Madagascar: A spice odyssey - TimesLIVE

“Going to Madagascar?” My Parisian neurologist leans across his desk. His eyes have a strange gleam; I see obsession. The problem I came to see him about — pins-and-needles in my little finger — suddenly seems unimportant. “There’s a rare pepper there, you know?” I didn’t.

He describes his pepper collection and his holidays planned around the hunt for rare types. He expands on the flavours and aromas a pepper grinder can release. 

I had simply seen it as something you shook on food but pepper was once so expensive that it was only for the tables of the rich. When the Visigoths besieged Rome in AD 408, the price for lifting the siege included almost a ton of pepper, and in the 15th century, pepper was one of the spices that helped drive the Age of Exploration, as Europeans sought new sea routes to the East.

The doctor asks if I might bring him back some and offers money. I refuse the money but, seeing myself as something of an adventurer, I accept the challenge. The pepper I am looking for grows in the wild and is notoriously difficult to cultivate.

On the northwest coast of this huge island, I search out Das, a handyman and amateur botanist I know. “No problem,” he says. He knows where to find it. Malagasy people hate to disappoint.

He takes me to a tree, up which a luscious green pepper plant is climbing. I admire it and he says, “I planted that myself.” Disappointed, I exclaim, “I’m looking for wild pepper.”

“It is wild,” he retorts, but I know I haven’t found the real thing. You don’t plant the real thing, you find it.

Its Malagasy name is voatsiperifery, “voa” meaning fruit while “tsiperifery” refers to its traditional use in healing wounds. It is particularly prized by chefs as enthusiasts say it releases a rainbow of flavours in the mouth. Voatsiperifery can, unusually, be used on desserts, including fruit salads and chocolate cake. In Europe, it can sell for up to €200 per kilo.

Voatsiperifery, Madagascar’s elusive wild pepper, grows as a climbing vine supported by tall trees. (Harizoly Razafimandimby / Fofifa) Because it is a climbing vine that needs the support of tall trees, I am told that the best place to look is on the east coast, where the growing conditions come together: suitable soil, humidity and high trees. It is harvested by hand at heights of up to 20m – dangerous work! The difficulty of cultivating, finding and harvesting it makes it expensive. What gives it its special aroma and taste? Nobody can tell me.

I look at my map. I’ve always wanted to motorbike the 175km stretch from the west to the east coast, where the island narrows towards the northern tip. It’s regarded as an extremely difficult road and I have been warned that I am foolish to try. Unpaved, it is impassable in times of rain and, even in the dry season, generally considered suitable only for 4x4s. There are also bandits that sometimes lie in wait. The ride will take me over the flank of a mountain.

I decide I will start out and if it becomes too much I’ll turn back. The first part is mud, partly dry, caked and ridged. As it hasn’t rained for some days, I can ride the ridges and the troughs. This turns out to be the easiest part and, my confidence boosted, I push on.

The perilous road east – unpaved, rutted and impassable after rain. (Donal Conlon) Because of deforestation, there is not much left in this hard land but bush and scrub. There is a feeling of immense solitude; nothing moves in the vastness.

Climbing towards the plateau, the road becomes shale with small stones and loose rocks, which can destabilise the front wheel in the blink of an eye. Total concentration is needed.

I begin to enjoy the ride. Some sights are common but still beguiling: a flock of egrets, brilliantly white, stays close to a group of zebus, lifting languorously as I approach before settling back a few metres away. They are not afraid: nobody hunts them. They are cleaners, picking parasites off the backs of the animals. One huge bull with a magnificent hump blocks my path and refuses to acknowledge my presence as I skirt cautiously around him. The hump, a mix of muscle and marbled fat, is served as a delicacy to important guests on important occasions. The most difficult stretch of road is pure rock – pointed, ridged and pitted. I weave as I pick my way past these old rocks with respect.

