Morning walk in Kirindy Reserve, Ferry crossing over Belo Tsiribihina river and staying in Belo Tsiribihina - Friday the 1st of June

I got up a bit early and went down for breakfast at 7 AM - so sat reading in my Lonely Planet book when suddenly a Fossa turned up in the middle of the restaurant. I had to look twice before I realised it was the Fossa and then I quickly moved out of my chair and tried to walk backwards away from it. However it still followed me so had to make some noise in the end to scare it away - even if it is one of the smaller wild cats - I definitely didn't want a fight with it. When I made some noise the guy from the kitchen came out and said stay away from the Fossa - like I was not trying to do that - pretty hard when it basically walks straight up to you. Otherwise after breakfast we had a 2 hour morning walk in the Kirindy Reserve to look at some of the animals, which are active at daytime - but think my highlight was the male baobab tree. Didn't realise that there were male and female baobab trees and when the guide took us to the male one and said tell me why this is a male - I kept staring in the air for the big balls, which I couldn't find. Turned out while staring up I literally was standing right next to a giant penis coming out of the tree - so nearly made me jump when I saw it - so funny :-).

Otherwise we saw some more lemurs this morning, where the Weasel Sportive Lemur was a new one since it is mainly active at night but this morning it was just sitting on the tree next to the hole it sleeps in. Just after 10 AM we left the Kirindy Reserve for more off road driving towards the town Belo Tsiribihina. Did a stop on the way at the special tombs used by the Sakalava people living in this area and also stopped at the Baobab forest. I must admit I really love these special trees, they are just so different and there are 6 different species of them in Madagascar.

We are actually getting quite comfortable with our driver now and have had some challenging driving both off road and also on very difficult roads with lots of traffic - but he has handled the driving very well, Have now also learned what the different type of beeping means. So if he just makes a short beep - it is because he is saying thank you. If he is making 2 short beeps - then he is saying hello. If he is making a long beep - then it is a warning that we are coming and if he makes a very long beep - then it means - get the f….. out of here - so a lot of communication is actually going on - just by different type of beeping.

Our drive today was not that long but the interesting part was that we had to do a ferry crossing over Belo Tsiribihina River and we all tried to imagine what the ferry would look like. However don't think any of us had the right picture in our head because was quite astonished by the look of the ferry when it turned up. It was literally a wooden raft tied together by ropes and which could just manage to transfer 4 cars and the people from the cars. Our driver got on first and was interesting to watch him manoeuvre the car to the right place without much space at all - but needed to be in the exact right spot to make space for the other 3 cars. All the cars also just had a few rocks placed behind the wheels to ensure they were not rolling on the raft and us passengers walked onto the raft and was just standing next to the cars while the ferry took us 45 minutes up the river and to the other side. Definitely a very special experience. To get off the raft the cars had to drive over another raft to reach the road - which again was just so different. From the ferry there was only 1 KM to our hotel but we decided to go for lunch first at the highly recommend place from Lonely Planet 'Mad Zebu'. It was described as a restaurant where dishes seem to come straight out of a Michelin restaurant and to be fair that description was not far off. The food was absolutely delicious and so well presented.

After lunch we checked into 'Hotel du Menabe', which was actually really lovely with a nice room and a great veranda outside with deck chairs - but for the 3rd time we were the only guests in our hotel, which is just really weird. Had a very relaxing afternoon and then decided to do a walk in town to see the local market and the local life really. We were the only white people here - so got lots of attention but was just very interesting to meet the locals. Decided to sit down for a beer in a local place where we could watch the life go by and was an interesting experience. Despite that there were tables and chair in front of the shop it didn't seem to be a common thing that people were sitting here to drink - because when I ordered 3 beers - I had to ask for them to be opened as well. The shop was also selling some local rum - so had to have a closer look at their dark rum. Turned out that a 375 ml bottle was only £1.25 so a no brainer really and bought a bottle - so we had something for a pre-dinner drink and also a night cap. Turned out that the bottle was really nice so enjoyed a glass both before and after dinner at our great veranda. Since there was no other guests in the hotel we decided to go back to the Mad Zebu for dinner for another great meal - but clearly also a place for mainly the tourists since we were the only one eating here.