Two days among the Tsingys were behind us, and we were heading south again. Today’s destination was the Kirindy Forest Reserve, roughly 150 km away. Not a particularly long distance on paper, but we already knew what that meant in western Madagascar.

We retraced our route from Monday in reverse: dusty tracks, bumpy roads and two river crossings by ferry. We made it to Kirindy and the hotel close to the forest reserve in the late afternoon.

A day without any major adventures (so far) – at least by the standards of the past few days. But then, we were now in a completely different environment, and the next part of the program promised some interesting encounters with Madagascar’s wildlife. In fact, we were about to head straight out into the forest for a first look after dark.