The most famous islands in Africa. Madagascar is the largest island in Africa The largest island in Africa name
Madagascar - an island of diversity of life and landscape
Most big Island in Africa it is Madagascar, it is located separately from the continent and is separated from it by the Mozambique Strait. Madagascar is considered the fourth largest island on our planet. The Kingdom of Madagascar became French colony in 1896, but regained full independence in 1960. The country is divided into six small provinces: Toliara, Antzeranana, Fianarantsoa, Toamasina, Mahajanga, and Antananarivo.
Madagascar is considered a real paradise for connoisseurs of true exotics: a huge ocean, deserts, mountains, lakes, waterfalls, impenetrable jungles and woodlands with baobabs and palm trees. But the most important thing that makes Madagascar especially elegant is the uniqueness of its fauna, which is not found anywhere else. There are no large mammals in Madagascar, except for domestic animals once brought by Europeans, but different species of small insectivores and lemurs live here.
150,000 unique species of animals and plants
Madagascar has an abundance of reptiles, including, famous for their size, crocodiles, chameleons and lizards. Of the more than 200,000 species of animals and plants, more than 150,000 are found nowhere else in the world (this is 5% of the total species abundance of the Earth's flora and fauna).
This is why there are so many nature reserves and national parks: Berenti, Marudzedzi, Bemaraha, Mount Ambre, Tsimanampetsutsa, Betampuni, Andasibe, Ankarafantsika, Lukube, Tsaratanana.
3 climate zones
Madagascar is located in 3 climatic zones: east coast climate - tropical monsoon, temperate maritime; V central region Where there are highlands and deserts, the climate is arid. As a rule, the annual precipitation rate is: 140 cm for the central highlands (in this case, for the capital of the country), 350 cm for the whole south coast, 32 cm in the south of the island.
The area of the state of Madagascar is 587 thousand square meters. km. Population - 19.5 million people (data for 2010). The island's population is growing very quickly - the annual increase is approximately 3% (13th place in the world for this indicator). The capital of Madagascar is the city of Antananarivo. The form of government is a parliamentary republic.
Madagascar is the largest island off the coast of Africa and in all Indian Ocean. Very often it is called a kind of miniature continent. This is because its flora and fauna are very different from those found on the African continent. Many of their representatives are found only here. Moreover, local landscapes are unique and are not repeated anywhere else on the planet. Several thousand years ago it was part of a huge continent known as Gondwana, which eventually split apart. As a result of this, Africa, Antarctica and Madagascar itself were formed. Now the largest island in Africa is separated from the main continent by the Mozambique Strait, whose width is about 300 kilometers.
The local landscape is diverse. Most of the territory is a plateau. In some areas it rises above sea level to a height of up to 2876 meters. Not far from the city of Antananarivo are the Ancaratro Mountains, maximum height which is equal to 2643 meters. Africa's largest island also boasts its fertile plains. They are located on the west and east coasts. All local rivers flow into and flow from east to west. Although there are not many of them, they annually attract great amount tourists with an abundance of its waterfalls and picturesque landscapes.
The best time to visit the largest island in Africa is considered to be from March to April. It is recommended to go to the central part from November to March. This is due to the specifics local climate. The fact is that there are wet and dry seasons. On east coast There are almost always showers, and strong trade winds lead to rain jets flying almost horizontally, so no awnings or umbrellas can protect you from them. The average winter temperature is 16 and summer - 34 degrees Celsius.
Democratic, which was formed as a result of a military coup in 1975, occupies not only this large island of Africa, but also several small ones located nearby. The area of the country is just over 587 thousand km 2. The population of the state exceeds 14 million people. Most of them live in the most major cities, including the above-mentioned Antananarivo, as well as Tulear, Toamasina, Mahajanga, Fianarantsoa and others. There are two official languages in the republic - French and Merina (one of the dialects of Malagasy). The country is led by the president, and the head of government is the prime minister.
The first European to visit the largest on August 10, 1500 was the Portuguese Diego Diaz. In the new lands, travelers were engaged in robberies and murders, so as soon as they set off towards India, local population breathed a sigh of relief. Much to his regret, six years later the next European expedition arrived on the island. Its representatives were not very different from their predecessors, so most of the adult inhabitants of Madagascar were destined to become slaves. IN different time The Portuguese, French and British tried to gain a foothold here. The island became self-governing in 1896. It was granted self-government in 1958 and declared independence in 1960.
Currently, Madagascar is a member of many world organizations, including the IMF, UN, WHO and others.
Unique natural sites - Madagascar Island. Rwenzori Mountains in Congo. Canary Islands.
02/20/2017 / 10:06 | Varvara Pokrovskaya
Madagascar Island
The largest island of the Indian Ocean, Madagascar, is often called by geographers “a continent in miniature.” This is explained, firstly, by the extraordinary diversity of its landscapes, and secondly, by the unique flora and fauna that distinguishes it from nearby Africa and from other parts of the world.