I ride the low, narrow parapet of a short bridge to avoid some potholes. A bush protruding onto the parapet near the end is, I sense, light enough to ride through. As I pass, however, something clutches at my arm – a long thorn has penetrated my jacket. Unbalanced, my front wheel is dragged to the right and slightly over the edge. I brace myself for the crash. Then, as I start to tumble, my front wheel hits the ground at the end of the bridge. I straighten the bike with a wrench. With thumping heart, I lift my eyes to the heavens in dumb gratitude. I know that, injured, I might have remained unfound for a long time. In the first four hours of the ride, I have passed one vehicle: a high-wheeled lorry that functioned as a taxi.

With long, sharp horns and little road sense, zebu are best watched from a distance. (Donal Conlon) I level out into lowlands, where mud shacks roofed with the leaves of the traveller tree appear. A herd of zebu, dozens strong, approaches with five chattering young men shepherding them. The zebus’ horns are long and sharp. They are dangerous to meet as they have little road sense and express themselves mainly by doing a skittish dance and shaking their horns wildly. I stop and watch them pass.

The dried mud has become deep dust and children, playing in the only village I pass, trail clouds of it behind them as they run. My front wheel twists as it searches for grip.

I spend some nights in Vohémar, the first town I meet on the coast, then head south on a paved road. This is the most fertile part of the island I have seen: the price to pay for this fertility is abundant, often torrential rain.

A family I know on the east coast has a relative – a teacher – living 30km up in the hills. There is wild pepper where he lives, they tell me. Though I’m sceptical about it being voatsiperifery, I decide to go. It becomes a family outing, with four members of the family wanting to come along. They have no interest in pepper but they have not seen the teacher for six months. The party includes the teacher’s sister; her daughter, who is four months pregnant; and the daughter’s husband. We hire a second bike, which the husband will ride, carrying his wife and mother-in-law. I will take the teacher’s granddaughter on my bike.

The writer with the family who rode with him in search of pepper. (Donal Conlon) What I see when we turn off the paved road makes me quake. Our path, alongside a river, is red, ridged mud and water-filled troughs. The husband, with his two passengers, is on an old Chinese motorbike meant for a maximum of two and easier roads. They lead the way. I am amazed both at his dexterity in controlling the bike and his nerve. Trying to follow his line in the mud, I slough to a stop several times, then spray mud as I throttle out. Once, I have to dismount and push the bike out of a hole. The others topple over twice but with soft landings. The husband and wife giggle at their predicament; her mother is less amused.

Life in the village, when we arrive, stops momentarily to gaze at the mud-splattered group and foreigner. I see a woman plucking a skinny chicken nearby and I know it’s for us.

My companions’ relative is an important man in the village: headmaster of the two-roomed primary school. He talks of pre-independence days when there were a dozen French farmers in the region. Nowadays, only Chinese merchants come when the road is passable. We walk up the hill behind the house, greeting and being greeted. People are drying beans, coffee, vanilla, cloves … and pepper! He points out pepper growing up different trees. He calls it Rambo pepper; it is not voatsiperifery.

Our meal of rice and chicken is an animated affair: six months of family news to be revisited. I think that, even if I were fluent in Malagasy, I would have had trouble getting a word in. Still, I am given special attention, my plate and glass constantly monitored. I notice with a smile the absence of pepper on the table.

Mud-splattered but safe, we make it back to town the next day. At the local market, I buy, for a few euros, a soup can heaped high with “ordinary” wild pepper and another of red peppercorns. They mix wonderfully. Hopefully my neurologist will not be too disappointed.

• Read more of Donal Conlon’s travel writing at A Wandering Celt.

Local produce on sale at a market in Hell-Ville, Nosy Be. ( Giorgio Minguzzi / Flickr) Fancy an easier road?For a taste of the island’s spice country without Donal’s death-defying motorbike ride, try one of these gentler options.

Volamaitso, Sambava: Visit plantations growing vanilla, coffee, cacao, cloves, pepper and cinnamon, with the option of a pirogue trip on the Bemarivo River. See here.

Domaine de Florette, Nosy Be: This 30ha estate grows vanilla, pepper and other spices alongside ylang-ylang. Guided walks take visitors through the plantations and aromatic gardens and include the estate’s essential-oil distillery.

Nosy Komba: Plantation excursions on the island offer a look at vanilla, coffee, cloves and pepper cultivation, with opportunities to buy spices directly from growers. Book here.