I just got back from Madagascar yesterday morning and just wanted to share some pics from the trip.

My mom, sister, and I took the redeye from Paris to Antananarivo, then headed to the Vakôna lodge in Andasibe for 3 days. We spent most of the time hiking through the national parks and rainforests, and I was surprised (more like dissapointed...) to see very little wildlife in such beautiful and lush forests. Only by our hotel, in the potted plants were there chameleons (go figure). Despite that, there were Lemurs and Treefrogs galore, and a little "Lemur Island" you could go to right by our hotel where lemurs had become accustomed to humans. I'd much rather see them completely wild, but I wanted them to jump on me, so I went anyway LOL. We did a few night treks and there were leaftails and treefrogs everywhere! Sleeping chameleons were plentiful and easy to find, and we even saw a Parsons (it was sleeping, but it still counts).

After that we flew to Nosy Be and stayed at the Amarina Hotel. I wasn't expecting Nosy be to be anything spectacular, but I was really shocked when we arrived at our hotel. The entire Island itself was gorgeous, with most of its forests intact, and there was flora and fauna like you wouldn't believe. We went hiking right behind our hotel and there were Panthers everywhere. Not to say they were all screamers, but I was still delightfully surpised to see so many wild chameleons thriving, and not seeing a species devastated by the pet trade industry. Even right outside our hotel room there were Panthers and big Day Geckos in numbers. We spent our last few days there diving and hopping around to different islands.

Overall, it was a pretty amazing experience. It's really sad to see how ill-educated the Malagasi are about the environment and how they burn the forests down regularly for planting crops. Madagascar is still a good 20+ years behind Africa, industrial-wise, but it would be nice to see an incentive provided to the natives to stop excessive deforesting. Alright, enought of my ranting and on to the pics:


Big female on our way to Andasibe.


Giant Oustaleti


Close up on a leaftail


Comet Moth


C. brevicornis? AKA Elephant-ear chameleon


White Ruffed Lemur


A Common Brown Lemur on me (it only liked me for my carrots); my sister in the background at Lemur Island


Ohmygosh. This little Bamboo Lemur was so adorable, I just wanted to smash it


One of the many Leaftails, spotted at night


Sleeping Parsons


The huge-@$$ spider that was in our hotel room. After I took this picture, I looked back up and it was gone. I stayed out of the room the rest of the day.

Calumma nasutum


Largest Malagasi Lemurs, the Indri indri


Little male Panther around our Hotel at Nosy Be


Another little male, not so happy though


Sunset from our room


What most of the national parks looked like, just more dense


An Octopus drying at a craft village on Nosy be. My mom in the background lol


Malagasi girl


Just an updated pic of Cobalt. He's going to be 6 in the next couple of months

And some more pics...


Brookesia thieli


I'm really sure...I don't know my Brookesia that well


Beautiful little C. gastrotaenia


Big ol' guy



I'm working on uploading some more pics, and I'll be posting them in a reply

Amazing pictures!

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-Ky;

awesome pictures. I bet its pretty cool down there I think I would want to take half of the wildlife with me though

Please go on photo overload!!
Thanks for posting those awesome pictures!

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1.1.1 Ch. (T.) melleri, 1.2 Ch. (T.) jacksonii xantholophus
My work: www.gibbonsrock.com

Wow! What an awesome experience! Great pics to document it and something that I can only dream about...for now! The lemur's are funny in their expressions! Thanks for sharing!

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Without aweso it's only me....I'm her other half. Deal with it.

amazing shots. If you don't mind me asking how much did this trip cost you? I'd be so interested to go and how did you go about planning it and booking it etc.

That looked incredible!
It sounds like you had a great time, and I'm totally jealous.
You took some awesome photos, and would love to see more, so please share if you have time.
Did you see any brookesia?
Did you do some digging in the low bushes for brookesia minima on Nosy Be'?
I cant wait to see some more photos from the guys going on the Panther Passion Tour.
I'm sure with tourism being a primary source of income for some of the areas in Madagascar, was hospitality was good?
It's nice to hear the hotel was nice, too.

By the way, now I know why those other guys always want to hang out with you.

Fantastic thread!

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Sunshine Chameleons
SunshineChameleons.com

Very cool. Neeeeed more pictures!

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Chameleons ~ Supplies ~ Dragons

~~~Tiki Tiki Reptiles~~~

Thanks for the comment guys

@tryme: I'd be happy to PM you all of our planning/booking information and the estimated overall price.

@Justin Carl: Thanks so much! I have still have to upload a few hundred pics, so once that's done, I'll be sure to post a dozen more or so. We actually did go digging for the smallest Brookesia species, and it took awhile, but we did find a few. Here's a pic:



We found a few larger species of Brookesia in Andasibe as well, so I'll be sure to post those pics later. Our guide told us that the Malagasi liked tourists for their willingness to buy souvenirs, but that's it. If we didn't buy something they wanted, they'd get really offended. They called us "Vasas" too, which meant whities (LOL).

@Vegas Chad: I'm on it, as soon as they get uploaded to my comp.