Total Crab Attack

4:30 wake up yesterday to fly on a private plane to visit a destination on the northwest coast called Anjajavy. This resort sits on the beach with a 550 hectare private reserve surrounding it, and was called out in our guidebook as being a “best of” spot in Madgascar (something the resort apparently realizes, based on their prices – ouch). The plane ride here was scenic, with the mountains of Madagascar rolling along below us until we arrived at the “Anjajavy International Airport”, an open air hut with a thatched roof and room for perhaps twenty people to stand inside. The resort itself is beautiful – the water is turquoise blue, the sand is bright white, the villas are all on raised platforms and made of rosewood, and the animals also show up in large numbers to enjoy the scenery and amenities.

The highlight of the place is the five o’clock tea, which is served outside and coincides with the time that the brown and sifaka lemurs apparently like to visit the garden. Just prior to tea time Audrey made a sound best described as a yelp and ran outside, where a sifaka was leaping and dancing across our balcony. Having now seen them do the sexy dance, both of the girl’s trip requests have officially been fulfilled. During tea a steady stream of lemurs came through the garden, with lines of brown lemurs walking along the ground with their tails high, sifakas leaping kamikaze-style through the branches, and a few baby lemurs making short practice jumps before returning to their spots hanging onto their mom’s bellies.

In addition to the dancing lemur tea time, I also got in an afternoon hike under the blistering sun where a huge bat flew out from an overhang, just missing my head, and parrots, lizards and lemurs made less distressing appearances. After dinner Audrey and I went on our own night hike, finding one lemur and many more bats, before we got to the crab-covered beach. The crabs froze like deer when the flashlight was on them, except for one little brown one who took offence and proceeded to chase me along the beach for perhaps twenty or thirty yards – the “Jaws” theme was playing in my head as the angry little bugger zig-zagged at me repeatedly out of the pitch blackness before eventually moving off to find other victims to terrorize with his vengeful little claws.