Combination of wet tropical forests, tall grass savannas and even semi-deserts, mountain ranges, plateaus and coastal plains, extinct volcanoes and coral reefs, swampy lagoons and mangroves, monsoon and trade winds determine the existence of a wide variety of landscapes on the island, and the animals and plants of Madagascar, three quarters of which are found only here, are not at all similar to African ones, and if they have relatives, then usually in Indochina and Indonesia, and even in South America.
Madagascar is a mountainous country. Almost half of it is occupied by the High Plateau, stretching across the entire island from north to south. On the eastern coast, where trade winds bring moisture from the Indian Ocean, it rains, stormy and heavy, almost every day. Due to the strong wind accompanying them, the rain jets are directed almost horizontally, and no umbrellas or awnings can protect you from them. Strictly speaking, there is a distinction between wet and dry seasons. But the latter, lasting from May to November, differs only in that occasionally there are days without precipitation. In July, at the height of winter, the thermometer shows plus sixteen, and in February the temperature reaches thirty-four degrees.
On the steep slopes of the plateau grow evergreen forests of ferns, tamarinds, palms and other tropical trees, entwined with vines and decorated with colorful orchids. There are many valuable tree species in these forests. U different types rosewood, for example, the wood comes in purple, pink and even black. There are also rubber plants here. And varnish is made from the resin of the copal tree.
But of all the trees in Madagascar, the most famous is the ravenala. In appearance, it looks like a banana, only the banana has leaves that grow straight from the ground, and the ravenala has a real trunk, from the top of which huge leaves diverge, like the spokes of a wheel, torn by the wind along the edges. Where the leaf cuttings gather towards the trunk, there are special containers containing several liters of water. Having met a ravenala, a tired traveler can always quench his thirst. It is not for nothing that it is also called the “travelers’ tree.” The vines of Madagascar are unique. The pod of one of them, the entada vine, reaches two meters in length and one and a half meters in width! Several of these pods, split in half, serve perfectly as a roof for a hut. Ropes are made from vines, baskets and mats are woven. And some, especially durable ones, are used to build houses, since they are the only plants on the island that termites do not touch.
In the west, where the mountains do not allow rain clouds to pass through, savannah reigns, and in some places in the south there is a hot semi-desert, since precipitation here is rare and falls only in winter. During the dry season, not a drop of moisture is shed for months, and the temperature rises to forty degrees! Forests in the west are found only in river valleys, and the savannah is overgrown with tough, brush-like grass, and only here and there small baobabs and fan palms grow. Trees in the western part of the island shed their leaves in the winter so as not to evaporate moisture during the dry season.
The uniqueness of the fauna of Madagascar can only be compared with that of Australia. The main treasure of the island's fauna is, of course, lemurs. These funny animals, resembling a cross between a monkey and a cat, live in forests and are nocturnal. They have large, glowing-in-the-dark eyes and a shrill voice, reminiscent of the capricious cry of a child.
The largest of the lemurs are the indri. They are easily tamed, and the island's inhabitants, the Malagasy, often use them for hunting instead of dogs. Another genus of lemur, with a fox-like head and a long tail, is the maquis. They are very lively and active, keep in flocks and often catch your eye in the evenings when they jump through the trees in search of tasty fruits. The complete opposite of them is the slow loris. This clumsy and clumsy baby is as slow as an Australian koala. Also interesting is the aye-aye, or little hand-footed lemur, an angry flat-headed lemur with huge ears and a very long tail. It lives in bamboo forests, feeds on the core of bamboo and sugar cane, and does not disdain beetles and larvae. With its long fingers, the aye-aye easily extracts the contents from the trunks of bamboo and reeds. This gourmet is very afraid of light. As soon as the sun rises, he falls asleep with his head between his legs and his long tail wrapped around it.
The Malgash consider lemurs to be sacred animals. There is a legend that once upon a time they were people, and then, living in the forest, they grew hair and turned into animals. When meeting a lemur in the forest, hunters always politely greet it, and animals that accidentally fall into a trap are certainly freed and released into the wild.
The only predator on the island is the reddish-black fossa, the ferret cat. She is the size of a large dog, but not tall, since her legs are short. Malgashi are very afraid of fossu. There are many legends and hunting stories about her bloodthirstiness and strength.
Found in Madagascar, the mongoose is the main snake killer. And in the mountain forests live shy and timid eared hedgehogs - tenrecs. These rather large (rabbit-sized) animals emerge from their burrows only at dusk and busily begin to look for food - small insects. In winter they hibernate.
