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Published: June 24th 2017
Geo: -18.9427, 48.4085
As with any big event, up before the alarm goes off! Down for "healthy breakfast" and looking for our driver. Were expecting the Mitsinjo vehicle but Patrick, one of theit waiters tells us our driver is here. Not the Mitsinjo vehicle and the driver only speaks Malagasy and French! With help of Patrick we head out. Go to the National Park and the driver and man riding in back of truck get out. What is happening? The driver had to buy his ticket and while he was at it visit a bit with his friends already at the park ready to work.
Get to Andisabe and Yousseth and Lisa are picked up and we are off! The drive takes a little over two hours and the road is very rough and in some places pretty amazing we made it through the mud and ruts. Our driver was very slow and careful; had worked driving for the mines at onetime.
As we rode along, you could see swaths of clearcut hillsides and people walking along the road. Evidently there are still small settlements here and there on the way to the park. Mantadia part of the Andisabe/Mantadia park and is part
of the effort to create and keep forest for the endangered lemurs. Mantadia was declared a World Heritage Site in 2007 and the diadem sifaka and ruff necked lemur were reintroduced into this park and this has been successful.
This park still has old growth forest and it was a different feel to be walking in this area. Just like in Mitsinjo there are nice trails for walking on and as usual there were the sounds of the forest everywhere! Yousseth told us the sifaka makes a whistling call. We could hear the indri indri sounding off in the distance as well as various birds calling back and forth.
Got to see both the male and female paradise flycatcher. This time they were in the rust color morph. It looked like there was some courtship display going on because the male kept spreading his feathers. So very nice to see.
Saw two very large morpho like butterflies but just like the morpho butterfly they would not cooperate for a picture! Saw two different groups of vangas, the blue and black ones. The blue vanga was the one we would see near our tent that seemed to move in groups.
Had walked for about
40 minutes when Yousseth told us to rest while he went to see if he could find the sifaka. Glad for the chance to sit for awhile and cool down. Comes back and tells us he has found them but it is up a very steep incline. He was not kidding! Going off trail like this makes us glad we were wearing long pants and hiking boots!
There they were. By the time we had finished watching them, there were five of them that appeared to watching us as well. They are so very beautiful. There was one that was fairly close to Laura eating away so it was hard to get his hear in the clear. Got to watch them for about 20 minutes before they decided to move off.
We were walking on the trail and came across some pearly green iridescent "pill bugs". Called them that because they were curled up just like the pill bugs back home! Lisa said she has seen some of these bugs that are much larger in size and their name in Malagasy translates into "star poop"! Really like that image.
Showed us a plant that is used for cancer treatment and talked of some
of the other medicinal plants. He found the indri indri but it would be another steep climb and we decided we would rather go hike the trail to the lake and have our lunch.
Back down to the truck and headed back down to the trail for the lake. Turned out to not be a lake but a pool with a small water fall at the head of it. As we walked along the trail, we were alongside a stream caused by the water course that created the waterfall and pool. There was a picnic table and we sat and enjoyed our meal and the sound of the waterfall.
On the way back from our relaxing lunch we found a paradise flycatcher nest that had 3 tiny dark violet eggs in it. Lisa and I got behind and came across a very large milipede which we had to stop and take pictures of it. The ride back was uneventful and got back to Feon'ny ala and had nice hot shower and rest before going to Marie's for dinner.
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