18 August 2025
We’re up early this morning to explore Ranomafana National Park where our guide (park ranger Serafin), assisted by a lemur spotter, take us on a hike through the lush rainforest.
The rainforest is living up to its name today so unfortunately despite a huge range of amazing plants, flowers, fungi and more, my camera only came out for special occasions. The variety of flora and fauna here is truly awe-inspiring: we see so many different species of ferns and orchids just in a small area. It is one of Madagascar’s most biodiverse parks with 12 species of lemur and 115 species of birds.
We learn that the park was formed in 1991 after the Golden Bamboo Lemur was ‘discovered’ (new to science) by American scientist Patricia Wright in 1986. The park protects more than 41,600 hectares of tropical rainforest at elevations of 800-1200m. Ranomafana National Park was incorporated into the UNESCO World Heritage Site that includes 13 specific areas of six national parks in the eastern part of Madagascar -inscribed for their importance to both ecological and biological processes as well as their biodiversity and the rare and threatened species they support.
The park’s name comes from the Malagasy words rano mafana (hot water) for the hot springs in the nearby town. The Namorona River flows through park – is raging today but it can get much higher in rainy season. Locals kayak on it when it is not flooded.
We head up through the Bamboo Forest and are very lucky to see a rare Pygmy kingfisher (twice) and then despite the rain we got to see several families of the Golden Bamboo Lemur (approx 1kg) and also the Grey Bamboo Lemur (0.5kg).
One family came down really close to us. A baby got left behind and came right down to the ground beside us – looked at us with a plaintive mew and then scurried up mewing ‘mum, mum’ until the mother came back to find it.
We didn’t get to see the Greater Bamboo Lemur (1.5kg) as unfortunately there is only one female left in the park. There used to be a whole family but they are vulnerable to predators such as the Fossa (a cat a bit like a small cougar) and mongoose. There are more Greater Bamboo Lemurs in another park in the southeast but they eat different bamboo (and have no predators). They brought a couple up to Ranomafana but they unfortunately quickly succumbed to the predators.
We did spot some red-fronted brown lemurs, after Serafin happened to look up into the tall trees above us during a rest break.
Serafin showed us an area where there are Memorial stones to commemorate tribespeople from the area that had to move when the park was formed.
Also saw a tiny Satanic Leaf-tailed Gecko just on the side of the path, was amazing to see one in the wild (had seen one at the reptile park a couple of days ago).
Went up to lookout and through the mist we could just see way down into the valley where we had started off this morning. We had done a lot of climbing and ups and downs over our 4.5 hour walk.
We had lunch at a local restaurant with some traditional Malagasy food – I had Poulet Sauce (chicken with a tomato/onion sauce) and flambé pineapple.
Our hotel is the Hotel Thermal and has a hot pool – there is also a public thermal baths nearby. We had been told that you had to book for the hotel pool and was likely busy but Anne and I were able to get a booking when we got back from lunch – it was a nice way to warm up after being soaked through. However we had to put our damp clothes back on again for our evening excursion.
We set out for our night excursion in time to get there as night fell. Serafin met us at the hotel – it was just Anne and I this time as Bernadette and Bruce didn’t fancy going out in the rain again. This excursion was a bit different as we were walking along the edge of the main highway. There is a spot where there are banana trees over the road and the mouse lemurs come to feed and can be spotted in the undergrowth on the edge of the road. We did see 2 – not much bigger than a mouse and they move fast. Unfortunately there were too many other people there as well so didn’t manage to get a good photo.
Then we walked up the road on the lookout for chameleons. We saw 5 different types of chameleon (Oshonoshi, Banded Belly, Blue-legged, Nose-horn and Falax (the one with straight tail), a green tree frog and some little birds (Muscadine martins) sleeping in holes in the rock.
There are 12 kinds of chameleon in this area. When they are sleeping/relaxed they are a very pale colour but darken up as shine light on them.
Back to the hotel for dinner and then to bed and to prepare for another early start.
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