Isalo National Park

Isalo National Park, almost 700kms from Antananarivo. It’s a sacred place to the Bara tribe, who have used the deep canyons of the national park as a burial site for hundreds of years, Isalo was established as a national park in 1999 and has since become a popular site for trekking and hiking. Apart from the area’s natural beauty, the park is home to a genus of lemur colloquially called ‘sifakas’, known for their alarm calls ‘shi-faks.’

 

Another main reason for visitors is the unique native flora – including local aloe and pachypodium plants, which is an unusual looking genus of succulent plants and geological rock phenomenon in the form of Tsingies. Tsingies are a structure of karstic rock found across the island, which are formed when acidic water runs between cracks in the limestone, eventually eroding it into large dramatic spikes.