Madagascar · Indian Ocean coast & islands
The south and the spiny forest.
Isalo is sandstone canyon country, and the spiny forest beyond it is one of the most alien landscapes in the world.
Isalo National Park gives Madagascar its walking and its natural pools, and Berenty and Ifaty hold the ring-tailed lemurs and sifakas most visitors picture. The octopus trees and didiereaceae of the spiny forest grow nowhere else.
How do you get to Isalo and the south of Madagascar?
Most visitors drive the RN7 south from Antananarivo through the highlands, stopping on the way, and fly back from Toliara on the south-west coast. Berenty is reached from Fort Dauphin in the south-east, which has its own airport, and Ifaty is a short drive north of Toliara.
What is there to do in Isalo National Park?
Walk. Isalo is a Jurassic sandstone massif of canyons, ridges and grassland, and its trails lead to natural swimming pools, palm-filled gorges and viewpoints over the plains. Ring-tailed lemurs and sifakas live in the canyons, and a local guide is compulsory.
Why visit Berenty?
Berenty is a private reserve of gallery forest on the Mandrare River, and it is where ring-tailed lemurs and Verreaux's sifakas are easiest to see and photograph at close range. The sifakas cross open ground by bounding sideways on their back legs, which is the image most people know them by.
What is the spiny forest?
A dry forest of plants found nowhere else on earth, dominated by the Didiereaceae, a plant family that exists only in Madagascar, alongside octopus trees, baobabs and euphorbias. It grows in the far south and south-west, around Ifaty and Berenty, where rainfall is lowest.
How long should you spend in the south of Madagascar?
Two nights at Isalo and two at Berenty or Ifaty, with the drive down the RN7 taking several days on top. Toliara's coast also gives access to one of the largest coral reef systems in the Indian Ocean, which suits a couple of nights at the end.
What is there to see in the south and the spiny forest?
What does the south and the spiny forest pair well with?
- Andasibe and the eastern rainforestAndasibe is the closest rainforest to the capital and the reliable place to see and hear the indri, the largest living lemur.
- The Avenue of the Baobabs and the westThe Avenue of the Baobabs near Morondava is the country's defining image, and the western dry forests hold species found nowhere else.
- Nosy Be and the island coastNosy Be in the north-west is the country's beach destination, and the smaller islands around it are the better part of it.
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