Monday, May 16, 2022 - After the ride to Andasibe and a good night's sleep, we began a 2-hour ride in a 4-wheel drive vehicle to Mantadia National Park.

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The Mantadia National Park is a primary forest - one of the few left in the country.
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Hiking up the trail I almost stepped on a millipede - which was huge.

The Madagascar Green-Emerald Giant Pill millipede - the largest of the millipedes species.
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Vines everywhere - it was tough to move off the trail - which is what I had to do to take pictures of the lemur. The local guide would see a lemur and begin running into the forest after the animal - with me lumbering behind.
The Indri calling out in the forest

We were looking for the Indri (the largest of the lemurs) we heard them throughout the forest calling out.

You may need to turn up the volume to hear the calls.
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Then the guide had a feeling we should move in a specific direction to see the lemur - crashing through the underbrush we ended up right under the tree with the Indri.

Almost straight up was an Indri.
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The guide made some lemur sounds, and he looked right down at me. Immediately after this picture the big guy leapt to another tree and we lost him.
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A short time later we found another one - but I was too far away for a good picture. This picture is through some vegetation - but I was so excited to get this shot, I kept the picture.

That was that - the last lemur we saw for the day. We had a good hike, it is a beautiful forest as the following pictures demonstrate.
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We worked our way up a mountain to an overlook with a great view of the primary forest.
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A lone tree on the hillside overlooking the forest.
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I thought this was interesting - a fungus on a log so old that there is moss growing on top of the fungus.
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One of the many odd looking trees in the primary forest.
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Moss on a vine in the sun.
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New leaves of a plant in the forest - the young leaves are purple.
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The forest trail.
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A branch hanging down, long ago captured by a vine, now has a family of fungus enjoying the wood.
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A dramatic passage between two huge trees frame the trail.

We traveled back to the hotel for another great dinner of pork and rice - no little fish.
A very rough road to reach the park - we are on our way back to the hotel and passed by a small village.


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