Andisibe National Park

Having been out for a farewell meal on Friday night with our Malagasy host families, we left Tamatave on Saturday morning at 6.30 am! Just as we had arrived in torrential rain, we departed in similar conditions!!! We took a taxi brousse to the national park: the taxi was destined for tana but Jens host had convinced the drived to take us up to the national park which was only about 3km out of the way but a significant distance with all our luggage. Em and Jen, having not read the guide book, were adamant that the driver should take us to the gates of the national park rather than the village a further 1km up the road. Unfortunately i couldnt persuade them otherwise and it wasnt till the taxi had driven off that they realised why i had wanted to go to the village - that was where all the accomodation was! So with all our worldly goods and the worlds most uncomfortable rucksack we went off in search of accomodation, still in the pissing rain!!!!!

We found some very nice bungalows with hot showers that were reasonably priced, deposited our bags and headed off to the park, for what we hoped was a bit of lemur spotting!!! No such luck. the best time to see the lemurs is first thing in the morning as they sleep in the afternoons. So instead we had a walk round an orchid park where there were also a lots of chamelens and gheckos.

Despite being a very small village, the restuarant in the evening was packed with vazaha (white people)!!! The meals were also very good. We headed back for an early night as we had an early start on Sunday morning. Not sure I had factored being woken by the noctural lemurs calling to each other in the middle of the night and then finding it very hard to get back to sleep.

WE arrived at the park at 7 the next morning to see the lemurs. The tracks into the forest started out quite wide and gradually got narrower and narrower. There were lots of things to see and the guide was very good at pointing things out: for examples plants that are used as herbal medicine treatments for fatigue and rabies etc. During the 4 hour walk we came across 2 groups of Indri lemurs (this is the only park in madagascar where this very endangered species of lemur lives). They treated us to their morning song which was a very loud and eerie call but very distinctie as none of the other lemur species calls in this way. The 1st group were very content with eating their breakfast while the 2nd group were much more lively and were jumping around between trees above our heads.They looked a little like giant Koalas wearing panda suits!!! While we were out we also saw some of the nocturnal lemurs that were trying to sleep - not sure they were all that impressed to be woken up!!!!!

After the park we went off to catch a taxi to Moramanga - this is always a bit of a hit and miss activity if you want to get somewhere for a certain time since the taxis only leave once they are full. 2 hours later the taxi was full, but then proceeded to continue picking people up all the way to moramanga. There were 23 seats in the minibus sized taxi - there were at least 40 of us by the time we arrived in Moramanga!!! Rather entertainingly, 8 of the other people on the bus were french medical students working at the military hospital in Tana and they were living at the residency where we were headed for. Very convenient, because not only did they make sure that the taxi between moramanga and tana took all 11 of us before selling the last 3 seats but they then showed us to the accomodation in Tana!!!!!