The fourth and final instalment of the blog series about our trip to Madagascar, starts at Isalo National Park which is effectively the Grand Canyon of Madagascar.

This national park included canyons, gorges, waterfalls and secret swimming pools plus a few lemurs for good measure.

It is very hot here and there is minimal shade.

After Isalo, our road trip continued to Ifaty Beach via the larger city of Tulear.

At Ifaty beach we stayed in bungalows literally on the sea front.

The French family who owned the resort had a lovely dog that only understood …er…French….and he took a liking to us for some reason.

So, we had a free day at this resort.

Options included boat trips to the reef, swimming or just sitting on your ‘patio’ watching the world go by.

A relaxing end to a very big adventure involving lots of time in vehicles.

We opted for the tour of the Fishing Village in the morning and just relaxed for the rest of the day.

The next morning we left for Tulear Airport where we flew back to Antananarivo where we ended our tour.

In general, Madagascar is surprisingly underdeveloped tourism-wise and despite the popularity of the Madagascar series of films, only about 250 000 tourists visit Madagascar each year. If you consider that roughly a million tourists visit the Kruger National Park annually and that is just one national park in South Africa – you can understand that tourism has a rather fledgling status in Madagascar.

So, if you are planning on going – go with an open mind and don’t expect things to be exactly the same standards as home.

Appreciate it for what it is – a rustic, beautiful place relatively untouched and truly a ‘Lost Continent’.

And let’s face it – you want to go to Madagascar to see the wildlife….and that part will never disappoint.

Opinions expressed are our own based on personal experience

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