We were very lucky to find space at our next stop over, the paper making capital of Madagascar. We definitely loved that paper, so pretty! Early the next morning our clever friends had arranged a real special treat for us. A genuine and close-up lemur encounter. We drove up to lots of rocks armed with bananas and then appeared lots of lovely cuddly, absolutely gorgeous ring-tailed lemurs. They took the bananas from our hands and jumped onto our backs, snuggling around our necks. They were so gentle, they didn't even seem to have teeth. Their feet were amazing with little suckers. It was amazing and then just as I was regretting not having brought more bananas with us our guide (who is mentioned in The Lonely Planet so famous!) pointed out the lemurs on the rocks sunbathing. It was simply wonderful! We clambered up the rocks to join them and sat down next to and surrounded by these sunbathing bizarre teddy bears. Magic! So so so so cute!

Our next stop was the Zebu market. An absolutely perfect day by Bethan standards, lemurs and cows! I do love zebus. I very nearly brought one!

The rest of the day we made our mamouth drive to Toliara. the scenery of course was amazing. It completely changed from the mountains and jungle of before to flat savannah, baobab trees and sapphire mining towns. We stopped for a while in Parc national de L'Isalo, which resembles the Grand Canyon with amazing rock formations just springing up from nowhere. Quite astonishing.