Big Tsingy

That’s not a typo. Tsingy is a Malagasy word meaning “the place where one cannot walk barefoot” or “walking on tiptoes”.

That picture was from the top of the hike we did, and those limestone needles and sharp edges are every bit as painful to walk on as you suspect. The full name of the park is Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park and it is located in NW Madagascar, about 2/3 the way up the west side of the island.

To get to that viewpoint above, we first climbed through a dry forest, and found some unique birds. Sorry, you’re just going to have to be patient…

Madagascar Parrot (yes, it’s black)

Malagasy Paradise-Flycatcher

And the neatest to me was a forest Madagascar Pygmy Kingfisher. I thought kingfishers always lived by water -

He’s 5 inches long and weighs less than an ounce. I find his stubby little tail adorable. :)

Before we could climb up to the top, we passed through a cave, walking by tree roots…

… and some beautiful formations on the walls…

… and nearly crawling on all fours, before we reached the ladder and cables section -

Steve enjoys snapping pics of me at work -

Once on top, everywhere we turned we saw “stone forest” interspersed with green trees -

Climbing on down continued to be interesting…

… but the swinging bridge really wasn’t as scary as many others we’ve crossed. ;-)

I really liked the horizontal cuts that made the rocks look like they were floating

Continuing on…

… through the rocks…

… we arrived in the forest again, to find another species of lemur -

Von der Decken’s Sifaka -

(this species doesn’t have the black cap of the other Sifaka we saw)

The next day, we started our two longest days of driving. This first one was “only” 8 hours, on roads like this…

… and this….

… that Steve aptly described as “steeplechase” -

(this was taken from the middle of the shallow but wide stream we were crossing)

There were some water crossings where you couldn’t be sure which was the safest way through, but the sticks were there to guide you (and you paid the guy working in the river, who put them up) -

We made it safely through the steeplechase course to arrive back at the Avenue of the Baobabs in time for sunset…

… and a sundowner of rum punch.

Kirindy Forest

Along the west coast, north of Morondava, is an area of deciduous dry forest that’s loaded with unique bird and animal life. I will try to keep the bird pictures to a minimum, but they are so beautiful! :)

Giant Coua

The afternoon that we arrived, we went on a walk in the woods (when it was about 90 degrees and without any breeze). It was definitely worth it, for all the wildlife we saw. First up were some Red-fronted Brown Lemurs…

… which were quite thirsty (be sure and open the email in your browser to see the videos) -

(apparently it’s ok to give the lemurs water in a snail shell, but not to feed them)

A Verreaux’s Sifaka and her little baby really moved around right in front of us -

A pair of White-browed Owls were just chillin’…

… and a usually nocturnal Gray Mouse Lemur peeked out at us from his den…

… and then got bolder -

He is about 5 inches long and weighs about 2 ounces.

The guide rubbed a twig along the edge of the hole, causing sap to be extruded:

Then just after dark, we went on a night hike, and saw even more lemurs, like the Fork-marked Lemur…

…and the Pygmy Mouse Lemur (which is smaller than the Gray by 1/2 inch & 1/2 oz) to be the smallest lemur in the world -

After staying in a very rustic cabin in the eco-lodge in the private reserve, we got up early for a bird-watching walk, and I definitely won’t bore you with all the unique and beautiful birds we saw. But I just have to show you the White-breasted Mesite that had all the birders with their long lenses agog around us. Apparently these are fairly rare, even in Madagascar, which is the only place in the world that they live -

Anyway… we moved on north from here, and had a very interesting river crossing. First we got to ogle a herd of Zebu, which are the local cattle (both genders have horns, but the males’ are much more impressive)…

… including this gorgeous guy -

We were able to watch as the car ferry loaded…

… and luckily, this didn’t happen to us -

this was on the far side of the river, which we were treated to as we arrived and drove off the car ferry safely

The second river crossing of the afternoon was much smaller, which was good, because the ferries didn’t have working motors:

This was our reward after arriving safely after a long day. G’night!

Madagascar!

On our journey to this island nation off the SE coast of Africa, we spent a night in Johannesburg, South Africa. I mention this because we had a very interesting and delicious dinner there. We sought out the restaurant - Tribes African Grill - because the menu featured all manner of grilled meats. We greatly enjoyed the Mixed Grill that included ostrich, warthog, impala and kudu. Rather than posting a stock photo of a kudu, I urge you to search online and check out this beautiful animal. Of the four meats, we enjoyed ostrich and kudu the most - they were moist, tender and had very pleasing flavors. We don’t know for a fact that these animals are farmed, rather than hunted in the wild, but we strongly suspect that.

Now on to Madagascar…

As we approached the airport, you could see lots of red dirt, agricultural patches and mostly dirt roads. On the ground, we found that the capital of Antananarivo was well into the spring season of planting rice:

Anywhere there was flat land and a way to get a lot of water to it, rice is grown. It is the staple crop of the country -

Our flight to Morondava was cancelled at the last minute due to equipment problems, so we spent an unscheduled extra night in “Tana”. [That’s a much easier way to refer to the capital than its full name.] The next day we arrived safely on the west coast and the home of the “famous” Avenue of the Baobabs -

There are 7 species of baobab in the world and 5 are endemic to Madagascar. A sixth occurs in both Madagascar and Africa, while the seventh is in Australia. When they are young…

… they have a lot of branches. As they grow older and bigger, the branches become so heavy that they break off, giving the trees their distinctive shape -

A baobab is essentially an enormous sponge surrounded by bark. The local people cut into them to reach the stored water, but they are not cut down, as they are protected by law. They also harvest the bark for use as roofing materials. The trees have remarkable regenerative properties, so the bark grows back, somewhat like cork trees.

I repeatedly put Steve up against trees that I was photographing, to show just how massive they are -

Those were the common species, while this next one is frequently referred to as the “Rasta” one (with so many branches hanging down) -

Other famous residents of the island include chameleons…

… and lemurs -

Red-fronted Brown Lemur

I plan to be sharing with you all the different species of lemurs especially that we saw on our travels here. I think my favorite family is the Sifaka, because of their striking coloration. These are Verreaux’s sifakas…

… and the baby was really cute to watch. As usual, to see the video, you’ll need to open this post in your browser by clicking on the link at the end of the post -

I think I’ll wrap up this post, a little on the short side, because I just wanted to give you a quick overview of this very diverse country (and internet is very spotty). As I have before, I try to get a picture of a country’s flag, so here’s Madagascar’s -