travels in lemurland.

I recently took a trip to Anja Park, about two hours south of Fianarantsoa in the highlands of Madagascar. It was one of the most beautiful places I have been on planet Earth, and left me in awe of nature in all its diversity and splendor.

Ring-tailed Lemurs (Lemur Catta).

It has been such an incredible experience traveling through a new part of Madagascar. There are so many differences from the northern part of the island that I call home... the Betsileo people that live in this area speak a completely different dialect, their style of dress much more conservative and provincial, their facial features more Asian influenced, their livelihoods based solely on rice farming and cattle herding, the city filled with beggars in rags.

Anja Park, outside of Fianarantsoa.

The landscape is vastly different from the coastal north as well, one of enormous granite-lined valleys filled with rice paddies and two-storey mud houses. I couldn't decide at any given moment if I felt like I was traveling through Utah, Australia or Montana. In any case, this is not my Africa. This is not the little fishing village of which I have made a home away from home, with its strong African-influenced music, culture and pace of life. Here we sat listening to lemurs calling out to each other at the start of their mating season. Here we passed through thick jungle and climbed through granite caves where lemurs sleep at night. No, this is not my Africa, this is the Africa that separated from the continent millions of years ago and has become home to an incredibly diverse number of endemic species.