Madagascar

Antananarivo (“Tana”, “the city of a thousand warriors”) is built on 12 hills above the Betsimitatatra rice paddy plains — a dramatic, stacked city of Merina royal palaces (the Rova of Antananarivo, a 17th-century royal compound, burned in 1995 and partially restored) and French colonial architecture. The Zoma market (“Friday market”) continues as the largest open-air market in Africa.

💡 Madagascar’s Malagasy people are genetically and linguistically Austronesian (from Borneo and the Indonesian archipelago) — their ancestors crossed 7,000km of open Indian Ocean in outrigger canoes around 650 CE and settled an island that had been uninhabited by humans throughout hominin evolution. There is no closer genetic relationship between Malagasy and mainland Africans than with Southeast Asians.

8h drive from Tana via Morondava. The Avenue of the Baobabs (Allee des Baobabs) — a 250m stretch of unpaved road lined with 20–30 Adansonia grandidieri baobabs, 800 years old, 30m tall, their massive silver trunks glowing orange at sunset — is the most photographed natural scene in Madagascar and one of the most striking on earth.

💡 The Avenue of the Baobabs is a remnant of the dense dry deciduous forest that once covered this region — the trees survived because the surrounding forest was cleared for rice cultivation over centuries, leaving only the trees that were too large to remove. The baobabs are estimated to be 800–1,200 years old.

40km north of Morondava. Kirindy Forest — the finest dry deciduous forest in Madagascar, home to the fossa (Cryptoprocta ferox — Madagascar’s apex predator, a cat-like carnivore more closely related to the mongoose than any cat, 80cm long, capable of killing lemurs three times its weight, the strangest large predator on earth), seven lemur species and the giant jumping rat.

💡 The fossa (pronounced “foo-sa”) is the only large carnivore on Madagascar — it evolved in total isolation from Africa’s mammalian predators for 88 million years and is the result of a completely independent evolutionary pathway from any other carnivore on earth. Its closest living relative is the Malagasy mongoose. Fewer than 2,500 adults remain.

5h from Morondava. Isalo National Park (81,540 hectares, a Jurassic sandstone massif eroded into canyon systems, natural swimming pools and bizarre silhouettes) — the “Window of Isalo” (a natural stone arch framing a perfect sunset), the Piscine Naturelle (a natural pool of ice-cold water in a canyon fed by a cascade) and ring-tailed lemurs on the canyon rims.

💡 Isalo’s sandstone was deposited in the Jurassic period (180–150 million years ago) when Madagascar was still part of the Gondwana supercontinent. The erosion has exposed cross-bedded sandstone in canyon walls revealing the ancient river systems of a world before mammals. The shapes — pillars, arches, balanced rocks — are more reminiscent of Utah than Africa.

A full day in Isalo’s canyons — ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta, the most recognisable of Madagascar’s 100+ lemur species, with their long black-and-white striped tails and orange eyes) warming themselves on the canyon rocks at dawn, the Cascade des Nymphes (a 30m waterfall into a natural pool), and the Tomb of the Kings (Bara people burial sites in the cliff faces).

💡 Ring-tailed lemurs are the most terrestrial of all lemur species — they spend more time on the ground than any other lemur, travelling up to 1km per day in social groups. Female ring-tailed lemurs are dominant over males — an unusual arrangement in primates. They communicate by scent-marking with specialised glands on their wrists.

6h from Isalo. Ranomafana National Park (43,500 hectares, eastern highland rainforest, 29 lemur species including the golden bamboo lemur — discovered in 1986, it feeds exclusively on giant bamboo shoots containing enough cyanide to kill any other mammal — and 12 species of tenrec).

💡 The golden bamboo lemur (Hapalemur aureus, “the golden guardian of the bamboo”, discovered by Patricia Wright in 1986) consumes a daily dose of hydrogen cyanide from its bamboo shoots that would kill a human 12 times over. How its metabolism tolerates this is not fully understood. It is critically endangered with fewer than 1,000 individuals.

6h from Ranomafana. Andasibe-Mantadia National Park — the home of the indri (Indri indri, the largest living lemur, 70cm long, with no tail, and a territorial song audible 3km through the forest — a haunting, whale-like call that fills the cloud forest at dawn) — 45 minutes from Tana. The easiest accessible rainforest with the most reliable lemur encounters. Fly from Tana (TNR).

💡 The indri’s territorial song — a high-pitched, otherworldly wail that begins with a falling note and rises to a chorus — carries 3km through the cloud forest and is used to delineate territories between family groups. The song lasts 1–3 minutes and is synchronised between groups across the forest. It is unlike any other animal sound on earth.