Ultimate Guide To Visiting Isalo National Park, Madagascar

Continuing on from our Rainforest adventures at Ranomafana National Park, we get back on the RN7 and head south towards Ranohira, a little town at the edge of the Isalo National Park, our next destination. Isalo is home to numerous species of lemurs and is one of the most visited parks in the country due to its incredible desert like scenery.

Scenery changing from the terraced highlands around Antananarivo.

Our drive towards the Isalo changes from the terraced hills of the Madagascan highlands abruptly to open savannah like grass, with cacti and other flora that resemble the American southwest. Truly, this country must have the most geological diversity of any place I’ve seen. The drive is through of course, terrible roads, and we arrive in Ranohira at 5pm but not before we make one detour.

Base of the Andringitra, the tallest mountains in Madagascar. This place is a short detour off the RN7.

I spent over a month traveling through this Madagascar and I made sure to write as much detail as possible in this post to make it your ultimate Madagascar travel guide!

Table Of Contents show

Visiting Anja Park

A nice stopover en route to Isalo is the Anja Park. This is a small nature reserve set up by the locals and all proceeds go to maintaining the reserve and helping the local community. The park is surrounded by huge, imposing granite mountains and is known for its large population of ring-tailed lemurs. Some 700 of these guys live in the park. Why are ring-tailed lemurs cool? Well, they do look pretty cool but their claim to fame is the movie Madagascar. King Julien anyone?

Again, we have to pay an entrance and guide fees. There are numerous hiking trails but we were only staying for a few hours as we needed to get to Isalo. We elected for the short two hour hike and paid 50,000 Ar for the both of us ($20).

Jesse trying to get close to the ring tailed lemurs.

The hike was a cakewalk compared to the hikes we had already done, and within 15 minuets, we saw our first ring tailed lemurs. No need to get too excited, these guys are everywhere! The best time to visit is early-mid morning or mid-late afternoon. They prefer to sleep when the sun is at its hottest. Nevertheless, these lemurs were curious animals and we were able to get very close to them.

Isalo National Park

Isalo’s popularity among tourists means there are many different levels of hotels here and it is here that we decided we’d splurge and stay at an upscale hotel and by that, I mean 80 euros split between two people! Our hotel, Relais de la Reine, felt a step up from everywhere else we had been, and those weren’t bad by any stretch. This also meant that we were easily half the median age of everyone staying. This was also the ONLY place we used a credit card during our entire 4 week stay in Madagascar.

Where I stayed – Le Relais De La Reine

This was by far our most luxurious hotel stay of the trip. It was located right outside of town in its own estate and had stunning views of the surrounding mountains. This was also the most expensive of the trip with double rooms over €100 a night.

Our awesome hotel, Le Relais De La Reine

Our hotel's backyard — Our hotel’s backyard

Our hotel had a great restaurant, bar, and was surrounded by sandstone hills. Like the hotel, the restaurant was the most expensive of our entire trip. Three course dinner was 40,000 Ar ($17) and drinks were cheap, but about 2x more than what we had become used to.

And the views from our hotel (with a little work hiking onto the rocks)

Ya, can't complain about this view... — Ya, can’t complain about this view…

The Two Canyons Hike

The next morning, we woke up early so we could begin our day’s activities before the scorching sun took form. Like all other national parks in Madagascar, we first went to the tourist office in the town of Ranohira to decide on our itinerary and meet our guide, an English speaking man our driver knew (he knew someone everywhere we went!).

We had two full days in Isalo and decided that the first day would be a shorter half day hiking the Canyon des Makis and the second day would be a full day hike around the Isalo.

I haven’t hiked through canyons before so I didn’t know what to expect in this place. But as we drove towards the entrace, sandwiched between two huge sandstone mountains, I knew this was going to be something special. The day was hot with temps nearing 35C, and while the first half hour were dreadful, the weather cooled significantly as soon as we got into the canyons.

Windows of Isalo

A quick and worthwhile stop in the Isalo is the windows of Isalo, a rectangular formation of rocks atop a hill with a large hole, hence a window. It is a PERFECT setting and photo for beautiful Madagascar sunsets. I like to think of this place as nature’s picture frame. Sadly, this is also one of the biggest tourist attractions in this park.

The picture to capture here is to have the sunset through the hole with the rocks surrounding it. Sadly, there were too many tourists here and they were all taking pictures of the sunset through the hole…which is the same as just taking a picture of the sunset from anywhere in the world. The picture, is to have the rock formation surround the sunset like a natural picture frame. Damn idiot tourists messing everything up for everyone else!

The picture you SHOULD be taking of this place. The sun had already set by this point because the dumbass tourists were in the way — The picture you SHOULD be taking of this place. The sun had already set by this point because the idiot tourists were in the way

And other possibilities.... — And other possibilities….

Full Day Isalo Hike

The second day began even earlier than the first as we wanted to get as much hiking in as possible before the scorching sun. The hike would be most of the day and was the longest one day itinerary available. There are options in the Isalo to hike for multiple days by camping.