Tsingy
When we got off the river, we piled our backpacks into the vehicle and Caesar drove us to our hotel, the Olympe du Bemaraha. After cleaning up we wandered down to the restaurant where we had dinner and an assortment of drinks. An assortment, because we had to try several before we found something we liked. We tried "World Cola," which was passable; "Orange," ok; Lemonade, ok; and "jus de Anglais," which was terrible, like banana popsicle flavoring. For me they were all too thick; I cut them with water.
We were looking forward to our next great wonder, the Tsingy, a unique geologic formation of eroded limestone found nowhere else. Think millions of Notre-Dame-like cathedral spires sticking up everywhere you look. "Tsingy" is Malagasy for "Where one cannot walk barefoot," and it is aptly named. You really don't want to fall down on this stuff. From where we were now, the rock formation stretched north in Tsingy de Bemeraha National Park for hundreds of kilometers.
The next morning we took a 2 km walk through the "Small Tsingy" guided by "Tovonasi." He was an excellent guide; we saw birds, chameleons, centipedes, and many different kinds of trees. He also saw a Tenrec, but it scrambled away before we got to see it. Dang!
At first we wandered and crawled on the ground, through slots and tubes of limestone, threading our way around long roots reaching for the ground from trees far above us. Then we slowly worked our way higher.
Along the way we met flowers, lizards, birds and other creatures. It is always a treat to see flowers, trees and shrubs grabbing a foothold and eeking out a living on steep rock walls.
Once we were off the ground, the way was made easier by boardwalks and bridges. But you still had to be careful about handholds; that limestone is sharp and unforgiving!
It was cool in the shady slots; there were pools of water from the recent rains. But it was hot out in the open on top, but we had a great view.
We wound our way back to the ground, where we found more of Madagascars cool and crazy flora and fauna.
I loved the big round seed that had spines sticking out with tiny arrowhead tips.
It was getting really hot; towards the end of our walk Dona was showing signs of heatstroke. We said goodbye to Tovonasi; we would see him again later. We rendezvoused at the restaurant; unfortunately, they were out of lemonade.
You're not allowed to take a night walk inside the National Parks, so we were walking in lands abutting the park. We found a good variety of critters.
We had a mediocre soup for dinner; We split two meals between the three of us. The soup had good garlic bread / toast in it, but the bread on the side was plain and not as good. Bummer; I really like garlic bread or toast with soup. For dessert there were candied fruits; we would have preferred plain fruit. Sometimes restaurants just try too hard to be fancy.
We got an early start the next day, trying to avoid some of the heat. Caesar drove us the 18 km to the start of the Trail. The road was lousy, as usual, but no problem for Caesar after the drive to the Manambolo River put in! Along the way we saw a kid playing with a bicycle rim, rolling it like a tire. Kids the world over are great at entertaining themselves and having fun.
The approach trail was pleasant, we found some great wildlife along the way, including some rare endemic birds and Decken's Sifakas.
At one point there is a suspension bridge across a wide slot; it had a nice view down into the canyon below. I've read numerous explanations of how the Tsingy was formed, but I haven't read a good explanation for why there is this obvious horizontal break in the formation near the top. It's like the whole bottom part got laid down, then something happened to insulate it from the stuff that got laid down on top of it.
After we wound our way back down to the bottom and threaded our way out of the Tsingy, we headed back, with more great animal sightings along the way. We didn't see any lemurs in the Tsingy itself; they do live there and jump around on it, which would have been cool to see.
Meanwhile, Dona and Lova had been exploring around and had seen a Madagascar Pygmy Kingfisher! The only one of the trip, and Sid and I missed out.
I would have liked to spend a few more days in Bekopaka and hike some other trails in the Tsingy. However, when we planned the trip Dona was concerned that because of the difficult climbing getting around in the Tsingy, she wouldn't be able to do much. So we decided to spend more time at our next stop, Kirindy National Park.
