Ranomafana Rain Forest National Park, Madagascar

Ranomafana is a rain forest that has more than 300 days of rain per year. We were there during the rain, even though October is one of the dry season months. The forest fresh air was very clean with the rain, but hiking was quite difficult and dangerous for me. The path consisted of rock steps and very muddy climbs as the soil was soaked. We only got glimpses of the lemurs. We did see the Red-Fronted lemur, Miln Edward lemur, and the Golden Bamboo lemur. Unfortunately the dark clouds and the rain made photography quite difficult. The lemur pictures did not turn out well due to the dark clouds and rain. I used post-processing to lighten the photos and correct some of the color. The lemurs were also very high up in the forest canopy so I only got two photos of them.

A Red-Fronted lemur:

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Here is another Red-Fronted lemur:

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After hiking through the rain forest for several miles, we reached a viewing and rest platform that overlooks the entire rainforest back to the entrance of the park. Here is a beautiful shot of the forest and you can see the buildings at the park entrance in the distance. This photo has been lightened and color corrected.

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Here is another photo of the same scene but without any post-processing:

photo 120

We also went on a night walk and saw a mouse lemur, various frogs, and wild orchids. We also saw the Satanic Leaf-Tailed gecko. I was not able to get any photos as the guides had very poor flashlights and there were more than 40 tourists crowded around the one tree where a mouse lemur was spotted. The particular mouse lemur we saw comes to the same tree every night at 6 pm. A young boy smears banana on the tree trunk where the lemur always appears. This encourages him to come down from the top of the tree. The night we were there, this mouse lemur showed up exactly on time and hopped around in the tree licking the banana on the tree trunk much to everyone's delight. It was a bit like waiting for a big celebrity rock star to show up for the show.

© 2017 Jeffrey Pawlan