The Madagascar bird world is vibrant and unusual. Here you can find green parrots, bright red cardinals, blue pigeons and kingfishers, Sultan's hens, ibises and guinea fowl. Once upon a time, huge Epiornis birds, similar to giant cassowaries, lived on the island. The height of these giants reached five meters! They became extinct quite recently, since Marco Polo mentioned them in his book. And later, in the 18th century, sailors sailing to the island heard the cries of these birds. The giant egg of Aepyornis was equal in volume to 150 ostrich eggs. The Malgash made vessels from them that held eight liters of water.
There are no poisonous snakes in Madagascar, and the only truly dangerous animals here are crocodiles. The swamps and lakes of the island are literally teeming with them.
And among European collectors, the amazingly beautiful butterflies of Madagascar are held in special esteem. Goliath, the largest of them, can easily be mistaken for a bird. This is a brown butterfly with a pink belly. Urania is surprisingly picturesque, rightly considered the most beautiful butterfly in the world. Her wings seem to shimmer with all possible colors. The Madagascar butterfly also amazes with its intricate pattern on its wings.
There are a lot of chameleons of various sizes on the island. Because of the unattractive appearance Malagasy consider them to be evil and harmful creatures, although in fact they bring great benefit by exterminating flies and other annoying insects. The chameleon, in fact, is a relative of lizards, but nature clearly deprived it of agility. Sometimes it seems that in his veins there is not blood, but carpenter's glue - his movements are so viscous and slow. And only the chameleon’s tongue is thrown forward with lightning speed when the prey is within reach. The chameleon is known primarily for its extraordinary ability to change color to match the color of the surrounding background, which makes it completely invisible in the forest.
Unusual animals and plants of Madagascar are widely known, but there are amazing place, about the nature of which even the inhabitants of the island know little. This is the Bemaraha plateau, located in the Manambolo River basin near the coast of the Mozambique Channel. Everything here is amazing: fantastic topography, animals and plants; perhaps the last untouched corner has been preserved here. wildlife Madagascar.
The limestone plateau of Bemaraha rises 400 meters above the Manambolo Valley. The river cut through it a grandiose gorge with white layered walls. And around the gorge there is... stone forest! Bizarrely carved by karst processes, the rocky ridges - karrs - bristled with thousands of sharp peaks, between which the water made deep crevices, and turned each boulder into a sharp jagged sword. The huge rocky labyrinth is practically impassable: limestone towers and walls overgrown with thorns have formed a network of natural bastions throughout the plateau, reliably protecting it from newcomers.
The Bemaraha region is poor in precipitation: the dry season here lasts up to eight months. And in fractured limestones, even the moisture brought by rare rains quickly sinks into the depths, so only plants well adapted to drought can survive here. An ebony tree, for example, turns green only during the rainy season, and the rest of the time it stands naked, saving water. The baobab, on the contrary, accumulates water in its gnarled and powerful trunk, up to nine meters thick, and thanks to this it survives during the dry season.
Bizarre creatures inhabit the stone forest of Bemaraha. It is an armored chameleon that resembles a small dragon or dinosaur with its spiny spines on its spine and pointed knobs on its head. A peculiar Madagascar rat with large ears is also found here. If you don't notice its long tail, it could easily be mistaken for a rabbit. And on the trees that grow in the crevices of the rocks, little monkeys and poppies live, enlivening the deserted rocky landscape with their funny jumps and piercing screams.
Groups of outlier rocks formed by karst processes are found in other places in the world, for example, in the Qingling region of China or in Ha Long Bay in Vietnam. But there these limestone pillars and towers always have a rounded or flat top. And only here, in Madagascar, such an amazing pointed stone forest arose. The attractiveness of this corner also lies in the fact that not a single person has yet visited the depths of the plateau, and one can only guess what discoveries await scientists there. The nature of Madagascar still keeps many secrets that will be revealed only to inquisitive travelers who have managed to overcome all the difficulties that arise for the pioneers of the mountains, jungles and mysterious rock labyrinths of this unique island.
Rwenzori Mountains
Between the Central African lakes Edward and Albert, where the equator crosses the border of Congo and Uganda, lies one of the most mysterious mountain ranges on our planet - the Rwenzori Mountains.
Until 1888, not a single European had seen them. Yes and after famous traveler Henry Stanley discovered them for science; few were able to admire their sparkling snowy peaks. The fact is that three hundred days a year the Rwenzori massif is covered with clouds, and in the remaining two months it only opens briefly at dawn or sunset to the eyes of travelers passing at its foot.
When in 1906 an Italian expedition compiled the first map of these places, it turned out that the Rwenzori Mountains, stretching for one hundred and twenty kilometers from northeast to southwest, are the highest mountain range Africa. As many as nine of its peaks rise more than four kilometers, and the highest of them, Peak Margherita, reaches five thousand one hundred meters and is the third highest on the continent. (After Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya stand alone south of Rwenzori.)
