Ranomafana National Park — Lisa's (& Steve's) Travels

Well, we just kept heading NE across the country until we were due south of the capital, “Tana”. Ranomafana National Park is a rainforest in the highlands and encompasses 161 square miles. It was just made a national park in 1991 after the re-discovery of the Greater Bamboo Lemur…

… and the discovery of the Golden Bamboo Lemur -

This second one is critically endangered, as there are only about 1,000 individuals left, and they are only found in this national park, and in a small area adjacent to it. They looked like a plush teddy bear to me. :)

As we were just walking along a trail, a family of them came right by us, and Steve happened to be in the perfect spot to capture this video (remember to open this post in your browser by clicking the link at the end of the post) -

Madagascar has some pretty cool insects, including this Giraffe Weevil -

We were quite happily surprised by this encounter with a pair of Ringtail Mongoose…

… and thrilled to find this Satanic Leaf-tail Gecko -

Its tail is curled up over its body, and the head is pointing down in that picture.

Back at our cabin, this Day Gecko was showing off -

We also went on a night walk while we were here, and saw a number of chameleons…

… and the guide was telling us the names, but his accent was so strong, we didn’t catch them.

I left that one above for you to enlarge if you want, because I wanted to convey just how small they were. It was amazing that the guide would spot them as we walked along, shining a flashlight all throughout the forest.

The pebbly texture of the next one’s skin, as well as the vivid coloration, was very interesting -

My favorite creature of the night, however, was the Rufous Mouse Lemur -

In the next video, please forgive this amateur videographer the focus problems in the middle (there is not good WiFi here to try to splice it out) -

We continued heading north as we left the rainforest. Every possible piece of land that could be planted was in terraces…

… or if flat and close to water, in rice -

Leave it to us to find grapevines even here! (no we didn’t do any wine tasting)

The roads in Madagascar are truly the worst we have encountered anywhere in the world! Forgive the poor quality of the next photo, but I had to shoot through the dirty front windshield to give you a glimpse of RN-7, the major road in the country, as we drove towards the capital -

As we drove along, there would be groups of kids walking home from school, in different colored coats…

I didn’t have any great photos from these several days to close with, so I’m cheating a little and giving you a preview of the next post (coming soon) -