Two out of three in Four

 My second road trip is in the books! More lemurs, hiking, chameleons and vegetation. This place, Andasibe, is maybe five hours away, but that doesn’t mean it’s far; it just means the roads are that bad. I went with a small group of five people, which is a good size. It cost a little more than I’d planned but there are only three places that are feasible as road trips, so I figure I’m front-loading my travel. In four months, I’ve knocked out two of the three possibilities.

Of course, there is plenty of in-country travel, but the roads limit what’s possible by car. I can think offhand of three weekend trips I want to do, but the involve flights. Those will come later, like maybe one in September. There’s one person here who wanted travel buddies so I signed up.

Andasibe was pretty cool – we did a night hike and saw the smallest lemur, which is about squirrel size. We also saw the largest, which is the size of a small human. There’s just an incredible range. The brown ones are very social and hang out in groups. The big black-and-white ones lounge in trees and communicate very loudly with what seem to be screams. The guides have recordings on their phones, so you’d hear the electronic version, which would send off a loud cacophony of ear-splitting howls that lasted for minutes. I’ve no idea what they were saying to each other, but they were decisive in saying it.

Besides the lemurs, we went to a crocodile farm of some sort. It was on the property of the hotel I’d preferred, but one of the travelers in our group was insistent of staying in the higher-priced one (which didn’t include breakfast, I might add). When we arrived to the crocodile place, he took a look at the lodge and said that it was super nice. I was like yeah, that’s why some of us voted to stay there!

I’d never seen so many crocodiles, and really had no idea they were more or less pack animals. There were several groups of the most giant dinosaurs I’ve seen still living. I cannot imagine how much they weighed or what might happen at feeding day. We weren’t to witness that; we just saw a bunch of them loafing around and sunning themselves. I was a bit jealous.

The place also had baby crocs. I don’t know of they bred them or what, but man, there were a lot of them. The little ones were cute like a baby dinosaur would be. At one point, we walked – one by one – over an Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom rope bridge, only not so high. But just like the one Short Round crossed, this one had crocs underneath it. Fortunately, no one had to “hold on” and “go for ride” -- we all made it across.

This group also visited the chameleon place again, the same place I’d gone to with Steph last month. It was just as cool – I really am fascinated with those things. The geckos were possibly the most amazing with their disguises, though. The guide would reach into a cage, pull out a log and start talking about a kind of gecko. We’d listen intently, completely blind to the fact there was a living, breathing gecko on the log; it just totally blended in and we didn’t see it until he’d point it out.

The night hike was similar – a guide would run ahead and then call us, pointing to something that there is no way on God’s earth any of us would have ever spotted by ourselves. He’d just walk by and say oh, here’s a tree frog and there’d be this 2-inch frog six feet away. At one point, he found a tiny, tiny chameleon, like smaller than my little finger. He was just walking and then stopped short. Every time he did that, we’d all look around and try to find whatever it was, but we never did. He’d patiently point it out and then it’d be like, wow, how on earth?

Now I am settled in until mid-February, when I am taking actual leave instead of a long weekend. I signed on for a gorilla tour and asked several people I knew, but no one could go. I’d written it off as having to go on another group tour alone and then the travel person here asked about the Andasibe trip. I said sure, I’d go, and by the way, do you want to see gorillas? In no way did I think she’d come but to my delight she said yes, so we’re head out.

It's hard to believe that trip is now in less than a month; January has flown by. After that, I don’t expect to take any more vacation until my R&R – predicted to be in July or so – but the same (or at least a similar) group expects to do the third road trip over Memorial Day Weekend.