Madagascar

Once again, we are off. Destination: Madagascar

As we return to Africa, we are out to see animals that live nowhere else on the planet - lemurs. Madagascar is a place we have read about and thought about going to for some time, but a recent National Geographic article inspired us to go sooner than later. Sadly, as is the case the world over, population growth and the ever expanding need for resources has led to the destruction of the only habitats that these animals can survive in. As it was for the polar bears, the tigers, the mountain gorillas, we hope to see these animals in their environment. We continue to hope that our travel dollars and "eco-tourism" interests will improve the ongoing efforts to maintain these fragile spaces.

Madagascar sits off the eastern coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean (see map below):

View Larger Map

At some point, millions of years ago, it broke away from Africa and the Indian sub-continent and developed a completely separate line of evolution. There are no "big game" animals there as there are on the mainland of Africa or India. Lemurs are a decendent of monkey primates, although there seems to be debate from what we read on whether they evolved from monkeys that were "stranded" on the island as it broke away or if they are a new evolutionary line completely. The biggest predator (other than man) is the foosa - yes, if you've seen the Madagascar movie, the foosa is a real thing and they really do it lemurs. They look like large cats - like the civet cats, but are more closely related to the mongoose family.

In addition to the mammals, there is an array of birds, reptiles, amphibians, and insects that should be fun to see and hopefully photograph.

As there is no direct flights from the US to Madagascar, we fly to Johannesburg, South Africa (another painful 16 hours flight), spending a day there, and then connect on to the island. We will basically see only the airport hotel in South Africa (and possibly Michelle Obama and the kids as they are there now too).

The hope is for internet access along the way to keep this updated, but as with anywhere, reliability of the service will dictate how well we can keep up. As usual, we will keep a running journal and upload when able to with photos and maybe video if able - if we come across a troupe of singing and dancing lemurs, we will certainly put that up!

Enjoy.