Madagascar - Trip to Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park (June 7-9) by Lucas

After spending a couple of days in Morondava, we headed north to Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park. Tsingy is an extremely unique area in Madagascar where you can see a forest of spiny, sharp stone made of limestone that was created 30 million years ago by acid rain. Our trip started with an entire 10 hour day of driving on the bumpiest and most uncomfortable road we had ever experienced, with only 1 short lunch break.  At the end of the day we finished the first day of our trip to 'Tsingy'. My dad and I both had terrible food poisoning, so we didn't eat anything, and when we arrived we just went straight to bed. On the other hand, my mom and Sister had a fruit salad for dinner the next morning we woke up at 5:15 AM so that we could have breakfast, which as it turned out, we didn't get to have anyways. After packing for our day at Tsingy. We hopped onto our bus

our bus

and headed to big Tsingy. When we got there, our first impression was, "where are the rocks!?" But as we started walking on the trail towards the Tsingy with our guide we came to them after about ten minutes. Our first test of using our harnesses that we had put on before we started walking, was to strap into a ladder that took us down to the bottom of a very narrow canyon, so narrow in fact, that my shoulders barely fit when I stood facing forward!

We walked down this for a couple minutes and came across many possible side paths, but took none of them and followed our guide. Some of the side passage ways were even boarded off!

About 30 million years ago, a volcano erupted on Madagascar sending acid chemicals into the air. Next (and last) thing any living thing in that area knew, there was acid rain falling from the sky so acidic that it burnt through rocks (the Tsingy). If it could erode limestone, then you can only imagine what it would do to something soft and squishy like animal skin and bone. 

Anyways, we then took a turn into darkness. We took out our flashlights and continued walking. Finally, we climbed out of the dark canyon and onto the top of the sharp Tsingy stone. sometimes we walked on top of the rocks, and a sometimes through forest,

and sometimes along the bottom of the narrow canyons, where tree roots were growing down from the top of the rocks to the soil

looking way up to where the tree roots come from

From below, we had seen roots reaching as for as 5 meters down through the rocks to get water, but from above, the same trees looked perfectly normal. While we we walked we learned that the aboriginals who needed to walk on the Tsingy would say Tsingy Tsingy because it meant walk slowly and on your tiptoes as not to get cut by the rocks, therefore, they are now called the Tsingy. Our next stop was at a lemur! Our guide spotted a nocturnal lemur clinging to a tree- a Red Tailed Sportive lemur. We saw this one in Kirindy as well, but it was dark and we didn't get a good look at them. It was cool to see him in the day.   Later we also saw a sifaka and a blue-faced bird that wasn't very shy.  It was sort of like a chicken but more interesting.

blue-faced bird

After another really cool walk through a cave were we had to take off our backpacks because it was too narrow, we started the fun part, scaling the Tsingy. This part was really fun. There were lots of stepping rocks bolted into the Tsingy (as you can see in the picture below), wood platforms, and ladders in order to get to the highest points of the Tsingy, were we could see all around us. 

The view really was mind blowing. I've never seen anything like it before so it is too hard to explain what I saw in words. Just look at the pictures and see for yourself.

While we were at the highest view point we saw a group of Sifaka lemurs jumping on trees and across the Tsingy. We were lucky enough to get it on video! check it out!

 We also got to go across a couple of cool suspension bridges,

go down an equally fun array of ladders and platforms and rocks as going up, 

and see many more cool caves. 

After about three and a half hours of hiking, we got back to our bus and ate lunch. We took a nice little break from the walking, then hopped back onto the bus for another bumpy ride.

    
After only 2 hours of driving we arrived at little Tsingy. This was similar to big Tsingy, except the rock (the Tsingy) was not as tall. My dad climbed right on top of them! 

We wound through the canyons which were the same as big Tsingy's  and climbed to good viewpoints. 

We got a nice view of the sunset from up there. Finally, after a very long day we went back and relaxed with a cold lemonade and had bath-showers (see pics below). To have a shower we first had to scoop hot water from a barrel with some plastic buckets.  THen we carried the buckets to the shower huts and then added cold water from the shower to the hot water in the bucket and then finally poured it over us.

      

The next day we drove all the way back to Morondava-which took twelve painfully long hours. on the way we stopped to see the 'Baobabs in Love'.

 Finally we got all the way back to Morondava and had a nice dinner out at a restaurant. The next day was another "fun" day of driving all the way back to Tana with Jean-Pierre!

Tsingy out!