Overlooking Ranomafana National Park from our hotel; Setam Lodge

On our way from Antsirabe to Ranomafana the landscape changed dramatically. It was clear to see that from Tana to Antsirabe the land was being used for agriculture. The air was thick with smoke from bush fires created for what is known as slash and burn farming. The technique is adopted by just about every local man and woman where they burn the scrub to regenerate the minerals and plant new arable crops. Unfortunately there is no option of crop rotation so, after the land has been farmed the once, the farmer moves on to repeat the process. It is having a devastating effect on the landscape, environment and in turn the wildlife of Madagascar. You can hardly blame the Malagasy people though as they're just trying to scratch out a living in one of the poorest countries in the world.

What was originally dominated with rice paddies, clay fields and other areas carved out for farming from Tana to Antsirabe, as you got closer to Ranomafana the thick rainforest started to take over. We stopped for lunch at what seemed to be the little known reserve of Yalatsara. It is a working farm which has dedicated a large portion of it's land to the environment. The wildlife thrives and attracts visitors doing the same as us and stopping on the way to Ranomafana. The farm owner had already set up a table for us to have lunch which was the one option of Zebu (cattle) steak, rice and vegetables. Given the location of this reserve the owner did a remarkable job and lunch was delicious. We got our first taste of the comparatively basic accommodation of Madagascar with the toilets - they were wooden shacks with bucket of water to flush. You don't travel to Madagascar for luxury, you travel there for the fact that just about everything you see you won't find anywhere else in the world.

We were joined at lunch by 3 Peacock Day Geckos clinging to the wooden buildings of the farm all on the lookout for insects to eat. No sooner had we finished then our guide for the afternoon came to greet us and beckoned us to follow him...