Our first morning we headed to the Parc National Des Tsingy De Bemaraha, a Unesco World Heritage site. It is one of the largest and most spectacular protected areas in Madagascar. Tsingy are jagged, limestone pinnacles. They were formed over centuries by the movement of wind and water. We started on our first day with the Petits Tsingy. Our guide from the park (as well as Ludo) was Rody, who did speak some English.
These spiny trees grow literally right out of the rock….reminded me of a tree in Malaysia that I grabbed onto in the jungle a few times…ouch.
We climbed down into the tsingy….you tread carefully as it is sharp! A definition of tsingy is "tiptoe" as the people who lived within these caves would tiptoe on the sharp rock!
We then climbed up onto a platform above the tsingy. You can see the layers of rock that formed over the years.
Our first lemur spotting! This is the Sifaka. They remind me of little lambs with their wooly white fur and black faces.
Yes, this is the “small” tsingy…can you imagine what the large looks like? It was very “Indiana Jones”….
We descended below the tsingy into some amazing caves. This one looked like a cathedral. Lot's of stalactites and stalagmites.
We were making our way through a pitch black cave with only our head lamps for light…my shoulders were scraping the sides…when I notice this snake coiled up at my feet. I think I did what any smart person would do, and leaped back onto Dean. The guys teased me for my “fear of snakes”…but come on! Turns out it is not poisonous….but I’m glad my survival instincts are strong. We also saw big spiders, frogs, bats and lizards.
The brown lemur….check out the personality in that face!!!! He has to have a name like George or Harold…don’t you think?
At the end of a hot, sticky day of hiking there is nothing better than taking a cold shower and hanging out on the porch with a “Three Horses” beer. Ahhhh.
One of the restaurants we frequented. This little village is right on the river….and by November will be torn down as the wet season comes. They cooked over a fire, and I’m fairly certain they did not have refrigeration (well, if you count blocks of ice). The food was delicious…and luckily our stomachs stayed strong.
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