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Situated off the southeast coast of Africa, Madagascar is the fourth largest island in the world. It is separated from the coast of Africa by the Mozambique Channel, the shortest distance between the island and the mainland is 400 km. Isolated from the continents 160 million years ago, Madagascar followed a unique evolutionary path into enormous tortoises, elephant birds. Lemurs were the highest primate form on the island until the Malagasy people.
Madagascar has three main climactic/floristic zones - the eastern rainforests, the western tropical dry deciduous woods and the semi-arid south – with an unsurpassed diversity of plant species. Though divided into at least 18 tribes or clans, the Malagasy share a belief in the power of dead ancestors. This belief explains the importance of tombs and funerals. Although the form differs among the clans, it is after the first burial that the Malagasy honour their dead. The best-known ceremony of the Merina people, a joyful occasion to communicate with a loved one whose remains are exhumed and wrapped in a new shroud.
Some of the world’s most unusual birds are found only on Madagascar – gorgeous ground-rollers, the diverse vanga family, the couas. Birders will be rewarded by a visit to any of Madagascar’s splendid reserves. If you long to ‘tick off’ most of the endemics, including oxylabes, newtonias and the rare Madagascar fish eagle, we recommend a two-week specialist birding tour.
Madagascar consists mainly of a block of crystalline rocks. It is generally described as a plateau, rising sharply from the narrow plain of the east coast and descending in a series of steps to the strip of sedimentary rocks along the west coast. The high plateau is much indented and, on the eastern edge, cut by deep gorges and waterfalls.
The eastern coast is almost straight and has very few anchorages. Behind its coral beaches there is an almost continuous line of lagoons.
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