Andrea's Bug Pictures

Giraffe-Necked Weevil at Perinet

Some Bug in Perinet

Green Pill Millipede at Mantadia

Leaf Bugs at Ampijoroa  (Each of those pieces of white lint is actually a bug about the size of the top of your pinkie. They have tiny little black legs, and when they move they look like they're flowing along rather than walking. The white fluff keeps them safe--any bird going after them would just get a mouthful of fluff.)

Shield Bug at Ampiroroa

Butterfly at Ranamafano

Orange and Black Tree Beetles (Each of those things that look like candy or an odd rock is a little bug. Like the leaf bugs, they seem to flow rather than walk.)

Rainbow Bush Locust at Isalo (This thing is about three inches long and impressive. Truly odd and kinda gorgeous in a tacky way.)

Green Lynx Spider at Berenty

Handsome Beetle at Berenty

Ants That Ate a Snake at Berenty

Madagascar Hissing Cockroach at Berenty (Andrea saw one hiss!)

Andrea's Reptile Photos

Short-horned chameleon at Perinet Reserve.

Parson's chameleon at Perinet Reserve.

Tree boa at Perinet Reserve

For some reason, Madagascar tree boas are rarely found in trees. I guess no one told them their name.

Will's chamelon at Perinet Reserve.

Sikora leaf-tailed gecko at Perinet Reserve.  
Can you see it?

Our bathroom gecko at Mahajanga.We didn't take any pictures of our bathroom cockroach.

Cuvier's iguanid at Ampijoroa.

Broad-tailed girdled lizard.

Nile crocodile at Ampijoroa. This isn't behind a fence. Andrea was in a small boat, not at all far away, when she took this picture.

Day 4: October 9, 2011

Eastern Gray Bamboo Lemur

Quite the eventful day. Two trips to Perinet Reserve plus a thrilling night walk—during which I nearly killed myself.

To start with the drama—there was a very small wooden bridge with crossed slats, with some slats missing. I was trying to figure out if my headlamp was brighter in its second or third setting and if I was using it correctly. I was paying no attention to where I was going. I didn’t even realize I was on the bridge.

Imagine my surprise when I took a step into nothingness and ended up with my right leg down one of the holes. Glen (our main guide) and Andrea got me up almost immediately. I looked down into the hole, and it was pitch black. I guess I have actually looked into the abyss! [I found out later that there was a platform about four feet below the hole I stepped in but that the next hole went straight down to the water.]

I got pretty bruised and scraped up. I landed on my left knee, which got the worst of it [six weeks later, it’s not totally healed]. My right knee and thigh were also scraped and bruised. I took a small chunk out of my right elbow. [And it wasn’t until a few days later that I noticed the big bump a few inches above my ankle on the right leg.]

Andrea and I went back to our room to take care of my various wounds. After we had schlepped up the 65 steps, we realized that the room key was down at the reception desk. Andrea, despite her bum knee, went uncomplainingly all the way back down and all the way back up. Then it was washing the scrapes and antibiotic spray and all that. Andrea said that, with my skinned knees, I looked like an eight-year-old.

I was rattled, but I knew I was very very lucky. I didn’t kill myself. I didn’t even break a bone! Lucky indeed.

Enough of that--on to the animals!

This shows an eastern gray bamboo lemur, a Will's chameleon,

and a Madagascar Tree Boa

Today was rich with lemurs—common brown lemur, woolly lemur, Goodman’s mouse lemur, greater dwarf lemur, and indri. We got a particularly good look at the greater dwarf lemur (great name, that!), but they were all splendid.

In no order at all:

• A mouse lemur scurried right by me, not a foot away.
  
• At one point, before we had seen any indri, a troop started hollering and hooting, and it was as if a jolt of electricity went through our group.
  
• The nocturnal lemurs’ eyes are so bright and reflective that I initially thought a greater dwarf lemur was just an airplane in the distance or some such. Then Andrea spotted it, luckily, and we ended up with some long and wonderful looks at a few of them. Eerie and wonderful.
  
  [One of my favorite memories of the whole trip, looking back, is the reflective eyes of the nocturnal creatures. Every single time I spotted a lemur in the dark, the intensity of the eyes was thrilling all over again. And if you looked down, you’d see dozens of tiny pairs of shining dots—spiders!]

• Saw some amazing chameleons and geckos—ranging in size and color quite a bit, all quite cool.
  
• At times during the night walk, it was really pretty spooky, particularly when Kaye (very nice co-traveler, Australian, enthusiastic, chatty) and I walked a bit in the wrong direction. Just the two of us into dark, thick, and mysterious rain forest. It was wonderful—a real sense of being in MADAGASCAR—and eerie and fun and a tad scary. I kept thinking, Holly would hate this!

And so much more, but I’m tired and tomorrow is a long day that starts quite early.

This shows some of the scenery at Perinet, which

was one of the most accessible places we went. It

also shows the people I was traveling with.

Day 3: October 8, 2011

Common Brown Lemur

25 seconds

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YouTube logo, and then click on the full-screen icon.]

October 8
Went to Perinet today. Saw Common Brown Lemurs, an immense translucent dragonfly, tiny and large chameleons, some gorgeous birds, some lovely plants, etc.

Being "in nature" was odd today, since 

• Various guides at Perinet kept putting chameleons in easy-to-see locations for us
  
• When we walked on a road outside the park, the exhaust fumes were horrible
  
• Malagasy people's cell phones kept going off
  
• We met a guy walking his pig a long way to slaughter, whipping it with branches to keep it moving

This shows a gecko and them some chameleons.

2:23

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YouTube logo, and then click on the full-screen icon.]

We're staying at the Vakona Lodge. Our room is about five flights of stairs up the side of a hill/mountain. [Later counting revealed it to be 65 steps.] It's pretty--actually two rooms, one up a spiral staircase. I'm on the porch now. I can hear a generator, what I guess is a tree frog, and people washing dishes in the lodge restaurant. A bird is whistling.

I'm falling asleep writing this! The pace was more intense than I had anticipated, plus I guess I have jet lag.