Ranomafana
Trip Start
Nov 18, 2002
1
105
157
Trip End
Ongoing
Ranomafana,
Madagascar
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Hey it's my (Caroline) birthday today. Yippee. What an eventful day it turned out to be. We started off by being picked up by a taxi driver who we had met and agreed a price on the night before to take us about one and a half hours away to Ranomafana National Park. Remember this term 'agreed a price' ok?
So the guy picks us up and we tell him we need to go to the bank machine first to get money. This he does and as we return to the car he turns to us in the back and starts sprouting off in French about how petrol prices have risen since midnight last night and that the price of the ride has now gone up by a third! What? You're joking mate we've been doing this back packing lark too long to be fobbed off with that ol' story and we told him that by getting out of taxi and taking out our bags with us. Then he was trying to haggle with us. No mate we agreed a price last night and now you are changing it, so on your bike.......well not quite as he still had his car and it was us without even a bike but on our feet!
Bamboo lemur
! Then he tried to go back to the price he agreed last night. But he had blown it by now, we would show him that 'you ain't gonna mess with these back packers' and we gave him the amount for the ride to the ATM and walked off along the road to find another taxi. There were plenty of them lined up and the first guy we asked said the same price we agreed with the other driver last night so we hopped in and left. Leaving the other taxi driver some what miffed. His loss for messing us about. So about one hour and 45 minutes later we arrive in Ranomafana and check into our own little bungalow right by the river at Ihary Hotel. There we got chatting to a very nice Dutch couple, Petra and Marco whilst we sat on our veranda watching the local children playing on a wooden pirogue (dug out canoe) and jumping in and out of the water.
It just so happened that they we planning to go on a 5 hour trek that afternoon which included a night walk. As the Ranomafana National Park was some 6km (up hill) it only seemed right that I should have the cheek to ask if we could join them, it was my birthday after all! They were more than happy to have us tag along as they had their own car and driver, so together we all piled into the Opel Astra, 4 of us (including the park guide) in the back and Martin and the driver in the front.
Once at the park we paid the entrance fee for 2 days and we set off in search of Lemurs..........The first animal we saw was a Diademed Sifaka which is a black lemur with a white back
Caroline displaying her leech damage
. These are the dominant lemurs found in this park. And it wasn't long before we found more. A small group of black and white ruffed lemurs was our next sighting. Swinging and hopping from tree to tree it was very exciting to experience watching such agile creatures in the true wild. All together we saw Red bellied Lemurs, Red fronted lemurs, Bamboo lemurs, and a tiny tiny Mouse lemur on our night walk. We also got to see a Striped Civet or Fosa which is small nocturnal animal looking like a cross between a cat and a fox with leopard markings on its back. These are the lemurs predator and as much as I love the lemurs the Fosa looked pretty cute too. A 5 hour trek spotting 6 different types of Lemur Oh! And we saw our first ever chameleons too. It was a great a great way to spend a birthday. We arrived home pleasantly knackered. One meal and a couple of Three Horses Beer, Madagascar's' own special brew, later we then went off to bed, very happy. The next morning we went for a 3 hour trek and got to see a rare sighting of some Giant Bamboo lemurs which is indigenous to Ranomafana. Our guide Burton was very enthusiastic and passionate about his job. We were very pleased to have had him for the 2 days we spent there. Ranomafana itself as a village is rather small. It has a small market and about 4 restaurants serving local food. On our last evening we enlisted the help of a tourist driver to help us find transport to our next destination of Manakara on the west coast of Madagascar. Taking a taxi brousse was out of the question as we did not want to travel the 5-6 hours overnight!! The guy said come back in the morning at 8am. This we did and hey presto! A driver appeared who happened to be driving down to Manakara to meet his tourists at the train station. He charged us the same price as a taxi brousse and we made the journey in just 4 hours and that included 10 minutes to change a tyre puncture too. And all in the comfort of a car too. What a result that was. Next stop Manakara.
