Guided hike in the Andasibe NP - playful sifaka!

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Geo: -18.9427, 48.4085

Decided we would go on hike in the National Park. Stopped at Mitsinjo and they arranged for Youseffa to be our guide. Paid and headed into the park. Youseffa told us the Legend of the Indri indri. There are several versions but the one (as we understood it) is there was a young boy out in the forest looking for honey and he got lost and the indri indri found him and started calling and this alerted the village and he was saved. Because of this, it is "fady" taboo to eat the meat of the indri indri. According to research as cultural ties are breaking down this taboo is not being honored as much.

More about the indri indri..There are four enemies of the indri indri--man, raptor, and the arbor snake. The arbor snake needs the blood of the indri indri during mating season, and the fosa. The humming noise we heard is a warning sound to move to higher ground away a possible predator.

Moved off the main trail and down a steep hillside where we were treated to a group of diadem sifaka playing around. They would swing from a tree, jump on each other and tumble down the hillside, or jump on each other while swinging and then tumble down the hill. It was so very funny to watch them doing this. We watched them for awhile and moved on and the sifaka moved along the hillside right below where we were walking so we stopped and watched them play for a while longer. You could see the tracking collars when one of them moved up close to where we were watching them.

The research being done is a five year study and this is year three. When the study is done the collars will be removed. Wonder if they will stay in just this park or move around to some of the other areas nearby like Mitsinjo. Evidently at one point in this period of study, some of them had moved over to Mitsinjo and had to be brought back to the park.

We also got to see bamboo lemurs in two different places as we continued our walk. They stay fairly well hidden in the bamboo so it is hard to get a clear picture of them. As we were almost out of the park, Youseffa showed us a Scops owl that evidently hangs out in one area.

Back to Feon'ny ala where had late lunch and did most of our packing because we are leaving in the morning.

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