After flying south nearly 1000km from Joffreville, we’ve arrived at Vakona Forest Lodge, set in the Andasibe-Mantadia National Park. We’ve just spent our first day at this modern but tranquil place, and as we’ve discovered it’s an ideal base for us to engage in our primary mission; to locate and spot as many lemur’s as possible.

Our day started at 9:00am sharp, meeting our guide at reception and driving all of 5km to the start of the trail inside the national park. For the first time on this trip we have an English speaking guide, who proved his mettle long before the start of the walk by getting us in without tickets (of which we had duly left in our room). As we were waiting for him to perform his Jedi mind trick at the gates,  we could hear the distinctive sound of the Indri doing their morning call, marking their territory audibly as they do every day. Each Indri group have their own specific call, though it would take a ear better trained than mine to recognise it.

We made it into the jungle, and after about 10 minutes of easy going trail walking, our guide asked us to stop and wait for him as he went to find Lemurs. He came back after a short while and led us to a part of the jungle where high in the trees was a single group of four Indri’s, bouncing effortlessly from branch to branch, applying just enough momentum with each swing to make it to the next. We watched in amazement for about 10 minutes until they vanished deeper into the jungle.

We continued the search for our distant cousins, walking for a short distance before we discovered another pack of Indri’s, this time sitting in the branches with their legs stretched far out. This group were far more intrigued by *our* activities, looking directly back at us from high above. They were also joined by number of Brown Lemurs, interloping on the Indri’s territory but seemingly unnoticed by by them.

With the morning over and the Indri’s disappearing into the thick of the jungle, we headed back to the hotel for a quick lunch, followed by a visit to Lemur Island, just a few paces away. More of a zoo than anything else, it’s probably one of the only places anywhere in Madagascar where you can actually get up close a with a number of different breeds of Lemur in one place, and feeding a gold ruffed variety slices of banana is the most fun you can have with your clothes on.