Thursday, 19 May 2016

Part 15 - The road North

Part 15 After the visit to the paddy fields and the village the tour had continued heading north with most of each day spent watching the ever changing scenery. The next overnight stop was taken at Antsirabe. Here the party stayed at a hotel which was connected with a Malagasy orphanage. Revenue raised by the hotel went towards helping the children through schooling and then towards preparing them for the 'outside' world. The following day there was a brief visit to a reptile park. Madagascar has over eighty species of chameleon and Paddington and the Smiths  managed to get up close to a number of different species. Whilst their movements are normally very slow they soon find a second gear when an iPhone or similar is thrust in their face! They also change colour to black, indicating their annoyance which is in itself a good self defence mechanism as nobody wants to photograph a black chameleon. The following day the party moved further up country and stopped at a hotel near Andasibe National Park. Whilst a small swimming pool was available the party never had the chance to use it as the program was soon to change. The early morning start saw the group enter the local national park however, even on the approach they had could hear the mournful call of the Indri. This is the largest existing species of lemur (although severely threatened) and has one of the loudest calls in the animal kingdom. It is a haunting cry, once heard, never forgotten. Inside the park our two guides were excellent and found us three new species of lemur; Common, Diadem, and Indri of which the Diadem was the most colourful.   The afternoon was to have been spent in and around the National Park but the tour guide had heard that the ferry boat to Isle Saint Marie was likely to be stopped due to bad weather. It was therefore decided to cut the tour short and dash up to Soanierana-Ivongo on the coast from where the ferry boat would be taken to the island on Wednesday. 

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