After a long drive from Antsirabe, passing by mostly lifeless savanna, a consequence of tavy (slash and burn way of agriculture), we finally arrived at Miandrivazo, our final destination before we started our boat trip down the Tsiribihina river. Miandrivazo is a town in the middle of nowhere (on the road to Morondava). A little dusty town that became known as a place where trips down the Tsiribihina River start.  There is not much to do in this small town (maybe take a walk in the morning, eat typical Malagasy breakfast and watch the way of life in Malagasy small town).

                         Tavy on the road to  

Miandiravazo

To start our trip down the river we had to take a car for an hour to the village where we embarked the pirogue (wooden boat). In this village, I really had a feeling that we were at the end of the word.  We spent two hours on the river shore waiting for the camping stuff to arrive with the taxi brousse. It was an interesting experience, talking with the local kids, learning some songs and watching village life and connections with the river.

                 Life on a river shore

Finally, we embarked the pirogues and have started our adventure down the Tsiribihina. The descent lasted for two and a half days and covered 146 km of slow river. It was really remarkable experience, sleeping under the stars, watching birds, lemurs, chameleons (we even saw a baby croc – mum croc was probably under our pirogue),  connecting to the local people living on the river shores, watching bigger passenger boats passing ( they are the most common form of public transport, as most of the villages on the river shore are not connected by roads)

                                  Motor boat (local transportation)

      Brown lemur                           

 Baby croc

The second day we have visited  Cascade d’Anosin’ampela, refreshing waterfalls in the middle of dry forest, lemurs included 🙂 and before coming to the final destination we passed trough de Gorge de Tsiribihina

Preparing the camp for the evening 

Cascade d’Anosin’ampela       

After leaving the pirogues, 40 km upstream Belo-Sur-Tsiribihina the zebu carts were waiting for us, quite an amazing experience, not very comfortable , but memorable in any case 🙂 After 4 km of quite a rough ride on zebu cart we arrived at the village and continued by 4 WDs to the next adventure, famous Tsingy de Bemaraha NP 🙂

 Zebu cart