The Red Tsingy, Madagascar
Over the past few days Sylvie had mentioned to the driver that she was interested in seeing the Red Tsingy area. He said that it would mean a 2-4 hour detour in our itinerary on the way back to Nosy Be and that we could only do this if we got up really early AND skipped lunch (i.e. we needed to order sandwiches from the hotel). He’d also have to negotiate this with ESF (Evasions Sans Frontieres, the local agency that NF had given the job of looking after us to). As we had missed one day and they felt they owed us a favour in return, it was agreed that we could go and visit. But our driver was adamant that we had to be in the car at 6.30am, no later. The pressure was that we had to be on the boat for Nosy Be at 3pm latest. We had also wanted to explore The Sacred Lake area, something that our driver had mentioned as a ‘must see’ as there were beautiful walks and views over paddy fields. We were torn. They both sounded appealing. Having seen the grey tsingy though and not being overwhelmed by them, I thought the Sacred Lake sounded a bit more interesting. Patrick also felt that, due to his back pain, he would not be able to walk in steep areas.
However, that morning Sylvie was quite sick and was unable to get to the car until 6.50pm. Because of this, our driver felt we would not be able to do both and suggested we only do the Red Tsingy. However, we felt that the Sacred Lake may have been better and easier so we told him we’d rather do that instead.
He didn’t say much but seemed to disagree. The journey back was as beautiful again and it was nice to re-visit my favourite areas and after a good 2 hours we reached the turning point for the Red Tsingy. Our driver said we could make it if we rushed it. We agreed. He said it’d be a shame not to see them. We assumed it’d be like 10 mins down the turning point but it was a good 40 mins on bumpy roads until we reached the first viewpoint. We had to look down from a cliff top to see them and it looked quite nice but the formations looked quite small.
We all thought that ‘that was it’ but no, there was another view-point further on... an even better.... and then a last one, further on, that was the icing on the cake. We climbed a small hill and then before our eyes was the most majestic canyon. Palm trees, little stream at the bottom, tsingy formations all over the ground, and the earth colour was so red. It was just exquisite. A true jaw dropping moment. Our driver asked if we wanted to go all the way down to see the tsingy up close, but, bearing in mind we had set off late, that we also wanted to see the Sacred Lake and that Patrick had back problems and did not enjoy bumpy roads, we said we’d rather press on not to get our driver in trouble.
We therefore drove back down the bumpy road and 4 miles later were on another bumpy road through a village and 4 miles to the Sacred Lake. When we got there, I was actually quite disappointed because it was nothing like I/we expected. I assumed it’d look like Bali or something majestic but it was so like the Lake District that I thought ‘bummer, this is not exotic in the least’. The only touch of ‘exotism’ was to hear the kids sing by the lake shore to ‘make the crocs come out of the water’. I didn’t really think it would work, but it did !!! to my utter amazement, eventually the crocs surfaced and came to rest on the shore to the delight of fellow tourists.
If we could have seen photos of the Sacred Lake before agreeing to go there, we would have definitely not gone. In hindsight, it’d have made far more sense to explore the Tsingy up close as the photo ops would have been phenomenal. I didn’t realise at the time that this particular canyon would be my fav view of the 6 days. If I’d known, I would have never rushed it the way we did. Biggest mistake we did. At least I was still so grateful for the detour as it wasn’t part of our itinerary and it was SO much better than the grey tsingy. A very different world.
I was just annoyed with myself because I should have taken photos in RAW format when I was there but I could not work out how to do this, having never used that function on my camera before (since I don’t have Photoshop). I had stupidly left the instructions in my suitcase, in the boot of the car. I could have made an effort and taken them out, IF we had not been so pushed for time, but having a boat to catch at 3pm really messed up the whole day. And the ONLY reason they made us take it at 3pm was so that one of the managers could get a lift in the car when our driver drove all the way back to Diego Suarez. SO frustrating.
As it happened, he made sure we had a proper lunch (same place as where I’d had my huge avocado, as we had pre-paid for it). It was actually good to STOP because I too was starting to feel physically uncomfortable as well (motion sickness and lower back pain).
From then on we had to get to the harbour, say good-bye to our wonderful driver and spend 40mins on a bumpy boat ride. When we found Atou on the other side, (the guy who picked us up at Nosy Be airport) he said we were staying at the Nosy Lodge hotel.
