Madagascar Series: Forest Reserve

After Tana, we made our way up the island, towards the area of Madagascar with rainforests. It was about a 6 hour long drive up to the heart of the rainforest, so we took a stop at a reserve about halfway. This reserve was amazing! It was a bit cruel to the animals that were kept there, but they had the best animals found in Madagascar, and everything could be touched and held. This included numerous species of butterflies, chameleons, insects, geckos, snakes, lizards, alligators, frogs, and lemurs. All of these animals besides the lemurs were caged, but the lemurs were free to roam around the forest. They only stayed because the reserve staff fed them. A guide allows you to see and touch all of the caged animals, and then takes you on a thirty minute hike to reach the lemurs. He calls the lemurs by making a very deep sound that you create in your throat, and holds up bananas. Then, you can hear the lemurs replying, and then there is a lot of rustling in the trees. Then, you can see a group of lemurs hopping from tree to tree, and they move faster than you can imagine. The second that they land on one tree, they've hopped to the next, and the next tree is usually quite a distance away. Once they reach you, you can hold bananas behind your back, and, in order to reach them, the lemurs will hop on your back. They have hands much like humans, except that they are padded and their thumb is abnormally large, so that they can hang on to trees. We had a blast playing with, petting, and feeding the lemurs, and were all very sad to leave when it was time to go. However, this was not going to be the last time that we saw lemurs on our trip... The only two people who did'nt exactly love the idea of lemurs jumping on to you were my mom and Jack. Afterwards, we had a delicious lunch and then continued our journey towards Vakona Lodge in the heart of the rainforest...

All of th pictures from this are in a slideshow on the side of the webpage. It is labeled Madagascar.