Tsingy de Bemaraha: nature’s ultimate maze of stone! 🗿
This UNESCO site stuns with razor-sharp limestone “forests,” hanging bridges, and deep caves. It’s like hiking on another planet—wild, weird, and 100% unforgettable.
A dream for adventurers and photographers. “Can you walk on Tsingy?” (Yes!).
The history tells that 5 million years ago, the vast limestone plate knew a river erosion which thus worked this spectacular landscape of peaks, faults and cracks that the “tsingy form”. Two rivers dominate the tsingy: Saohany and Manambolo. Manambolo River is the starting point of the descent in the dugout. This massif is delimited to the east by the abrupt Bemaraha Cliffs, which rises some 300 to 400m above the Manambolo River valley and extends several tens of kilometers from north to south.
In the south of Petit Tsingy is the spectacular Manambolo Gorge where you can see waterfalls, lemurs and magnificent untouched forests. Despite the inaccessibility of the area, this park is more and more part of tourist programs.
Attractions of the park remain centered on the discovery of its “tsingy”. Walks are the best to explore the interior of the park and to appreciate the nature and breathtaking landscape while visiting the park, so unique, that UNESCO classified it as part of World Heritage in 1990. The site is very well arranged that active people will be pleased to involve themselves during tsingy climbing… We can say that everyone can find its happiness there. For every one’s interest, various trails were established.
Despite barren appearance, the maze-like stone forest is home to an unbelievable variety of animal species, which you wouldn’t assume in such a region on first sight. Next to the biggest mammal predator of Madagascar, the fossa, live 13 types of lemur, including for Decken’s sifaka, red-fronted brown lemur, fat-tailed dwarf lemur, grey mouse lemur or the Cleese’s woolly lemur and the Sambirano lesser bamboo lemur, and over 100 bird species, including the critically endangered Madagascar fish eagle and crested ibis, Madagascar wood-rail, giant coua or Coquerel´s coua. Inside the caves live about 15 bat species. From time to time, you can watch them even in the daytime.
As in nearly all of Madagascar’s national parks, over 85% of Tsingy de Bemaraha’s fauna and flora is endemic. About 650 different plant species got their home here. You can admire succulents like the famous bottle trees or beautiful orchid all around the park. The baobab trees shouldn’t be omitted as it is very current in this Western part of the country.
The road hither lasts a little long but the landscape which it offers is worth the pain.
Lastly, by private chartered planes, small planes can land at the nearby small runway.
Experiencing the Tsingy worth it for the versatile, fantastic experiences in any case! Generally most visitors coming to the park usually stay over three nights to explore this unique and amazing place.
