Andohahela National Park

It was a tough choice deciding which pic to post as part of this adventure, but since everyone thinks of lemurs when they think of Madagascar, I went with lemurs. We had Thursday off from work and I decided to take Friday off as well (more about that later).

Andohahela National Park is about 1.5 hours from Fort Dauphin. Actually, there are multiple entrances, but the main one is about 1.5 hours away. I decided to head there early Thursday morning, so I got everything ready and on the road by 7:30 AM which is a pretty big accomplishment on a day off!!! I even borrowed and tent and had enough food for 3 days of camping, etc.

I arrived at my destination at about 9 AM. Got my backpack, camera, etc ready and hit the trail with my guide around 9:30. However, I used the restroom and when I left, I saw a GIANT spider. Glad I saw after I excited the restroom or might have fallen in the hole. Not a good way to start!

My guide is a local Malgache and speaks pretty decent French and English, so he decides to do the tour in English. The trail or area is called "Tsimelahy" is about 3 km and took us about 2 hours. It's in the transition forest between the rain forest and the spiny desert. I did not see any lemurs, but I guess they have some in July, so I might go back.

There's a nice river and gorge that runs through the middle of trail. Also, there's some interesting flora such as the boabab tree. Which are super cool and HUGE. I guess some can hold up to 120,000 liters of water, so the locals use them occasionally to get water.

After the trail and only seeing one other spider and some pretty cool lizards but no snakes, I went back to the national road and continued to the spiny desert or forest. Le circuit Ihazofotsy is the name of the next trail. When I arrived there was no one there and I barely made it since the roads are not well marked.

Then a couple of locals arrived and took me around. They didn't speak any French or English.....just a lot of finger pointing. However, they found a few sifaka lemurs for me. They were so hard to spot, just a tiny head sticking out of a tree. However, really cool to see.

I wanted to head back towards Ft Dauphin and into the rain forest part of the national park. I turned off the national route and headed towards the rain forest. However, I came upon a tiny bridge that was just logs and I decided it wasn't worth risk and returned back to my hotel.

Overall, it was really cool. A little disappointed I couldn't see the rain forest, I'll have to find another way to do that. Also, I'm glad I came home, because I was sick when I made it home.

Late Thursday night I found out we didn't have to work Friday, but it rained HARD all day on Friday and most of Saturday. When it rains, there's nothing to do but work on my Masters thesis......boring.