Andringitra

Leaving the rain forest, we experienced a dramatic climate and landscape change. We came out of the rain forest, up a steep, windy road - like coming out of a hole in the ground - and very quickly entered a spectacular desert. It was extremely hot, with beautiful, craggy mountains that reminded us of Yosemite and the Tetons.
We stayed in a tented camp that was fairly basic (buggy and hot, also…), but the dramatic beauty made everything worthwhile.
Our main activity here was a hike that we started from the camp with a local guide, George. He had wonderfully limited and creative English to match our even more limited Malagasi and French, but it all worked out. We started the walk via the local village and then ventured into the Enchanted forest looking for the symbol of the Madagascar National Park Service - the iconic Ring Tailed Lemur. We saw plenty and it was so great! In some places, we had to create our own trail and jump from boulder to boulder, but the reward was that we enjoyed watching the antics of an entire family of lemurs by ourselves with most of the females carrying babies – ~ 1 month old.
After the lemur viewing, we climbed up the side of the mountain. Along the way there were caves that George told us was where the “cowboys” slept (the literal boys who watch over the village cows). This turned out to be one of the most exhausting hikes we have done…ever! We found out later that the temperatures were over 40C (over 100F), which explains why we felt so tired. George kept asking if we were “lazy” (we think he meant to ask if we were tired) so this egged us on, even though we very much wanted to stop climbing up hill. In the end, the views were rewarding (no pics, sorry our battery died), but we were relieved when we eventually made it back to camp where we enjoyed some cold sparkling water as our reward.Read more