I had almost been in Madagascar a month and I hadn’t seen a lemur. Not a single one.

To be fair, I had been briefly living in the Madagascan Highlands and I don’t picture lemurs appreciating the starkness of dust and cacti…

It was time to visit the Madagascar of the animated movie – the jungle filled with thick foliage, dancing lemurs and lost zoo animals.

150 km east of Antananarivo lies Andasibe, where you can find Andasibe-Mantadia National Park.  a 155 square kilometre protected area, home to 11 lemur species – including the mighty Indri, the largest Lemur in the world.

After a long three hour drive (on surprisingly good roads) we arrived at the Andasibe-Mantadia National Park. We were immediately greeted by an English-speaking local guide and assessed the options for walks. The park offers 2-hour, 3-hour, 4-hour and 8-hour guided walks and given the rainy weather we opted for a reasonable 3-hour lemur hunt. There were three of us and we paid our 35000 arairy (about $11US) each for a the walk and guide.

As soon as we entered the park we could hear the wails of the locals – because it turns out lemurs sound like  a cross between a whale and a crying baby. I’m kind of glad I don’t live near these noisy creatures and I am grateful that the koala outside my bedroom back home isn’t quite as vocal…

I had been waiting weeks to spot these notorious Madagascan locals and it did not take us long to start spotting the tree-climbing, leaping creatures (and the tourists huddling below). Our first sighting was the Diademed Sifaka. I was immediately in love.

We chased these beautifully coloured large lemurs deep into their forest and admired their long yogi limbs as they leaped, swung and stretched through the trees. At first glance lemurs look a lot like their distant monkey cousins but soon we could see their funny little faces and there was no denying their relation to King Julien.

After our time with the Diademed Sifaka we went Indri hunting. These lemur giants can grow up to one metre long and The Andasibe-Mantadia National Park is the best place to spot them due to a couple of families habituated to humans.

It didn’t take long to find these guys.

With fluffy ears and bulgy eyes the Indri weren’t quite as glamorous-looking as the Diademed Sifaka, but they were equally as charming. Especially the Indri infant!

We admired these giants make their way through the forest, once again chasing them through the thick undergrowth, and of course ‘aww-ing’ every time the tiny baby poked his little head out from underneath his mummy…

Eventually we said farewell to the little Indri family and continued our walk. It had been under an hour and we had already admired the two largest lemurs in the world. They may not have greeted us with the party-attitude from the children film but they had certainly allowed us to properly admire and appreciate their exotic selves.

We had a break from lemur-chasing and had the opportunity to admire the beauty of the lemur habitat. The park itself was absolutely gorgeous and home to a wide-range of chameleons, birds and insects as well as the more popular primates.

As we made our way out of the park we had one last sighting of my new favourite primate. The common brown lemur may not be anywhere near as fancy-looking as our previous two encounters but that did not make them any less cute or enjoyable to watch. Plus they seemed to be a little more confident and camera-ready.

For the final time that day we found ourselves climbing off the track, getting a mere couple of metres away from these little locals. After our time with these guys I was (almost) all lemur-ed out for one day.

In three hours I had already seen some of the countries most magnificent lemurs and learnt quite quickly that they do indeed like to ‘move it, move it’… through the rainforest… Very quickly.

They may be quick but they are worth the chase.

The Andasibe-Mantadia National Park is one of the easiest parks in Madagascar to visit from the capital city, Antananarivo. The park is accessible during all the year. The main entrance is just a couple of km from the main road RN2 connecting Tana and Tamatave. The whole trip takes 3 – 4 hours from Tana (150 km) and 5 – 6 from Tamatave (250 km) by car.
If you are travelling by taxi-brousse you should change in Moramanga coming from Tana, or take a direct service to Tamatave and ask the driver to drop you out at Andasibe village. The entrance fee is Ar 25,000 for one day and Ar 37,000 for two days.

For accommodation visit Andasibe village.

The Park Office is very well equipped and has a small museum and a gift shop. The guides are really good and some of them speak fluent English.

Parc National Andasibe/Mantadia
BP 15 Andasibe – 514 Moramanga
Tel: (261 20) 56 832 01 / 033 14 440 31 / (261 33) 02 000 05
Email: pnamangap@yahoo.fr