Ankarana

After a few hours driving from Montagne d’Ambre you arrive at the Ankarana Special Reserve. This is a much drier area with a beautiful dramatic landscape. The Ankarana Massif is a limestone plateau that rises abruptly from the surrounding grassy plain and exists of impressive formations of ‘tsingy’ (pinnacles) sharp as a razor. The plateau has many caves, some are several kilometres long. These were ancient coral reefs. You find here many phelsumas, in all kind of green, with several red spots or stripes. You also find here one of the largest chameleons, the furcifer oustaleti, which we saw here for the first time. You see here also several nocturnal lemurs sleeping in their tree hollows, or they are sleepy staring at us. And you see many bold crown lemurs. You could see that those lemurs at some places are used to tourists, as they really approached us. Although, we haven’t seen there any tourist, during the days we were there. After one ‘stole’ a piece of mango, we were so bad to give them a few pieces more, so that we could make a few beautiful close-ups of them. Ankarana has the highest density of primates of any forest in the world. This is an ideal surrounding for taking pictures. In this park we had 2 different base camps, we made several daytrips. At the second base camp, we stayed mostly close to the camp, there was so much to see, already next to our tent several chameleons, geckos, boas and the mantilla betsileo. We see so much more when we are with the two of us, or sometimes with a guide, you have then all the time of the world, not only for taking pictures and filming but also to observe their behaviour. The hikers of the group went again for the kilometres, so everyone came into one’s own. Also here no one else was interested in night trips, we went every evening, after dinner, with a local guide on a little trip. At night you see so many and other animals than during the day.