Ah, the first full day in Madagascar. A long car ride was in store. Actually every day was a long car ride because Madagascar doesn't have a lot of roads, so there is also a lot of backtracking. But, I digress. After breakfast, we met Joushia, the guide that would actually be traveling with us, employed by the tour company. So, we loaded up and headed over hill and over dale to our first stop, Mandrake Park, where we were introduced to the common local reptiles.
On the way, we talked about the culture and countryside of Madagascar (actually called Madagasikara in Malagasy). We learned that approximately 80% of the Malagasy people are farmers and the primary crop is rice, which was evidenced by all the rice paddies we passed. However, they do not export rice, instead needing to import because they are unable to grow enough to meet the needs of the people on the island. Apparently, the Malagasy people eat rice with every meal. Over the years, I have grown to love rice, but that might be a little much even for me! In the dry season, many of the rice paddies are used for growing beans and other vegetables. If a field starts having difficulty producing, they harvest the top layers of soil (often with a high clay content) and make bricks from them, similar to the way bricks are made in Uganda.
While small towns do have their own markets, the big markets tend to travel from town to town on a weekly basis. They may buy some things from local farmers while making their rounds, but mostly the farmers ship to the larger cities and sell there, and the traveling markets puchase from the holders in the larger cities for the secondary markets.
When we got there and Niko parked the car, it looked like it was going to be a hike, but it turned out to just be a small walk kind of uphill to some enclosures where we met the reptiles to be expected on the island of Madagascar.
The golden mantella (mantella means frog in Malagasy, the most common native language on the island)
Madagascan mantella
Parson's Chameleon (think Pascal from Tangled, except the males have horns on their faces, so Pascal was female!)
elephant-eared chameleon
Another Parson's chameleon. The horns on his nose show him to be male.
Google images says this is a smooth-helmeted iguana, but I don't think it is. I don't remember and don't have any notes of any iguanas in this park, and the smooth-helmeted iguana doesn't live in Madagascar. My best guess is that this is a small oustalet chameleon, maybe a female.
Panther chameleon
Another Parson's chameleon
Parson's chameleon eating a cricket
The park has a pen with one crocodile in it. I didn't ask what kind it was.
Tomato frog
Madagascar ground boa
Madagascar tree boa
Flat- or leaf-tailed gecko (Google image couldn't find him. Can you?)
I didn't take this guy's name in my notes, and Google can't find him on the leaf. Awesome camouflage!
Another type of leaf-tailed gecko
Leaf-tailed gecko on a tree. I ran it through Google images just to see if it could find it, and believe it or not, it saw this one but not the two above! I think this guy was much better hidden than the others!
Google images could only give me this guy's scientific name. According to my notes, it's commonly called a stick snake. The head is very distinctive as snakes go and looks very much like the end of a stick!
After the reptile park, we headed to the village of Andisibe where we had lunch before resting for the afternooon in our hotel. For lunch, I had ravitoto sy henakisoa. This is a local dish made of pork and crushed cassava leaves and spices. It was quite good!
After a rest and some laundry, we headed out to the Analamazaitra Nantadia National Park, where we would be taking a night hike. So, with my trusty little flashlight and wearing my bug shirt, having learned a little bit about night photography on my Lumix camera while resting (Thank you Google and T-Mobile!), I hoped I could stay upright in the dark. Joushia assured me it was a relatively smooth hike, so I was very hopeful. He was mostly right. We weren't going over any big brush areas, and he and the guide helped me whenever they felt I might be a little off balance. It was the start of a helpful and needy relationship! The night walk was wonderful! Our goal was the mouse lemur. Think Mort in the movie, Madagascar.
We found the leaf-tailed gecko
Parson's chameleon
This beautiful moth that I don't think we got the name
We also saw the dog-headed spider and multiple insects, most of which I didn't get a clear picture. But, we didn't spot our target animal while walking through the forest. So, our guide had us stay by the sign while he searched along the road. He finally found one and called us over. Our guide and the other guides around made so much noise, I'm sure the little guy was scared to death. He kept trying to run away, but flashlights kept finding him. Mort is certainly a fast little fella, and this was the best I could do for a picture before we convinced our guide to just leave him alone and let him settle down.
On the way back to the car, we saw some other insects, like this stick insect.
When we went to dinner, I was still pretty full from lunch, so I just had a fruit plate. Pineapples and bananas rather artfully arranged. But it satisfied me. I tried to order a diet cola, but when I asked for anything other than water that was "sans sucre" (without sugar), they looked at me like I had three heads! We looked at some other little shops close by, but apparently, sugar is king here! Oh well, I think I can survive two weeks without a soda pop! They'll have them on the plane when I leave!
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