Over the past few days Sylvie had mentioned to the driver that she was interested in seeing the Red Tsingy area. He said that it would mean a 2-4 hour detour in our itinerary on the way back to Nosy Be and that we could only do this if we got up really early AND skipped lunch (i.e. we needed to order sandwiches from the hotel). He’d also have to negotiate this with ESF (Evasions Sans Frontieres, the local agency that NF had given the job of looking after us to). As we had missed one day and they felt they owed us a favour in return, it was agreed that we could go and visit. But our driver was adamant that we had to be in the car at 6.30am, no later. The pressure was that we had to be on the boat for Nosy Be at 3pm latest. We had also wanted to explore The Sacred Lake area, something that our driver had mentioned as a ‘must see’ as there were beautiful walks and views over paddy fields. We were torn. They both sounded appealing. Having seen the grey tsingy though and not being overwhelmed by them, I thought the Sacred Lake sounded a bit more interesting. Patrick also felt that, due to his back pain, he would not be able to walk in steep areas.
However, that morning Sylvie was quite sick and was unable to get to the car until 6.50pm. Because of this, our driver felt we would not be able to do both and suggested we only do the Red Tsingy. However, we felt that the Sacred Lake may have been better and easier so we told him we’d rather do that instead.
He didn’t say much but seemed to disagree. The journey back was as beautiful again and it was nice to re-visit my favourite areas and after a good 2 hours we reached the turning point for the Red Tsingy. Our driver said we could make it if we rushed it. We agreed. He said it’d be a shame not to see them. We assumed it’d be like 10 mins down the turning point but it was a good 40 mins on bumpy roads until we reached the first viewpoint. We had to look down from a cliff top to see them and it looked quite nice but the formations looked quite small.
We all thought that ‘that was it’ but no, there was another view-point further on... an even better.... and then a last one, further on, that was the icing on the cake. We climbed a small hill and then before our eyes was the most majestic canyon. Palm trees, little stream at the bottom, tsingy formations all over the ground, and the earth colour was so red. It was just exquisite. A true jaw dropping moment. Our driver asked if we wanted to go all the way down to see the tsingy up close, but, bearing in mind we had set off late, that we also wanted to see the Sacred Lake and that Patrick had back problems and did not enjoy bumpy roads, we said we’d rather press on not to get our driver in trouble.
We therefore drove back down the bumpy road and 4 miles later were on another bumpy road through a village and 4 miles to the Sacred Lake. When we got there, I was actually quite disappointed because it was nothing like I/we expected. I assumed it’d look like Bali or something majestic but it was so like the Lake District that I thought ‘bummer, this is not exotic in the least’. The only touch of ‘exotism’ was to hear the kids sing by the lake shore to ‘make the crocs come out of the water’. I didn’t really think it would work, but it did !!! to my utter amazement, eventually the crocs surfaced and came to rest on the shore to the delight of fellow tourists.
If we could have seen photos of the Sacred Lake before agreeing to go there, we would have definitely not gone. In hindsight, it’d have made far more sense to explore the Tsingy up close as the photo ops would have been phenomenal. I didn’t realise at the time that this particular canyon would be my fav view of the 6 days. If I’d known, I would have never rushed it the way we did. Biggest mistake we did. At least I was still so grateful for the detour as it wasn’t part of our itinerary and it was SO much better than the grey tsingy. A very different world.
I was just annoyed with myself because I should have taken photos in RAW format when I was there but I could not work out how to do this, having never used that function on my camera before (since I don’t have Photoshop). I had stupidly left the instructions in my suitcase, in the boot of the car. I could have made an effort and taken them out, IF we had not been so pushed for time, but having a boat to catch at 3pm really messed up the whole day. And the ONLY reason they made us take it at 3pm was so that one of the managers could get a lift in the car when our driver drove all the way back to Diego Suarez. SO frustrating.
As it happened, he made sure we had a proper lunch (same place as where I’d had my huge avocado, as we had pre-paid for it). It was actually good to STOP because I too was starting to feel physically uncomfortable as well (motion sickness and lower back pain).
From then on we had to get to the harbour, say good-bye to our wonderful driver and spend 40mins on a bumpy boat ride. When we found Atou on the other side, (the guy who picked us up at Nosy Be airport) he said we were staying at the Nosy Lodge hotel.
posted by Sylvie at 10:00 PM
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