The Lemurs Park, Antananarivo, Madagascar, May 17, 2025

I flew to Madagascar May 14 - 16, to volunteer building homes with Fuller Center for Housing.  It was a long trip, about 34 hours door to door, Phoenix to Washington, DC. to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to Antananarivo, Madagascar.  Most of our team arrived to play tourists on Saturday, May 17. Our team hotel was in the capital, Antananarivo.  On Saturday, May 17, our team visited the Lemurs Park just outside the city.  The 50 odd lemurs are free to wander in the park.

Our group included all of us plus a few other visitors to the park.  Our tour leader spoke excellent English.  In addition to the lemurs, we also saw many beautiful plants in bloom.

Some of the bamboo plants were massive, as big in diameter as my hand.

Because the lemurs were free to roam, we saw them in the trees, jumping and climbing up and down, as well as on the ground.

Madagascar is south of the equator, so it was actually fall season. 

There is a river running through the park.

 

After the tour, we visited the gift shop.  I was all set to buy souvenirs, but miscalculated the exchange rate and did not get any here.  I did buy from some shops near our hotel.

 

Late Spring in Phoenix, May 1 - 15, 2025

It was a warm month - no, really, it was hot!!  That said, we still got out and did things.  At the DBG, many cacti were in bloom.

I did see critters when walking around the DBG.

I took a quick walk behind the scenes to see the construction progress at the DBG and then was reprimanded for crossing into the area - violated all the safety rules for volunteers.

We added plants to both the front and back patios at our home at the Beatitudes.

Patty and I both signed up for both a dementia study, but our schedules precluded us from signing up for this study - that said, I have used Waymo before. 

The Beatitudes did create a new forum for us residents to try to help improve the place.

Patty's hummingbird feeders certainly attract many visitors.

Otherwise, the first half of May was a relatively quiet time.