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Published: December 24th 2012
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Henry, My Lemur Tour Gude
This guy is amazing! If you ever find yourself in Madagascar and looking for a tour guide, Herman is your man! Njato picked me up at 730AM (no one sleeps in in Africa) and we met Herman at the Analamazaotra National Park ( I know, I can't pronounce it either).
We had to get there early because the morning is when the lemurs are most active.
The National Park is a secondary forest that is 80,000 hectares in size.
According to Wikipedia,
"A secondary forest is a forest or woodland area which has re-grown after a major disturbance such as fire, insectinfestation, timber harvestor windthrow, until a long enough period has passed so that the effects of the disturbance are no longer evident." Analamazaotra seems to be more popular with the tourists than Mantadia National Park because it is not so remote, rustic, and they have proper public washroom facilities. Here, the paths are laid out nicely with stones and there are a network of paths and routes for visitors to enjoy.
The park may have paths, but I have Herman. I love this guy... While the other guides are taking their tourists along the paths and talking too loud, Herman isn't waiting for me as he sets out through the brush once again to find what
we came to see.
I have to admit, things got off to a pretty slow start. We weren't seeing any lemurs and I was getting a little concerned. If we were going to see lemurs anywhere, this was supposed to be the place. After our great find at Mantadia yesterday, I figured they would be falling out of the trees and into our arms. Not so.
It took a while, but Herman found some Common Brown Lemurs. They were high in the trees and cool to see with our bare eyes, but trying to shot them against the cloudy sky proved to be difficult. All I seemed to be getting was profiles of creatures in trees.
While I was taking a picture of a lemur that was jumping from tree to tree, the little darling did his business on me. It fell from high above and hit my chest like a walnut would hit the sidewalk. I didn't flinch because I wasn't sure what it was... Herman got a stick and scraped it off my shirt. I know, kind of disgusting to share, but I insist on sharing both the good and bad of it all.
After being a target for leaping lemurs, and while Herman looked for more species, I decided to take pictures of the forest, the vines and the various things that I found there.
As we wandered, I was starting to get discouraged. The discouragement didn't last long when we came upon a family of Indri (inn-dree) and boy, were they busy.
Lemurs live a group called a family. Each family has a area of approximately 20 hectares that they call home. If one family of Indri comes into the area inhabited by another family of Indri, the first family calls to the other members of that family, warning them of invaders. Their cries sound like something between a siren and a humpback whale. Lemurs are quite territorial and when it comes to fighting, only the males go toe-to-toe with one another. The females just sit back and watch. When they aren't fighting and hanging out peacefully, the adult lemurs make a noise that resembles a pig... Not a open-mouth snort that a kid would make but a closed-mouth snort adults would make when they are dragging wind in at the top of their nostrils... Go ahead and give it
a try and share this bit of trivia at the Christmas dinner table this year.
NOTE OF INTEREST: The Common Brown Lemur can live peacefuly with other types of lemurs because they don't eat the same things so they are not a threat to the others.
The Indri lemurs were being playful and they were swinging from the trees. They didn't seem to mind us being there and I got some pretty good pictures.
Word spread that there were Indri lemurs on display so the other tourists started to show up and make noise. Herman and I decided to leave them and see what else we could find in a quieter part of the park.
We walked or a bit and then Heran did one of his famous "Wait here and I will come back in a few minutes" tricks. He disappeared into the brush and sure enough, returned telling me he found a mother & baby and that I need to folow him quickly.
We scurry down the hill, through bushes, over logs slipping on wet leaves and damp moss when I llok up and right there in front of me, not 10 feet
away is a female Diadem Sifaka Lemur and her baby... and the mother is staring at me. Holy crap, I never thought I would get so close to one in the wild and there was no one else ther but me and Herman!
Where there is one lemur, there is usually other family members nearby. Sure enough, other lemurs started should up. I think there were aprroximately 6 lemurs in this family and they weren't too concerned about having us close by.
At one point, the family climbed down the trees and sat on the groud. Herman told me that this is quite rare because the foxes can get them if they are on the ground. That is why they usually stay high in the trees.
After all that excitement, I was starving. The four hour hike raced by in no time. We didn't sit down to rest once. What a great morning.
This now officially concludes the Lemur portion of my trip to Madagascar. Now it is time to travel to the island of Sainte-Marie in the northeast for 3 days of beach. Stay tuned.
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Will
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Best Wishes
Hey Bobby, thanks for all of your wonderful blogs and keeping us all connected while on this journey. Wishing you continued success, health, warmth and happiness. Merry Christmas and a joyous 2013. Let the homecoming countdown begin. ( a big hug goes here )