The wild west part three: Tsingy de Bemaraha

The best places always seem to be the ones hardest to get to, so after the insane roads we drove, the Tsingy de Bemaraha national park, deep in western Madagascar, really ought to be pretty special. And we were certainly impressed with the three days of hiking we enjoyed. The first began with a cruise by canoe up the Manambolo river - in truth this was essentially punting but I resisted the urge to improve the style of our boatman as it was very hot and after all the river has crocodiles. Fortunately this fact didn't stop our guide quickly retreiving Leila's sunglasses after she dropped them in. We visited the caves and saw some open tombs from the 13th century and hiked back to the village through some spectacular forest. It was great to be exploring the forest after much time on the coast and we saw more lemurs, sifakas and exotic birds - many of which our guide assures us with various statistics exist only in this part of Madagascar.

Our second hike was to the Grand Tsingy, the massive razor-sharp limestone pinnacles which the park is famous for. These are geological formations called Karst which are created be erosion of limestone rock by rain and wind. They are also rather difficult to walk over so the park is set up with via ferrata - cables, footholds, bridges and ladders which make it possible to get around in a harness. Our last day was to the Petit Tsingy, which included more time climbing beneath the Tsingy in the underground caverns and lemur spotting in the forestfollowed by some relaxation in a swimming pool.

We stayed at the Tanankoay hotel in Bekopaka, the bungalows were simple but clean and had character and very reasonable priced. They have a botanic garden with hammocks where we tried unsuccesfully to find chameleons. Our long drive back to Morondava ended at the Alleé des Baobabs, where large baobab trees line the road making an impressive sunset scene and children find chameleons for the tourists' photos.