Visit Central and Southern Madagascar
Isalo’s golden sandstone cliffs can be seen rising out of the plains from many miles away. The national park is home to some of Madagascar’s most stunning scenery, and is a sacred place for the Bara tribe, whose burial sites are marked by mounds of tiny stones placed in crevices in the rock face. Hiking up to the massif, visitors enter a barren wonderland of twisted rock formations and extraordinary plants, shimmering in the heat of the plateau. Squat elephant’s foot plants cling to the rocks, a few dry grasses blow in the wind, and succulent aloes thrive.
Wildlife concentrates in the numerous shady gorges and cool running streams that carve through the massif. Deciduous woodland grows in each canyon’s higher levels, and it is here that Isalo’s lemurs are most often found. Brown lemurs feed amongst the branches, Verreaux’s sifakas leap from rock to rock, and troops of cheeky ringtails wander along the pathways. Descending deeper into the gorges, only a few shafts of sunlight penetrate to the streams below, and dripping mosses and ferns line the walls. Occasionally the streams become blocked, forming tiny tropical pools amongst the rocks. The clear air, tumbling waterfalls, and cool water almost defy belief, and make a wonderful respite from a hot day’s hiking on the plateau.