Blog from MBP Volunteer, Rachel
Photos courtesy of Rachel
A typical day with the Prolemur simus team is spent in a forest fragment called SangaSanga. The lemurs can usually be found resting and eating bamboo but can surprise you with how quickly they can leap across the forest. Keeping up with them involves ducking and weaving through bamboo, battling with vines, shaking off a face full of spider webs, clambering up steep sided slopes and then crashing back down them. Although it doesn’t take long from trekking through dense forest to be met with an area cleared for farming or a labyrinth of rice paddies. It is best to quickly remember the guides advice including don’t grab ‘razor grass’ to catch your fall and don’t touch hairy caterpillars!
I’ve learned a lot from the guides about the forest plants, fruits and animals as well as swapping lessons in language and culture. When the guides tell me how each local village has its own elected King but no Queen they are shocked when I explain that in the UK there is only one Queen and an entire family of Royals in waiting. In a coffee growing country I also attempted to explain the phenomenon of Starbucks and the demand for an expensive cup of Madagascan coffee!
Other wildlife to be seen regularly in SangaSanga:
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