In the jungle

Yesterday was a full day. I was invited first to a cruise on the lake, where I learned that Eritrea has nine different languages. Not sure it's a valuable knowledge for me, but still, interesting.

After that we had a private showing of the Masoala-Halle in Zürich zoo. I've been there before but never learned as much as yesterday. We saw a chameleon, you know this tiny insect/whatever that can change colour, but not as I thought 'cause they wanna blend in and avoid predators, but because of their mood. How cool is that? It'd be mind-blowing to think if people could do the same ;).

We saw bats and lemurs, flying and climbing the top of the hall (and it's large!), bamboo trees that in the Masoala hall grows up to 20 centimeters a day (I wonder what they do when they reach the top), and in Madagascar where they come from can grow more than a meter a day!!!

We were informed of the travellers tree, where those in need got water.

We learned that they have a cacao tree (which must be my favourite tree ever), from which they manufactured actual pralines and sold for 200 francs a piece in order to raise money to save the rain forest. All of them sold out, but on the other hand it was only 32 pieces and some guy spent 100 hours doing them.

We saw a tiny little red bird, which I think had something to do with picking bugs out from something, not sure, I lost the guide a bit there.

We looked in wonder at the huge banana trees, and went bananas when we didn't see any :).

The most interesting bit was when we were allowed off-track, where the public normally cannot access, and went trekking in the jungle. I was quietly humming "in the jungle, the mighty jungle..." while crossing stone tracks and tiny, hanging bridges entirely made of rope and wood. A beautiful waterfall. Unfortunately the pic quality is a bit blurry, probably from me shaking a bit.

The day ended with an interesting dinner, where I was sitting across from a biker, who showed me pics of him and the Hells Angels "manager" in Amsterdam. Surprising. He told me he was part of another biker group, and when I asked him what they do in their club besides riding motorcycles, he shrugged his (quiet fat) shoulders and remarked "oh you know, trafficking, drugs and prostitution and such". Then he smiled really sweetly and I realized he was having me on. Which I do believe, 'cause he's not the type, knowing what he does for a living.

Then I got a ride home with somebody who turns out to run her own cleaning company. Very valuable contact, since my cleaning help is no longer available.

All in all, a very interesting day.