Indri-spotting in Andasibe-Mantadia

Our reason for coming to Andasibe village was simple: we wanted to see Madagascar's largest lemur, the Indri. Parc National d'Andasibe-Mantadia is the last remaining park in Madagascar that is home to this beautiful creature. The reserve that we could easily visit, Reserve Speciale d'Analamazaotra (what the?!) is only small, at 810 hectares, and is a pocked of forest separated from the Park which is 13km away but almost 13,000ha in size. But a four hour walk through the reserve's secondary forest (the only primary rainforest left in the east of the island is in the National Park) gave us the opportunity to see the large and very beautiful black and white Indri leaping around up in the trees, sometimes coming down lower, allowing us to see them at a reasonably close distance. The most hauntingly beautiful and incredible sound that I have heard in a long time came in the form o the Indris calling across the treetops to other family groups, both identifying their locations and warning the other Indris to keep out of their territory. The calling went on for about ten minutes, the males with their lower pitched calls and the higher pitched calls of the females.

During our misty early morning walk, we also saw other lemur species; the beautiful golden, white and brown Diademed Sifaka, with its black face and bright eyes, not to mention a snow-white tail (interestingly, the Indri have no tails, only a patch of triangular-shaped fur and a patch where it seems someone has removed it!); and the Eastern Woolly Lemur, a nocturnal species, three individuals huddled together, the baby and its mother peering down at us with their big brown eyes, while they tried to sleep (stupid noisy tourists!). We also came across numerous bird, insect and interesting medicinal plant species on our walk, as well as some chameleons - including the largest one I've seen here - right at the park entrance!

A night walk also provided us with the opporutnity to see two other nocturnal lemur species - the elusive mouse lemurs, their tiny eyes glowing red at us in the torchlight as they peered out at us from the roadside vegetation. No night walks are allowed in National Parks since a 2008 directive from Madagascar National Parks, stating that they were too disruptive to the flora and fauna. I couldn't agree more... and therefore night walks are always along the road, on the park boundaries. The Hotel Feoriny Ala - "Song of the forest" - was also set up on the park's boundary and in the morning you can hear the Indri calling across the forest to each other. Nice.

We wanted to go walking in Parc Natinal d'Andasibe-Mantadia, but its quite a distance from Andasibe and there is no public tranpsort to the Park; you need your own vehicle. Plus the Park closes at 4pm each day, apparently meaning that there are no multi-day hikes permitted at this stage. This is a real pity, as its the largest and least touristed area of remnant forest in this area, and it would have been a beatiful place to visit. The relatively new parks system in Madagascar still has a long way to go - but it's off to a good start.

Still, we had our eyes on Ile Saint Marie - a beautiful island resembling a mildly pregnat woman sleeping! - to spend the last few days of our time on this island, preferably lying on the beach, cocktail in hand. First though, we had to make our way to Toamasina, or Tamatave as its also known, on the est coast.