Since the time of Ptolemy, European and Arab geographers have written about the existence of mysterious Moon Mountains in the center of Africa. It was believed that the sources of the Nile were located in them. However, it took almost two thousand years to confirm this assumption. Moreover, already in the 20th century, five well-equipped expeditions that visited lakes Albert and Edouard could not detect Rwenzori, although, it would seem, from such a distance it is no more difficult than spotting the Eiffel Tower from the Seine embankment. Dense clouds interfered, completely hiding the giant mountain range from researchers.
And only Stanley’s perseverance, patience and observation allowed him, on the third attempt (!), to finally open the elusive ridge. This is how he himself describes this “hunt for Rwenzori”:
"...Returning from Lake Albert in December 1887, we suddenly noticed that two huge truncated cones appeared on the horizon to the south of us. It seemed to us that their height should be from three to four kilometers. We dubbed them “Twins” and strongly became interested in them, believing that next to them there should be a very picturesque area.
Returning to the lake in April 1888, we did not see the “Twins,” but on May 25, when we walked about two hours away from the lake, a huge snow-white mountain suddenly appeared before our eyes, with a central massif fifty kilometers long; On both sides of this mountain there were two chains of mountains, a kilometer and a half below it. That day all this was visible for several hours in a row. But the next day the vision disappeared, no traces were visible, neither the “Twins” nor the snow ridge.
Returning to Albert for the third time, in January 1889, we stopped at a local village for two and a half months, but saw nothing during all this time. However, one fine day, as usual, looking at the place where the snow ridge should have been, we waited for it: everything mountain ranges came out from behind their cloud cover at once, and dozens of pairs of eyes eagerly drank into this wondrous spectacle.
The upper part of the ridge, clearly divided into many pyramidal peaks, belted below with a wide strip of milky-white fog, against the background of blue skies of extraordinary purity and transparency, seemed to be floating in the air, like that “Island of Bliss”, floating between heaven and earth, about which An old legend tells. As the sun sank to the west, the foggy belt disappeared, and the ghostly apparition found itself attached to a chain of mighty foothills. Although we were a hundred kilometers from the mountains, through binoculars we could see stripes of forests and individual tree groups growing either on wide ledges or along the edges of the cliffs of some cliff hanging over a deep abyss. I thought that these must be the Moon Mountains that Ptolemy once wrote about.
One must think that the transparency of the atmosphere is a rare phenomenon in this area, and if we had visited here in passing, like other travelers, then, in all likelihood, Rwenzori would have remained unknown for a long time."
By the way, the Semliki River flowing at the foot of these “Mountains of the Moon” flows into Lake Albert, as does the main source of the Nile, Victoria Nile. From here, already under the name Albert Nile, the future great river rushes north to meet the Blue Nile. So the ancient geographers were right: one of the sources of the Nile is indeed located in this mountain range.
Unlike Kilimanjaro and Kenya, Mount Rwenzori is not of volcanic origin. This is a huge granite block, raised four kilometers up along a giant fault in the earth's crust, called by geologists the Great African Rift. Along the line of this arcuate fault there are long and deep African lakes Nyasa, Tanganyika, Kivu, Edward and Albert, and on its sides rise to a three-kilometer height the mountain ranges of Kitengere, Malimba, Marunga and Mitumba, as well as the cones of the Sapitwa and Karisimbi volcanoes.
In the language of the Bakongo people living here, Rwenzori means "Rain Maker". Indeed, the high mountain range stands as a powerful barrier to the winds bringing moisture from the deep Congo basin. Rising up the slopes of Rwenzori, the humid air cools and clouds appear, raining almost every day.
At the foot of Rwenzori there are vast savannas overgrown with tall two-meter elephant grass. Here there is freedom for buffalos, elephants and rhinoceroses, herds of antelopes, giraffes and zebras graze here and cheetahs, lions and hyenas hunt for game.
At a height of two kilometers, lush rain forests begin, where, in addition to the usual forest inhabitants of equatorial Africa, there are also such rare animals as the pintail squirrel, which uses a sharp bone spike on the lower surface of its tail to climb trees, or the Rwenzor otter shrew, in contrast to preferring to live in rivers and streams and having webbed paws.
The huge Cape otter, almost one and a half meters long, is also found here, as well as the wild boar, the largest living in Africa. This meter-tall animal weighs up to one hundred and sixty kilograms, and hunting it is far from a safe activity. But the most unusual appearance is the three-horned chameleon living on Rwenzori. Superstitious blacks are afraid of him, considering him a harbinger of misfortune.
The largest bats in the world—flying dogs—with a wingspan of more than a meter live in caves and tree hollows. And among the dangerous predators, only the leopard climbs high into the mountain forests, instilling fear in the numerous monkeys inhabiting these places.
From three to three and a half kilometers on the slopes of Rwenzori there is a belt of strange-looking half-forests and half-shrubs, densely hung with lichens. They are formed by thickets of tree-like heather, reaching a monstrous size in this humid and hot atmosphere. Here, everything grows to gigantic sizes: grass, flowers, and ferns. Even the earthworms on Rwenzori are as thick as a finger and a meter or more long.
