Ranomafana NP

Entering the rainforest with our guide.

Red Fronted Brown Lemur.

The Greater Bamboo Lemur.

A satanic leaf tailed gecko. Look carefully for the front left leg in the bottom middle of the picture.

Pitta-like ground roller.

A swarm of silkworm caterpillars.

The view from the lookout.

The horned chameleon.

The back of the village from our driveway.

A giraffe necked weevil.

The poisonous Painted Mantella frog.

Edward's sifaka.

The mouse lemur.

The nocturnal dwarf lemur.

Tuesday, November 7^th.

Thankfully people had recovered enough from last night's illness, which was either a product of motion sickness or the village lunch or both, and were able to have breakfast this morning and participate in the morning activities.

We left the hotel by 7:30 and drove straight to a local tourist restaurant to pre-order our lunch. Then we drove six kilometres to the entrance of Ranomafana National Park where we met our local guide and his two assistants. One assistant brought up the rear of our group on the hike and the other went ahead to try to find lemurs or things of interest for us. We walked for about three hours into the rainforest and up and down the rough steps in the hills looking for wildlife. It is not easy to find things in the rainforest as there is plenty of vegetation and the animals don't want to be seen. They either leave or are so well camouflaged as to be near invisible. Having said that they found us three chameleons, a very young one and a mature one and a third. They also found us one species of the giraffe necked weevil. It is tiny, I have no idea how they found it or some of the other things. We also saw silk worm caterpillars which ironically we couldn't find at the silkworm weaving community.

The guides also talk to other guides of other groups (like on safari) and they found us two or three types of lemurs. But we had to leave the actual path and venture up or down slippery hills and through the dense vegetation to get a glimpse of them. Getting pictures was very difficult as they are high up in the trees and well hidden by the vegetation. However it was good to see a couple more species. The weather was very hot and humid, the hike was fairly arduous and we were all pretty tired after the hike. As we were walking I couldn't help but think that this is what Madagascar looked like before the people stripped the land and forests. Thankfully, some of it has been protected but I think that only 12% of the original forest remains. This park was formed in 1991 and the people who lived here had to leave and created the town that the park is named after. Half of the park entrance fees that we pay goes to the national park for conservation but the other half goes to the local community and provides funds for schools, hospitals and other infrastructure. Again this gives the people a reason for protecting and respecting the national park and its inhabitants.

We drove back to the restaurant for a good lunch and then back to the hotel for an hour of down time.

This is a great group of people. Very diverse, four Aussies, three Canadians, two Brits, one Swiss, one Peruvian, and one American. All of us are serious travellers and have visited many countries. As you can imagine we have lots of story to share with each other.

After lunch we got in the van again and drove to a different entrance to the park. We took the Sahamalaotra 9 kilometre hike. This time our local guide found us a few new things to check out. We found the famous giraffe necked weevil with the red wing casing, a beautiful little frog and the Edward's Sifaka, which is a large black and white lemur. We hiked for about two hours. The sky had clouded over and the temperature was quite nice.

Then we headed back to the hotel for two hours of down time before the night walk. Our guide showed up again and we drove back towards the park entrance and began a walk along the road and he shined a light on the trees on either side of the road. Surprisingly we saw a number of things. We saw a mouse lemur (the smallest of the lemur family) and a dwarf lemur. We also saw several chameleons including the blue legged chameleon.

After the walk we went back to the hotel for dinner. I had a beer for the first time in a week. We talked for a bit and then retired about nine.