Madagascar: Kirindy National Forest

My friends and I settled into our dwellings in Kirindy National Forest.  We were staying at what seemed like a research camp.  We heard English and German being spoken and asked our guide if they did research there.  He confirmed our suspicions.  He also told us to get ready for our first nature walk into the forest.  Excitedly, I strapped on my photo "utility" belt.  It allows me to carry a couple lenses without having to have a bulky pack.  We were venturing into an area that was teeming with chameleons and lemurs and we were pretty much skipping to the trail head.  Within the first half hour our guide showed us what we were waiting for.... LEMURS!!  We had stumbled into a family group of Red Fronted Lemurs.  After hanging out with them for awhile, we continued on the trail where we came across a mongoose, a White Sifaka (another type of lemur), and a lemur that people usually only see at night, a Red Sportive.  He had burrowed himself into a hole in a tree and had poked his face out when he heard us go by.  

Later in the evening, we took our second nature walk, this time in darkness.  Armed with my tripod and a headlamp, we wandered into the forest listening to the strange sounds coming from the blackness.  I felt in another world as the alien lemur noises echoed all around us.  Thanks to our phenomenal guide, we were able to see a Grey Mouse Lemur, one of the smallest primates on the planet (the littlest lemur in the movie Madagascar, I didn't get a picture of this guy).  We also spotted a fat tail lemur, which stores fat in its tail, as well as another red sportive lemur.  All of these were great, and it was fantastic to see them, but for me, the greatest part of the night came when we spotted THE CHAMELEON.  Our guide had shown us some other chameleons along the way, but even he stopped in delight when he realized what he had found.  The chameleon was no bigger than my pinkie finger when his tail was all stretched out (they relax their tails when they are sleeping).  He was so tiny!  Our guide told us that theses chameleons were very rare, that maybe you see them three times a year if you are lucky, and that he personally had always wanted to see one but this was his first time.  I was thrilled.  

On the way back to Morondava the next day, our trusted vehicle got a flat tire on the Allée des Baobabs.  We enjoyed the shade under a ginormous baobab before joining the driver in pushing our vehicle to start it.  We passed by a zebu market not far out of Morondava.  People gather every week to sell their zebus at the market.  One boy was soaping up his zebu in a stream, getting him all beautiful for the market sales.  It was a great site to finish up what had been an amazing couple of days.  

Aragog's lair

Anne-Marie swinging on a vine

Tiny Chameleon

Ebony Tree

Red Fronted Brown Lemur

Hiding Red Sportive Lemur

White Sifaka

our camp

mongoose

Baobab panoramic.  This tree was so large, I took four images to get this one of it top to bottom

Zebu Market

Madagascar: Baobab Love

I went to Madagascar with three visual goals in mind.  I wanted to see baobabs, chameleons, and of course, lemurs.  Thanks to our sunset adventure on the Allée de Baobabs, we could cross two of the three off the list (although I was still obsessed with finding a chameleon in the wild).  Our next goal was to find the lemurs.  We woke up bright and early on the morning we were to venture to Kirindy National Forest.  Our guide, a man we had found at the tourist office the previous day, promised to meet us at our hotel at four thirty in the morning with a 4x4 vehicle (or quatre-quatre, as they call it in French) to take us to the national park.  He wanted to show us sunrise at the Allée, and since we had to drive up that road anyway, we decided to take him up on the early morning pick up.  At five in the morning, he still hadn't arrived.  We began to feel uneasy.  After all, we had paid for part of the trip up front.  Ten minutes later he pulled up in our quatre-quatre explaining that the vehicle he intended to pick us up in had broken down.  We clambered into the back and began the 60km venture to Kirindy.  We stopped at the Allée for the last part of sunrise and were soon back in the vehicle.  Soni, our guide, began to talk about Baobab love.  We didn't really understand what he meant, but after twenty minutes on a road covered mostly in water, we came to the spot.  Baobab Love is what the Malagasy call a twisted baobab.  Two different sections of the tree, or maybe two individual trees, twist together as they grow.  Soni pulled the quatre-quatre over several times  to show us these trees.  We also stopped at a couple different villages. In one, we had a questionable breakfast from a hotely.  The breakfast consisted of a cake of sweet fried dough (which were really delicious) and a tea stirred together with sweetened condensed milk.  The cup that the tea came in had been used by the customers before us and rinsed out as we came up to the food stand.  People crowded around us calling us vahaza (Malagasy for foreigner, usually referring to white people) as we ate.  Our next village stop was to purchase some honey and to sample a root that tasted very similar to a potato.  Finally we were back on the road and on our way to the lemurs.  

baby baobab

Amanda with breakfast