Madagascar is an island that was left behind. When Gondwanaland split up, hundreds of millions of years ago, Madagascar and what was to become India split from the Africa tectonic plate. Millions of years later the Indian Ocean opened up, splitting Madagascar from India and creating the Himalayas. This left the third largest island in the world sitting off the African coast. Colonial history featured British and French occupation before independance in the 1960s and a communist coup in the 1970s left the island on its own again with Western powers dissociating themselves from this left wing state. Corruption and under-investment has left this one of the poorest countries in the world.

We are here to visit schools from our charity UWS. These have been built in the south-west of the island - one of the poorest areas of the country. We have decided to take some time to get there, starting in Tana (Antanarivo), the capital, and driving down the RN7 which is the main route south. Tana is the 'English' capital - historically Protestant and the people are more pale skinned being mostly descended from Indonesians and Malays. The road out of the capital winds through hills and past rice paddies. It is slow going due to potholes and large trucks. A third of fuel prices should go to road maintenance but during Covid much got diverted to health and they clearly haven't caught up!

Rice paddies on the outskirts of Tana

Working in the paddy field, Rural life

We are driving along the mountainous backbone of the country. Huge granite outcrops and boulders abound. Villages of two story brick houses dot the hillsides while flat valleys and terraces are growing rice and vegetables. The soil here is volcanic and more fertile than in the South. Men and women work in the fields, either breaking the ground by hand or with the help of Zebu ploughs. For many villagers their aspirations are to have a tin roof and a zebu - the Indian humped cow that we see throughout Madagascar. We notice smart granite tombs in the fields and Fan, our guide explains that when someone dies their body is wrapped in silk and placed in a tomb. Each year for several years the relatives 'turn the bones' and wrap the body in another sheet. It is the season for the famadihana ceremony and we see gatherings in the villages for body turning ceremonies. Most of the villagers are still animists although many are also Christian to hedge their bets!

80% of Madagascar's native forest has now been cleared. We see some patches of original forest from the road but most has now given way to agriculture. This is not such a problem here with good soil but further south the cleared land soon becomes depleted and is only good for grazing zebu and goats. We stop for lunch in Ambatolampy the 'city of granite' and reach Ansiraba (city of water or 'beer town') in the late afternoon.

Selling produce, Gathering for a body wrapping ceremony

Typical highland houses and terracing

Ansiraba is pretty prosperous by Madagascar standards. In our first evening we visit the central avenue to see the old railway station, other colonial buildings and the faded but grand Hotel des Thermes where the deposed king of Morocco once stayed. Next morning the streets are full of people going to work and children going to school on foot, by bicycle or pedal rickshaw ("pouse pouse"). Antsiraba has a lot of textile factories making clothes for the likes of Colombia and Nike. There are also a number of call centres - apparently the French prefer the clearer French accents spoken by Malagassies to West African call centres.

In late morning we reach Ambositra, another busy town with a colonial heritage. It is famous for its woodworking and we stop at a workshop where we are shown how the marquetry is made. Tools are very simple and the wood is dyed by burying it in the fields but our craftsman shows us some complex tableaux that he has made including popular Tintin covers - "The Sceptre of Ottocar" and "Tintin in Switzerland"!

After the town we stop at a country market. Ladies are smartly dressed - they might meet a man! - and stalls are selling dried fish, anchovies, fried locusts, vegetables, hats, and there is even a pharmacy. Babies are everywhere - 60% of the population is under 20.

Colonial school in Antsiraba, Marquetry in Ambositra

Country market scenes

The Ranomafana forest is famous as a lemur sanctuary. It was opened in 1991 after rare bamboo lemurs were discovered here. We break our trip to the South here and spend two nights so that we can explore the forest properly. Our guide Theophil and his son Ando work as a team with one guiding and the other scouting for wildlife. They quickly find our first lemur and it is not long before we find another three species. The park is located between 800-1000m elevation and there are some pretty steep paths. With other tourists and guides searching as well it can become a bit of a bun fight - a solitary greater bamboo lemur was very obliging as a very rude lady tourist pushed everyone out of the way so that she could get a good shot on her iPhone! It is not all lemurs - there is fabulous vegetation plus birds, insects, frogs and chameleons to look at as well.

