Veloma malagasy

A couple of Malagasy snowflakes...
Well, this about does it for Madagascar. It’s funny how sometimes, no matter how much or little sense some things make, life is completely out of your hands. I spent the last two hours or so making what would seem a grand finale of a blog…lots of fun anecdotes and pictures, only to look and find that the post in its entirety had disappeared. I sat wide-eyed in disbelief for a minute…thinking that only moments before I was so proud of the evening’s labor. Haha. Oh well. Thematic to say the least. You never know why some things happen but it’s nice to think that the second one will come that much faster.
My last few weeks in Ranomafan flew by, and I’m pretty sure I spent nearly all my time in the forest. Who could be bothered with things like eating and sleeping when there was forest left to explore. As of right now I have just over 6,000 pictures from my time here, a good representation of the 20 or so thousand that I took along the way. I love digital. My last morning in the forest was one of my favorites; giving me a little time with one of the most endangered primates in the world. A small family of Prolemur simus with a month-old infant made me realize why I came, just inches away they were content to chew bamboo and watch the goings on. The juvenile male was tormenting his sister, flinging himself around and cackling while his mother cared for her month-old infant. I must’ve been there for hours. But that wasn’t even the high point.
I spent three months searching for an animal that I hardly believed existed. If it weren’t for the two streaks of streaked tenrec that I had seen on the road I might have doubted it entirely. So on my way out of the forest for the last time I am confronted with my mythological beast. Rearing up on its hind legs this ferocious mini-michigan football helmet barked at me two or three times, jumped up and tore off the side of the mountain. Quite obviously I had no other choice other than to give chase. Hurtling over logs and under bamboo, the tenrec was losing ground by the second, his little black and yellow body weaving back and forth like a fullback churning for the endzone. Just as I reached the bottom of the ridge I looked up only instants before crashing into the nest of a dinner plate-sized nephilia spider. With my head wrapped up like a ski-mask I plunged on, flinging my new facial apparel away one chunk at a time. Just before the spiny devil ditched me for good I managed two pictures and they both turned out.

Grinning ear to ear I walked out of the forest. It was as if he had known all along, and simply showed up at the end of the line to challenge me to an eventual rematch. This thing is morphologically similar to a shrew or a hedgehog but quite evidently more mentally capable than I am. Hahaha, man that was fun.
One of my last NG assignments was to photograph (if possible) one of the last remaining Mellers Ducks on the planet. The entire population of this animal could fit in a baby crib and there is really only one place you can find it. From all the hype I half expected this animal to have horns or some sort of giant feathery jetpack. Ok, so no horns or jetpack but it was still pretty cool. Here’s a picture of the bird worth a thousand leeches.

Anyways I am on my way out now, looking forward to about 27 hours worth of planes and airports. Yeah! Until next time, please take care and all that jazz.


Don’t stop the carnival.
Jim