Even higher is the zone of mountain meadows, where the traveler will encounter the main decoration of this fantastic botanical kingdom. The modest flowers of Senecia (ragwort), which reach a height of twenty to thirty centimeters in our country, become real five-meter trees here, striking with the quaintness of their black stumped trunk, crowned with a bunch of half-meter leaves.
The modest northern lobelia reaches the same enormous size here, turning on the slopes of Rwenzori into a giant green rosette lying on the ground, from which a two-meter, candle-like inflorescence rises upward.
These amazing, unique plant giants rise among green meadows dotted with blooming violets, mantles and lilies, and in some places enlivened by mighty thickets of two-meter horsetails.
A similar landscape, reminiscent of scenes from films about the conquest of alien worlds, can be found only in two other places on Earth - on the slopes of Kenya and Kilimanjaro.
Having risen another half kilometer, the traveler finds himself above the band of continuous clouds. The bright sun floods the alpine landscape, which is completely unusual for Africa, with its rays, as if transported here from somewhere from Mont Blanc. Above are jagged ridges corroded by glacial cirques, sharp pyramidal peaks, snow fields sparkling with virgin whiteness and bluish tongues of glaciers. Below are deep valley trenches plowed by glaciers and countless mirrors of small and large glacial lakes, which reflect the elaborate “candelabra” of giant senacia and the slender “candles” of gigantic lobelias, perfectly complementing this picturesque landscape.
Eternal snow and glaciers highest peaks The Rwenzori are fed by many fast-flowing streams with cold, clear water. Merging, they form just below, in the forest belt, fast, noisy rivers, rushing down steep, rapids beds and rolling a mass of stone fragments along the bottom. Such watercourses are capable of cutting deeply into the slopes of a mountain range. Gorges up to a kilometer deep divide the slopes of the Rwenzori into many separate blocks, giving the ridge a ribbed appearance. On the western side, where the massif breaks off into the valley with a steep cliff, the rivers cascade down onto the plain in foaming streams of waterfalls three to four hundred meters high.
However, to admire all this beauty, you will have to climb almost four kilometers. From below, he risks not seeing the mountains at all through the cloudy cloak in which Rwenzori wraps himself. But the difficulties of the climb are instantly forgotten when the traveler’s gaze opens to a majestic panorama of a sky-high ridge covered with eternal snow.
At one time, Stanley described the feelings of a person who saw Rwenzori:
“It happens that half an hour before sunset the wind drives away the clouds, and then one peak after another appears in the blue sky, one after another powerful peaks are exposed, snow-white fields and the whole undulating mass shines in its full splendor until dusk deepens and the dark night will cover it with an even darker tent.
These short—too short—minutes of looking at the magnificent “Rain Maker,” as the Bakongo call their fog-shrouded mountain, fill the viewer with the feeling of looking into the open heavens.”
Canary Islands
West of the coast of Morocco in Atlantic Ocean stretched for four hundred and fifty kilometers from west to east, a ridge of seven volcanic islands. This archipelago, welcoming, picturesque and diverse, has been called the Canary Islands since ancient times. This not very pleasant name (canis in Latin - “dog”) was given to the islands by the famous Roman scientist Pliny the Elder, who claimed that there were supposedly huge dogs on them. Later it turned out that the great naturalist was mistaken, but the name had already stuck. And although the fertile islands off the coast of Africa were given at different times many other, more romantic names: “Islands of Eternal Spring”, “Enchanted Islands”, “Isles of the Blessed”, “Champs Elysees” and even “Gardens of the Hesperides”, nevertheless on the maps these islands remain to this day under the first “dog” name.
Inhabited and developed by people five thousand years ago, the archipelago became known to the Phoenicians in the 11th century BC. A thousand years later, the Romans landed here, and in the 14th century, Spanish caravels appeared off the coast of the islands. A hundred years later, having broken the resistance of the local Guanches, Spain finally took possession of the archipelago, and to this day they belong to it.
It is clear that over five hundred years of economic development Canary Islands By the Spaniards, the nature of the archipelago changed in many ways. Fortunately, many of the islands, due to their mountainous terrain, turned out to be inconvenient for creating plantations, and their flora and fauna were not so badly damaged.
The most famous, largest and most visible (literally) island in the Canaries is Tenerife. Its main attraction - the Teide volcano, rising three thousand seven hundred meters above sea level - is visible from approaching ships almost two hundred kilometers away.
