lemurs, birds and snakes! oh my!

The drive up to the Tsingy national park wasn't as tough as we'd been led to believe. We were told that the road was terrible, but in fact as it was actually a single track route that was pretty smooth, it was a vast improvement over the Morombe to Belo route. We even managed to hit about 70mph for a few minutes on a couple of sections. Like our other 4x4 journey, we passed through a variety of landscapes including the famed "Avenue of the Baobabs" as well as grasslands, dry deciduous forest and dried up rivers (it's the winter/dry season right now). There were also a few rural farmed areas (rice paddies mainly) and small towns and settlements. When we passed them, instead of being greeted by the children with "salama fazahar", they ran towards the road waving and calling out "eau vivre" in chorus or on a copule of occasions, "cadeaux" or "bon bon". This route clearly sees many tourists.

"Eau vivre" by the way is a plea for our empty water bottles which are reused as vessels for carrying all manner of liquids, candle holders or made into toys by the children.

Along the road we'd pass the occasional zebu cart - the local methods of transport. Most of the women that we passed had a straight posture and were carrying buckets or shopping bags on their heads. The men that we passed were rarely - if at all - seen without a tool of some sort. Whereas near Andavadoaka it was usually an axe, in this region it was more likely to be an "?" shaped blade on the end of a stick, a spear or an axe. You wouldn't want to mess with any of them. But then again at least if you broke down in the vicinity of one of these guys, there'd be available tools for repairs.

The Tsingy National Park exceeded all my expectations. Words really can't do this sort of vast scenery justice, so I'm not even going to try. Okay, well just a little bit. I'll start with a brief explanation of the landscape. The Tsingy is Malagasy for "walking on tiptoe" because the first settlers in the region collected honey and the only way to walk on the spiky limestone rock was on tip toe. Tsingy is the name for the limestone rock - ancient coral reefs - which now rise up from the forest like spiky skyscrapers as a result of tectonic movement millions of years ago. Because of the acidity of the rain, these limestone formations are constantly changing as the rock is eroded by the rains each year. Our leaflet describes the Tsingy thus: "from a very thick system of faults, cracks, calcareous blocks areas sculpted in sharp blades or needles". don't know if that helps you imagine it or not. Probably not. Certainly, nothing I'd read about really gave me any idea of the vastness of this landscape, nor how dramatic it would actually be to be in amongst it.

We did four different 'circuits' altogether over our three days there plus a short gorge trip on a pirogue. Our guide for all trips, Narciss, was extremely knowledgeable and hugely enthusiastic about all things Tsingy - animate and inanimate - and I learnt a lot. He was able to identify all the birds by their calls alone, and once he'd heard a bird, would get out his binoculars and search them out for us. We saw over 20 different species including four different kinds of raptors. We also saw three different kinds of lemur - in the forest and climbing on the Tsingy and startled one group of grey bamboo lemurs who were hanging out right by the path we were walking on. We also surprised a snake on our very first walk which made me jump just a little.

All of our circuits took us into the forests and we were able to see the Tsingy from all angles. From the side from the forest, from the ground, as we sidled in between the cracks, from underneath in the caves and caverns and from the top after clambering and climbing up rocks, ladders and across suspension bridges. We had climbing harnesses which I was exceedingly grateful for at times, especially as we teetered precariously over huge drops, deep crevices and jagged rocks. I loved every moment of it. I especially loved the different formations of the rocks, seeing the massive roots of all the different trees and seeing how the rain had affected the limestone in the caves.

After three days and four hikes in the Tsingy, it was time to move onto another national park - the Kirindy Forest - which was on our way back to Morondava. Our accommodation was more basic and in the forest. We were underwhelmed by our night walk even though we did see a couple of kinds of lemurs including a cute mouse lemur. However, our day walk the following day was much more exciting as we had several encounters with families of lemurs - two kinds - and I was astounded to find on a number of occasions that my zoom lens on my camera was just too zoomy - we were too close! We also saw more birds but only two kinds of lizards. It's the wrong season for reptiles apparently - so our snake sighting was especially lucky it seems.

And now, after arriving back in Morondava, we had a couple of days to chill out before hopping on a short (one hour) flight to Tana. Tomorrow we head east for some more national parks and hopefully more birds, lemurs and maybe some reptiles.

Favourite photograph that I didn't take: Woman in the town of Belo Sur Tsirinbina carrying a sewing machine on her head! She had rather a huge bottom, so I think that helped counter balance the weight of the old-style Singer sewing machine.