Rachel joined Rainbow Tours in 2011 and is one of our Madagascar specialists. While she was living in Madagascar for nine months, as part of her University degree in biological sciences, she madly fell in love with the country. She says she was blown away by the friendly communities, the weird and wonderful wildlife as well as the locally brewed larger called Three Horse Beer!
During her time in Madagascar, Rachel lived in Andasibe, on the outskirts of the Andasibe-Mantadia National Park (Perinet) and worked on conservation projects, and taught English to the local people. On her days off, Rachel travelled the country extensively by bush taxi, visiting some of the most remote rural parts of the country. She explored many of the diverse National Parks and spotted over 30 species of lemur, even shaking hands with one! While there are too many to mention, some of her highlights include exploring the remote and unspoilt Mitsio archipelago 40 miles from Nosy Be and the exhilarating night walks by torchlight in the wildlife rich forests.
One of the biggest challenges of her stay in Madagascar was the 30 nights she spent camping in the forest searching for and collecting information on the endangered Golden Mantella – a small orange frog found only at a few sites in Madagascar, for her university paper. It was during this time that she saw, first hand, the problems that Madagascar has with deforestation, conservation and the illegal collection and trade of animals.
Rachel has recently visited the gorillas in Rwanda where she was entranced by the experience and describes her encounter in a blog post, 'Africa's Gentle Giants'. She has also travelled to Kenya and Tanzania.
Read more about Rachel Dobb