The vague outlines of a huge mountain, now appearing and now disappearing in the translucent haze of the morning fog, have acted on the imagination of sailors since ancient times. Teide peak was admired by Columbus and Cook, Bellingshausen and Humboldt. And in January 1832, the English ship Beagle approached the shores of the archipelago, on which it set off on its famous trip around the world young naturalist and future creator of the theory of evolution Charles Darwin. This is what he wrote in his diary:
“On the sixth of January we reached Tenerife... The next morning we saw the sun, emerging from behind the bizarre rocks of the island of Gran Canaria, suddenly illuminate the peak of Tenerife, while the lower parts of the island were still hidden behind curly clouds. It was the first of those delightful days that I will never forget."
The first known eruption of Mount Teide occurred in 1492, the same year that Columbus visited Tenerife. The volcano then showed its activity more than once: its eruptions occurred in 1706 and 1909. The funicular today allows a traveler to easily climb to the edge of the crater and look into the black and gloomy volcanic basin, on the edge of which rises a young cone that grew in 1909.
The basin, bearing the expressive name Caldera de las Cañadas (“caldera of the abysses”), amazes with the bizarre shapes of flows of solidified lava and minerals of various colors, among which tajinastes flowers rise here and there, looking like huge candles.
Although most of The islands have long been turned by the Spaniards into banana plantations and orange groves; in the northeast of Tenerife, near its capital Santa Cruz, a large forest tract has been preserved, occupying the mountain slopes off the coast. In the dry and hot climate of the Canaries, this dense, gloomy and cool forest, in which Canarian pines, laurels and the native northern birches grow side by side, seems like a green oasis next to the hot beaches and dry rocky slopes of Teide. Serpentine road at the edge of the forest mountain road leads to open area, to the high coastal cliff - Pico de Inglés. From its kilometer-long height, the traveler has a view of the endless ocean expanses and golden beaches, high cliffs and green groves of the coast.
If Tenerife, with its mild and warm climate, is called the “island of eternal spring,” then the easternmost of the Canary Islands, Lanzarote, would rightly be called the “island of fire-breathing mountains.” On this small island, sixty kilometers long and fifteen kilometers wide, nature has gathered together as many as three hundred volcanoes!
The last time an eruption occurred on the island was in 1824. Then, along the fault line crossing the island, three volcanoes arose one after another and began to throw out ash and lava at once: Tao, Tinguaton and Negro. But this menacing picture could not be compared with the firestorm that raged in Lanzarote a hundred years earlier. In the fall of 1730, thirty craters simultaneously began spewing hot ash and rivers of liquid lava, wreaking death and devastation in the surrounding area. The monstrous eruption lasted for six whole years and covered a third of the island’s territory with a gray, lifeless cover of basalt.
The local priest then led detailed records about what is happening. Here is an excerpt from this peculiar “chronicle of the fiery years”:
“Near Timenfaya, the earth split and a huge fire-breathing mountain grew. The menacing performance lasted three weeks. A few days later, other craters opened and lava splashed out, which buried the villages of Timenfaya, Rodeo and Mancha Blanca. On September 6, a high rock, deflecting the lava flow, changed it direction from north to north-west. This led to the destruction of the villages of Maretes and Santa Catalina. On September 11, new fiery fissures opened and flooded the city of Maso, and six days later it reached the shore and roared into the sea, scattering terribly beautiful cascades. sparks..."
After such a long rampage of the fiery element, the appearance of the island completely changed. Fields and vineyards, the richest villages were destroyed. In the center of the island a dark ridge of volcanic cones has grown, reminiscent of the lunar mountains.
Nowadays, residents refer to the entire central and western part of Lanzarote as Mal Pais ("Bad Country"). Dark colors dominate here, you won’t hear birdsong here, and here the formidable volcanic ridge of Montaña del Fuego (“Fire Mountains”) rises above the lifeless valley. The landscape of these places makes a strong impression: destroyed volcanic cones, blue-black ash fields, rusty-red crater walls oxidized by volcanic heat and mountains of gray slag...
Huge vents gape, but not a single crater smokes or breathes fire. Not a single cloud of steam or smoke rises from Montaña del Fuego. But very shallowly under the outer layer of volcanic rocks, the depths of the volcanoes still glow with heat, and a traveler who finds himself in Lanzarote can easily verify this.
On the ridge of one of the craters, an enterprising Canarian set up a restaurant where the floor slabs are hot to the touch, and the cook fries eggs by placing a frying pan directly on a pile of volcanic sand. For fun, the owner of the establishment throws an armful of brushwood into a two-meter hole with a pitchfork. Not even a minute passes before a fire breaks out there. And nearby you can admire a man-made geyser. It is enough to pour a bucket of water into a pipe dug into the ground, and almost immediately steam bursts out of it, and then a stream of boiling water, soaring to a four-meter height.
Traveling around Lanzarote is easy to do by bus, but it is more interesting to do it on camelback. The road laid through created here National Park, leads along the frozen lava lake to a long chain of craters bordered by piles of slag and frozen lava fountains, which are called “hornitos” here.
But still the main attraction volcanic island is the Cueva de los Verdes cave. This is the world's largest lava cave, stretching for six kilometers. Some of its halls reach fifteen meters in height and twenty-four in width. One of them even has concert hall.
