Thu, Aug 29 - To Montadia National Park

Lulu, the hotel cat, sat in my lap during. breakfast and gave me a much-needed cat fix.

We took off in two 4-wheel drive SUVs for the 11 mile drive to Montadia National Park, just north of us.  This park contains 30,000 acres of primary forest and is very undeveloped.  It took us almost two hours to drive the rutted, muddy road to get there.  Julian took us on a “trail” - I had to watch every step as the way was slippery and the ground covered with vines and roots to try and see the Madagascar Rail. 

On our way back David heard a Madagascar Flufftail, a 5” ground-dwelling bird with a red head and tail and a black and beige stripped body, notoriously difficult to observe.  He played a tape of the bird’s call and the bird hopped over his boot!  Bob then got a good view, but I only saw movement.   

We drove on a ways and stopped as Julian had somehow seen my most desired critter, the Giraffe-necked Weevil!   The little insect was clinging to the underside of a leaf; Fano got a stick and maneuvered the branch down so David could get the weevil on his hand and I could get a good look.  The male has a bright red body and a ridiculously long neck which he uses to batter other males when fighting over a female.  They don’t do much damage to each other, but one eventually gets discouraged and the victor gets to mate.  The female then sews a leaf into a pouch into which she places the fertilized egg, cuts the leaf stem, and releases the pouch to hopefully hatch on the ground.

We set off on another trail and saw high in the forest canopy a Black and White Ruffed Lemur, a beautiful fluffy lemur with a long tail.  They stay in the tree tops most of the time and aren’t easy to see.  She seemed very relaxed, lounging and grooming high in the air!

We only walked 0.9 miles, but it seemed much longer as the going was so difficult.  We finally returned to the vans and had a box lunch of hard-boiled eggs and tomato and cheese baguettes, and started back.  We passed a man carrying a large sack and David suggested that we give him a lift.  He seemed very pleased to ride with us.  Fano could understand his local Malagasy dialect and translated for us. 

The man, 57,  was carrying 55 lbs of rice to market and was planning on walking the 11 miles to town!  We couldn’t drive much faster than he could walk but at least it was easier for him!

Typical house of this area

We got back to our hotel at 3:30 and relaxed a bit before meeting again at 6 PM for a night walk.  The park doesn’t allow visitors after hours so we had to walk along the road and contend with traffic.  We saw a few frogs and tiny chameleons but not much else.  

We had a good dinner of onion soup, and chicken with mustard sauce.