2024-08-13 Southern Africa and Madagascar: Sep 25 – Safaris in Ranomafana National Park

We woke to sunny skies this morning with fluffy clouds. After breakfast we headed out to meet our guide for our morning safari into the park. This is very hilly terrain and was difficult to navigate. After making down many flights of stairs we got to the river.

We saw a nearly invisible and very small Short Nosed Chameleon,

and a small Madagascar Bullfrog,

Eventually the stairs (up and down the hillsides) got to be too much for Mary so she headed back with Jocelyn, our tour guide, while Paul continued on with our local guide, Rubin.

Paul saw a Golden Lemur very high in a tree.

Paul’s group was on a circuit that circled back to the bridge and they arrived at the bridge at the same time as Mary and Jocelyn. We were only out a couple of hours.

From the bridge we headed towards the trail head. Shortly before getting to the last, long set of stairs leading out, Rubin turned around to let us know we were near the end, and…as luck would have it, he spotted a Red Bellied Lemur in the trees. And this one was not quite so high up in the trees, so we had a pretty decent view of him. The lighting could have been better but since we are in a rainforest it was probably as good as could be expected.

We were back to the lodge by mid-morning and we both had a rest in the room before heading down to the main building for lunch. Mary ordered a cola with her lunch. On most of our travels all around the world, an order for a cola yields a Coke, or possibly a Pepsi. Everywhere here in Madagascar it is World Cola. Here they did serve World Cola with a Coca Cola glass though. How funny.

Saw this Four-Lined plated lizard on the walkway at the lodge.

After dark we headed out for another safari. This one was right along the road and the goal was to see mouse lemurs. We saw one a few days back but it was well hidden and difficult to photograph. Here, we walked up to a group, a guide pulled Mary to the front and pointed to a bare branch sticking out a couple of feet from the foliage. He said “watch, its coming, its coming.” (Mary asked him how he knew, and he said he had the lemur’s phone number.” Groan!)

In reality, the guides rub bits of banana on to the branches. And sure enough, in short order we had a couple of mouse lemurs on a couple of branches. Great photo opportunity as they kept coming out and darting back into the foliage. They are really tiny.

Then it was off along the road to look for chameleons. They sleep at night, so they are very stationary. Making them easy to photograph if you can find them. And the guides are really good at spotting them. We saw:

Blue Legged Chameleon