05th November 2018, myself and Nick boarded the plane to Kenya on an 8 hour journey. After a 2 hour stop over at Nairobi Airport, we were finally on the last leg of the journey to Antananarivo, were we would stay for 3 weeks in the search for the endemic wildlife Madagascar has to offer.
Madagascar is one of the worlds largest islands, home to more than 11,000 endemic species of plant. 25% of the worlds primates can be found in this country, consisting of 103 lemur species, 90% of which are threatened with extinction. 99% of Madagascar's 300 amphibians are also endemic.
The intent of this trip was to to find as many lemur and chameleon species as possible. Starting at Andasibe, we visited the Andasibe Mantadia National Park and Vohimana Reserve where we saw mouse lemurs, lesser bamboo lemurs, brown lemurs, woolly lemurs, diademed sifakas and Indri.
We then moved in-land towards Ranomafana for a night camping, which included a night of great food, lots of chameleons and more lemur sightings. Here we managed to see Black and White Ruffed lemurs, parsons chameleons, lance-nosed chameleon, brown leaf chameleon, red bellied lemurs, greater and golden bamboo lemur, red fronted brown lemur, milne edwards sifaka and sportive lemurs. We were also lucky enough to see a vontsirra at one of the view points and 2 of the endemic Mantella species that were found for us by some locals in the area.
From Ranomafana, we made our way to Anja Park to spend a morning in the local community reserve which help to create a habitat for endangered ring tailed lemurs. Situated at the bottom of a large cliff, the habitat consists of grasslands, plantations and rocky outcrops perfect for sunbathing. Created in 2001, the reserve creates a sheltered habitat in a pocket of forest to help preserve local wildlife. The reserve is now home to the largest concentration of ring tailed lemurs in the country.
From Anja we made our way 9 hours across country to the west coast for a 1 night stay in Kirindy. Kirindy is the only place in Madagascar where the Giant jumping rats could be found. In order to see this species we had to wait for the generator to turn off (around 10pm) waiting for all of the staff and the camp site to go quiet before listening out for rustling in the bushes, a tell tale sign of the giant rodents. Also rustling in the bushes were wild boar. We got a great view of the giant jumping rats after following individuals towards there burrows.
Kirindy is also famed for its Fossa, and although we only stayed the one night we managed to get a decent view of a habituated Fossa. This guy looked slightly lame on one leg and spent a lot of his time hanging around by the rubbish tip scavenging for food.
This was not the only inquisitive animal we stumbled across in Kirindy. One night I was awoken by the sound of something chewing on the mango's next to the bed only to find a tiny mouse lemur digging in to our fruity dessert.
The mouse lemur took off relatively quickly after being spotted, and was not the only guest in our lodge that night.
My favourite sighting of the trip was witnessing a mother and young baby sifaka catapulting themselves through the trees on our day walk around Kirindy. we also got to see a beautiful malagasy scops owl sleeping in one of the tree hollows. That was followed by another nocturnal species, the red tailed sportive lemur peeking from its own sleeping hollow.
From Kirindy, we headed to the coast and towards the island of Nosy Komba. Here we had a relaxing few days on the beach. We did partake in a day trip to Nosy Be and to Lokobe special reserve. Here we manged to see a family of black lemurs with their young, a great sighting of a ground boa and another species of Mantella. We used the beach days to rest our legs after the many hours of trekking and even managed to squeeze in a small amount of diving. Unfortunately the marine life here was nothing special.
From Nosy Komba, we made our way back towards the mainland and headed north this time. We made our way to Ankarana National park in search of more sifakas. This time we got to see the coquerels sifaka, crowned lemurs, sanfords brown lemur and even more chameleons. Including some of the smallest in the world. Here we visited "Tsingy". the 150 million year old Jurassic limestone formation consisting of spiky karst pinnacles cloaking the hidden forest behind.
From Ankarana we made our way North once again, heading to Amber mountain for our final stop on this incredible 3 week adventure. Amber mountain is famous for its brookesia, another of the worlds smallest chameleons. Not only did we see these, but the landscape had its fair share of chameleon and gecko species.
From here we flew back to Antanarivo, Nairobi and then finally the UK, all with food poisoning from our last meal might I add. However, although the trip didn't end on a particular high, the rest of it was better than we could have imagined and the people were amazing.
I would like to say a massive thanks to Fano for organising the trip for us and guiding us throughout, the trip wouldn't have been the same without all of his help!
For more photos, please visit the showcase page!