After an early start and travelling nearly 1000km from Antananarivo, we’ve finally arrived at Le Relais de la Reine, our hotel at Isalo National Park. The landscape here is far more rugged in this region than at our previous ports-of-call, and with the weather pushing into the mid-30’s we were glad to find that our digs were suitably kitted out with air conditioning and ceiling fans.

With seven hours of travel ahead of us, we left the Hilton at around 5am, bound for the airport and a flight to our first stop in the port town of Toliara. Thankfully, there were no porters here to relieve us of our luggage this time around, but it was decidedly chilly at this time of the day and as we were dressed for our destination there was nothing to do but sit around in our shorts drinking hot chocolate.

The flight was smooth and uneventful, and after a couple of hours we landed in Toliara, meeting up with our tour operator to finalise the arrangements for the rest of our trip. As we’ll be covering a lot of road miles over the next few days, we’ve arranged for a local driver to ferry us around; a young, friendly guy who spoke very little English, but went out of his way to be understand and be understood.

It was a three hour drive from Toliara to the park, and it was evident from the get-go that we were in much different part of the country than before; the lush, green jungle of the North now replaced by mountainous landscapes and dry, dusty roads. The region is also home to a number of sapphire mines, and there were many opportunities to buy local gemstones on the roadside on our way through.