The cave is located in the north of the island, under the lava fields of the Corona volcano. The river of molten basalt continued to flow under the cooled and hardened outer layer of lava from the side of the Corona Crater down the slope directly into the sea, forming a natural tunnel with bizarre shapes of walls and roof. From the Mal Pais plateau, a narrow path leads the traveler into a dark, deep hole. Beyond the tall, dark entrance, it first runs along a tunnel leading to the sea, then turns west into a narrower passage and reaches the deepest part of the cave, forty meters below the surface.
Along the entire route, the tourist is accompanied by soft electronic music, reminiscent of the sound of glass drops. Spotlights illuminate passages and halls, highlight oxide-colored vaults and hanging lava pillars - peculiar volcanic stalactites that cast intricate shadows.
The cave has two tiers, with the upper one being wider and more spacious. After several ascents and descents, the traveler finally finds himself in the concert hall. The experience of underground music exceeds all expectations: the porous walls of the lava cave create ideal acoustics.
On the way back, the tourist will meet a small lake near the path, filled with sea water seeping through the cracks. In an underground reservoir live small crabs that have become completely white in the darkness of the cave. And in a wide funnel at the exit from a mysterious cavity, where the rays of the sun fall from above, you can sit in a cozy cafe, thinking about the terrible cataclysms that created this unusual underground volcanic world.
Other large islands The Canary archipelago - Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura and Palma - has retained little of its pristine nature. The first of them is the kingdom of hotels and beaches, the second, thanks to the efforts of people, has become almost treeless, and its landscape does not please the traveler’s eye. As for the island of Palma, it was severely damaged by the eruption that happened quite recently, in 1971.
But the small mountainous island of La Gomera, located south of Tenerife, has remained virtually unchanged since the Spanish conquest. There is not even an airport, and most tourists come here only on excursions.
The mighty Garajoney mountain range rises one and a half kilometers above the island. Six deep gorges radiate from it towards the coast. Two-thirds of the entire territory of the island of La Gomera is covered with virgin forests of laurel, waxweed and tree heather. The laurel forests growing on the northern slopes are of particular value. Covered with a lush fringe of mosses and lichens, the huge trees look “fluffy”, and a continuous carpet of ferns complements the primeval appearance of these ancient forests, which covered vast areas of the Mediterranean and North Africa millions of years ago.
The laurel forests are home to rare and cautious Canary pigeons, revealing themselves only by their gentle cooing, as well as the most famous feathered inhabitants of the islands - canaries, whose singing can be heard from all sides.
Once upon a time, the Guanches lived on La Gomera - the indigenous inhabitants of the archipelago, who appeared here thousands of years BC. The island's rugged, rugged terrain forced them to develop a unique way of communicating. Being on opposite sides of the gorge, the Guanches could communicate in a special whistling language - silbo. This unique language made it possible to transmit messages over distances of up to a kilometer.
Such an unusual language has been discovered on our planet in only one other place - in one of the mountain villages of Turkey. Silbo has survived to this day, and on Homer you can still hear two shepherds whistling across the canyon, arranging a meeting or passing on news.
Another source of pride for the Gomerians no longer relates to botany or linguistics, but to history. The great Columbus visited here more often than on other islands of the archipelago. From 1492 to 1502, he visited the island of La Gomera four times, the reason for which, it is believed, was his romantic infatuation with the local beauty Marchioness of Monya. The house where the navigator stayed has now become the Columbus Museum. The future conqueror of the Aztec empire, conquistador Hernan Cortes, also visited the island on his way to America.
It is interesting to explore the island of La Gomera not only on foot or on horseback, but also from the sea. From the boat you can see the main wonder of the Homeric coast - the Los Organos rock. This is a steep wall consisting of thousands of hexagonal basalt columns rising from sea waves like the pipes of a giant organ.
The abundance of sun and warmth in the Canaries doesn’t exactly become boring, but it requires a change of scenery from time to time. And in search of variety, every year up to half a million tourists walk along the shady forest roads of the island of La Gomera. Nevertheless, there are still many untouched corners preserved on it, and this quiet and green island remains a true oasis of unaltered nature of the Canary archipelago.
A traveler who has visited the Canaries will certainly tell his friends about climbing the Teide peak and the stunning views opening from there to the expanses of the Atlantic, about the Cueva de los Verdes tunnels scorched by underground fire, about the formidable craters of Montañadel Fuego and about the mysterious island with a beautiful named after Homer...
The largest island in Africa is, of course, Madagascar.
