Western Madagascar - Madagascar - page 207

Park guides also organise one-hour night walks (Ar25,000). Unfortunately, visitors are
no longer allowed in the park at night, so the walk simply follows paths along the RN4.
That said, night time is still your best chance to see the tiny mouse lemur, and chameleons
are easier to spot by torchlight too.
SLEEPING & EATING
Gîte d'Ampijoroa HOTEL €€
( 62 780 00; [e-mail]; camping Ar6000, r without bathroom Ar35,000,
bungalows Ar80,000) The national park offers several types of accommodation, all of
which are adequate but not particularly great. The camping facilities are good, but the
pitches, close to the road and a little exposed, are not that enticing. The rooms are more
sheltered, but the shared facilities are really scraping the barrel. As for the bungalows
(which sleep up to four), they are certainly very spacious, if not luxurious.
The redeeming feature of this motley assortment of sleeping options is the park's res-
taurant, which serves delicious three-course meals for a bargain Ar10,000. (Note that some
of the guides' families run little eateries in the area and guides might try to get you to eat
there instead of the park's restaurant).
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST
The ploughshare tortoise has long been endangered in Madagascar. The tor-
toise's vulnerability comes in part from its unusual mating habits - in order to
mate, the male tortoise must become aroused by fighting with other males.
Males fight by locking together the front of their shells, which are shaped like a
plough, before trying to tip each other over. If no other males are available to
fight with, the male is unable to copulate and thus numbers drop. More details
on the ploughshare's bizarre sexual habits can be found in the topic The Aye-Aye
and I by Gerald Durrell, whose estate runs the Durrell Wildlife Conservation
Trust .
This trust has been operating a very successful captive breeding programme
in Parc National d'Ankarafantsika for 25 years. Although it took many years of
trial and error in the sex-therapy department, the world's rarest tortoise is now
breeding here so successfully (400 have been bred over the last 25 years) that 45
have been reintroduced in the wild.
The Durrell project has had such success with the ploughshare that it's expan-
ded its breeding program to the flat-tailed tortoise and the highly-endangered
side-necked turtle living only in Madagascar's western lakes.