October 16th

Awoke and readied, went to breakfast by 0640. We had an omelette, bread, pineapple juice and tea. They forgot our butter and jam, and the yogurt, but all was well – we were full. Finished, we went back to room to gather our stuff, and back down, but no George at 0730. He showed up at 0745, with a different vehicle. He said the brakes were needing to be fixed, so they changed. It is still a Nissan Patrol. Few differences: it's blue; it sits up quite a bit higher – I have to use the running board and a hand hold to get into it; and lastly, it has A.C. (But George seems reluctant to use it.)
Anyway loaded up, we leave Antananarivo. Today we drive a bit south, but mostly east. Through more mountains, along a river and a bunch of rice paddies. You can see more forest, but it is still being stripped and burned. So it is somewhat hazy. George said our drive is four to five hours.

Our first stop is at Peyreiras Reserve at Marovezo. It was a private run place – so more zoo-like. Our guide, Franklin, first lead us to Lemurs after he collected some loquat out of a tree. They are not in cages but they are handfed, and allowed us to “pet” them. We saw two kinds: a ,that is brown and white; and the Brown Lemur. We each were able to feed one and stroke their backs. They are obviously used to humans, but still startle easily. Then we went in and out of pens: showing us many chameleons – I think he said they had 35 in one pen. What I remember was a Panther Chameleon; and a chameleon that has a horn -like snout. We probably saw a dozen of them, with a couple of them doing their crazy stepping walk. We also saw a couple of tomato frogs – they are red, and about the size of an egg. Then we saw a birght orange frog – size of thumb nail, and a black frog with neon green spots on it's body and it's legs black and orange striped – also thumb nail size. None of the frogs are poisonous, but sure seems like they should be!!! Next we saw the two boa constrictors – a ground one and a tree dwelling one, also THANKFULLY, in pens. Lastly saw a really large leaf gecko, and a much smaller leaf chameleon. We left there with a good feeling, even though it was an upscale zoo, it still reminds you of the wildness of Madagascar, but much habitat areas are being lost.

Next we went to lunch at a tourist stop. I had a green bean salad that was chopped fresh green beans with onion, tomatoes, and hard-boiled eggs all combined with a light/thinner egg salad/mayo dressing. It was good. Jeff had a Galette of potatoes (a potato hashbrown-like pancake) with sauteed mushroom and onions in a cream sauce over the potato pancake. His was very good also. He had natural fruit plate as well – included one small piece of watermelon, pineapple, papaya, half a passionfruit, and a small banana. I'm sure I have had passionfruit before, but I couldn't recall – the taste is pretty sweet. Anyway, we moved on – adventure awaits!

We drove on to Andasibe and to another private reserve- Vakona. The reserve has two parts. The first part is going to the Lemur Island. We meet our guide, Sophie, and immediately board a canoe! We travel a whole 25 feet in the canoe, but we arrive to Lemur Island! Sophie decribes these groups of lemurs as once being pets of people. Right off we see some Brown Lemurs, one of which has a two week old baby clinging/wrapped around her belly. Sophie has fruit and attracts them to us with it. We actually get to hand feed them as well. We had to present the food in our flat hand and they somtimes grab your hand then use the other to take the offering, or they just grab the food with their mouth and move away. Next we see the Black and White Ruffed Lemurs. These have longer white whiskers – where ruffed comes from. These lemurs are bigger than the brown ones. Then we walked a bit more and the Brown Lemurs followed us, especailly the mother one – she's feeding two after all. Now we see our third lemur, the Bamboo Lemur. There were two, and these are the smallest lemurs here. The Brown Lemurs kept getting in the way so the Bamboo Lemurs backed down – they finally did get some fruit, though. Next we come to another Island, but we can only look over to it – we are not allowed on it. A Sifaka is sitting right there to greet us. Sophie throws some fruit over to it. But the lemur does not budge. Our guide, he says, “They are lazy.” He throws another piece of food. The Sifaka finally does his thing – he gets up on his hind legs and moves sideways to the fruit, hence the name given them. They are called the “Dancing Lemurs”. Sifakas are the only ones who move using just their legs, upright. But it is very unusual to see them strutting, or dancing, or leaping sideways. They are fast and effiecent, though. All the commotion bought out the fifth and last lemur we will see – the Red Ruffed Lemur. The two ruffed and the Sifaka are larger, all about the same sizes. The Red Ruffed ended up eating the other food (that the ''dancer” missed). We also saw a couple of Brown Lemurs. Sophie said they mix the two groups of browns, so that inbreeding is not a problem. He also said the red and black&white are kept seperate because they can cross breed, but the offspring is sterile. The reason this works is they don't get in water. Anyway, we caught our canoe back to the “mainland”. Thanked our guide and back in our vehicle.

We go to the second part of Vakona Private Reserve. Here we acquire another guide, Filber. Right off he points out a Green Backed Heron. And next, the star of this preserve – the Nile Crocodile. These crocs are big and fat! “They are fed once a week,” Filber said, “On Saturdays – each given 3 kg of Zebu meat”!!! That's close to 7 pounds! One of the females was digging a place to lay her eggs (50-70 eggs). The preserve will collect the eggs and incubate them, because it is actually too cold here for them. Now we were taken in a pen of Guinea Fowl, and large No-Bill Ducks; then to a pen of largest speices of Malagasy Turtles; and lastly to pens of chameleons and geckos. We were offered to go into a last exhibit of shed crocodile skin, but we opted out – been there done that kind of thing.

Loaded up back in vehicle, George took us to our hotel, Grace Lodge. The owner we found out is Christian and has bible verses on the walls, and our place mats at supper table. It's nice to see. One of the workers said every morning they pray for the day. Anyway, we were checked in, ordered our supper and taken to our rooms. We showered and I wrote some on this blog.

Supper was starters: Deviled Eggs on a bed of fine grated carrots and green onions with a vinaigrette; and vegetable soup. Main: We both had Malagasy style Duck which had large slices of ginger and a bit of sweet sauce with sides one rice, one sauteed veggies. Dessert: pineapple natural; pineapple caramelized. Good supper! We did notice a couple we have crossed paths with at least three other times.

Anyway, bed by 930ish. Excellent Mad Tour Day!! 🙂