our first day: Wow!

The alarm clock wakes us up and after breakfast we meet the driver who is supposed to take us to the airport for our onward flight to Morondava. However, the driver informs us that the flight has been canceled. Great! We knew that Malagasy flights are not very reliable, but we had to digest the fact that our first flight is a failure... The driver then takes us to the office of the travel agency PRIORI to discuss the next steps. There, we are informed that the flight may be rescheduled for the next day. While the office is making confirmation calls, we visit the pirate museum. Michaël, an employee of PRIORI, tells us exciting stories about piracy, which was also a stronghold in Madagascar. After the visit, we receive the confirmation: Air Madagascar will fly the next day! So we can enjoy the afternoon in peace and visit a lemur park that is not reprehensible. On the way there, we have to pass through the bustling capital: everywhere all sorts of things are being produced and sold. Goods are being pushed or carried on the head everywhere. A tangle of cars, buses, people, dogs, and chickens. The landscape changes slightly outside the city. Instead of houses, rice fields and fields where bricks are being extracted and fired can now be seen. Then we reach the lemur park and enter: We have only taken a few steps when the guide shows us the first chameleon next to the roadside. Yay! Our first chameleon! Not even 30 seconds later, I discover a second one myself and a minute later a third one, which is walking in the middle of the road and we almost stepped on it. And so it continues... Then we see the first lemurs. They are beautiful, brown and white sifakas with big round eyes that curiously observe us. Incredibly cute. On the ground, they move forward sideways by hopping, which looks incredibly funny. We also see black and white lemurs, small brown bamboo lemurs, and the well-known ring-tailed lemurs with their black and white striped tails. The park is about 5 hectares in size, in which the lemurs can move around more or less freely. However, it seems that the rangers make sure that the lemurs do not stray too far from the feeding stations so that the tourists can actually see them... After visiting the park, we go to a sprawling market, which is mainly intended for tourists with its souvenirs. We also see whole, dried crocodiles and products made from their leather :-(. I would like to write something about the people here. They are all so different. You look at one face and think of Africa, the next face looks Asian again. A few are clearly better off and better dressed, many wear simple clothes, and at least as many do not even have that and wear dirty, torn clothing. We see many children on the streets, some of them have very simple toys, for example, a PET bottle with 4 wheels made from PET bottle caps that is pulled behind them on a string... That is quite impressive! In the evening, we are accommodated in a very nice hotel and enjoy an excellent zebu skewer...