lose a few pounds. And who wouldn't mind that? So visit paddlingexercises.com to get the book and companion DVD. Thanks to Oscar for joining today's episode and sharing his experience on the Mangok River. Getting there is half, or more than half, of the experience. As I mentioned in the beginning, we've hardly had any conversation about Madagascar on the show, and it was really nice to add that to the menu.

58:31 I hope you will leave me a voicemail and tell me about a guest in some other fascinating part of our world. You'll find links to Oscar's website and his socials along with resources that he mentioned by visiting the show notes for this episode at paddlingtheblue.com slash 158. And of course, you'll also find a link there to pick up his book. We'll be making the annual pilgrimage to Quiet Adventures Symposium in Lansing, Michigan on February 28, and Canoe Copia on March 13-15, both 2026. If you're at either event, please stop by and say hello. We'd love to meet you. I have an exhibit booth at Quiet Adventures, and you'll also catch me at the P&H Piranha Kayaks booth at Canoe Copia.

59:12 If you're not already a subscriber to OnlineSeaKyaking.com or OnlineWhiteWater.com, Use that coupon code PTBpodcast to check out, and you'll get 10% off just for being a member of the Paddling the Blue community. Thank you very much for listening, as always, and I look forward to bringing you the next episode of the Paddling the Blue podcast. Thank you for listening to Paddling the Blue. You can subscribe to Paddling the Blue on Apple Music, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Please take the time to leave us a five-star review on Apple Music. We truly appreciate the support. and you can find the show notes for this episode and other episodes along with replays of past episodes, contact information, and more at paddlingtheblue.com.

59:54 Until next time, I hope you get out and paddle the blue.