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Published: December 23rd 2012
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On my fist night at Vakona Forest Lodge, I fell asleep to the very large sounds made by some very small frogs.
I awoke to the sounds of birds singing in an incredible surrounding. I had Bungalow #1, just off the main building. What a gorgeous place!
I was meeting Njato at 730AM. He brought a local man with him who apparently knows the national forest like the back of his hand. Which was helpful since we were looking for lemurs in the wild.
We jumped in the truck and set out to the point where we would hike in the in the Mantadia National Park. The road was so rough that it took us almost 90 minutes to go 14 kilometres. The road used to be maintained at one time when there was a graphite mine operating in the 1990’s. Since then, the mine has closed and no one maintains the road. It gets wiped out annually by the cyclones that come through from January to April. This year alone, this region has received over 1,400 millimetres of rain. That is close to 4 ½ feet of rain!
After a bumpy ride to the start of
the "Circuit Tsakoka", Herman and I took off for a 3 hour hike. Mantadia National Park is approximately 16,000 hectares of primary forest. It has never been touched and is in its natural state. There is only 20% of the Primary Forests left in Madagascar. Other forests have been compromised by farmers and locals who cut trees down to make charcoal for a living. The government of Madagascar has made sure that no one will harm or destroy Mantadia.
On the way to the park, Njato and Herman kept telling me that we were heading into a dense forest where not many tourists go. As a result, the lemurs are not used to humans and will make themselves scarce when they get a sense of us. They also told me not to get my hopes high. I assured them that I was just happy to be doing something I have never done before and I was ready for whatever we may (or may not) see.
Now, I like to think of myself as being in decent shape, but when I started out with Herman, I knew I was in serious trouble. What started out as a nice leisurely
walk, became a mission to find the lemurs!
Herman is a brilliant guide. He was seeing bugs and critters (more about them in another blog) from half a mile away. He knew how to track the lemurs and what to watch for in order to get near them. I, however, knowing nothing about tracking lemurs, did my very best to keep up with Herman.
By the way, Njato stayed at the car and read a book while Herman and I went into the woods. I guess he has done this trip with tourists a thousand times.
Anyway, Herman would be following a path and then suddenly veer off and start walking through brush and vines, stepping over moss covered logs and snails the size of the palm of your hand (more on those later as well). He did it with such grace that he hardly ever made a noise. At first, I was kind of clumsy but he never sad a word about my noises. After a while, I got the hang of walking quietly. In fact, Herman and I would signal to each other and go for quite some time without talking…
And it paid
off!
Thanks to Herman, we found three different types of lemurs… We found the Red Bellied Lemur, the Indri, and the Diadem Sifaka. Herman was so excited because he confessed to me later that he actually thought we wouldn’t see any at all. He told me that I must be living right for us to have been so fortunate.... I didn’t have the heart to tell him the truth.
What an incredible three hours it was… Being a rain forest, it was hot and humid during our hike. I was soaking wet, huffing & puffing in a t-shirt while Herman was breathing normally and not breaking a sweat in a heavy sweater.
During our time there, wepassed one other guide with tourists. He was a local and they were from France and they had to be the noisiest threesome to enter the park. When they told me that they hadn’t seen any of the lemurs, I wanted to tell them I wasn’t surprised. Everyone could hear them coming from a mile away. The lemurs had time to pack up their families and move to another forest on the other side of Madagascar.
In addition to the
lemurs, we saw birds, hedge hogs, spiders, flowers, fungi, and amazing plants (more about those later). We even saw leeches… up close and personal as they would find their way on to us as we were walking through the forest… Not big leeches like in "Stand By Me", but little black “worm-like” ones that wiggled when you picked them off your skin.
After the hike, it was time to head back to the resort for some food...After lunch, Njato was taking me to the Lemur Reserve at the resort to get up close and personal with some of these furry creatures.
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