Madagascar is not only the largest African island, but also one of the most big islands the world - the fourth largest. The French called this island “Great” for its enormous size. It separated from the African continent more than 100 million years ago. And it seems that, according to the testimony of some scientists, Madagascar is still moving away from the continent at an incredible speed - as much as 2 centimeters per century. The island is located in the Indian Ocean, near eastern shore Africa, and from which it is separated by the Mozambique Channel. The climate on most of the island is tropical, only in the extreme south of the island is subtropical. The length of the island is about 1600 kilometers, width - over 600 kilometers, area - 587,040 square kilometers - this is approximately twenty Moscow regions or the territories of France and Belgium combined. Highest point the island is on this moment the inactive Marumukutru volcano, whose height is 2876 meters, is located in the Tsaratanana mountain range, in the north of the island. The Anjafi mountain plateau occupies the central part of the island. The mountainous terrain of the island, up to 2600 meters high, is rich in minerals and metals: copper, iron, gold; The vast coastal plains are marshy, and some of them are very fertile.
Animal and vegetable world Madagascar is quite unique - it contains 5 percent of the world's plant and animal species and 80 percent of them exist only on this African island. Because of this uniqueness, Madagascar is often called the "small continent".
In Madagascar there is a state of the same name, with its capital in the city of Antananarivo, which occupies the territory of the entire island. The state was formed on June 26, 1960, declaring its independence from France. The territory of 587,041 square kilometers is forty-fifth in the world. Population 20,042,552, 2008 estimate, 58th in the world.
Previously, several states existed on the island, but the most powerful and developed among them was the state of Imerina, founded by the Merinan people. The heyday of Imerina dates back to the 19th century. The name of this state indicates the place where it was located. Merina is translated into Russian as “highest”. The kingdom was located on the High Plateau of Madagascar. At the beginning of the 16th century, Tananarive was founded - the “city of a thousand”, which received this name in memory of the thousands of troops that annexed the land on which this city was built to the kingdom. The great ruler Ramboazalam, who ruled at the end of the 18th century, significantly expanded the kingdom, uniting many previously scattered tribes under his rule. It was Rambozalama who came up with the famous formula for a united Madagascar: “Our border is the sea.” And soon the unification of the island took place, a state “from sea to sea” was created, which occupied the territory of the entire island. On August 10, 1500, the Portuguese Diego Diaz was the first European to “discover” Madagascar. Soon after him, the French, British, and Dutch came to the island.
In the 19th century, the state of Imerina achieved quite significant success. Even universal compulsory education was introduced. The level of education of the population in the country increased so much that the royal court fired heralds and hung its decrees on the walls of houses. Almost everyone could read them. The Malagasy state continued to develop, the first factories and metallurgical factories appeared on the island, mining began, periodicals were born, and a network of medical institutions was created (in 1870 alone, more than 200 thousand people became their visitors). In 1876 - 6 years earlier than in France - free education was introduced in Madagascar. But, despite all this, Imerina could not withstand the onslaught of one of the largest imperialist powers. Relying on armed force and exploiting differences between tribes, France annexed the island in 1896. Here we see the fact that before the advent of European “civilizers” on the island there was a highly developed state in which something that was still far from being “super civilized” and “super cultural” existed - free and universal education, free medical care and almost universal literacy. The only thing in which the “civilized” Europeans, the French, were clearly superior to the “wild” African aborigines was in military strength.
The main population of the island are Malagasy. They speak Malagasy. This language is also called Malagasy and belongs to the Indonesian group of the Austronesian language family.
The Malagasy language is in no way related to the African languages around it. It is the most western of the Malayo-Polynesian languages belonging to the Austronesian family. The Malagasy language is related to the languages of Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. The languages closest to it are those spoken on the island of Borneo. The basic vocabulary of the Malagasy language is 90% identical to the vocabulary of the Maanyang language of the Barito River region in southern Borneo. This can only mean one thing: Madagascar was inhabited by people from those places. It is not known for certain why this colonization occurred. Later, settlers from the distant island of Borneo mixed with Arabs and people from East Africa. The Malagasy language has borrowings from Bantu, Swahili and Arabic, as well as from French and English. The language has written literature since the 15th century and a rich tradition of oral poetic traditions and legends.
A fairly small percentage of the island's population is made up of Comorians, Chinese, Indians, Creoles, French and Pakistanis.
52 percent of the population are adherents of local ancient traditional beliefs - animalism, fetishism, cult of ancestors, forces of nature, etc., 41 percent are Christians, of which approximately half are Catholics and half are Protestants, 7 percent are Sunni Muslims - immigrants from Pakistan and the Comoros Islands . The beginning of the spread of Christianity is the 17th century. Most Christians at the same time also profess local traditional beliefs.
From all of the above, I can conclude that the island of Madagascar is quite interesting and unusual place our globe, with unique flora and fauna and it is inhabited by people with a unique history and culture. In general, this is a place that is in no way inferior to the currently popular places of tourism and recreation and is worth visiting. Moreover, from March 1, 2010, the Madagascar authorities abolished visa fees for all tourists from Russia who come to the island for up to thirty days.