Vakona, part 1

The drive to Berenty had been fairly gruelling but the drive to Vakona forest was more painstaking. This was not due to the quality of the roads but the quality of the driver. We should have known when we discovered our driver was named Lala and he always wore a cream cardigan. A drive that normally should take 2.5 hours took almost 4 hours. Every minor road variation caused Lala to slow to snail pace or even come to a full stop. He drove like he was driving a Smart car not a new Land Cruiser. When we questioned why he was driving slower than a Zebu cart, his concern was protecting his car...apparently not protecting his tip. The roads were extemely good, I'm not sure he'd heard that a Land Cruiser was actually an off road vehicle made for roads far worse.

Our second issue with Lala (if you ignore his name and cream cardigan) was that he was suppose to be English speaking. We can count to 10 in German, it doesn't make us fluent in the language

Now we have vented about Lala....

On our way to Vakona we stopped at a reptile and butterfly park. The reptiles were the highlight here, and not just because we saw very few butterflies (perhaps the reptiles ate them). The chameleons were great, coming in all shapes, colours and sizes. The colours were particularly outstanding, fluroscent greens, bright reds, vivid blues, some that blended perfectly to the branch they sat upon or the leaves that surrounded them. The images will probably do more justice than our explanation.

Like so many of our accommodations, Vakona Forest Lodge far exceeded expectations. It is set in a verdent jungle valley with a lake at its central base.

First up, an excursion to Lemur Island.

The name says it all really, it's an island with lemurs but not just any lemurs...tame lemurs. A small canoe takes you across to the island (lemurs don't swim) where the guide gives you a small piece of banana, within seconds a lemur is sitting on your shoulder eager for the fruit. We soon discover that the black and white lemurs near the boats are shy in comparison to the ones further up the path where you are inundated, sometimes with 4 brown lemurs vying for your banana. We had joked about lemur hat prior to travelling but we all doned some lovely lemur headwear, Debbie particularly when she "accidently" rubbed some banana in her hair.

The bamboo lemur was the smallest on the island and the most shy (and the cutest). As soon as there was any sign of banana the brown lemurs were all over you, it was difficult to get much to the others.

We also hired canoes one afternoon and paddled around the several small islands. One of those was Lemur Island, another had the Ring-tailed lemur (Maki). Our canoes got a little close to the island and a few of the Maki tried to use our canoes to seek freedom off the island...a couple may have been successful....oops.

A visit to a reptile park was made more interesting by the suspension bridges through the jungle which Andrew decided was fun to bounce on while others held on for dear life. His adventurous spirit did not extend to holding the snake, unlike everone else.