We stayed in Morondava for one night before heading to Tsingy and for four nights after returning (we could have stayed longer, it is a very relaxing place). On our way back from Tsingy and Kirindy, it is very common for your 4×4 driver/tour to take you to Allee des Baobabs (baobab alley) to see the sunset before returning to Morondava (baobab alley is less than one hour’s drive from Morondava). The baobabs are over 800 years old and incredibly beautiful and striking though it is terribly sad to see that most of the other trees in the region have been razed to the ground, which makes these huge trees even more ominous and looming. Sadly, the area is not a national park, and the trees are threatened by further deforestation, effluent from encroaching rice paddies and sugar cane plantations, and fires. Despite its popularity as a tourist destination, the area has no visitor center or gate fees, and local residents receive little income from tourism. There are many enormous baobabs in the region including a sacred tree where people pray. If you have a driver, ask him to take you to some of the other baobabs in the region, some are intertwining, which looks quite romantic! *Traveller alert* – this is probably one of the most visited tourist attractions in Madagascar, so if you are expecting the alley to yourself at sunset, think again. Take plenty of patience with you and try to arrive early if you want to take a photo without tourists ruining it!

Morondava is a very pleasant seaside town on the west coast of Madagascar. It has a laidback feel to it (apart from the main street on market day, which is quite thriving). There is a strip of hotels/restaurants lining the beach and mangroves on the other side of the road catering to a range of budgets. The seafood is superb. Especially now having visited a few coastal areas in Madagascar, we really were spoiled with the quality and variety of seafood in Morondava. The beach is pretty good (and clean). You can take a pirogue trip down the river. Morondava is a great base from which you head to Baobab Alley, Tsingy or south to Belo sur Mer. We stayed four nights and would have liked to stay longer. At first we stayed at Trecicogne as it was listed as the ‘top pick’ on Lonely Planet. But we left after two nights as they kept turning the water off. We understand that water is short, but we drew the line at not being able to wash our hands after going to the toilet! We sort of splashed out on our last two nights at the Baobab Hotel – 80,000 Ar per night about $35AUD. http://www.baobabcafe-hotel.net/baobabcafe-circuit-hotel-en.html This hotel was really nice, and bonus had a pool! We also splashed out on a huge crayfish for 35,000Ar, $15. It was to die for! We recommend eating at Bougainvilliers (try the stuffed crab) and Stadium Hotel on the main street (7000Ar for two huge langostines). Needless to say, we were a bit sad to leave Morondava, especially knowing we had two days of taxi-brousses ahead of us…

We had heard a lot about the otherworldly jagged pinnacles of Tsingy de Bemaraha. Tsingy is a nature reserve on the west coast of Mada, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We heard that the park is closed in the rainy season (Dec – March), so if we wanted to see it, we had to go in November. We emailed and asked around a few tour operators, but decided to go on our own. Most nature parks must be visited with a guide, but that doesn’t mean a complete package tour is necessary. It is much cheaper (if you have the time) to turn up yourself and organise a guide on the spot. Most tours were going from Antsirabe, and we figured there was no need to pay for two-four days of a tour that was just transport. From Ambositra, we caught a 7am taxi-brousse to Antsirabe. We then had to wait for 2-3 hours for the next taxi-brousse to take us to Miandrivazo. We had contemplated going all the way from Antsirabe to Morondava, but that taxi-brousse wasn’t leaving until 5pm and we didn’t want to wait that long. Miandrivazo was a good stop over to break up the trip. It took from 1pm-7pm. A tout/guide came up to us in the taxi-brousse while we were waiting in Anstirabe and offered us a tour. We didn’t really want to spend 2.5 days in an unsheltered pirogue down the Tsiribihina river, so we asked if he would hire a 4WD in Morondava to take us to Tsingy and Kirindy. He offered 75Euro a day (for four days) including petrol.  So this was our itinerary:

1. Day one: Drive Morondava to Bekopaka, camp the night
2. Day 2: Hike Grand and Small Tsingy, camp Bekopaka
3. Day 3: Drive to Kirindy, night walk, had to stay in bungalow as ‘apparently’ fossa eats your tent
4. Day 4: Morning walk Kirindy, sunset at Baobabs, drive back to Morondava

He said if we found another 1-2 people, we could share the costs. It sounded like a good deal, and much better than anything we had been offered so far, so we agreed. He recommended a hotel in Miandrivazo and the next morning was waiting for us with a contract to sign. This was our first mistake, signing the contract and paying more than half up-front. Don’t get me wrong, we had an awesome trip and it was still a pretty good price. But it was a lesson not to pay up front if possible, even a deposit. In hindsight, we probably should have not committed and seen if we could get a better deal in Morondava. It was low season, and as two people we were in a good place to negotiate. We took a taxi-brousse from Miandrivazo to Morondava at 8am and arrived about 3pm. We had planned on seeing if we could find any other tourists to share the car. We made cursory efforts, but didn’t find anyone. The next morning we were picked up by our driver and were taken to another hotel. That was where another vazaha (foreigner) was waiting. He asked if we knew that he was coming. We didn’t. We were happy to have another person join us if we could share the costs, but when we got in the car, the driver told us his boss said we weren’t going anywhere until we all paid the full amount, so much for sharing the costs! We were all pretty angry, but he had us, we had each already paid a hefty deposit, so could hardly walk away. Needless to say, it was a bit of a sour start to the trip.

However, the French tourist who joined us was a really interesting, cool guy, so we were happy to share with him. We weren’t too impressed though when a wheel bearing broke and we got stranded in the heat. Luckily another car stopped to help us and we all squeezed into their car. We were a bit anxious that evening because we really didn’t trust that if the driver couldn’t fix the car, that our ‘guide’ would help us, particularly if he knew we had another car to go in. Fortunately, our driver fixed the car and met us later the next day.

But…back to the Tsingy. Despite all the setbacks, we had an awesome trip. During the journey to Tsingy, we had a few river crossings where the car is put on a raft and motored along the river, passing laughing children bathing in the water. The sharp limestone formations were other-worldly and really fun and challenging to climb. The view was really spectacular. We had to wear rockclimbing harnesses which we attached to metal rope. We went through narrow caves and crossed some hairy drawbridges, it felt like we were Indiana Jones! We saw sifakas and brown lemurs up close too. This was the complete Malagasy experience, definitely worth the long journey. Next stop…Kirindy…