February 29

Sorry it has been so long since my last post! Internet access has been a little bit more of a challenge lately here on the coast because we don't have wifi at our program center so I have to use a cyber cafe. But I am going to try to get caught up on everything that has happened in the last couple of weeks in the next few blogs, but there is definitely a lot to talk about so it might take a while to really get caught up. It is especially challenging to type as fast as I would like because at the cyber cafe I am using, the keyboards are French keyboards so some of the letters are switched around.

So we left Tana a week and a half ago, and drove for a full day towards a port city on the West Coast called Mahajanga. We stopped for two nights on the way here at a camp site in Ankarafantsika, where there was a national park, managed by Madagascar National Parks. As soon as we got out of our bus at our campsite, we were greeted by our first lemurs here. We were told that there were actually two lemur families who had been competing over the territory lately, that was the trees right above our tents. We got to walk through the forest there in the national park on two guided tours; one during the day and the other at night. We saw different lemur species, including an extremely small nocturnal species with huge eye that I fell in love with. We also saw huge spiders, milipedes, chameleons, geckos and lizards, and became the meals of many different mosquitos. Our last night there, we were even lucky enough to have smores. They were with a different kind of cracker, and the chocolate was great, although definitely not hershey's. It was as close as you can get here, and it was a great surprise. We were lucky enough to also have a lecture explaining some about the structure of the national parks here, and learned that there were a bunch of villages in the park, who are given small parts of the park to care for and protect. They are educated about the importance of the mission of the national park, and the preservation of all of the endemic species that are found there, including some plants and animals that are only found in that one area of Madagascar, and nowhere else in the world. *

A few other highlights of this part of the trip were the body of water very close by the was the home to crocodiles, and a sign that said something along the lines of "attention, crocodiles bite," as if we would try to go pet one or something. We also drove through the hottest spot in Madagascar on our way to the park, and near by the park, we stopped by a village where there is a woman's co-op where the women made and sold things woven with Raphia, a kind of leaf sort of thing. They dye the raphia with natural dyes and then use looms to make things like placemats. Also, we were told that when getting up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, to be on the lookout for wild boars. Oh boy. And lastly, we also got to visit Durrell, which is an organisation that works with the preservation of endangered species of tortoises.

After our visit at Ankarafantsika was finished, we got back in our bus for a short 3 or 4 hour drive to Mahajanga, our final destination for now. I will try to post soon about what we have been doing here, but for now as a sneak peak, I will let you all know that it is a beautiful city and I love it here, and will be spending my last month here working on my independent study project.