Planet of the Lemurs

Tea was like spaghetti bolognaise, but with tuna and not mince. It was very nice, probably my favorite main from the camping. I stayed up a bit later than I had (till 10:30!), first talking, then reading, since we were not leaving until 8am tomorrow! The night was much warmer too, leading to my sleeping bag being unzipped even!

Morning, including standard bread, honey, and bananas for breakfast was uneventful. Then at the aforementioned 8am we got back in the 4x4s, and took a different "bad" road (though not quite as bad as the previous one), to get to Anja, where we would be spotting ring tailed lemurs (again, for some of us), and chameleons.

The national park of Anja is only 7 hectares in area, but has 400 Katta, otherwise known as ring tailed, lemurs. This is up from 150 when it became a national park in 2001. There are a LOT of jasmine trees, which is the main food source for the lemurs, and so the scent of jasmine is everywhere (and I can smell again!); it is quite lovely. 

The lemurs live up to 25 years, sleep in caves at night, and lick the rocks for salt. They walk on all fours dissapointingly, and their only predators are harrier hawks and boas, both of which only eat the young lemurs. Also the locals obviously take their conservation efforts seriously, as the lemurs are very much unafraid of humans (unless you rush at them screaming).

Because I took so many good photos, instead of writing and then just captioning the photos with funny (hopefully) captions, I am going to do a storyboard type thing. Here we go!

Straight away the chameleon spotters saw this big (foot and a half plus) guy moving ponderously through the trees (I liked his funny little man hands)

Next up a snake. Aaaaargh a snaaaaaake.

Chameleon spotting obviously has a knack, because we weren't even 10 minutes into the walk yet! This amazingly is the female of the species that we saw earlier. It was much smaller.

And 5 minutes later, there was another absolute monster! Getting on for 2 feet long, and after this he started doing crunches.

The the lemurs started. There were a couple before this, but they weren't photogenic like this guy.

Then the whole family showed up! There is even a tiny 3-week old baby that could barely climb (above and between the others in the photo). They were eating the jasmine, baby included.

This gal (most of the lemurs were women) was rushing through the trees. An action shot makes a nice change from all these lemurs sitting about I think!

Then she took a breather, to contemplate life, and such, I imagine.

"Stop looking at my behind, human!"

Then the action got taken down to the mat. I got Rosa's hands in to try and show how close they were. The stick covering the face was a mistake.

Back up in the trees, the light fell on this one so nicely I just had to take another photo, despite her stern gazes

This family is a different lot to the others, and I was closer than 2 meters to one (not by design: I was about 5 meters away and one charged closer to get to the trees, leaping off the rocks)

The tail is the charm point of a ring tailed lemur. You have to keep it clean!

And sometimes scratching like a dog is best too! The boyfriend was trying to make himself look big, to stop us eyeballing his girl.

Eventually they all escaped into the trees.

Another girl chameleon was making tracks. They are a lot quicker than the males

Then we scrambled up some rocks, which I really enjoyed. It was like going on walks in Derbyshire as a kid!

Well, like going on walks in Derbyshire where a lizard watches you. There is no zoom on this, and it is just over the lip of stone I was sitting on in the last picture.

And the lemurs were still about. Again they were probably 2-3 yards from us, and eating those berries. A very gentle (~2m descent) abseil followed this.

Same tree, different lemur. Thinking about the jump.

Nick (who was in blue just above) had started down now, so I was in prime lemur watching position.

"What is that white thing down there mummy?"

"Don't look at them child. They are weird"

"Ok, it looks like they are trying to copy the way we climb the vines. This will be funny. We can watch for a bit!"

Finally down the rope, and heading into a cave where the lemurs sleep (you could see lick marks on the rocks), not far from curious mother and child, I captured this guy in a full horizontal takeoff.

Through the cave, and I saw with my own eyes this chameleon shoot out it's tongue and eat the butterfly which you can see sticking out of it's mouth.

On the way out of the woods, there was a palm sized (both wings together were palm sized, not each one) butterfly with black wings that had a beautiful strip of electric blue. Can you spot it?

So that was the woods, and our main activity for the day. From now on it was back on the bus, and a 3 and a half hour drive to Isalo, for another day and a half of trekking (but blessedly a hotel tonight!). First though, lunch. I had steak in green peppercorn sauce, which was fine. Nothing spectacular, but a step up from camp food. I also got an accompanying gift for someone. What could it be I wonder? 

In the drive back to Isalo, we stopped for fuel. Never have I been more excited to stop at a petrol station! I got a bottle of Fanta, and some sweeties. This may not seem particularly exciting to the reader, but snack foods are very rare in Madagascar. After this, we were driving across the great grassland of Madagascar. Lots of zebu, not much else!

The village next to Isalo is... basic. There is electricity, but it is off from 11pm to 7am. The hotel had wifi, but it was so slow that uploading blogs (and even downloading emails) proved impossible. This means it may be 3 more days before my next post: I am camping tomorrow, then back in bad wifi ville the day after. I hope without much expectation that the next hotel has better wifi. We will see.