Blue-leg chameleon and small bamboo lemur
Another long journey today, ten hours to Ranomafana. But we are never bored as the countryside is stunning, consisting of fertile terraces and valleys, interspersed with huge granite boulders. There is a stretch of indigenous forest, the last remaining in this area; Madagascar has lost 80% of its forest thanks to mankind. It has been replaced with fast-growing eucalyptus and pines for building and firewood. Colourful lantana line the way. Everyone is working in the fields, preparing for planting, watering potatoes by hand in their geometric raised-bed rows. Ducks and geese waddle round all villages – apparently they return every night, a natural homing instinct.
The day after the colloquium, the organiser Mojmír Jeřábek and Táňa Klementová have organised a trip to Boskovice to visit Hermann Ungar’s birthplace and tour the old Jewish ghetto. We are accompanied by a group of elderly members of the German Club from Brno. A number of the older generation still have German as a first language (as did my family and most assimilated Jews) – a legacy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. 
vickygoestravelling 