I know this is beginning to sound like a broken record, but again I am sorry for the lack of posts. And pictures can be seen in the slideshow on the sidebar. Here we go...
After the reserve, our driver, Alan, continued deeper into the forest. Near the heart of the forest, their was a very fancy lodge in which we stayed for the next three nights, called Vakona Lodge. This lodge was like a four star hotel. Each cabin was two floors, with huge beds, and every cabin was about half of the price of the lodges in Uganda, which are not nearly as nice. Also, the food was excellent, and the restaurant was a nice place to enjoy a relaxing dinner. Each day we went on a different safari into the rainforest, or we visited the lodge's reserves. During the first safari, we saw a few lemurs, but they were all very similar to the lemurs that we saw at the first reserve. But, unfortunately, we were unable to make contact with them. The second day, however, we got a close-up view of the largest lemur in existance; the Induri Lemur. These lemurs are huge, but are still just as nimble as the others. They have deafining cries, and are fascinating to watch. We probably looked at the same three lemurs for about 45 minutes to an hour... They have similar colors to the Northern Lemurs, which are mostly white, but with patches of red, orange, and black. Finally, during our last day at Vakona, we visited each of their reserves. The first reserve held lemurs, and again allowed you to touch them. This reserve, instead of only having the Common Brown lemurs, also had a Mouse lemur and Fukaka lemur. The mouse lemur is the size of a mouse, hence the name, and also has a cute little face, also like that of a mouse. The Fukaka lemur stands on two legs when it moves, and can hop around. There are some funny pictures of that one in the slideshow. I'm not sure whether or not I explained the Common Brown lemurs in the previous post, so I'm gonna explain them again. Common Brown lemurs are a shade of brown, and the most agile lemur that we saw. Finally, the last reserve was like the size of a zoo. It held snakes, Fusa, which hunt lemurs and are quite scary just to look at, even though they are the size of a cat, and Nile Alligators. Also, in between both sides of the zoo, there was a large river, which gave the alligators room to swim. In order to cross this gorge there were numerous bridges which linked both sides. However, these bridges made you feel like you were in an Indiana Jones movie, with boards breaking off, bridges just wide enough to place one foot in front of the other, and, those bridges that were wide enough comfortably, there was so much wobbling that you felt like you were going to fall at any second. It was quite scary. Anways, after the three nights in comfortable beds, safaris, and the most pressurized shower that I have been in in about 3 years, we continued on our Christmas journey... to the beach.
TO BE CONTINUED...
