Reserve Speciale d'Ankarana

by Daniel

Another one of Madagascar’s many highlights is Ankarana. Conveniently situated halfway between Nosy Be and Diego Suarez this national park is easily accessible, has budget as well as luxury accomodation and is well maintained with different circuits for different levels of fitness. Thus, some spectacular sights are within easy reach at almost any time of the year and you are guaranteed to sight other tourists :-)

The park’s outstanding starlets are limestone and water, which in unique combination have formed delicate yet majestic formations. Tsingies, for example, are sharp pinnacles of partly dissolved limestone that give you the impression of looking at a city made of rock with towering skyscrapers and narrow canyonish streets. This terrain is absolutely inaccessible were it not for a dramatic skywalk and suspension bridge that allow for a unique insight into this natural wonder.

Then, of course, this terrain is just made for caves. There are many caves to be found, some of them are just huge and many remain unexplored. The caves that are accessible are holy to the Malagasy being burial sites for their ancestors and even featuring graves of royalty. The cave that we visited on our trip is the burial site of the last kings of Madagascar’s northern tribes and it is fady (taboo) for anyone who has taken part in the war against the king (and their ancestors) to enter this holy place. This applies to the whole national park and also to domestic animals. Therefore, a fady has also the function of preserving this place in its pristine state which in turn results in an abundancy of wildlife from strange plants to a variety of curious lemurs to huge colonies of bats.

My personal highlight however was another stunning feat of mother nature: La Perte des Rives. This is a conjunction of three rivers in a large basin that suddenly opens into an abyss that swallows these rivers in order to transport them to the coast underground. Although it was dry season it was just breathtaking and must be even more so when the rivers form a literally abysmal waterfall.

These wonders with their accessibility and convenient location in Madagascar’s northern tourist circuit come at a cost: the entrance fee is 65.000 Ar p.P. per day plus 90.000 for a mandatory guide for up to three people. For the independent traveller it should be noted that it is easy to reach Ankarana inexpensively by Taxi-Brousse.