Baobabs in Madagascar

My wife, Michaele, and I and another couple we often travel with booked a private 10-day trip to Madagascar through Kensington Tours (Wil­mington, DE; 888/903-2001, www.kensingtontours.com) in June 2016. It started with a side excursion to Morondava, in the central portion of the country’s west coast.

The morning of our all-day outing, we were up before sunrise and ate breakfast by candlelight, since the city’s generators were not yet running. We then drove east for a while and turned onto the RN35 (Route Nationale 35), a dirt road that took us past majestic Grandidier’s baobabs that towered over the landscape.

Our primary destination was a game preserve in Kirindy Forest, where we hiked and sighted several species of lemurs. After lunch and a visit to the two intertwined trees called Baobab Amoureux, or “Baobabs in Love,” our guide was eager to take us back along a stretch of RN35 nicknamed Avenue of the Baobabs, with giant trees growing along each side.

He had us walk down the road, then positioned us at a special spot on the east side, where we could watch the setting sun as the skies turned reddish orange and the trees became giant silhouettes as if from a fairy tale.

The next day, the four of us flew to Antananarivo in the central part of the island, where we picked up a van with a driver/guide and started a fascinating multiday drive to Toliara, a city in the southwest corner of the country.

NICK STOOKE
O’Fallon, IL