Covered in Lemur Spit

Audrey had two very specific (and difficult to fulfill) requests for the Madagascar trip – she wanted to hug a lemur, and she wanted to see them do the sexy dance; after today, one of her two requests has been fulfilled. Vakona Lodge, located just outside of the park, has an island on its property that is aptly named “Lemur Island” that is a home for lemurs that were formerly pets and thus cannot be released back into the wild. No sooner do you arrive on the island than lemurs are literally leaping on your shoulders to get to bananas that the guides hand out. The girl was beyond happy as she got to hug one of the furry little guys, and I was a fan of interacting with the little beasties and getting to see them so close up. They have soft little hands with giant fingers, and for whatever reason found me delicious, so I was licked repeatedly by lemurs and had to take a long shower when we returned home (for the record: there are far worse things in the world than to be licked by lemurs).

Prior to visiting the island of lemurs, we did a long hike through Andasibe National Park, a walk that started with a family of common brown lemurs. Yesterday’s wildlife lesson was that you can photograph diadem sifakas from four feet away, and today’s lesson was that the common brown lemur is fine with two feet of personal space. We would have been sitting there with wild lemurs on a log next to us for the better part of the morning had a grumpy indri not leaped over and scattered his competitors by turning their log into his toilet area – luckily we were out of range at the time.

When not forcing us to dodge their poo, the indri continued to impress as the various families sang their songs throughout the morning. They’re easy to find when singing, but at one point things went silent and the iPhone was used to “cheat” our way to indris, with a recording of the singing played back at full volume in order to entice the local family to join in the song and reveal their exact tree. We photographed that family, including a tiny baby, until our necks were sore from staring upwards – our morning was a good one.

The day finished with a night walk (chameleons, frogs, and four types of nocturnal lemurs, for those not sick of species lists yet). Tomorrow is our last day at this park, so we’ll have a morning walk in a private reserve that borders the park before making the three hour drive back to Antananarivo in preparation for a flight in a tiny plane on Saturday.