Day eleven: bamboo cutting and nighthike

A new day, bright and early. We started quite late today, so I had a lot of time for myself in the morning. At around 8.30 we left to collect some bamboo to use for the nursery. This was quite and adventure. We got to a bit of forest with a lot of bamboo and some of us cut the bamboo with machetes and some of us (including me) had to get the long bamboos out of there. Which, let me tell you, is pretty hard hahaha. At some point I went in deeper to guide them through. I was just making my way through endless plants and bamboo. It was really scratchy, spiny, but also really fun. When we collected a lot of bamboo, we had to make our way out of there again, to the open space where we led the bamboo. There I found out Ma and No went back because they were stung by something (which ended up being a wasp). They were really shaken up, but luckily okay. Someone cut the side pieces of the bamboos and then we had to carry all the long bamboos out of the forest back to camp. We all took one or two bamboos (mostly two I think, so did I). This was also quite the adventure, walking with such long sticks through forest with plants and stuff everywhere. I really liked collecting the bamboo, it was quite adventurous.

When we got back, we had a short break. Then we had another Malagasy lesson. We learned the numbers today. The lessons are really nice. After the lesson, I played exploding kittens with K, L and Le until lunch time. After lunch it was mostly getting ready for the night hike.

We left to Lokobe (where the night hike is) by boat. It was a very wet boat ride again hahaha. At Lokobe we had a quick break at a cafe (?) On the island. There was a really cute dog, Fox. She was adorable and really happy and cuddly. So I ofcourse sat there cuddling with her basically the whole time. Then we left by boat to the place where the night hike will be (I think a national park). We met our guides and walked to a waterfall. During this hike we already saw a lot of animals including lemurs, a boa, geckos. The waterfall was really overhyped. They said we would swim there and everything, but the waterfall was basically dry hahaha. So we were all a bit disappointed, but it was beautiful anyways. There is so many true, beautiful, ancient nature here. The trees are so tall, some big, some really thin, but all so high. And the roots are enormous, as well as all the vines. It is so valuable and magical. The nature is like nothing else, nothing can compare to it. It is all so valuable. After this walk, we went back to the boat, to the cafe(?) again. Here we chilled a bit, had a nice dinner, chilled a bit more, and went on our way. This time we walked to the spot for our night hike, as it was low tide now. There were sooooo many flies, it eas awful hahaha. But the stars were amazing!! The entire night, the night sky was just breathtaking. We also saw quite some crabs, also in the forest. During our night hike, there were just random crabs sometimes walking by. It was really strange and funny. We saw a lot of different animals on this hike, it was great!! Also a lot of metamorphosising cicadas. We saw lemurs high in the trees, a lot of Uroplatus Henkeli (leaf tailed gecko), which are very impressive. But most amazing was the Brookesia Minima. Those are the very very small chameleons. Fedy and Émile were very passionately looking for them and Fedy found one!!! It was sooooo cute and cool and impressive and amazing. It's so small! I am still amazed by the fact that he found one. 

To conclude: the night hike was a succes :)

We walked back, I talked with L and K about the universe, deep sea, etc. It was really nice. I then sat at the beach in front of the cafe(?) looking at the stars until we went to leave again. Sadly this took a lot longer than planned. We were supposed to leave at around 22.30, but left about an hour later. We were just mindlessly waiting, wanting to go to bed. The boat ride back was amazing though! Bioluminescense around to boat again and still the beautiful night sky.