Last day in Madagascar

After a bit of a bumpy flight, we landed in the capital around noon.  A bit is an understatement mike!  I was sick with a traveler tummy before it and it sure didn’t help; hence the super happy green face.

Our guide took us to Lemurs Park, a place where lemurs from around the country are protected in a 6 acre botanical garden.

We passed thru some interesting scenery and traffic to get there

We finally arrived and saw a few new types of lemurs.

Black lemur - male

Black lemur male and female- the females are a different color.

Black and white ruffed lemurs

Crowned sifika

And of course the well known ring tailed lemur

Vangas and other endemics

Madagascar has a species of bird called Vangas that are found no where else.

There are also other endemics

Let me get this straight you are paying for a room and then you pay more not to sleep in it

Mike arranged an evening at the star bed. It’s at a cove, not far from the resort in which there’s a bed, a shower with no hot water and no water pressure, a sink that worked somewhat well and a toilet that we had to add water to.  

It had some of the comforts of our resort room, except no walls  

They cooked a lovely dinner for us over a fire, and we had a relaxing meal over a bottle of wine watching the sunset and the moon come out   They stationed two guards and a car on the road near the star bed in case we chickened out. We think they took a pool to see what time we would come back, but we made it through the night.

In search of the Madagascar fish eagle

We took an afternoon boat ride out to try to find the Madagascar fish Eagle.

Mike photographed Chris on the beach earlier that day doing yoga. We discovered after the fact that Chris had done the eagle pose which brought us good luck

We passed some baobab trees along the way.

we also found the Madagascar sacred ibis.

Mike spotted a flying bird, but it turned out to be the yellow-billed kite.

There are just about 60 breeding pairs of Madagascar fish eagles left, and six nests are in the area. Our guides knew where each was, but we still had difficulty finding them.

Eventually, we parked the boat in front of one nest and could see a head, barely sticking out. Although that counts is having seen the bird, it’s not very satisfactory.

After a few minutes, a second eagle flew toward the nest.

This was a female which eventually entered the nest. A few minutes later, the male flew off and perched in a tree.

Night walk

Mouse Lemurs are active at night.

Breakfast at the baobab tree, lunch at the cove

Leaping Lemurs

G