Category: Insider Madagascar

Madagascar has geysers — at Analavory, near Ampefy. This quiet volcanic lake district west of Antananarivo hides geysers, the Lily Falls and the island’s 4th-largest lake.

One plain rectangle of cloth explains Malagasy life: the lamba carries babies, clothes the living, cushions loads — and, as the lamba mena, wraps the ancestors themselves.

Antsirabe looks like a French spa town because it was built as one — by Norwegian missionaries in 1872, for cool air and thermal springs. The ‘Malagasy Vichy’, explained.

88 million years of isolation made Madagascar the planet’s strangest nature destination — fossas, lemurs, half the world’s chameleons, pitcher plants and vanished giants.

Antemoro paper, wild silk shrouds, Mahafaly carving, raffia, Richelieu embroidery, ironwork and gems — a guide to Madagascar’s living crafts and where to buy them.

Fady — the web of ancestral taboos — quietly governs Malagasy life, deciding which animals, forests, days and places are sacred. A guide to the belief beneath everything.

Beyond the famous sights lies the real magic of Madagascar — sacred lakes, hidden caves, a frost-capped massif, a lost fortress and a taboo-protected bird island.