The Wonderful Wacky World of Vatovavy

Last time I left you, I was finally going to discover the other site we work on… Vatovavy. After 3 weeks at Sangasanga, it came as a blessing. Little did I know…

The good:

The forest is more interesting – we heard a lot more birds, saw a lot of creepy crawlies – think big spiders, millipedes, and some really funky fluffy bugs. But the forest – it takes a half hour of uphill to get to the site which is, you guessed it, a small mountain. There are ravines, and hills, and gullies, and mahoosive trees with huge roots, sheer rocks to scramble up – Mountain Goat Helene’s dream. Especially if you count the lack of vines on the ground snagging me at my every step.

Top lemur moments:

1. Hanging out on a rock for an hour, at quasi same height as 4 Variecia and a group of fulves. Seriously love the fulves – they make piggie noises, and constantly are swinging their tails. Furthermore, they act like little tough guys, trying to intimidate you by cocking their heads, and running up and down vines while grunting at you. At times it creates a bit of a strange atmosphere, ominous almost, like little gremlins waiting for something bad to happen.
2. Having one of the said fulves bound by at less than a meter off the ground. Very kangaroo like.
3. Watching 3 lemurs chase each other around like little kids, going 3 times round the same circle of treetops… leading to two of them falling to the ground. The cutest was when the first one fell, it didn’t get up, which prompted its buddy to see if it was ok.
4. Absolute favorite – whilst I was GPSing a tree, I hear some scuffling along the ground, and lo and behold, one of the Varicia comes bounding along the ground. Seeing me, he stops, jumps onto a tree trunk, stares at me a few more seconds, then resumes this bounding, though this time along the trunks (though only a foot from the ground), in a more lemur appropriate way.

The bad:
See the above. 10 hours of running around on cliffs whilst it is roasting and having only peanuts and 2 liters of water to survive... Dehydration salts all the way. But really, not that bad.