We are back in the evening with torches, searching the roadside for some more nocturnal sightings. The guides have smeared branches with banana and this attracts the shy mouse lemur. Further down the road a fat-tailed dwarf lemur is dining on figs and briefly poses for us. Ando also turns out to be a great chameleon spotter and we photograph them as they change colour before our eyes.

Red-bellied lemur, Small bamboo lemur, greater bamboo lemur

Giraffe-necked weevil (m), tree fern, Pitta-like ground roller

Mouse lemur, Fat-tailed dwarf lemur

Back on the road we soon leave the Tanala (people of the forest) behind and are back on the RN7. For several days we have seen people pressing clay bricks out of the earth of their paddy fields. This damages the paddy but must be a good source of cash as we see this happening so often. The whole family works, digging out the clay, mixing with some sand and pressing into moulds. The bricks or tiles are then dried in the sun before being built into a kiln. This is a specialist task as you don't want to over or under-bake the bricks when you light a wood fire inside. They also use rice husks for firing due to the shortage of firewood.

Blue-leg chameleon

Brick and tile making, brick kiln ready for firing

At Ambalavoa the landscape changes as we drop down from the highlands. There are still spectacular granite intrusions pushing up from the plain including the 'three sisters' above the Réserve d'Anja - a small park run by the local people where guide Daniel takes us to see the ring-tailed lemurs. We only have a short walk around a dried up lake with Zebu and sheep grazing. It is midday and families of lemurs are sleeping in copses of trees. The naughty guides give the trees a shake and the lemurs wake up for us. The babies play with their parents in the branches among the lilac blossom.

The landscape continues to change, first to rather Scottish looking moorland and then open plains. The villages look poorer than further north although we see some big herds of zebu on the plains. As the sun is setting we reach some spectacular sandstone rock formations signalling the start of the Isalo National park. Among the sandstone towers is our very luxurious hotel, the Jardin de Roy.

Three Sisters peaks, ring-tailed lemurs

The Isalo national park has a different feel from Ranomafana. You can do long walks around the sandstone peaks and gorges rather than walking through thick forest. We walk through woods to join a creek that runs up a gorge to waterfalls and natural swimming pools. Palm trees and ferns line the route and steps have been cut in the sandstone boulders and ledges so that you can get through but it is still a bit of a scramble. Not far from the entrance to the park we see more lemurs including Verreaux's Sipaka which we have not seen anywhere else. Our guide, Josy, leads us away from the other groups to show us a white-browed owl and we get great views of flycatchers and bulbul.

Verreaux's Sipaka, Ring-tailed lemur, Red-fronted brown lemur

Luscious gorge at Isalo, Black pool

White-browed owl, Madagascar bulbul, Madagascar paradise flycatcher (m)

After we leave Isalo the denuded landscape continues and the villages appear to get poorer. Not far from Isalo is a remarkable 'sapphire town' - Ilakaka. In 1994 sapphires were discovered in the alluvial plain and a wild west type town has sprung up. Dealers from Pakistan and Thailand have set up secure stores and prospectors crowd around middlemen who inspect their finds and hand out cash. Apparently this is one of the most dangerous places in Madagascar as fights frequently break out. Further south we see more of the famous Baobab forests for which (like lemurs) Madagascar is famous. Eventually we reach Toliara where we struggle to find a late lunch and then drive up the best road in Madagascar to Mangili to stay in the delightful Bella Donna hotel and meet up with UWS Madagascar who will be taking us round our schools for the next week. See Vicky's blog for details of this as both of my cameras packed up! More photos of the trip are in my Lightroom collection.

Panning for sapphires

Crossing an inlet by Ox cart to get to a UWS school