Category: Wildlife and Nature
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Mayotte: From Above and Below
During my time in Madagascar, I had the opportunity to visit nearby Mayotte a few times. Never heard of it? It’s and island in the Indian Ocean – part of the Comoros Archipelago, claimed by the Comoros as its fourth island but administered by France as its 101st Department. If you want to know more…
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Visit to Isalo National Park, Madagascar
Shortly before leaving Madagascar after having lived there for more than three years, I finally made it to Isalo National Park, which is one of the premier tourist destinations in country, and one I would have regretted missing out on. My wife and daughter had visited this huge national park, established in 1962, which incorporates…
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One Last Trip – “Lemur Island”
Given today’s justifiable flak surrounding the keeping of pet lemurs or the existence of lemur “petting zoos” that rely on capturing lemurs from the wild, Madagascar’s “Lemur Island” (officially “Vakona Private Reserve”) near Andasibe-Mantadia National Park is seen by some as controversial. The reserve consists of several different islands (lemurs don’t cross water) criss-crossed with…
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Locust Swarm in Madagascar
Shortly after arriving in Madagascar a few years ago, we watched the BBC’s Planet Earth II episode in which a film crew found it amazingly difficult to track down a swarm containing more than a billion of the tiny, destructive creatures. Apparently, it can be surprisingly difficult to find and film them. We had also…
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Swimming with Whale Sharks in Madagascar
Check another item off the bucket list: in November, we made it to Nosy Be to see the whale sharks – considered endangered by some – feeding on the plankton that “bloom” there the same time every year. This capped off an amazing year in Madagascar – just a month prior, we managed to get out…
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…but what’s there to do in southern Madagascar?
In our quest to see everything there is to see in Madagascar (for which, honestly speaking, there is simply not enough time, but we’re trying our absolute best!) we recently made our way to south Madagascar. Specifically, we went to “Fort Dauphin” – which was renamed Tolagnaro, (or Toalagnaro), in 1975 and yet inexplicably, everyone…
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Whale Watching in Madagascar
Every June or July, thousands of humpback whales migrate thousands of miles north from Antarctica to have their young just off the coast of Madagascar. And finally we made it up in time to see them (September is best!) Not only did I want to go out and see them, but it was also one…
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Andringitra Park in Madagascar: Sheer Cliffs and Ringtails
Andringitra National Park is one of those places where adventure travelers go. It’s got peaks that people go out and climb over a four-day period. The one in the photo above is just a two-day climb for rock climbers, not quite in the park. People will climb the sheer cliff and sleep the first night…
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South African Safari – Addo Elephant Park
I previously posted about Ironman South Africa last April. Well, naturally you don’t go all the way to South Africa for a sporting event and then go back home. Nope – safari time! There are a number of parks and reserves in and around Port Elizabeth, South Africa. To be honest, you don’t even have…
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Kodak T-Max P3200: My First Roll
A notification from 35mmc today with Hamish Gill’s review of Kodak’s re-released P3200 reminded me that I, too, recently shot my first roll of P3200 – I just hadn’t gotten around to sharing my results. I’m a little bit late to the game, given that the film was re-released in mid-March – but it takes…
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Droning with the Dolphins
They were so majestic. About a half-mile out, I would swim directly overhead a pod of dolphins swimming directly beneath me, maybe 7 or 8 meters down. They’d swim slowly, all most like they were “letting” me keep up. Then they’d gradually float up to the surface, let their dorsal fins break the surface a…
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Madikwe Game Reserve – One of South Africa’s Best Kept Secrets!
