Sep 21 – Drive to Andasibe and a Night Safari

A few photos from our hotel balcony before we head out today. 

We left first thing this morning for our drive to Andasibe.  The road was rough off and on but the countryside was pretty with lots of rice terraces.  

On the road.

Lots of people washing laundry in river and laying the clothes on bushes and the ground to drive.

A lot of people working the the fields.  Looked like all the work was by hand. 

The drive took all morning. 

We had lunch shortly after arrival at our hotel and spent a bit of time in the room.  Our anniversary still follows us everywhere.  We had another lovely display on the bed when we got to our room. 

We headed out late afternoon for a night safari into a nearby nature reserve.  We are looking for nocturnal lemurs. 

Did see this rather large dragonfly with gossamer wings.

After a lot of slogging through the rainforest our guide, John, found an impossible to see mouse lemur.  These are the smallest of the lemurs.  We got a photo…can barely see a hand and an ear.  We never did get a good view of its face.  Very shy and didn’t stay around long.  They are very small, only about 50 grams, or around 2 ounces. 

Later we saw a dwarf lemur high in a tree.  Another group had found him first so that aided in our getting to see it.  The guides shown their lights on it so that helped a lot.  But he was very high up, making viewing difficult. They have very long tails but you couldn't see it at all in the photos...too many leaves and branches in the way.

We also saw a few other small animals including a Leaf Mimic Butterfly (looked just like a leaf),

a tree frog (very small...don't know how the guides can see many of these tiny animals),

and an Elephant Ear Chameleon.  We didn’t have a real good view so we couldn’t see the elephant “ear”.

This evening we got yet another celebration of our anniversary, that was 3 weeks ago.  A decadent chocolate dessert.