Headed Home to Tana

We headed home early on the 17th of July.  We wanted to stop at the rainforest on the way home and you shouldnt be on the windy road after dark.  Going home we added a couple of passengers.  Andy and Tyler (two of the speialist trainers) wanted to see the sites on the way back to Tana so they road with us and Bishop Oliver.  Those poor guys in the backseat, CRAZY!  They did great!  Andy and Tyler hadn't even had time to see the ocead yet so we made a quick photo stop for them :)

Olivier's wife was visitng  her family in Toamasina!  She road the Taxi
Bruse home and he road with us :)

We made a stop after several hours to stretch our legs - especially those cramped in the back seat!

This nice family visited with us (because Olivier could speak Malagasy).
They showed us their garden and property and flowers, it was very pretty!
Then came the real treat, they had a pet Lemur in the tree in their front yard!

There he is - a little shy.  He would run up to the top of the tree. Then
one of the boys went across the street and came back with some yummy leaves and
the Lemur came closer! 

He was very cute!

This is their backyard.

We loved how lush and beautiful the scenery is!

It rained again and then we were greeted by this beautiful rainbow!

In the midst of all the rain, we arrived at the rain forest!  It was lush and beautiful!
We did some heavy climbing (in our missionary clothes)!  We saw amazing Palms,
plants, moss, roots curled around trees, lizards, chamelons, but the highlight was
the Indri Lemur.  He is the largest Lemur in the world.  He was beautiful!  The Indri Lemur
does not have a tail (which they use for balance and moving through the trees), but
they were still very fast in the trees!  There were at least 3 or 5 that we saw but
they all zoomed off through the trees except this guy below.  He let us get very close
and when he took the leaf from my hand, his hand was so soft!!  They said not to touch him because
 he will take off if you reach at him!  We loved our visit with the Indri Lemur and the rain forest!



Can you find the tree leaf chamieon in this picture?

Here he is!!

Here is another VERY TINY lizard, very hard to find!

I love how this lizard has his tail wrapped around the tree!

That great visit made some men very hungry and contmeplating what to eat!

Beautiful view!

Last great open spaces!

Back to the city!  Here is meat being sold by a little light!  It was very dark
and by the time we took Olivier home, it was very, very, dark!  We got lost
and were really having a hard time getting to the Mission Office.  We felt like we would get close
 and suddenly be lost and far away again but finally made it!
Our guests had a very nervous ride!  The streets were packed and they weren't used to it!
When we finally got to the mission office we were all relieved!  We offered to take
them to dinner, but they just wanted to get to the airport (they were done with city travel)!
I can't remember if I have mentioned before that even though the airport is only 9 miles away,
it takes 1 1/2 to 2 hours to get there!  We arrived in pretty good shape and because it was
 so late we made it in less than 1 1/2 hours!  They had a long flight ahead of them and were kind
of excited to get on and have a nap!  (They were flying from Tana straight to Paris).  Cal and I were
 also glad to be on our way home!  Well, we were not home free yet!  We accidently made a wrong turn
onto a one way street!  Immediately, we were surrouned by policemen!  The next 15 minutes
were a bit stressful as we tried to explain to 3 different policemen that we were missionaries and we did
 not have a clue of what they we saying to us!  They finally shook their head in digust and
waved us on!  Boy was I glad to get to the safety of our apartment!  It was even worse for
poor Cal because he had been driving since 5:45am and believe me, driving in Madagascar is
STRESSFUL!