Tsingy de Bemaraha Strict Nature Reserve

Tsingy is a Malagasy word usually glossed as "where one cannot walk barefoot", and the landscape it names in western Madagascar earns it. On the Bemaraha plateau, rain has etched a thick limestone bed from above while groundwater dissolved it along fractures from below. When cave roofs collapsed, what remained was a labyrinth of narrow canyons and blade-edged pinnacles. The rock is sharp enough to cut clothing and skin. The Manambolo River cuts across the plateau in a gorge several hundred metres deep, and around the karst are dry deciduous forest, lakes and mangroves.

The reserve was created in 1927 as a strict nature reserve and was inscribed by UNESCO in 1990. In 1997 its southern part was reclassified as the Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park, opening it to visitors, while the northern part remains a strict reserve closed to tourism. The isolation of each pinnacle, ledge and canyon floor has produced exceptional endemism, with species confined to tiny pockets of the massif. Lemurs include Decken's sifaka, a bamboo lemur and the aye-aye. There are also tiny Brookesia chameleons, rare birds such as the white-throated rail, and some 650 plant species. The park's two showpieces are the Great Tsingy and the Little Tsingy, both limestone forests of this kind.

Getting there

The visitor entrance is at Bekopaka, on the southern edge of the park. It is reached by a long 4x4 journey of about 150 km north from Morondava, via Belo-sur-Tsiribihina and a ferry across the Tsiribihina River. Morondava Airport (MOQ), with domestic flights, is about 185 km from the reserve's centre. Antsalova, near the northern side, has air links with Antananarivo but only limited access to the park. The tracks are passable only in the dry season, roughly from May or June to October or November, and the park closes in the rainy months.