SmaylaRoad & trail journals

Abroad · By 4×4 · October 2024

Madagascar 2024, to the end of the south

Three weeks in convoy, from the highlands to the tsingy, from the Avenue of the Baobabs to the red samphire, all the way to the island's southern tip. An exhausting and magical journey.

Duration
3 weeks · October and November 2024
Route
Antananarivo · Morondava · the deep south
Highlight
The Avenue of the Baobabs
Organised by
In convoy, with GEKO Expeditions
The Avenue of the Baobabs at sunset

12–17 October

From the highlands to the baobabs

Off on the Malagasy adventure. Antananarivo, Antsirabe, and already our eyes are full: hills, terraced paddies on red earth, and emotion in front of so many smiles. Then a total and magnificent change of scene, all the way to the first baobabs.

Antananarivo and its hills
The highlands
Rice paddies in the valley
Hills and villages
Terraced rice paddies
Terraces on red earth
The first baobabs
Emmanuelle among the baobabs

17–19 October

Caves, tsingy and the Avenue of the Baobabs

Nights at the bivouac under the moon, caves full of stalactites, the tsingy, forests of limestone blades where you squeeze through narrow corridors. And the Avenue of the Baobabs at sunset, timeless. A first week already behind us.

Night at the bivouac, under the moon
A cave entrance
Stalactites
The tsingy, a stone forest
Emmanuelle in a tsingy corridor
Limestone blades of the tsingy
The Avenue of the Baobabs at sunset
The two of us in Madagascar

19–22 October

Off the beaten track

On 19 October the real off-the-beaten-track adventure begins. Rivers to ford, ferries to wait for patiently, bridges you have to dare to cross, red samphire as far as the eye can see, octopus trees and the spiny forest. In the evening, the sun sinks into the Mozambique Channel behind the baobabs.

A crack in the rock
The convoy crossing a river
Stormy sky over the coast
Baobabs at sunset
A pirogue sail
Red samphire
A flower before the baobabs
The track through the samphire
The wild coast
Sunset over the Mozambique Channel
A track through the dunes
The octopus trees
Another sunset
A mirror ford

Late October

Lemurs and the deep south

Lemurs and sifakas, dunes, deserted white-sand beaches, and arrival at the end of the world, at the southern tip of the island. Three intense weeks, physically and mentally exhausting, magical in every way, from which we bring back a thousand things.

A sifaka
Lemurs as a family
Emmanuelle on a dune
A wild southern beach
The evening sky
White sand and turquoise water
A lake amid the greenery
A beach at the end of the world
Emmanuelle among the rocks