Madagascar - Rock Down To Baobab Avenue

June 26

Hello everyone!

Favourite trees? In a line? With the Sun setting behind them? Yes please!

Avenue of the Baobabs

The Sun setting with a stunning view before it

One of the main reasons I wanted to come to Madagascar was to see something I first found in a book called Atlas Obscura. This fascinating book highlights remote, mesmeric and often strange places which are free from throngs of tourists. In the book there was a beautiful picture of a place in Madagascar. They called it ‘The Avenue of the Baobabs’.

Quite a few places in the book are very difficult to get to

The site name in French

I booked a group trip to western Madagascar primarily to see this street lined with big baobab trees. Getting there from the Tsingy, however, is a laborious task. Though not far on a map, we had to leave early in the morning in order to have a chance of making it to the avenue for sunset.

We were very close to the coast, staying the night after in Morondava

The quality of the roads led to a very bumpy ride

One car's 'track rod' had broken - lots of drivers stopped to help

We had to cross two rivers with our 4x4 vehicles. To do this, the car drives onto a set of wooden slabs which rest on canoes. A petrol engine emitting foul fumes then fires up and drives the cars, which are held on by carefully-placed stones, across the murky waters.

The loading bay

Before crossing the larger Tsiribiniha river, we stopped for lunch in the town of Belo-sur-Tsiribiniha. We had passed through this place on the way and had noticed a fun-sounding restaurant called Mad Zebu. Turns out this place has quite the story.

Often described as having the best food in the country

The son of the owner moved to France when quite young and became quite the competent chef, ending up working in a Michelin-star restaurant. Those skills have now been transferred back to Belo. The result is a small restaurant, in the middle of nowhere, which serves dishes which wouldn’t look out of place in the fine dining halls of Paris.

A starter of crab, avocado and fish eggs

Giant shrimp

As the hours passed and the Sun began to head west, lonely baobabs began to emerge in the parched fields in ever-increasing numbers.

6 of the 9 species of baobab are from Madagascar

Some baobabs are seen as particularly important in Malagasy culture, containing spirits and powers. We stopped at two particularly interesting trees which you can see below.

At this sacred baobab, which is well over 1000 years old,
locals will offer rum to the spirits for good fortune

This is the 'Baobab Lovers' tree, which is reminiscient
of the Dancing Houses building in Prague

From here, as the number of fazhady (foreigners) started to increase, we turned right down another sandy track. The car pulled in on the side of the road and we got out to walk towards the Avenue of the Baobabs.

Walking up to the 'Avenue' - it's actually the same road

It is a fascinating sight. My first impression was that this has to be man-made; essentially a regular dirt road with gigantic, ancient trees replacing skinny streetlights. 

Baobabs can be up to 50 metres in circumference

To have this many in such close proximity is rare

Maybe it is - maybe the road was steered through this particular route. I also felt that ithe avenue was shorter than I had hyped up in my mind. I should temper any disappoint though. To have this many baobabs in close proximity is rare enough; to have them in more or less in two straight and parallel lines less than 10 metres apart is pretty special.

The bark looks very smooth

The branches at the top evoke an image of Medusa

Most people - and there were the best part of 100 visitors - come for sunset. The late afternoon light colours the baobabs in beautiful golds and reds. 

Lovely colours as the Sun dips

The shadows became very long

An increasingly common annoyance at places of wonder around the world, the peaceful silence was unfortunately interrupted by the buzzing of drones hovering above. 

Can you see the drone in the top right corner?

Still, the silhouettes of the old trees as the Sun dips behind them is a lovely thing to witness. Today was Madagascar’s Independence Day - the top-quality food of Mad Zebu and the wonder of the Avenue of the Baobabs showed the country at its best.

Love you all,

Matt

Madagascar - Scaling the Tsingy

June 23-25

Hello everyone!

If I had actually come to Madagascar last Christmas, there is quite a lot of the country that I wouldn’t have been able to see. When it rains here, it rains hard. Combined with the quality of the roads, it makes many places inaccessible between November and April. My next destination, the Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park, is one that can’t be visited for almost half of the year.

Some very big tsingy

Viewing platforms give some pretty good views

Tsingy is a Malagasy word which roughly translates as ‘where one cannot walk barefoot’. You will see why in the pictures. A tsingy is a large pinnacle of limestone rock which has been naturally carved and hewn over millions of years by acidic rain and weathering from the wind. This national park, far away from any notable towns, protects over 150,000 hectares of them. 

Some fossils suggest the presence of life forms here millions of years ago

It became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1990

And boy are they tall. Access to the park is generally split into two sections: the ‘Petit Tsingy’ and the ‘Grand Tsingy’. We visited the smaller park first - it would make the relatively small tsingy seem a bit underwhelming if we went there second, but it’s also far easier to access.

Driving from the river to the park area took an afternoon of bumpy roads

Lots of clambering and climbing for 2 days

Before entering the park we had the chance to view the tsingy from a pirogue. After having to switch boats as ours was sinking, we glided quietly down the small river, admiring the scale of the rocks and burning under the glare of the Sun.

There wasn't much margin for error!

Being on the boat also shows you another effect of erosion. The annual rising of the river has, over a long period of time, chipped away at the lower part of the rock. This has created some small caves to explore. The video will show you the interesting noise made by some of the rocks inside the caves.

The entrance to a cave

The little tsingy was our introduction to clambering over, under and through the limestone. Amongst the rocks were many trees, vines and flowers.

Cactus-style plants climb from some of the rocks

Rocks in the Small Tsingy rise up to 30 metres tall

The wildlife wasn’t just restricted to plants...

Quite a large spider - luckily far away from us!

Gecko

The largest animal was found at the end, when we spotted a sifaka lemur hopping around. The only predator for the lemurs, the fosa, is present in the park but stays very hidden.

The second largest species of lemur

The following day we woke early, seeing a magically misty sunrise, before driving for an hour on what the locals here class as a road before finding the entrance to the Grand Tsingy. With spires reaching up towards 100 metres from the ground, we were instructed to put harnesses on.

Sunrise with a morning mist

Testing our harnesses

For a rocky place, it has a lot of trees. Surprised me a bit, that, though it does give a place for lemurs to live.

Common brown lemur

Like the rocks, the trees soar high above the floor

After traipsing through a small forest, we started our attack on the Grand Tsingy.  There is a route which is quite easy to follow and has climbers in mind. Some of the gaps are quite narrow…

More difficult to climb, these ones...

Good trainers are necessary for hiking along some quite sharp points

Some sections are quite steep…

Leading the charge up the tsingy

This section required the harness - the
drop was pretty big!

But all of the views are jaw-droppers.

Grand Tsingy

Not for people with a fear of heights, this place

Connecting two sections of the park is a long, hanging bridge, with a drop exceeding 25 metres. Being the sensible person that I am, I decided to run across without attaching my harness. It’s quite difficult to run when it’s bouncing so much!

Harness: optional

I find it amazing that there is life here in what can look like an alien landscape. Under the rocks we saw many beautiful reptiles and shared our lunch with a mongoose, whose long, fluffy tail was a lovely red and black.

The surprising colours found in the Grand Tsingy

After four days either sat in a car or on a boat, it was nice to do something active. Scrambling around the spiky rocks was a real treat.

Our group atop the Grand Tsingy

Well-deserved beers after!

Love you all,

Matt