We’ve spent the afternoon on a whistle-stop tour of the Réserve Spéciale de l’Ankàrana, enjoying the landscapes, fauna and flora that’s unique to this part of the world. It’s incredibly hot and the biting insects are out in full force, though being lunch to the local mosquito population hasn’t spoiled the experience of this rugged wonder.

We arrived at the reserve shortly after midday; unfortunately, we were too early to take possession of our bungalow and settle in before the afternoon’s activities, but were (reluctantly) able to leave our belongings with the driver whilst we had lunch. Ushered to a picnic table away from just about everything and everyone, we were offered a deceptively watery but thoroughly delicious chicken broth and rice, which was prepared by one of the locals. After gratefully accepting seconds, we met our guide and prepared for the afternoon’s hike.

We set off from the reception area and into the jungle, and were walking barely 15 minutes before we managed to catch a glimpse of a crowned lemur sitting in the branch of a tree. Unfortunately, it was our only encounter with one on this walk, but were treated later to the sight of solitary owl sleeping low in the branches. The Malagsy believe that owls are bad omens, but it certainly didn’t seem to bother our guide much.

The area is famous for it’s stunning geological features, and we came across a number of these gigantic rock formations on our walk, all shaped and moulded into fascinating sculptures by rainwater over millions of years. The stand out feature of all this was an enormous sink-hole at the end of a dry river bed, at least 12m across that had been carved out by fast flowing water into an underground channel below.

We put our walking shoes to good use, traversing some particularly rough terrain until we found ourselves at the edge of a large valley. Opposite, there was a large cave and one of the highlights of the trek; it was full bats. In order get to the entrance of cave, we climbed down to the base of the valley, then at least halfway up the other side, all the time hearing voices squeaking and wings flapping amplified by the cave walls. We had to go inside quite deep to actually see anything, and being pitch-black we had use torches to spot them, but despite the darkness (and pungent smell of guano) it was quite amazing to see them in their natural habitat.

After climbing back out of the cave, we made our way to the top of the valley, and to a viewpoint providing a vista of the surrounding jungle and distant mountains. This was embedded into Tsingy, another geological formation that was sculpted by falling rainwater producing sharp, razor like edges. This was the smaller of two Tsingy formations in the park, the other larger one you could see in the distance from this vantage point.

Before we knew it, the sun was setting and we barely made it back to the lodge before the sun went down.