Thingy Spotting

Since last writing, we have explored a gazillion more rainforests in northern Madagascar. It is verdant (?) and wet up there - lots of ylang-ylang trees and vanilla plantations. Each 'forest has been jam-packed with enchanting lemurs, birds, trees, chameleons, geckos, snakes - each more surprising than the last.

One of the rainforests was a private island reserve, Nosy Mangabe, only accessible by boat. The boat journey was pretty hairy. I thought I was enjoying it until I realised that I'd lost the feeling in my right hand from holding on so tightly. The rainforest rises out of the waters, green and lush, and reminded me of Life of Pi's beautiful carnivorous island. This one, however, has a much friendlier eco-system and is surrounded by a strip of golden, deserted sands. Very Robinson Crusoe. Two steps on to the beach and we pitched our tent on the edge of the rainforest with incredible views of the sea and the aye-aye beach.

The aye-aye is an extremely rare, endangered nocturnal lemur. It is so strange looking that the Malagasy named it "thingy". Having never even heard of the damn thingy a week earlier, I suddenly found that, for three nights running, we were scouring the beach, torch in hand, for hours on end, for this elusive creature. Needless to say, we didn't see the little blighter. I don't really mind though as it's an ugly, ratty looking thing. And there's one in London zoo. The huggable dwarf lemurs and pocket-sized mouse lemurs we saw were MUCH more endearing. They get caught in the headlamp and just stare back at you with these dinner-plate, honey coloured eyes. I would have pocketed one but they're just too damn quick.