For most people, going on a safari is the trip of a lifetime. And there are numerous well-known game parks and reserves, in many African countries, where you can do just that. But if you decide to take the plunge and see the amazing animals and landscape most people only get to see in coffee…
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Mahajanga, Madagascar: Antsanitia Resort – View from the Sky
We’re doing much better at seeing the country to which we’ve been assigned early in our tour, rather than late, rushing, and ending up with a list of “places we wish we’d gone.”  Of Madagascar’s noteworthy destinations (really the list is endless, but let’s focus on the main towns), we have yet to make it to…
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Trip to Nosy Be
I knew we had chosen the right place when the owner/manager greeted us in shorts and bare feet. No snooty welcome drinks and wet towels here! Although when I think back, I think there were actually welcome drinks and wet towels. But with a different vibe… Nosy Be is a mixed bag in terms of…
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Madagascar: Solar Eclipse at the Pangalanes Canal
I got an email from somebody at some point, soon after we arrived in Madagascar: Â there was to be a full solar eclipse, and we were invited to stay at the “Bush Camp” on the Pangalanes Canal, wherever that was. I did some digging and found out that there is a series of lakes and…
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The strangest animal you’ve (probably) never seen!
Meet the bizarre, but wonderful aye-aye. It’s an odd nocturnal lemur with a kind of creepily long middle finger and a bizarre, wild and wide-eyed expression. We were lucky enough to see a few of these in the wild and thought we’d share them with you. By the way, did you know lemurs are primates?…
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Madagascar: Visiting the Tsingy de Bemaraha (Part 2)
This post is a continuation of my previous post, where I described out trip from Antananarivo to Morondava, and then north across two rivers and to the “petit tsingy” and a boat ride through the Manamobolo Gorge and the caves that border it. In this post, I will share our experience in the “grand tsingy”…
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Madagascar’s Saha Forest Camp: An Eco-sperience! Part 2.
As the title suggests, this is a continuation of my previous post, wherein I describe Saha Forest Camp and its surroundings…in case an orientation is needed! We’re not serious hikers. But our local guide had done a good job so far guiding us through the rain forest, and we had nothing planned, so we decided…
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Madagascar’s Saha Forest Camp: an Eco-sperience! Part 1.
A couple of hours north of Antananarivo, at the end of a rutted, slick red clay road that meanders for about 10 kilometers eastward from the town of Anjozorobe, where the winding rice paddies finally end in a jumble of primary forest, Saha Forest Camp is perched on a hillside. Â We arrived at a clearing…
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Madagascar’s Mantadia National Park: the Lemurs
Normally when we go on a trip somewhere, we end up with 6-10 really good photos worth sharing, which give an overall impression of the experience. Â But I have been stalling on this post because the number of close-up lemur photos we got is pretty overwhelming. Â So I’m just going to post a bunch of…
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Madagascar: Paying Attention to the Little Things
Walking through the jungle in Madagascar in search of lemurs, it’s easy to overlook the little things…and trample them underfoot. Â Bugs, tiny plants, lizards. Â There are upwards of 100,000 species of insects in Madagascar. Â We didn’t see the long-necked giraffe weevil, but we saw lots of other interesting creepy crawlies. Â For instance, this little guy,…
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Doing My Bit for Science
You never know where your pictures will end up! Â So far people have been pretty good about asking for permission (as far as I know). About four years ago I was experimenting with macro photography, taking pictures of odd bugs I found in our back yard in Namibia, when I came across this odd black-and-yellow…
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Birdwatching from the Hotel Pool
One of the highlights from our recent trip to Jaipur was the beautiful hotel pool. Â On our last day there, fed up with the heat, waiting for an evening flight, we arranged for a late checkout and decided to spend the morning lounging by the pool. Â After reading a bit, I noticed a couple of…
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Monkeying Around in Jaipur
With only a month or so before we leave India, we finally made it to Rajasthan, the country’s largest state, located on the northwestern border with Pakistan, and home to the inhospitable Thar Desert. Literally translated as the “land of kings”, Rajasthan could easily be the destination for a half dozen or more individual trips…
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Thousands of bugs were bubbling up out of the ground…you’ll never guess what happened next!
On the grounds of a posh Himalayan resort – where the monkeys are normally kept at bay by G4S guards carrying long sticks – thousands of winged insects were bubbling up from the ground – seemingly from nowhere – and taking wing. It was the weirdest thing, because it was like they were appearing out…