Don’t ask me how so many different creatures coexist harmoniously under the same treetops "“ I don’t know, but they are all here. All the stench of the taxi-brousse stations, the mystery ingredients of the Chinese soups I’ve become accustomed to here, and the bone breaking roads, it’s all worth it when you are surrounded by trees covered by giant rose-bush-like thorns, inhabited by skull-faced long-legged spiders and beady-eyed bats with their young.
Just by my campsite I found a Madagascan hog-nosed snake finishing off an egret that maybe was a fosa’s early catch. Silly sifakas do yoga on tree branches right above my tent and I can’t resist them.
Madagascan parks are now overflowing with foreign biologists researching everything from mouse lemurs to the colorful reptiles of the big island. This time I met South African researchers looking for tenrecs and spent a whole night running after them in search of these hedgehog-like animals. The scientists found what they needed, and I found everything else from mushroom-looking spiders to even a crocodile.
Born in Ukraine, raised in Israel, and acquiring her higher education in the US, Sarit Reizin is proud to call herself a citizen of the world. However, to stay worthy of the title, she felt a nomadic lifestyle was in order, and in November 2005 left the comforts of the first world with no desire of coming back any time soon. http://HopStopTravel.com
