We waited for Nestor and when he arrived, Marcel produced an enormous plate of spaghetti. It was then that Nestor said that seven hours of looking he had not heard one Lemur and had seen no sign of the Silkies. He would try again in the afternoon in a more northerly direction. I was now concerned and after he hurriedly ate his lunch he disappeared again. Meanwhile after our more leisurely lunch Guy suggested looking in the bushes for the local wildlife. It was during our coffee after lunch that Guy let drop some interesting information when he noticed I was concerned about not seeing the Silky Sifakas during my trek. It turned out that not only did Guy, Nestor and Marcel work for Erik Patel and his research team from the USA, researching a particular group of Silkies (the one Nestor was trying to locate), but that all three had worked for the BBC Bristol National History unit and a couple of years ago with Eric Patel. Guy had even escorted David Attenborough and Nestor had tracked for him. Wow I really did have the best team. Now I felt confident of seeing the Sifakas.


Then as Marcel was clearing away dinner, Guy spotted a beautiful Ring Tailed Mongoose approaching the top end of camp . This was great as i wanted to see this beautiful creature, which was much better looking than those I had seen on the Indian subcontinent. Actually two eventually appeared and treated me to a good thirty minutes.


Down in the bushes at the front of camp, Guy found large Geckos, a tree snake, a large Praying Mantis, several Chameleons including a very small Brookesia Chameleon, plus several frogs, spiders and some beautiful forest Ibis. All in an afternoons’s work. Later Nestor arrived at dusk to say he had spotted the group and that evening over dried fish we plotted our strategy for the following day.


That night it sounded like the wind was howling and the rain teaming down. I heard Nestor leave and shut his bungalow door at 4.30am and I watched the sun rise through the gaps of the wooden panels of my bungalow. At 6.00am i had breakfast with Guy, who said, “no it didn’t rain last night, it is just that here, sometimes it sounds like it…”


We left at 7 .00am climbing slowly the steep pathway towards Camp Three, some six kilometres away. Despite the lack of rain and the beautiful blue sky above, the sunlight light hardly touched the jungle floor which was sill treacherous with rotten roots and slippery stones. The going was hard (although I was soon realising that going up was easier than going down) and involved big steps from one level to the next hanging onto trees and bamboo.


We passed the Madagascar version of the walking tree I had seen in the Peruvian Amazon and we spotted a group of Red Bellied Lemurs after climbing for an hour. It was whilst we were watching these Lemurs negotiate the tops of the trees that we heard Nestor’s first call. His pre-arranged calls told guy he had found the Silkies, but they were moving west and consequently we had to back track.


Slipping and sliding back down the path we went and in no time we were back at Camp Two, where we headed straight off in a different direction . Again this involved a steep ascent on the opposite side and this time the track was well and truly overgrown. It involved crawling at times and almost climbing up slippery embankments but slowly Nestor’s calls became closer and closer until we met.


When he saw me he turned around and gestured to just below the canopy and there swinging towards me was an ‘Angel of the Jungle’. It was a sight magical and the Silky was so elegant in the way it powered through the branches before alighting at its chosen food tree. This was the dominant female and leader of the group. Behind followed the youngsters and finally the male.


The group then stopped and fed for several minutes before moving on right above our heads towards the great escarpment I had climbed up yesterday. We followed. They were every bit as awesome as I had hoped. Big balls of white fluff with long furry tails and black faces . When they sat to feed, you could only then get an idea of the size of their powerful feet and muscular tails. They did not make much noise, certainly compared to the Indris, and seemed quite keen to mingle together on branches (well the youngsters did). The male kept a distance at the back and appeared quite independent, yet the female was certainly the boss and lead the way. This was the research group, Guy confirmed, and consequently were quite used to the presence of humans and completely ignored the three of us below them. The had a 44 square kilometre territory, which included Camps two & three and according to the professors there were somewhere between 100-500 of these beautiful creatures left, in this national park and adjacent reserve - their only habitats left on the planet. I just watched.


After twenty minutes, Guy grabbed my arm and told me he had heard the call of the Helmet Vanga. Originally I was aware that a sighting of this extraordinary bird was unlikely at this time of year, but Guy was now charging ahead of me down the slope amongst solid vegetation . I followed, underneath the Silkies and slid down the brown leaf lined slope. Guy caught me as I slid past and pointed up to the trees and there sitting on one branch was a Helmet Vanga. Larger than I anticipated, it is so strange that the only way to describe its huge blue beak is that it looked not unlike a sort of Blue Toucan. It uses this huge blue beak to resonate its calls through the forest. Not only that, but it has striking brown/orange markings. Beautiful and its the emblem of this National Park.


We clambered back up the slope, much to Nestor’s amusement, to continue to view the Silky Sifaka’s who had just ignored what was going on below. During the time I had been photographing the Vangas, the Silkies moved to the trees overlooking the embankment which afforded me (standing at the top of the slope) head height views of these lemurs. Unusually this excellent viewing carried on for a full three hours, whereupon all six, slowly dropped into the forest trees below . We headed back to Camp, for lunch.


I was elated. That was an amazing spectacle and one which will be difficult to forget. That afternoon the rain returned and the four of us just sat in the restaurant and chatted. After dinner, with the rain stopped, Guy took me on a night walk, finding one gigantic tree leaf Gecko (who had lost his tail), several interesting frogs and a sleeping Madagascan Pygmy Kingfisher (sleeping in a ball on a branch) which this time I managed to photograph. All in all a fabulous day.


The next morning the guys packed and we left camp early. The way back was slippery but with the four of us together, we made quick progress to Camp One. Guy was spotting more Chameleons, even Chameleon eggs and white faced Lemurs as we went (although these were high in the trees). Then he found a posing Pygmy Kingfisher, perched on a reasonably close branch who was content not to move. I got all the pictures that I wanted of this tiny orange kingfisher that only hunts in the jungle not on the riverbank.


Further down we passed group after group heading in the other direction on this Easter Monday. I was glad we were leaving. At the edge of the park I felt strange, and later dizzy. By the time I reached the village some 19 Kilometres later I knew I was ill, not hypoing. Guy arranged a taxi as I now felt that I had a fever and they whisked me off quickly to Sambava. Before leaving I said goodbye to Guy, Nestor and Marcel - the dream team.


Back in Sambava at Bruno’s, I could control neither end of my body and I had a bad temperature, all in 35C Sambava heat. I was glad I had 36 hours before my flight. My muscles ached and my limbs hurt and I was unsure about the cause. I was so looking forward to Bruno’s food, yet I decided after a very bad night - that I should not eat and finally after 24 hours started feeling better.


By the time I had returned to the airport with all the many plane watchers waiting the Boeings arrival outside the terminal (hut) I felt just 40 %. When we landed in Diego Suarez, I went straight to my Guesthouse, the La Belle Aventura and straight to bed.