Maureen arrived on Friday and we took off the same day for Morondava. We flew in the smallest Air Madagascar plane so far, an ancient prop with 15 or so foldable seats, fixed landing gear and an analog radio. In Morondava we met up with Florence, a friend from college who had spent 7 month in Madland to work on a small tv broadcasting project. She gave us the quick tour of the town feeling somewhat nostalgic as it she was leaving the same day for home (via Tana by Taxi brousse). After lunch we took the road to Kirindy, a forest preserve 30 miles (50km) north of Morondava. When I say "road" I don't want to mislead you into thinking of something paved (hah!), or even remotely straight or even. It took us 2 hours to drive the 30 miles, so this should give you some indication of the shape of the road. On the way to Kirindy we passed through the "avenue of the Baobabs", you can't get enough of these strange trees. In Kirindy Maureen got her first glimpse at Malagasy accomodations, as well as a bunch of lemurs. We did a night tour and the day tour, saw some snakes, some chameleons, the local (tiny) version of a puma a bunch of nocturnal and diurnal lemurs as well as the relatively rare mouse lemur (as you would have guessed, it's a lemur the size of a mouse - the smallest primate on earth). Early start Saturday morning headed furhter north to the Tsingys.
