Today was primarily a travel day. We left the lodge at 8:30 for Tana. But before leaving Josef found an elephant eared chameleon on a tree branch.
On the way we stopped at Lemur Island which is housed in a local resort. In the past people were able to have lemurs as pets. Now that’s been outlawed. The guides claim the resort gave the lemurs a home, since they were too domesticated to be released into the wild. I looked it up and lemur ownership was outlawed in 1962. So basically they have lemurs on these islands in their resort. Lemurs don’t like the water so they stay on the island. But it doesn’t seem to be a bad life if you’re a lemur. They are able to roam freely on the two island tht are part of the reserve, or attraction, dependent on perspective. lemurs.
We were canoed over to the island and there were the lemurs sitting on the feeding tables. There is food on the island, but not enough, so they have to supplement what exists. We saw common brown lemurs, black and white ruffed lemurs (the third largest lemurs behind the indri and golden sifakas) and grey bamboo lemurs. While we were there they brought the food which consisted of bamboo for the bamboo lemurs and bananas and tomatoes for the other lemurs. The bananas were not peeled. They chewed the banana out of the peel and then spit out the remainder. They tried to feed the common brown lemurs on the other side of the island but they came back and tried to steal the balck and white ruffed lemurs’ food. The black and white momma lemur was not happy and tried to chase them away.
One the other island, about 30 ft away, there were golden sifakas, red ruffed lemur, and more bamboo lemurs.
We started the long journey back to Tana. En route we stopped to take pictures of the local village were Desi lives.
In addition to a lot of lorries slowing us down there are huge potholes. The kids stand around the potholes with shovels, acting like they’re fixing the potholes. Then they hold out their hand to passing cars and trucking looking for money for their efforts. We didn’t seeanyone stop to give them money. The rewards match their efforts.
Another thing we saw along the road were butcheries. These are shacks with meat hanging and laid out. Of course there is no refrigeration and it is quite hot. People don’t have refrigerators in their houses so they go food shopping every day. According to our guide the animals are slain in the morning, butchered and sold in the afternoon. Anything left over is sold to restaurants.
We stopped along a stream for a picnic lunch that the lodge packed for us and then continued.
We didn’t get back to Tana until 4pm. We checked into our hotel and relaxed/blogged until dinner. We were just going into dinner when we saw Karen and Dave, our friends from Mandrare River Camp and Anjajavy. They were back in Tana because they were leaving for Paris (on their way home) at 2am. We had a lovely dinner with them. Here’s a picture of them.
